“The email from the funeral home,” Olivia explained, instead of showing her. “We were so focused on finding Ursa’s name on the former employee list that we didn’t dig into anyone else, but mentioning digging into Erik’s life felt familiar. I think he might be on the funeral home list.”
“He is? How?”
“Not as an employee. We asked for everyone who had access to their facilities and embalming knowledge, and they sent over ten years' worth of high school student visitors as well as employees. The Bajka High School has a program for juniors and seniors. They visit willing local businesses throughout the year. The point is to help students experience real-life jobs so they can decide what to major in. They spend the day at the business and work alongside them. Hold on… let me check… I can’t believe I missed this at first, but guess whose name is on the funeral home’s student list?”
“Erik Prince?”
“The one and only. I didn’t think to study the high schoolers, but my subconscious must have latched onto his name when I scrolled through the documents.”
“But that list was connected to the mermaid case,” Bel said. “What does that have to do with Ariella? Erik is in college. He isn’t old enough to have killed all those sunken girls.”
“Yeah, you’re right…” Olivia cursed, her voice assuming an odd tone.
“What’s wrong?”
“We should call the high school and confirm this is the Erik Prince we’re thinking of.”
“Why?”
“Because his name isn’t on a recent list.” Olivia looked like she’d seen a ghost. “He’s included in a student tour from over ten years ago.”
“Ten years?” Bel repeated.
“Yeah… which means Erik isn’t nineteen. He’s late twenties.”
“We confirmedwith both the high school and the funeral home.” Bel leaned over Griffin’s desk as she and her partner updated their boss. “The Erik Prince on the student list is Ariella’s boyfriend. He looks young, and because he was dating a nineteen-year-old, we assumed they were of similar ages, but the man is actually twenty-eight.”
“A twenty-eight-year-old dating a teenager?” Griffin grimaced.
“Two teenagers,” Olivia corrected. “Based on the way he kissed Ondine this afternoon, they’re a couple.”
“It’s not illegal, but it’s also not a good look,” Griffin said. “Nine years isn’t a terrible age gap unless one of them is freshly legal.”
“I don’t like it,” Bel said, ignoring the fact that her age gap was thousands of years. At least she was a fully developed adult. “We also learned something else from the Funeral Home. Erik’s father owns a sign business, Prince & Sons. They’ve done all the home’s signs.”
“So Erik has spent a decent amount of time around the funeral home, including a tour day in high school detailing how to embalm?” Griffin asked.
“Add in the internet, and the young Mr. Prince would have an adequate idea of how to preserve the human body,” Bel said.
“Tattooing is also a young person’s passion,” Olivia added. “The art form dates back to ancient civilizations, but it’s become mainstream over the past few years. It’s transformed from something only gang members and prisoners had to something that working professionals spend thousands on. The mermaid scales might point to a younger perpetrator.”
“So, you think Erik is both our Mermaid Killer and Ariella’s murderer?” Griffin asked.
“We need more evidence, but why is he going after college-age girlfriends?” Olivia asked.
“Because he’s immature and creepy and prefers to trap young girls before they mature enough to realize they’re being manipulated,” Griffin said. “But I’m guessing you two have a different theory.”
“The mermaids are all young women of similar heights, builds, and hair color,” Bel said. “College young, and college parties are the perfect hunting grounds. Drunk underage teens, half of whom are high. They wouldn’t remember a predator moving through the crowd, and even if they did, they wouldn’t want to out themselves for underage drinking or illegal drugconsumption. Either way, college parties create blind witnesses. He could take any victim he liked, and no one would notice. He just needed a reason to be there.”
“So he dates teenage girls.” Griffin nodded as he caught on. “He’s older, so he can lure them in with the promise of being the designated booze purchaser. His girlfriends act as his ticket onto their campuses and his alibi, and when he takes a new mermaid from the parties, they’re women not connected to him or to this town. Nothing ties back to him.”
“Until Ariella,” Griffin said.
“She might have seen more than Erik and Ondine hooking up,” Olivia said. “With the police commotion, it was the perfect night to take a new mermaid. What if Ariella found him with his next victim, and he killed her to keep her quiet?”
“Which is why he’s dating the best friend.” Griffin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as if they might protect him from his disgust. “He needs another teen girlfriend to get him into the college parties undetected. But does he have any other connections to either case? Tattoos might be the younger generation’s preferred form of self-expression, but is he tattooed? Do we have any evidence besides your hunches?”
“Evidence? No,” Bel said.
