“No, thank you,” the women answered in unison.
“So, how can I help you?”
“Do you recognize these?” Bel slid a folder onto the desk and opened it to reveal the photos of the empty mermaid sculptures.
“Yeah, those are from the annual Mermaid Weeks we used to hold… wait, how do you have them?” Flot did a double-take.
“You’re certain these are yours?” Olivia asked. “Is there a possibility these glass sculptures merely look similar to yours?”
“No.” Flot’s voice was absolute. “I’ve worked here for twenty-five years. Started at the ticket booth and worked my way up to director. I’ve dedicated my entire career to this place. It’s my home away from home, and these mermaids were custom-built and installed around the aquarium yearly, so trust me. These are our glass sculptures. Where did you get them?”
“The women found in the lake were embalmed inside these,” Bel answered. “Have you noticed any of these going missing over the past decade?”
“No.” Conviction rang true in the director’s voice. “We canceled Mermaid Week years ago, so we haven’t had use for them. They’ve been in storage ever since. I honestly forgot we had them.”
“If these were in storage here, then the killer’s probably an employee,” Olivia said. “We’ll need your employee list for the past ten years.”
“I’ll get that for you, but it’s not necessarily one of my employees,” Flot said. “We held Mermaid Week every summer for years, so everyone from back then knew about these, and our storage isn’t exactly Fort Knox. There’s only one entrance with a single camera covering the door, but as long as someone lookslike they’re in uniform, security wouldn’t bat an eye. We don’t worry since we store nothing important or valuable down there. What’s the worst that can happen? Kids get some fish décor… most of which is too big to fit in the average car?”
“Or the stolen goods could turn a man into a serial killer,” Olivia said, her words flushing the man’s cheeks red.
“Can we take a look at your storage rooms?” Bel asked before his guilt ate him alive.
“Of course.” Sam Flot launched to his feet and practically fled his office, the detectives following as he weaved a path through the visitors down to the rear of the building.
“Conveniently located by the loading docks,” Bel said when they finally reached their destination.
“You saw that size-accurate blue whale replica hanging from the ceiling in the lobby, didn’t you?” Flot asked.
“Kind of hard to miss,” she answered.
“She’s a beauty, but she wasn’t always there,” Flot said. “We occasionally redecorate, but we don’t throw out our custom pieces unless they’re damaged. When shipments arrive, we transfer the crates from the trucks to the service elevators or the storage room… which is right here.” He gestured to the single camera positioned above the wide double doors. “That’s all the security we employ down here, but we never expected someone to rob us.” He opened the door to reveal a massive room teeming with oversized wooden crates.
“Keep your head down, wear a hat and a shirt that resembles a uniform, and you could stroll right in here, put the crates on a dolly, and roll them to the loading dock without raising suspicions,” Olivia said. “If the killer worked here, he’d know where the mermaids were stored, but if he didn’t, I doubt anyone would bother to interrupt his search.” She looked to Flot for confirmation, and he nodded. “A little patience, and ourkiller removed all those glass sculptures without ever tipping off security.”
“Which we know he is based on his meticulousness with the tattoos,” Bel said.
“We aren’t lax on security here.” Flot’s defensiveness bubbled over. “It’s just we’re more concerned with the health and safety of all our living fish, animals, and human visitors than with crates of decorations, no matter how custom they are.”
“That’s admirable,” Bel said, “but unfortunate for us. We’ll need this camera’s footage from the past ten years. Our killer most likely kept his head down so the camera wouldn’t pick him up, but you never know. People make mistakes.”
“I can’t give you that,” Flot said.
“We can get a warrant if your policy requires one,” Olivia said.
“No, it’s not that,” Flot said. “I can’t give them to you because we don’t have them. Our servers keep only three years’ worth of footage at a time. Every day, the system purges anything older than three years, so unless it happened recently, we won’t have the recordings.”
Bel cursed, any hope of uncovering their killer deleted along with the footage.
“The first mermaid was murdered a decade ago.” Olivia’s voice sagged with defeat. “I’m sure he moved the pieces out one at a time over a long period to avoid detection, but I don’t think he’d wait and risk his crimes on fate. He removed all the sculptures as soon as he could.”
“I’m sorry,” Flot said. “I wish I could be more help, but we’re just an aquarium—lots of field trips and families. We don’t have protocols for thieves and murderers. Most of the time, our security footage is used to locate lost kids, not help the police hunt down serial killers, and I didn’t know the mermaids were even missing until half an hour ago. Canceling Mermaid Weekwas a painful decision, so we locked the memories down here and never looked back.”
“What happened to make you cancel it?” Bel asked.
“There was… an accident,” Flot lied.
“What kind of accident?” Bel pushed.
