Page 22 of Midnightsong
Eight
Angie
On Sunday, Angie’s second day homefor the long weekend, she waited outside Bàba’s office at the docks. Today he worked during their four hours of daylight and she followed him to meet with Stefan to talk about who the divers might have been. It was her only full day home, so she had to try to make some headway on finding Serapha’s killer, or killers—the notion there might have been more than one made a shiver run down her spine and spread to her limbs. Stefan said ‘a group of divers’.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Mia asking if they were still on for her to bring Rosie and Jack over that evening.
Of course! Can’t wait to see them, Angie replied to her.
“Hey girl. Sorry about not responding to you.” Stefan approached, his red and white dive bag slung over one shoulder. “I went out to Bethel to temporarily help at a friend’s dive shop and then went all the way out to Dillingham to exchange some tanks that were recalled. While there, I figured I would also see if they knew of any divers that came out this way.”
“My dad told me. I was worried when I didn’t hear back from you.” Angie folded her arms across the chest of her puffy jacket. “Did you find out anything?”
“You know how it is. Reception is terrible. I kept meaning to get back to you.” He rubbed his gloved hands together, exhaling a cloud of frost. “And no, they didn’t know anything.”
Angie gave a frustrated shake of her head. “We have to keep looking. Something must turn up.” She motioned for them to go inside the office, away from the stinging, biting cold. “How did your dive go?”
A framed photo of Lulu, Rosie, and Jack on a newly installed wall shelf behind Bàba’s head brought a comforting smile to her face. With his consent, she helped him to spruce the space up more in the last two years. The office had been sparse before, with the single photo of Rosie decorating his desk for years until Jack came along, and a single-family photo with him, Mia, and Angie on the wall shelf across from the desk. A firm believer in feng shui, Bàba had arranged the chairs, desk, shelves, and window to promote the harmonious flow of qi, giving the space plenty of natural light and having as few decorations as possible.
At the back windowsill, facing the sea, were photos of Mama and Mia, their beaming faces livened up the place, along with a pot of cosmos and nasturtium flowers. Even Bàba had admitted, though reluctantly, that it made his office homier.
“Didn’t happen. Ken took the family to get their advanced open water cert.” Frosty white puffs emerged from Stefan’s lips with each word. “I’m holding the bag for him until they get back.” He reached into his jacket pockets. “Anyway, in between all that flying around, I put together a list of dive shops for you in Bethel and the Aleutians, and they’re going to work on getting me some names of their divers. I explained the situation to them. Here.” He handed her a piece of printer paper with four shop names and their phone numbers. “I was going to text it to you, but I know your village doesn’t have the best Wi-Fi.”
“If by ‘not the best,’ you mean nonexistent, yes.” Angie chuckled.
“That too.” Stefan gave a jovial laugh and pointed to the paper clasped tight in Angie’s mittened hands. “Anyway, I figured you’d want it, in case you want to reach out to them too, for an update.”
“Appreciate it.” Angie took a picture of the paper with her phone before securing her phone and the paper in her pocket. “Bàba, how much longer do you need?” His fingers flew across the keyboard behind her, rapid, clicking noises filling the space now that there was a moment of quiet.
“Give me about twenty minutes.” He peered at her over his glasses. “Why? Do you need to go somewhere? And Stefan, you can put the bag down, you know.” He pointed to the ottoman by the door across from their space heater.
“Oh, there’s nothing in there, but thanks.” Stefan slid the bag off his shoulder, and it fell in a drape across the round, velvety ottoman. “Was so focused on talking to Angie, I wasn’t even thinking about it.”
“Can I have the key to the record storage room? I want to look around and see which divers were here the days before Serapha’s murder?” She hated saying the wordmurder—that it was now associated with the late, regal Mer-Queen—hated that humans did it, that someone, or some people betrayed their truce. Most of all, she feared the thought of what the mer might do to retaliate. She would give Kaden a call when she got home and get an update from him in the queendom’s going-ons after the funeral.
Kaden. She hoped he would go to see a healer, as Adrielle suggested.
Bàba pulled open his top drawer and handed her a keyring. “It’s number 030.”
She thanked him. “Xiè xiè, Bàba.”
“Bù kè qi, Beibei.” Bàba resumed his work, the focus on his expression apparent in the computer monitor’s glow.
Angie searched through the keys until she found 030. “Stefan, you want to come with me or stay here where it’s not below zero?”
“I’ll come. I feel like we imposed on your dad enough. Come on.” Stefan opened the door for Angie, allowing her to step out first.
The cutting, glacial air struck her the moment she stepped out of Bàba’s warm office and she pulled her hood tighter around her face. And yet, her senses awakened. While talking about their days and Serapha’s funeral, they walked to their records’ storage room. The usually well-ventilated room’s windows were shut tight, as they always were during the winters, rendering the space uncomfortably warm and stuffy.
Tall cabinets and shelves where they kept logs of ship sign-in and sign-outs, inventory, and maintenance logs, and records of dive trips each day filled the corners and walls of space. “I’ll start from the front; do you want to start from the back?” Angie approached a cabinet with four square drawers, one on top of another. She pulled the ladder from beside the door, setting it up and starting from the top drawer down, searching for the folders marked with specific dates.
The shuffling noises of cabinets being opened and closed across the room told her Stefan was doing the same.
Twenty minutes later, they returned to Bàba’s office with an armful of manila folders and binders of dive trip records from the week surrounding the days where Serapha had met her tragic end.
Who would go through all the trouble of getting into the palace to kill her? Why?
There had to be a pattern. The person, or people who hunted Serapha must have gone out multiple times to scout the area. She doubted they would know exactly where and when to find the late Mer-Queen on their first, or even second or third dives.
