Siren's Secret. Debbie Herbert

but after days of only ten-minute naps snatched here and there, his weak, treacherous body would rebel and go under for hours at a time.

      Most people welcomed sleep, sought refuge and refreshment in the mysterious, suspended state of being. Not for him. Nighttime was when his mother used to slip into bed beside him. She’d creep past the first bedroom, which she shared with her two daughters, and seek him out.

      But most nights she didn’t creep, she stumbled, a result of too many gin and tonics, trying to wash away the taste of customers. Then she staggered and often fell as she went through his sisters’ room to get to him. Not that his older sisters gave a damn. They conserved their energy for their own survival—for those nights Mom brought a customer to their sorry shack.

      When he slept now he still fought against the groping, the sucking, the humiliation that rolled over him in waves, leaving him powerless and frightened. Even when it had happened, he knew it wasn’t right. By day he was her whipping boy and at night...

      The old bitch had been dead ten years now and she still haunted his dreams. But he had found another way to fight the memories, to punish someone and take back control.

      Melkie flexed his large hands with its long fingers, so out of proportion to the rest of his smaller physical frame.

      Oh, yeah, he loved taking control.

      * * *

      Jolene Babineaux. Age thirty-four. Caucasian.

      Tillman studied the photographs for what had to be the hundredth time. In one, provided by a family member of the deceased, Jolene sat on a sofa, cuddling a couple of children. A second photo was a grim mug shot of her arrest for prostitution a year earlier. She wasn’t smiling in that one. The last photograph was of her battered, skimpily clad body, sans eyes, which had been discovered last evening.

      Even though Bayou La Siryna was a relatively small town, Tillman had never run across the victim. And he was pretty good at remembering names and faces. All part of the job. But a large part of the population, at least a third of the county, lived in a squalid, poverty-ridden area with the unlikely name of Happy Hollows. Most of the families there were a tight-knit community of shrimpers—people who lived for decades fishing on family-owned boats.

      Evidently, Jolene had resorted to the world’s oldest profession to supplement that meager income.

      Tillman snapped the file shut. Despite door-to-door interviews in Jolene’s neighborhood and surrounding area, Tillman’s officers had no leads.

      Tillman shoved the file to the side of his desk and opened the second folder with photographs of the second victim, China Wang. Age thirty-seven. Vietnamese.

      She had the same missing eyeballs as Jolene. But there, the similarities ended. Where Jolene had been a big-boned, redheaded woman, China was petite and exotic-looking. Never married, but with three young children, now farmed out to relatives, she had spoken broken English and never made it past the sixth grade.

      The only obvious similarity between the two victims was their line of work.

      Because of the festering pockets of poverty in the bayou, it wasn’t unheard of for women to use their bodies. Often to drum up enough business, it was necessary for them to ride into Mobile, about twenty miles east, and walk along the port city’s shipping docks for johns. Even in bad economic times, customers could be found if you priced yourself competitively.

      He tapped his fingers on his lips. Jolene’s body didn’t have a rope around it and it was discovered by Old Man Higginbotham who’d been out boat riding in a remote swampy area.

      When China’s body had been found on shore at Murrell’s Point, there was a thick rope around the victim’s waist that frayed at the ends. The body hadn’t been submerged in water long enough for the rope to have disintegrated. He dialed the coroner’s office, anxious to see what forensic evidence had been unearthed.

      Jeff Saunders was the Englazia County coroner. A retired doctor, Tillman bet Saunders thought being coroner in a small town would be an easy gravy train. But that had all changed.

      Saunders confirmed sperm was found in China’s body, but the sample would have to be sent to the state crime lab in Montgomery to know if it matched the sperm sample from Jolene Babineaux. “We did find a curious thing with the second body. I recovered a couple strands of blond hair, thirty-one inches long, interspersed with the strands of China’s black hair.”

      Tillman sat up straighter. “Can you determine if the hair came from a male or female?”

      “Probably not. Unless the hair was yanked out of the scalp, there won’t be enough follicular matter to run a DNA test.”

      China’s family all resembled her, olive-skinned with dark brown or black hair. Tillman hung up. He tilted back in his chair, feet on his desk, and speculated on the news.

      It could be the killer didn’t act alone. Perhaps he had a female accomplice, Tillman thought, remembering the small footsteps they’d found leading from the body into the water. But the psychological profile from the first case indicated the perp had a deep hatred of women. If true, a female accomplice seemed unlikely.

      How had the body been moved to shore? And why?

      The plastic bags covering China had been coated in sand, leaving patterns consistent with dragging. A thorough search had not turned up any evidence other than a baseball hat with Trident Processing and Packing emblazoned on it and footprints. Had the killer decided against leaving the body in the ocean and left it out to be found—either a subconscious wish to be caught or as a kind of sick bragging trophy that he had gotten away with murder twice now? And what was that damn rope around China supposed to be for?

      Carl Dismukes rapped sharply on the door before entering.

      “A little brain food,” he said, plopping a box of glazed doughnuts on the desk.

      “A little cliché, don’t you think?” Tillman asked. “But I could use the sugar and carbs right about now.”

      They dug in, Tillman studying China’s photograph, his deputy opening the first file and reviewing Jolene’s photographs. Carl threw it back on the desk after a cursory examination. “I ever tell you I knew Jolene?”

      Tillman gulped down a mouthful of doughnut in surprise. “No. I think that’s something you might have mentioned long before now.” He struggled to keep his censure mild. Carl was thirty years his senior and his dad’s right-hand man when he’d served as sheriff. When Dad died from a heart attack two years ago, Carl had been the one to break the news to him. And it was Carl’s suggestion that he come home and fill his father’s position until the next election.

      Tillman had been torn. He loved being an investigator with the Mobile P.D. and thought he’d been falling in love with Marlena. But shortly before Dad died, she’d moved to Atlanta to further her interior design business. Mobile was plenty big enough; he had no intention of moving to Atlanta. Besides, after he’d taken her home the first time, he’d known it would never work. Mom had been tipsy and asked pointed questions about Marlena’s family pedigree, while Eddie had taken an immediate dislike to his girlfriend. “Bye-bye,” he kept telling Marlena, taking her arm and leading her to the door. In the end, Tillman knew his duty and he’d come home.

      The doughnut settled heavy on his stomach and Tillman pushed the box in Carl’s direction. “Just how well did you know Jolene?”

      “Not that good.” Carl held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “Never been a customer. Your dad and I went to her place a time or two over the years. Typical domestic violence stuff. Her latest man would beat her, but by the time we got there Jolene would refuse to press charges.” Carl ran his fingers through his close-cropped silver hair. “I felt sorry for her little ones.”

      Tillman had his share of those calls when working the beat in Mobile. It was always the kids you remembered most. Scared and hopeless before they graduated elementary school.

      “How much longer on that forensics lab report?” Carl asked.

      “Another