CHAPTER SIX: The Body

The summer sun was still hot enough to make Felix's back perspire as he walked, despite his watch reading a little after eight in the evening. He'd shoved his hands in his pockets in an attempt to look casual, but it felt like he'd inadvertently built an invisible wall between Dominic and himself. Once or twice she'd glanced up at him, but she, too, seemed ill at ease.

He racked his brains for conversation topics-anything to cut through the silence-but found only threads and snippets of conversations he'd recently had with Sylvain, or flickers of headlines he'd seen on newspapers and online articles. "Your cafe closes early for a beach town," he finally said, looking around at the colorful storefronts they were passing. "Seems like it would be bad for business."

She startled at his voice. "Oh! Well. We open early, so it only makes sense."

"Don't you have a bar in the back? I'd think the evening would be the best time to attract customers. The sun doesn't even set until after nine."

"I don't think Manuela wants to deal with tourist nightlife," Annette explained. "I know I wouldn't. And as you can see-" She spread her arms, gesturing around, "-there are plenty of bars for people to choose from."

"Are there other bars that open to the beach directly like you do?"

"No, but Garreg Mach prohibits drinking on the beaches after sundown, anyway."

Felix raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Fascinating." She didn't reply, and the quiet hung in the air again like thick clouds. "Where are we going?" He asked finally.

"The town square," Annette replied, pointing diagonally to the right. "I thought any good tour should start in the center. Well, the proverbial center, not the literal center. The literal center is Durban's discount mattresses and that didn't really fit the theme I'm going for."

The town square...a jolt of memory slowed Felix's feet and he shook his head. "Let's...let's go there another day. Not today."

"What? Why?"

"It's…" Felix grimaced. He didn't want to go to the square because Sylvain was (supposed to be) there on stakeout, watching for unusual activity that may make Ubert's map make sense. The very last thing he needed was to be watched through police-issue binoculars and teased endlessly for gadding about in public with a woman. "I'd hoped we'd start on the beach."

Annette's face blanked, but she fixed it quickly and nodded. "Yeah, the beach! That makes sense. This is a beach town, after all, right? Silly me." She looked around, blinking, "Uh...right! Then we can start...over there! Follow me, Detective!"

"Just call me Felix."

Annette's feet faltered again. "Are you sure? Not...Detective...Felix?"

"Just Felix is fine. I'm supposed to be off duty now, right?"

From the look Annette was giving him, Felix couldn't tell if she was pleased or alarmed. The eye contact made him uncomfortable, though, so he looked away, feigning interest in a nearby manhole cover.

"Those are unique, you know," Annette's words were hesitant.

"What are?"

"Those manhole covers. Different cities and towns have unique manhole covers. Did you know that?"

Did he know that? "No. I didn't know that."

"See?" The sudden brightness in her voice caught Felix's attention, and he turned to see her face lit up like a karaoke machine. "Tour Guide Annie taught you your first fact, and there's more where that came from. You can count on me, F-Felix!" Satisfied with having conquered calling him by his first name, she whirled around and strode off toward the beach she'd indicated earlier.

After a glance at the manhole cover, which was patterned with an iron mermaid surrounded by conch shells, Felix followed her. As his long legs closed the gap between them easily, a low sound floated past, carried and then whisked away by the sea wind. It was...a melody.

Humming.

As if he'd stepped on an exposed nerve, a jolt shot through his body, and he breathed in a soft gasp. A wave of blank awareness rolled down his spine-not unpleasant; almost nostalgic, like the smell of a childhood home you'd forgotten existed-and then stopped.

"Are you okay?" Annette's voice broke the spell, bringing him sharply back to reality. "Detective? Er...I mean...Felix? Hello?"

"What the…" Felix looked around, shocked to find himself on a boardwalk instead of the sidewalk down which he was sure he'd just been walking. "What just happened?"

Annette frowned, confused. "That's what I was going to ask you. I turned around to tell you we were here, but you had gone all spacey on me."

"How did we get here?"

"What…?"

"How did we get here," Felix pointed to the boardwalk, "when we were just on the sidewalk?"

The wrinkle between Annette's brows deepened, as did her confusion. "We...uh...walked?"

"Walked?" Felix's volume was rising the longer he thought about what had just happened. "How?"

Annette's confusion was quickly turning to mild terror. "With...with our feet?"

Felix brought a hand to his forehead, which was cool if not a little sweaty. Maybe it was the heat… "Can I sit down for a minute?"

"Sure!" Annette cast about frantically for a place to sit. "Oh, here!" Finding a bench nearby, she beckoned him over. When he sat, she leaned over and peered into his face. "Are you dehydrated? What happened?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine. I just...I heard...and then suddenly we were...but I didn't remember walking…" He gritted his teeth, feeling like an idiot. This sounds ridiculous.

"Could you have low blood sugar?"

"I'm not diabetic."

"Sure, but you've been working all day. You can have low blood sugar without having diabetes." She fished in her pocket, pulling out a brightly colored candy. "Here. See if this helps."

Felix wanted to argue, but her face was determined enough to dissuade him. Still feeling foolish, he unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth. "...thanks."

"No problem. Let's just sit here for a minute." She sat on the bench next to him with a sigh. "I can tell you about the beach from here, anyway. This is Bottle Beach-the first beach opened to the public in Garreg Mach. It used to be part of a big estate owned by-"

Felix let her talk, his mind wandering as he rolled the candy around in his mouth. He felt normal now; he wasn't dizzy or weak, and his mouth wasn't dry with dehydration. The odd blankness from before felt like a mirage in the desert-maybe it had really happened, and maybe it hadn't. Maybe he wasn't sleeping enough. He tossed and turned even on the best nights, but lately he'd lain awake even later than usual, thinking about the Ubert case.

Maybe he'd had too much coffee today, and it was addling his brains. Sylvain was constantly telling him how he needed to cut down on his coffee consumption and cigarette smoking, suggestions which Felix ignored. It could be that that irreverent cad was right this time. I'll keep it to three cups maximum tomorrow, he told himself.

"-and that's why they call it Bottle Beach. Your readers might be interested to know that couples often come here near the solstice to throw their own glass bottles out into the water in the hopes their wishes will come true. That's discouraged by local law enforcement, though, because technically it's littering." Annette finally stopped.

Felix nodded as if he'd been listening the whole time. "Right. Excellent tale."

"I told you I'm good at storytelling!" Annette grinned, looking proud of herself. "Feeling any better?"

"Yeah. I'm fine now."

Annette stood. "Good, 'cuz today's little tour isn't over yet! We've got another stop to make."

"And where is that?"

"My favorite place in Garreg Mach!" Annette's eyes glazed over hungrily. "I hope you had supper!"

—

This is hell, Felix thought, wrinkling his nose. Even the air in this bakery was sweet-sweet enough to give his sinuses cavities, let alone his teeth. How does she do this?

Annette sat opposite him at the table, strategically examining an egg tart to find the optimal bite. Strewn between them were four plates that had once held different types of desserts but now held mostly crumbs and streams of fruit sauce. The majority of it had been eaten by Annette, with Felix only picking at the treats.

He didn't blame her. She didn't know how ardently he detested sweets, so it was only natural for her to bring him to a place she enjoyed. She had even let him pick out what they had ordered, though in the end he'd just pointed randomly at four items that looked vaguely edible. "Yes, yes, this egg tart is…" Annette took another bite, a dreamy lack of focus in her eyes. "I rate it...an eight! No! Eight point five on the Annie Scale! The custard is silky, the vanilla is fragrant, and the browning on the top is perfect...but the crust is just...how do I put it…" She frowned, descending deep into thought. "It's like...the nuts weren't ground finely enough. What do you think?"

"I…" Felix grabbed his fork, picking up a little dollop of custard on the end of the tines and popping it into his mouth. She was right about the texture but it was...so sweet… "This is my first egg tart, so I can't have an informed opinion," he said, trying to swallow it down quickly.

"Really? I know they're more popular in Leicester, but I thought they were common in Faerghus, too!" Annette scanned his plate, frowning. "You're not eating much...you haven't even touched the macarons. Those are my favorite!"

The little cookies had been taunting him the entire meal with their bright colors that promised to pummel his pancreas into submission. Felix looked at Annette's happy, expectant face for a moment, then picked up the macaron that looked the least offensive and bit into it. It was filled with dark, dark chocolate, which was a pleasant surprise. "...this one isn't bad," he said, holding the other half out to her.

Clearly unafraid of sharing germs, she crunched into the other half of the cookie and immediately grimaced. "Ah…" She coughed into her napkin. "So bitter…"

Felix smirked. A child's palate. "Here, eat this. It'll get the taste out of your mouth." He forked over the half of a mont blanc left on his plate onto hers.

She took a bite, melting back into satisfaction as she chewed. "That's better. That chocolate was a four, but this one is an...eight point eight on the Annie Scale."

Watching her eat with gusto wasn't the worst way Felix had ever spent time. He leaned his chin on his fist as she licked the remaining meringue off her fork. "Don't women usually worry about gaining weight at places like this?"

She froze mid-lick, a look of horror dawning on her face. "What kind of dessert conversation is that?" She berated him, fork still in hand. "It's not like I come here every day! This is a special occasion, so mind your own business!"

Felix bit the inside of his cheek, mentally filing his previous question in the bad conversation topics folder in his brain. "...Apologies." A soft clink told him that Annette had laid down her fork, adding to his guilt, so to punish himself he scooped up another bite of the egg tart. "It's...really good…" he lied, struggling not to let his distaste show on his face.

When he looked back at her, she was watching him with a soft sort of pitying irritation. "Geez," she muttered as he gulped his mouthful down. "I hope you're better at writing than you are at talking." As soon as the words were out, she clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flaming red. "That was rude! I'm sorry! Oh, get it together, Annie!"

She slapped her cheeks a few times, muttering to herself, and Felix felt the corners of his mouth rising. Ridiculous. Maybe he should slap his own cheeks. "Was this our last stop?" He asked, straightening his face back into his usual expression.

"For today, yes. Some people say to save the best for last, but I was hoping to start us off with a bang at my favorite place…" Annette looked around at the mostly-empty plates. "Er, if you're done, we can go now."

She started to rise, but Felix leaned back in his chair. "I don't...mind staying a little longer."

"...You don't?"

"I haven't finished my coffee," he explained, not meeting her eyes. Friends. He was here to make friends and figure out a way to get information out of her. "And I'm in no hurry."

Her eyebrows rose, but she sat back down in her seat. "Alright then."

The silence grew heavy again, like at the beginning of the evening, and panic flickered in Felix's stomach. How was he going to do this? How did one bring up murder casually? How could he keep his true intentions from being obvious? Sylvain could find a way to slip it into conversation, but Felix had no conversation to even work questions into. This was a waste of both of our time. I should have let Sylvain take this mission after all. Damn you, Dominic and your suspicious cafe of secrets, and damn myself for letting it get like this.

No. He had a job to do. No matter how hard it was, he couldn't give up. Just say something, he thought, twisting words a hundred different ways in his mind but finding none that seemed worth speaking aloud. Ask if she ever brought Ubert here...there's a start!

He looked up to speak, but stopped when he saw that Annette had also opened her mouth and was wearing a pained expression similar to the one he knew must be on his own face. "Ah," she said, also stopping her words. "W-were you going to ask something?"

"...Nothing important," Felix replied. "You can go first."

"Oh, no, I was just going to say something dumb. You go ahead!"

"Er-"

"Oh my goddess!" A different voice called across the bakery, breaking the tension. They turned to see Hilda and Claude threading through tables toward them, Claude with difficulty as his arms were full of shopping bags. "What is going on here?" Hilda asked, delighted.

"Hilda!" Annette squeaked. "What are...what are you doing here?"

"I met Claude and some of the girls at the mall and I always come for an eclair after shopping," Hilda explained. "What are you doing?"

"You, uh, you know the detective, right?"

"Of course I know the detective. I just didn't know you two...hmm...got along so well."

"We don't," Felix interjected, hoping to stop a misunderstanding before it happened.

Annette's lower lip poked out, but she nodded in agreement. "Yeah! We don't get along at all! This is a business arrangement!"

Claude made a face. "Business arrangement? With a cop?"

"I'm off duty."

"Right! He's off duty!" Annette nodded again, a little too emphatically. "I'm giving him mini tours of Garreg Mach so he can write a travel article!"

Hilda looked from Annette's face to Felix's, then shrugged. "Suit yourself. Found any clues yet on Ashe, Detective?"

And there it was-slipped as casually into the conversation as if she were asking his favorite pastry. Her audacity was impressive. Annette seemed to think so too, for she gaped at her coworker openly for a moment before shutting her mouth and looking to Felix for an answer.

Felix crossed his arms like a barrier against his own discomfort. "None that I'm willing to discuss with someone without proper clearance. Haven't you ever seen any crime shows on television?"

"Yeah, yeah, it was worth a try," Hilda said, laughing. "We need to be going, anyway, after I buy Claude a croissant for being such a big strong man and carrying my bags. Wasn't that great of him?"

"You didn't mention I'd be carrying bags when I agreed to come with you," Claude grumbled.

"How do you expect me to carry that many bags? Look at how thin my arms are! And look at how strong yours are!"

Claude tsk'd at her, but his eyes were smiling. "I think I'm going to demand two croissants instead of just one. One croissant for each arm I used to carry bags, see."

"Do you think money grows on trees?" Hilda scolded. "Fine, fine. Anyway, have a good rest of your evening, Annie. Don't stay out too late," she finished, a peculiar emphasis on her words. Felix bristled at the implication.

"Oh," Annette looked at the night sky through the bakery windows, surprised. "It's already dark."

"Mmhmm. Not that I don't trust you, Detective." Hilda smiled at them. "Bye now!" She and Claude walked away toward the display cabinets, leaving Annette and Felix in silence again.

Felix sipped his coffee as the two collected their pastries. His phone buzzed twice, but the caller ID was blocked both times. Damn telemarketers, he swore silently, clicking the screen off and watching Hilda and Claude bicker over who got the first bite of eclair. Once they had left the bakery, he put his cup down and fixed Annette with a stare. "I wasn't being completely honest."

"About what?"

"There is something I can share about Ubert's case...but only with you."

Annette's eyebrows rose again. "Why me?"

"The same reason I chose you to be my tour guide," Felix replied. "You seem…" Gullible. Dupable. "Trustworthy."

"I-I do?"

"Are you not?"

"Of course I am! If...if you want to talk about your case with me, I don't mind." Annette swallowed hard, folding her hands on the table.

She'd given in even more easily than expected. He'd expected her to push back a little-perhaps become suspicious, or accuse him of trying to interview her off the record. Then again, Felix thought, who wouldn't be curious about a case involving someone you claim you considered a friend? If she was curious, then it was all the better. Perhaps she kept her eyes and ears open and had noticed something important.

He reached into his satchel and pulled out Ubert's journal, laying it on the table after clearing a spot. "I found this in Ubert's apartment. I haven't had time to read it thoroughly yet, but there's a couple of things I was hoping you'd be able to help me identify."

"Is that...a diary?"

"Of sorts, yes. But there's more." He flipped through the pages, plucking the lock of hair and the letter from their hiding spots. "Does this hair match anyone you know?"

The answer was obvious as soon as Annette laid eyes on the hair; Felix heard the click of her teeth as she gritted and the uptick in her breathing rate. This was why he'd chosen her. This was why she was the weak link.

Her eyes remained focused on the hair, and Felix could almost see the lie forming in her mouth. "Take your time," he said, still dangling the lock in front of her. "This is just a shot in the dark." He didn't want to push her or his luck, and he'd already gotten valuable information from her body language. His phone buzzed again, but he ignored it.

She finally looked up at him with eyes like a cornered mouse, her mouth tight. "It's...hard to tell from just that. I feel like I've seen multiple people with that color hair."

A strategic answer.

Felix laid the hair down and picked up the note instead, unfolding it carefully. "How about this letter? Does any of this ring a bell?"

This time, what seemed like genuine surprise crossed Annette's face as she read, which startled Felix. So she recognized one and not the other...or she'd suddenly become a better actress, which was doubtful. The letter and the hair must not be from the same person...or maybe it was and Annette hadn't been close enough with that person to recognize their handwriting. Or Annette wasn't involved at all in whatever shady business was happening at The Merrow.

Felix's phone buzzed a fourth time, but this time it also played a little jingle-Sylvain's ringtone. When he checked the screen, his partner's number flashed across the screen. Irritated at the interruption, he swiped to answer the call. "This had better be important," he growled.

Annette picked up the letter, bringing it closer to her nose. After a moment she looked up urgently at Felix, but his attention had been thoroughly diverted by whatever was being said on the phone. The detective's face had paled, and a muscle was twitching in his jaw. In the interest of not being a bother, Annette returned to staring at the letter. "Where have I…?"

"Understood. I'll be right there." Felix's voice was grim. As soon as he hit the button to end the call, he swore loudly. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Detective?"

"I have to go," Felix replied brusquely, dropping the lock of hair back into the diary and looking for the letter.

Annette held the letter up but didn't hand it to him immediately. "Before you go, there's something I-"

Felix reached for the letter, snatching it from her fingers. "Can it wait?"

"It can, but I think you'd like to know…" When he didn't reply, she reached out and took hold of his sleeve. "Det-Felix…! I think I know who wrote that letter."

He stopped, his attention back on her. "Who?"

"We have these comment cards at work where customers can write suggestions, and I'm the one who goes through them. You're not supposed to sign them, but some customers do and-yes, I'm getting to the point-I've seen that handwriting before." She took the letter back, unfolding it and running her eyes over it once more. "I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I'd say I'm ninety-five percent sure that this is Lorenz Gloucester's handwriting."

Felix blinked, letting this new information wash over him. "Lorenz...do you still have the comment cards?"

"I don't know. I'll have to look."

"Then look." Felix pulled a pen from his pocket and jotted down a number on a napkin, sliding it across the table to her. "And call me."

He swept past her towards the door, but she stopped him one last time. "You said...you hadn't read the whole diary yet, right?"

"Not yet. Why?"

She shook her head. "Just wondering. See you...soon?"

He gave her a terse nod as a reply and left, letting the bakery door slam behind him. Annette stood for a moment longer, then grabbed the napkin with his number, stuffing it into her pocket.

—

"Felix!" Sylvain's voice carried over the police chatter and click of camera shutters. "Over here!"

The beach should have been dark, but stand lights had been erected in a circle by forensics, turning the night scene as bright as day. Felix squinted, holding a hand up to shield his eyes as they adjusted. He'd buckled his weapons belt back on his hips, and the weight was comforting. "Is it him?" He asked as soon as he was close enough to his partner to speak at a normal volume.

Sylvain shook his head. "No. It's not Ubert."

Relief weakened Felix's knees. He closed his eyes, taking in a breath with lungs that had loosened. "Who is it?"

"Local man by the name of Ferdinand von Aegir. He had his ID in his pocket, along with a wallet that had been emptied of cash, though some credit cards and gift cards were left."

Sylvain was giving him a pointed look, and Felix knit his brows at the mention of the name. Ferdinand… "You've got to be kidding me," he muttered, realization striking.

"His name came up in our interviews," Sylvain prompted, nodding along. "Dominic thought he was the man Arnault was referring to in her statement."

"It goes deeper than that," Felix said, jerking his head and moving toward the cluster of forensics technicians clustered around what he assumed was the cadaver. Sylvain fell into step beside him. "I hadn't told you yet what happened today while I was at The Merrow."

He recapped the scene between Ferdinand and Dorothea at the cafe, including the veiled threat that had been dropped at the end. Sylvain listened, his eyebrows inching up his forehead higher and higher the more he heard. "He mentioned the commissioner? We've got to tell Captain Edelgard about this. If this guy was using his connections to harass women, there's no telling who else he tried to bully. He could have been in debt to drug dealers, or threatened the wrong person...even in a small place like this, there are people who take that sort of thing very seriously."

Felix nodded, dropping the thread of the conversation as they arrived at the heart of the crime scene. Technicians adjusted to allow the two through, though their work continued. He squatted beside the body, sweeping it with his senses like he'd been trained at the academy.

Von Aegir was supine in the sand, arms comfortably by his side. His legs were bent, but his hips were twisted to the left enough that his knees touched the ground. Several shallow wounds that appeared defensive in origin had been left on his hands and face, but none were serious. The mortal wound, or what Felix assumed was the mortal wound, was the deep gouge stretching from the cadaver's left shoulder nearly down to his navel. The center of the gouge was a mess of tissue and clotted blood as if someone had repeatedly hacked at him with a dull hawkbill blade.

"This wasn't a simple robbery," Felix commented, pointing at the grisly wound in von Aegir's chest. "Robbers tend to bludgeon their victims or stab them, not shred their chest."

"Yeah, no shit," Sylvain snorted, earning a glare from his partner. "Here, take my flashlight and have a closer look."

Felix leaned over the body, holding his breath, and then jerked back and swore. "Sothis…!"

"That was my reaction, too," Sylvain said. "Usually when someone steals your heart it's a good thing, but not in this case."

Slipping on a pair of gloves, Felix circled the body to get a better view. The surrounding sand was dark with blood, and he knelt again in a clean area. "Either this was a crime of passion, or we can rule out any sort of medical, butchery, or cooking expertise. The heart wasn't so much carved out as torn out." He picked up one of the cadaver's hands and examined it. "At least a couple of broken fingers. He was overpowered by someone strong enough to wrestle him to the ground. I'd carefully rule out a woman as the offender, unless we know of one six feet tall and built like a bull. Was the heart beside the body? Where is it?"

Sylvain shrugged. "Great question. Officers are sweeping the beach as we speak, but no one has found it yet. It's starting to look like whoever took the cash in his wallet took his heart, too. That means that whoever did this is into some real dark shit."

"Do you think this is connected to the Ubert case?"

"Dunno."

One of the forensics technicians spoke up, pausing in her scraping of the cadaver's fingernails. "Doubtful. This isn't the first time we've had a murder like this here and it won't be the last."

Felix turned to her sharply. "What do you mean? This has happened before?"

The tech nodded. "It's not often, but every now and again a body shows up on the beach with his or her heart torn out. The last one was at least twenty-some years ago, but here we are again. I doubt it will ever stop as long as those damn mermaid mythicists keep telling those ridiculous stories."

"Mermaid mythicists?" Sylvain repeated skeptically.

The tech looked up, surprised. "Haven't you heard about Garreg Mach's famous 'murderous mermaids'? Tearing hearts out to stay eternally young?"

Images of the old man at the coffee shop as well as Dominic's smile on the first day at The Merrow through Felix's memory. I heard someone hasn't heard the tales of Garreg Mach's murderous mermaids, and I'm here to fix that. Here at The Merrow we pride ourselves on historical-

"Didn't Dominic try to tell you that story on our first day?" Sylvain asked, smirking. "Wasn't that when you crushed her dreams like grapes in a wine press?"

"You laughed at me for listening to that codger reading the newspaper, so shut it," Felix snapped.

Sylvain's smirk wilted. "That's...well. I guess we both dropped the ball here."

"I'll go back and ask her tomorrow," Felix said, standing. "Mermaids didn't do this, but hearing a myth that might have inspired the killer may give us some insight."

"Like you said-all leads are good leads," Sylvain agreed.

Felix looked down at Ferdinand again, a cold shiver running down his neck in a way he hadn't felt since he was a trainee. It's just seeing him alive and then dead on the same day, he told himself. Anyone would be put off. Get it together, Felix. He shook his head and the faintest ghost of a smile crossed his lips as he remembered Annette saying something similar at the bakery.

The smile was short-lived, for the dullness in Ferdinand's blank, staring eyes reminded Felix that there was a man missing as well as a killer on the loose, and he was no closer to finding them than he had been when he'd arrived.

I hope everyone's holidays were lovelier than Ferdinand's evening here...
Question: What is Annette doing bringing sweets-hating Felix to a bakery?
Answer: her best :(

soojinah: Thank goodness the body wasn't Petra's...that would be just too sad...unless her body will be found later...hohoho. You're on to a few good points here, but I won't tell you which ones! Poor Dimitri and Edelgard...always destined to fight. Where would you take Felix on your first date?