Color of Blood(31)

“Are you telling me,” Dennis asked, turning to face him, “that a guy comes by himself to this desolate stretch of beach and dives right in to be gobbled up by a shark just waiting for him? No witnesses, no evidence? Just like that?”

“Mr. Cunningham,”—he bristled—“we certainly don’t condone going into the water alone. That would be imprudent, but we cannot stop people from doing what they set their minds to do. In the past five years, we’ve had nine people killed by sharks in Australia. It’s a reality of sharing the ocean with these creatures. We didn’t make the rules that govern predator and prey behavior.”

“Fine.” Dennis brushed away a fly. “So what happened to our guy, according to your theory?”

The regional manager shot Judy a quick what-kind-of-idiot-is-this look, but she glanced away. “Our guess is that he parked, changed into his swimmers, grabbed his gear, and walked to the beach,” he said, leading the group toward the water. “He likely entered the water so that he could sit down to pull on his flippers, and just went in. As you can see, the water is relatively calm here in the bay.”

Dennis stood looking over a placid, deserted beach and noticed a forest of mushroom-shaped rocks covering part of the beach and poking up through the water.

“What are those?”

“Stromatolites,” the fisheries manager said. “Ancient rock formations. That’s why this particular spot is popular.”

“They’re strange.”

“Strange, indeed,” the manager replied. “It appears Mr. Jansen entered the water here and must have been preoccupied when he was taken.”

“Was anything found in the water?” Dennis asked. “Anything at all? A broken snorkel, a piece of a flipper? Anything?”

“At the behest of the AFP,” the manager glanced at Judy, “we had two divers scour the area here. We found a single flipper about a quarter mile to the north wedged in some stromatolites. It appears that it’s the same brand as Mr. Jansen wore. It had two punctures near the foot that are consistent with the bite of a white pointer.”

“Could the punctures have been made by knife?” Dennis asked.

“No,” the manager said. “They were definitely made by a pointer. I looked at the punctures with a magnifying glass, and you can clearly see the small serrations made by the pointer’s triangular teeth.”

“Are these sharks big enough to eat a man whole like that?”

“Well, typically they don’t eat their prey in one fell swoop. They attack and wait for the prey to bleed out and perish. Then they move back in to feed on the carcass. And yes, some of the pointers are quite large, perhaps six to eight meters. There are tiger sharks, and bulls as well, that are capable of eating a human.”

“Are there any other plausible ideas for what might have happened to him?” Dennis asked. “Besides your Jaws theory?”

Judy noticed the manager’s irritation, and she intervened. “Is there anything else that could have happened to him in the water besides being taken by shark? Anything?”

“Well, he could have drowned, of course, or had a heart attack, certainly.”

“What would have happened to his body under those circumstances?” she asked.

“His body would have likely been eaten by smaller sharks and fish,” he said. “It would take a couple of weeks before the entire body was consumed. Your man has been missing, I’m told, for about six or seven weeks, so there wouldn’t be much left regardless.”

Dennis peered out over the calm green-blue water of the bay, looked north at the strange rocks, and turned to Judy.

“I think we’re done here,” he said.

Judy thanked the men, and Dennis walked back to the car by himself.

Judy remained with the policeman, her AFP colleague, and the fisheries manager.

After Dennis got into the car, the policeman said, “Mean as cat’s piss, wouldn’t you say?”

“Too right,” the AFP agent said.

Judy looked at the ocean over their shoulders, feeling a tepid sea breeze run across her face. A strand of hair caught in her mouth and she teased it out, flipping it to the side.





Chapter 14


“Well, I thought I did tell you that he liked to snorkel,” Roby said.

“Did you ever go with him?” Dennis asked.

“Of course I did: snorkeling, that is,” he said.

“Did he mention that weekend he was going up to Shark Bay?”

“He might have,” Roby said. “Like I said, I can’t remember everything.”

“Would he often go by himself?”

“Once, when I said I couldn’t go with him, he told me he would go by himself. Otherwise, I don’t know.”

Dennis looked at his notes, and then up at the young man. “Is there anything surprising or strange to you about what happened to him? Anything at all?”

“Besides the fact that a big shark ate him?”

“Yes.”

“No. He loved adventure and he just got unlucky. Man, that poor bastard. A shark . . .”

After finishing with Roby, Dennis reluctantly visited St. Regis’s office. After a twenty-minute wait, he was allowed in.

“Are we done with you yet?” St. Regis said, sitting back and peering over the top of his reading glasses. “Was hoping you would be stateside by now.”