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things that tourists go there to do—like walk on the beach or go swimming in the ocean. He couldn’t remember the last time he went swimming. He wasn’t even sure hestill owned a bathing suit. It was like something he had heard about New York—that half the people who live in the city never go to the top of the Empire State Building or visit the Statue of Liberty.
    Every now and then, Hendricks looked up to see how much closer he was to the point. Once he turned back to see if Brody and Cassidy had found anything. He guessed that they were nearly half a mile away.
    As he turned back and started walking again, Hendricks saw something ahead of him, a clump of weed and kelp that seemed unusually large. He was about thirty yards away from the clump when he began to think the weed might be clinging to something.
    When he reached the clump, Hendricks bent down to pull some of the weed away. Suddenly he stopped. For a few seconds he stared, frozen rigid. He fumbled in his pants pocket for his whistle, put it to his lips, and tried to blow. Instead, he vomited, staggered back, and fell to his knees.
    Snarled within the clump of weed was a woman’s head, still attached to shoulders, part of an arm, and about a third of her trunk. The mass of tattered flesh was a mottled blue-gray, and as Hendricks spilled his guts into the sand, he thought—and the thought made him retch again—that the woman’s remaining breast looked as flat as a flower pressed in a memory book.
    “Wait,” said Brody, stopping and touching Cassidy’s arm. “I think that was a whistle.” He listened, squinting into the morning sun. He saw a black spot on the sand, which he assumed was Hendricks, and then he heard the whistle more clearly. “Come on,” he said, and the two men began to trot along the sand.
    Hendricks was still on his knees when they got to him. He had stopped puking, but his head still hung, mouth open, and his breathing rattled with phlegm.
    Brody was several steps ahead of Cassidy, and he said,“Mr. Cassidy, stay back there a second, will you?” He pulled apart some of the weeds, and when he saw what was inside, he felt bile rise in his throat. He swallowed and closed his eyes. After a moment he said, “You might as well look now, Mr. Cassidy, and tell me if it’s her or not.”
    Cassidy was terrified. His eyes shifted between the exhausted Hendricks and the mass of weed. “That?” he said, pointing at the weed. Reflexively, he stepped backward. “That
thing
? What do you mean it’s her?”
    Brody was still fighting to control his stomach. “I think,” he said, “that it may be part of her.”
    Reluctantly, Cassidy shuffled forward. Brody held back a piece of weed so Cassidy could get a clear look at the gray and gaping face. “Oh, my God!” said Cassidy, and he put a hand to his mouth.
    “Is it her?”
    Cassidy nodded, still staring at the face. Then he turned away and said, “What happened to her?”
    “I can’t be sure,” said Brody. “Offhand, I’d say she was attacked by a shark.”
    Cassidy’s knees buckled, and as he sank to the sand, he said, “I think I’m going to be sick.” He put his head down and retched.
    The stink of vomit reached Brody almost instantly, and he knew he had lost his struggle. “Join the crowd,” he said, and he vomited too.

3
    Several minutes passed before Brody felt well enough to stand, walk back to his car, and call for an ambulance from the Southampton Hospital, and it was almost an hour before the ambulance arrived and the truncated corpse was stuffed into a rubber bag and hauled away.
    By eleven o’clock, Brody was back in his office, filling out forms about the accident. He had completed everything but “cause of death” when the phone rang.
    “Carl Santos, Martin,” said the voice of the coroner.
    “Yeah, Carl. What have you got for me?”
    “Unless you have any reason to suspect a murder, I’d have to say shark.”
    “Murder?” said Brody.
    “I’m not