Wild Thing: A Novel (35 page)

Violet gets the boat’s running lights on behind us. It’s weird to be able to see normally.

“What is it?” I say when I pull him back up.

“I’ll tell you!” he screams. “Get me out of the water!”

I do.

He does.

From: Editors’ Choice
, Science,
12 December 2008, 322: 1718

MARINE BIOLOGY

Carcharhinus?
You Don’t Even Know Us!

 

There may be an exception to every rule, but the bull shark,
Carcharhinus leucas
, can claim to be the exception to at least three. Long famous among ichthyologists for its fierce aggressiveness (bull sharks resemble short, wide great whites; the five shark attacks on humans that occurred on the Jersey Shore between July 1 and July 12 of 1916, and inspired the book and film
Jaws
, are now thought to be the work of a single
C. leucas
), it is also the only shark to retain the elasmobranchial ability to not just survive but
hunt and thrive in both marine and freshwater environments.
C. leucas
accomplishes this neat trick through an impressive grab-bag of adaptations, including decreased urea production by the liver, diffusion of urea by the gills, the ability to increase its urine output by twenty-fold, and the ability to switch between active and passive transfer of electrolytes, via Na
⁺
, K
⁺
-ATPase, in both the distal tubules and rectal glands. The third unique distinction of
C. leucas
is its range: bull sharks have been found as far north as Massachusetts and as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, in a band that circumnavigates the globe.

Despite being geographically widespread, however, individual bull sharks are sufficiently rare that in the past they’ve been thought to incorporate over a dozen different species. Specimens from places as diverse as the Ganges, Zambezi, and Mississippi rivers (bull sharks have been found as far up the Mississippi as Illinois) have been subsumed into
C. leucas
only gradually, usually on the basis of anatomical comparison. For example, the Nicaragua Lake shark, or
Carcharhinus nicaraguensis
, was declared
C. leucas
by taxonomical agreement in 1961.

One holdout to this process, because of its particular rarity and presumed population fragility, has been the Vietnamese river shark,
Carcharhinus vietnamensis
. Gordon et al. now use dye-terminator sequencing to compare the genome of
C. vietnamensis
sampled in the wild with that of
C. leucas
, and find that the two are the same. The authors theorize that the Mekong Delta may be the northernmost passage available for bull sharks to cross between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Journ. Exp. Mar. Bio. and Eco.
356, 236 (2008)

White Lake

Still Sunday, 23 September

“A
shark?
” I say. “It’s a motherfucking
shark?
You heard Reggie’s crackpot story and you put a
shark
in the lake?”

McQuillen spits water. “What do you want? A dragon?”

“No, actually a shark is fucked up enough. It’s a shark!” I shout to Violet.

I’m slightly high on how easy it’s being for me to think and say “sharks.” Later on I’ll figure out why and get depressed,
^*
but at the moment it just seems cool.

“There may be more than one,” McQuillen says, avoiding my eyes. “Originally there were four.”

“Originally?”
Violet says.

“When Chris Semmel Jr. bought them.”

“You mean when you told him to buy them,” I say.

“Not so they would kill anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking. Autumn and Benjy were an accident. The bulls were never supposed to survive the first winter.”

“So what was the point of them?”

“We wanted to get some video of them attacking something. A dog, or a deer. Ideally a moose. But the bulls must have been too small back then. All we got was one eating a loon.”

“I’d say you got a little more than that.”

“What about the bite marks?” Violet says.

McQuillen answers me instead of her. “I told you: Autumn and Benjy were an accident. It was a year later. We didn’t think anything was still in the lake.”

“Bite marks,” I say.

He clears his throat. “It was a board. Just a two-by-four with some nails at the end of it. I only needed to modify the front of the bites to make it look like they were from
Liopleurodon ferox
instead of
Carcharhinus leucas
.”

“You were the one who recovered the bodies?” I say.

“No. Of course not.”

“Then how—”

I realize how.

“You’re the county coroner.”

He nods.

“You said they’d been killed by a boat propeller, then altered the bites to make it look like they’d been attacked by a dinosaur. Maybe that was the most you could do. Too many people had already seen the bodies for you to make it seem like they’d been through an actual accident. But at least that gave you some evidence for your hoax. And established your credentials as a skeptic at the same time.”

Violet, both saddened and disgusted, says “You did all that so you could
fool
people?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try her,” I say.

“Ford was dying. People there needed a way out. And it was my responsibility.”

“In what way?” she says.

“I was their
doctor
.”

“Were you Chris Jr. and Father Podominick’s doctor?” I say. “Because I’m pretty sure arranging to meet your patients on a dock at midnight and then shooting them because they’re your co-conspirators in a hoax that’s already killed two teenagers is outside current medical guidelines. Particularly if you then use one of the patients you’ve just murdered to front a boat purchase.”

“Chris Jr. agreed the bulls needed to be put down. We all did.”

“But Chris Jr. and Father Podominick didn’t want to keep the way Autumn and Benjy died a secret. Which is why you murdered them. You’d kept them quiet as long as you could.”

“Chris Jr. and Father Podominick were two people in a town of two and a half thousand.”

“So worth killing to save your reputation?”

“My
reputation?
” McQuillen looks up at me with what seems
to be genuine anger. “I don’t give a
damn
about my reputation. Everyone who knows me is either an alcoholic or a junkie. Or both. You think they’ll remember me? Or thank me? And before you get any ideas, I’m not scared of prison, either. I’m seventy-eight. I probably wouldn’t survive a trial.”

“You seem pretty spry to me.”

“
I have to be
. I’m the only doctor Ford’s ever going to get. I couldn’t
give
my practice away.
You’re
a sorry excuse for a doctor—would
you
take it?”

It’s actually kind of a thought-provoking question. Just not for this lifetime.

“You’re right,” I say. “I respectfully decline. Let’s get out of here. How does the radio work?”

“I can figure it out,” Violet says.

McQuillen says
“Wait.”

Violet swings her legs over the side of the Zodiac to go fuck with the radio.

“You’re planning to turn me over to the police?” McQuillen says. “Get yourself some revenge?”

“More or less,” I say.

“What about Ford?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure whoever picks us up can take us straight to Ely. We can skip Ford entirely.”

“I mean
what’s going to happen to it?
”

“I have no idea.”

“Yes you do. You’ve been there. You’ve seen what those people are doing to themselves.”

“Right…” I say.

“We can still help them.”

“Bringing you in
is
helping them, McQuillen.”

“Horseshit! We have the opportunity,
right now
, to make the
White Lake hoax
real
. Benjy and Autumn died. That was an unintended tragedy, and the rumors it started eventually blew over. Then the Chinaman died—also unintended, and partially your fault: if you two hadn’t interrupted me, I might have caught the bulls that night. But this time the rumors won’t blow over. Twice now people have died here. And I know you’ve seen the autopsy photos of Autumn and Benjy. Together that is easily enough to turn this place into a tourist destination.”

I stare at him. “That’s some kind of joke, right?”

“I don’t believe in humor. I’ve got sonar and dynamite. We can clear out the sharks
tonight
. No one will ever know they existed. After which you can do whatever the hell you want to me.”

“What do you think, Dr. Hurst?” I say to Violet.

“Keep going with the lying and killing?” she says. “No thanks. But if he calls Teng Wenshu ‘the Chinaman’ again, I might change my mind.”

White Lake

Still Sunday, 23 September

This time Sheriff Albin drives us back to CFS himself.

On the way I tell him who I really am, and give him the names of some people who, while they might not be able to find me, will at least be able to answer questions about me that come up in the future. I figure he deserves to know. And it may come out anyway.

Even leaving aside Albin’s own involvement in it, this case is going to be a mess. Missing body, missing witnesses, Teng’s cause of death unclear—bullet? shark?—with no guarantee it will ever get clearer. The county prosecutor likely to give up chasing Reggie for felony murder after a while and content
himself with fraud charges—which won’t be easy to work with either.
Something
turned up on Reggie’s tour, and his guests who brought firearms broke his clearly stated rules, and on top of that he’ll never get paid. No matter what her percentage is, Palin won’t certify any escrow that links her to Ford.
^*

So Albin’s a tad stressed. He’s also enough of a justice addict to blame McQuillen and not Violet and me for what’s likely to be a rough year or two, and to be grateful to us for figuring McQuillen out, even if we didn’t tell him we were going to do it.

He takes us down to the marina. Violet and I figure we can say goodbye to Henry and Davey and Jane and anyone else who’s at the outfitters—including Bark the Dog, I suppose—on our way out. Right now we just want to get our shit and leave.

The lodge itself is abandoned. The deputy stationed there gets the key to our cabin, and the four of us walk over together.

The moment I crack the cabin door, though, I can tell something’s wrong. I know the smell of this room pretty well, from lying in the dark and trying to smell Violet’s pussy from fifteen feet away. The smell has changed.

It’s cologne. And not just cologne: it’s Canoe, by Dana. Every mob fuck’s favorite aftershave.

Also there’s a trip wire across the doorway. The door’s leaning into it.

I stop short. But Violet, not realizing what’s happening, and not wanting to run into me, turns sideways and slips around me. Pushes the door open a couple more inches.

I don’t remember the explosion.

I remember waking up staring at the sky. Turning to see Violet, unmoving, beside me and being unable to see Albin or his deputy at all. I remember wanting to roll over to Violet and check her for a pulse, but passing out again instead.

The next time I wake up I can’t move. Or imagine how I had the energy and freedom from pain to even turn my head before. I try to talk but can’t.

I also can’t figure out why I’m still alive.

Leaving a bomb in our cabin—and another one in our car, I assume—is strictly Plan B material. If David Locano knows I’m near here, he’ll also have a spotter watching the lodge at all times, and a hit team less than ten minutes away.

They should be here already.