CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Sunday, July 3

It’s early, before nine in the morning, when the children arrive at the beach. The day is summer warm and bright, and the water sparkles, glistening in the sunlight. From the shore, they can see what looks like two dots riding the waves in the bay. Curious, they follow them down to the water’s edge.

The dots come closer, clarifying themselves into Coast Guard speedboats. On each boat they can make out men standing on the stern dragging long poles in the water.

“They lookin’ for sharks?” Benny asks.

“Ya think?” Dennis looks to Larry.

“They got sharks here,” Larry answers. With the gun in his pocket, he’s feeling like a boss, a real big shot. It doesn’t even bulge in his oversized pants.

“I saw one like last week,” he tells his crew. “Not the whole thing, just the fin sticking up.”

“No shit!” The twins are always ready for a Larry story, no matter how implausible.

“Maybe it was a porpoise,” Charley says. “They got them here, too, ya know.”

“What are you, some kind of asshole? Don’t you think I can tell the difference between a porpoise and a shark?”

As usual, Charley backs down stammering that he didn’t mean that, just that he read there were going to be a lot of porpoises in the bay this summer. Something about new mating grounds. He could see from Larry’s face how wrong he was.

“Could you tell how big the shark was?” Charley tries covering.

“About forty feet or so. Something like that.”

Lucy rolls her eyes, and makes a quiet “yeah, right” sound.

Larry looks at the little girl. Paying no attention to her isn’t good enough. She’s always doing something that annoys him, and the worst part is that she doesn’t give a shit. He can’t figure her out. Why isn’t she afraid of him? Charley and the twins are much bigger and they’re scared shitless. He hates Lucy. If he shoots the homeless guy, which he’s probably going to do, he would have to kill Lucy too. Nobody else would tell on him, but he couldn’t count on her. Yeah, he would shoot her. But just to make sure, he would do it when no one was watching.

That decided, Larry goes on to describe how the head of the shark was so far from the fin he thought it was another fish.

“Maybe it was.” Stupid Dennis, trying to get in on the story.

“No, jerkhead,” Larry says, rapping him on the side of his head hard enough to throw him off balance.

“I only meant it coulda been a herd of them.” Still trying.

“School, asshole.” Charley jumps onto the winning team.

“On Sunday?” Dennis can’t let go.

With the exception of Dennis, they all fall down in hysterics. Even Lucy plops herself down on the sand, laughing.

Finally, their attention moves to the speedboats coming into the dock at the far end of the beach. This looks like action. With the little girl bringing up the rear, all five children run down the shore toward the boats. It’s a good quarter mile; by the time they get there, the boats have docked.

“Was it a shark?” Larry calls to the Coast Guard officers, squinting against the morning sun.

“Hey, son.” The officer looks down at him doubtfully. “You kids aren’t supposed to be on the beach. Better get outta here now.”

“Okay,” Larry says, “but was it a shark?”

It feels good to be talking to a cop when you have a gun in your pocket. Like they’re equals, except the cop doesn’t know it. But if he gives Larry a hard time, he’ll find out soon enough. Larry could take out the gun and shoot him before anyone could do anything. He’s close enough not to miss.

But he isn’t going to do that. He’s going to save the gun for Luke. And Lucy. For sure Lucy.

“It wasn’t a shark,” the officer says. “It wasn’t anything.”

But the officer standing alongside interjects, “Tell ’em, Frank. Maybe it’ll teach ’em not to play down here alone.”

“You’re right,” Frank says. Getting down on one knee, he speaks gently to the children. “Looks like somebody maybe drowned here.”

The children are shocked.

“Who was it?” Charley asks.

“We don’t know yet.”

“You see,” the other cop gives his safety lesson, “that’s what happens when you go swimming and nobody’s around. If you get in trouble, nobody can help you.”

“Did you find him? Can we see him?” Larry starts climbing the side of the pier.

“Hey, stay down, kid. There’s nothing to see. We didn’t find the body.”

“So how do you know somebody drowned?” Benny asks.

“We found his jacket and shoes.” The officer reaches into a wooden crate and holds up Luke’s dripping wet jacket and shoes.

As if on cue, all five children move in toward each other. They never take their eyes off the clothes the cop is holding up.

“Did you see anyone around wearing this jacket?”

The children huddle even closer together, a knot of small bodies.

“Did you?” The officer asks again.

They shake their heads firmly.

“You’re sure?”

They continue to shake their heads.

“You’re not sure?”

Now they nod furiously.

“Good.” He stands up. “Now beat it and don’t come down here alone, or I’ll have to tell your parents. Got that?”

More nodding as the children back up and speed down the beach, even Lucy running fast enough to almost catch up.