Alexa clawed at her ankles under the crinkly space blanket as birds sang awake one by one. Stephen had told her there were 145 different bird species on the island. Reciting the funny names distracted her from her itches: kakariki, kereru, kakapo. Loud squawking made her sit up.
“Bloody nora, I’m coming.” In gray light, a large form lurched from a bunk, took three giant steps to the table, grabbed the radio like a chicken neck. “Sergeant Wallace here.”
“It’s Constable Kopae, Senior,” a voice responded.
“What is it?”
Muscular calves and calloused feet blocked Alexa’s view. Scratch was dangling his legs from the top bunk. She scooted past his bare limbs and stood.
“Repeat,” Wallace said into the radio.
Static filled the hut. “… a bloke, ripped apart, one leg…”
The radio went silent.
“Kopae!” Wallace shook the radio.
Static. “…on the shore. Jeannette’s dog, Nanu, found him…”
“Dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
A chill ran down Alexa’s spine.
“Where?”
“Ringaringa Beach.”
“Who?”
“…can’t tell.” Panic in the gargle. “People gawking…”
The cabin door creaked open and Stephen entered. “What’s happening?”
Wallace held up a hand. “Don’t touch the body. Close the bathing areas. Send a copter to Hellfire Pass. I’ll be on scene in an hour.” He clicked the radio off and studied his watch.
Scratch hopped down and pulled pants over his shorts. “Shark attack?”
Wallace’s face had blanched. “A white death.”
“The town will hang the chummers now,” Scratch said. “A big-ass shark harassed me out near the Beak. Came right up, turned sideways, looked me over. Jesus—those teeth.”
Stephen swept the hair out of his eyes. “I knew this would happen,” he said almost joyfully. “I’ll notify DOC headquarters.”
On her way to the loo, Alexa was startled to see the body bag. She had forgotten why she was here. When she returned, Wallace told the rangers to take King’s remains to the beach as planned. “Get him to the clinic.” He turned to Alexa. “You come with me.”
“But…”
“You’ll have time for King later.”
One of her duties as roving forensic was medical examiner. She could help the islanders by determining cause of death, not that it would be hard if Constable Kopae was accurate. But a shark attack was hard to wrap her head around. She packed up, zipped up, laced up, and caloried up via a power bar Stephen handed her—he was a thoughtful guy—and followed Wallace into the dawn woods.
Alexa kept quiet as they trudged over moss and mud and down through a ravine, muck making each step a challenge. She was aware the sergeant had much on his mind. Like the chief of police in Jaws, what was his name? Martin Brody had had to close the beach, deal with the public, with the fishermen, with the press, with the remains.
A low-hanging branch snagged her hair. “Dammit.” What was in store? Visualizing a shark-ravaged body gave Alexa shivers as she jerked her hair free.
Three years ago she had entered a master’s program in forensic odontology. Teeth are the most resilient part of the human body and sometimes the only body part left. Since earning the second master’s degree, she had ID’ed several bodies using dentals—most recently confirming the identification of the mud-pot body in Rotorua. Her new area of expertise had led to the fellowship in Auckland and—one bite leads to another—to Stewart Island.
She pulled the zipper of the orange suit higher. Coffee. She craved coffee. Yesterday’s niggling caffeine headache was now throwing a tantrum. She skirted a puddle and thought back to the lecture on shark bites. A shark expert from Florida was the guest lecturer. Bearded, salt-bleached hair, zeal lighting his eyes.
He had captivated Alexa and her odontology cohort with his “dirty bite” lecture. The memory flooded back. Virulent bacteria is transferred from sharks’ teeth to humans through bites. Imagine surviving a shark attack, the scientist said, but having to be hospitalized for weeks because of infection. Doctors don’t know what strain of bacteria it is, so they don’t know what antibiotic works.
Her heart rate increased as she recalled that lecture in Bostian Hall. Dr. Dirty Bite and his researchers had set out to identify the strain. They’d manhandled sharks in the Florida surf and swabbed their mouths. Had the research with the unwilling marine participants led to determining what antibiotic worked?
But infection would not be a concern in this case.
Okay.
Dr. Dirty Bite had also explained how to identify the type and size of a shark through bite marks. She recalled graphic slides, a thigh with a half-moon of missing flesh, an amputated arm, gashes on a foot. Something about circumference and upper and lower jaw.
Wallace stopped. “What day is it?”
Alexa had to think. Friday? No. Friday was two days ago. “Sunday.”
“Bloody hell. We have a cruise ship coming in. Once a week, weather permitting.”
The helicopter liftoff felt like riding in an elevator. Alexa clutched the vinyl seat for twenty deafening minutes until they landed back at Ryan’s Creek.
As they climbed out, the pilot yelled to Wallace that he was on his way to Invercargill to pick up Kana Duffy.
“From Shark Shadow? Who called that guy in?”
“Yeah, nah. Don’t know, Sarge.”
Alexa and Wallace watched the copter lift off and shrink to a gleaming toy buzzing below the stratus clouds. The airport was a ghost town.
Wallace marched to his SUV. Alexa followed, lugging the kit and backpack. Sinking gratefully into the front seat, she fished out her phone. Her boss needed to know about the second body. No signal. This island was giving her the creeps. She belted up as Wallace started the engine. “Was there a witness to the attack?”
“I don’t know.” He whipped the SUV around and accelerated down the lonely road while checking his own phone. “Shite,” he said, throwing it into the cup holder.
“How long have you had shark cage diving on the island?”
Wallace rubbed his bristly chin. “We have two operations. They opened seven or eight years ago. Stewart Island White Dive out of Golden Bay Wharf and Shark Encounter out of Halfmoon Bay.”
“What makes you think the attack is connected to cage diving?”
“The operators say they aren’t changing sharks’ behavior, but then they drop bait right offshore—our sharks like shallow water—and when the whites come running, they dangle tourists like lollies in front of a three-year-old. Most locals won’t get in the water anymore, won’t let their kids go swimming. Pāua divers are scared, but they still have to make a living.”
“Pāua?”
“Abalone. Shellfish, eh. It’s a way to make a living around here—divers sell pāua for food, the shell for art. They free-dive—no air tanks allowed. They pry the pāua off underwater rocks. Hell, might be a bloody pāua diver dead on the beach. Ringaringa is a popular spot. Jesus. I hope it’s not Hal.” Wallace accelerated as they approached a curve.
She had to ask.
“Hal is my neighbor Ann’s lad. A twenty-something torn between leaving the island and staying. He ekes out a living pāuadiving. Ann has begged him to stop.”
They were passing through the village. Two little boys in gum boots and a woman pushing a stroller walked down the middle of the street. “All right, Lydia,” Wallace said under his breath and tapped the horn to get them to move over.
They drove past the little red-roofed chapel restaurant. At the next corner a man was hanging holiday lights round the Stewart Island gift shop window. “Are there lots of shark attacks in New Zealand?”
“Had a rash of them in the sixties. Since then, a few here, a few there. A white killed a surfer at Muriwai on the North Island two years ago. When the lifesavers reached him, the shark still had the bloke in its jaws, thrashing about. They bashed the shark with oars to get it to release.”
It sounded like Moby Dick to Alexa.
Wallace pulled onto a grassy bank in front of a one-story white cottage, the windows trimmed in red. “Quick stop. I won’t be a minute.” He left the motor running and hustled to the front door.
She watched as he let himself in and then appeared through a large kitchen window. Wallace swung a child up in the air, a little girl, and then talked, gesturing with his hands, to a sturdy woman in a robe. His wife. Wallace was a family man. The scene tugged at Alexa’s heart. There’s probably a dog, too. The sergeant picked up a landline receiver hanging on the wall. The wife/woman vanished from the kitchen and the next second was striding to the car.
Alexa got out, a tad wary. “Hello.”
“I’m Nina, Kipper’s wife.” She belted her robe more tightly. “Would you like a coffee or to freshen up?”
“I’m Alexa Glock. I’d love a coffee, but we’re in a hurry.”
“No worries, I have a full pot.” Nina assessed Alexa with her pale blue eyes. “I’m straight up in shock.”
Alexa nodded.
“Kipper won’t tell me who it is.”
“He doesn’t know.”
Wallace met them at the door with a mug in his hand. “Called headquarters in Invercargill. Filled ’em in. Let’s go.” He had removed the orange jumpsuit and added a police hat to his uniform.
“That coffee is for Miss Glock, right?” Nina said.
Wallace blushed and handed the mug to Alexa. “Er, hope you like it white.”
Nina disappeared and returned with another mug for her husband.
“Daddy!” The little girl, all reddish curls and pink cheeks, flew out the door and clomped onto his leg. Behind her, a spotted dog barked.
“Careful, Shelly belly, I have a hot drink.” Wallace freed his leg, pecked his wife’s cheek, and ushered Alexa toward the car. His coffee sloshed as he looked at her. “I had to make sure they wouldn’t go in the water.”
The news had carved each middle-aged wrinkle in his pale face deeper. “My lad—he’s nine—has rowing club.”
“I get it.” She did. The attack affected the entire community.
She gulped the milky coffee as woodland swallowed village. The one-lane blacktop climbed and curved past modest homes and tall fern trees, past inlets of choppy waves and small boats, past penguin crossing and kiwi crossing signs, past precipitous drops and hilly berms. Only once did they pass another car.
“Who will come from Invercargill?” she asked.
“I told them you’re here. Volunteer rangers are en route to search for King’s scene of death, and the higher-ups are locating a DI to take over the King case, eh. I’ll have it up to here”—Wallace touched his checked-banded cap—“with the shark business.”
Alexa knew in police hierarchy, a sergeant wouldn’t head a suspicious death investigation.
They turned left on a thinner road. An arrow pointed to Ringaringa Heights Golf Course. Wallace pulled into a gravel lot. A Stewart Island Fire Brigade truck and ambulance took up most of the lot. Before Wallace could turn the car off, another car pulled in.
“Shite. Probably the press,” he said.