Whitman said to Brody, “What are you going to do, Chief? I mean, beyond closing the beaches, which I gather has already been done.”

“I don’t know. What can we do? Christ, I’d rather have a hurricane. Or even an earthquake. At least after they happen, they’re over and done with. You can look around and see what’s been done and what has to be done. They’re events, something you can handle. They have beginnings and ends. This is crazy. It’s as if there was a maniac running around loose, killing people whenever he felt like it. You know who he is, but you can’t catch him and you can’t stop him. And what makes it worse, you don’t know why he’s doing it.”

Meadows said, “Remember Minnie Eldridge.”

“Yeah,” said Brody. “I’m beginning to think she may have something, after all.”

“Who’s that?” said Whitman.

“Nobody. Just some nut.”

For a moment there was silence, an exhausted silence, as if everything that needed to be said had been said. Then Whitman said, “Well?”

“Well what?” said Brody.

“There must be someplace to go from here, something to do.”

“I’d be happy to hear any suggestions. Personally, I think we’re fucked. We’re going to be lucky if there’s a town left after this summer.”

“Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?”

“I don’t think so. Do you, Harry?”

“Not really,” said Meadows. “The town survives on its summer people, Mr. Whitman. Call it parasitic, if you will, but that’s the way it is. The host animal comes every summer, and Amity feeds on it furiously, pulling every bit of sustenance it can before the host leaves again after Labor Day. Take away the host animal, and we’re like dog ticks with no dog to feed on. We starve. At the least—the very least—next winter is going to be the worst in the history of this town. We’re going to have so many people on the dole that Amity will look like Harlem.” He chuckled. “Harlem-by-the-Sea.”

“What I’d give my ass to know,” said Brody, “is why us? Why Amity? Why not East Hampton or Southampton or Quogue?”

“That,” said Hooper, “is something we’ll never know.”

“Why?” said Whitman.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses for misjudging that fish,” said Hooper, “but the line between the natural and the preternatural is very cloudy. Natural things occur, and for most of them there’s a logical explanation. But for a whole lot of things there’s just no good or sensible answer. Say two people are swimming, one in front of the other, and a shark comes up from behind, passes right beside the guy in the rear and attacks the guy in front. Why? Maybe they smelled different. Maybe the one in front was swimming in a more provocative way. Say the guy in back, the one who wasn’t attacked, goes to help the one who was attacked. The shark may not touch him—may actually avoid him—while he keeps banging away at the guy he did hit. White sharks are supposed to prefer colder water. So why does one turn up off the coast of Mexico, strangled by a human corpse that he couldn’t quite swallow? In a way, sharks are like tornadoes. They touch down here, but not there. They wipe out this house but suddenly veer away and miss the house next door. The guy in the house that’s wiped out says, ‘Why me?’ The guy in the house that’s missed says, ‘Thank God.’ ”