“I know, Harry. Any doctor would say she didn’t know what she was saying. The trouble is, I’d already thought a lot of the things she was saying. Not in those words, maybe, but the thoughts were the same.”

“Come on, Martin, you know you can’t blame yourself.”

“I know. I could blame Larry Vaughan. Or maybe even you. But the point is, the two deaths yesterday could have been prevented. I could have prevented them, and I didn’t. Period.”

The phone rang. It was answered in the other room, and a voice on the intercom said, “It’s Mr. Vaughan.”

Brody pushed the lighted button, picked up the receiver, and said, “Hi, Larry. Did you have a nice weekend?”

“Until about eleven o’clock last night,” said Vaughan, “when I turned on my car radio driving home. I was tempted to call you last night, but I figured you had had a rough enough day without being bothered at that hour.”

“That’s one decision I agree with.”

“Don’t rub it in, Martin. I feel bad enough.”

Brody wanted to say, “Do you, Larry?” He wanted to scrape the wound raw, to unload some of the anguish onto someone else. But he knew it was both unfair to attempt and impossible to accomplish, so all he said was, “Sure.”

“I had two cancellations already this morning. Big leases. Good people. They had already signed, and I told them I could take them to court. They said, Go ahead: we’re going somewhere else. I’m scared to answer the phone. I still have twenty houses that aren’t rented for August.”

“I wish I could tell you different, Larry, but it’s going to get worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“With the beaches closed.”

“How long do you think you’ll have to keep them closed?”

“I don’t know. As long as it takes. A few days. Maybe more.”

“You know that the end of next week is the Fourth of July weekend.”

“Sure, I know.”

“It’s already too late to hope for a good summer, but we may be able to salvage something—for August, at least—if the Fourth is good.”

Brody couldn’t read the tone in Vaughan’s voice. “Are you arguing with me, Larry?”

“No. I guess I was thinking out loud. Or praying out loud. Anyway, you plan to keep the beaches closed until what? Indefinitely? How will you know when that thing’s gone away?”

“I haven’t had time to think that far ahead. I don’t even know why it’s here. Let me ask you something, Larry. Just out of curiosity.”

“What?”

“Who are your partners?”

It was a long moment before Vaughan said, “Why do you want to know? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Like I said, just curiosity.”

“You keep your curiosity for your job, Martin. Let me worry about my business.”

“Sure, Larry. No offense.”

“So what are you going to do? We can’t just sit around and hope it will go away. We could starve to death while we waited.”