“Changes in water temperature or current flow or feeding patterns. As food supplies move, so do the predators. A few summers ago, for example, a completely inexplicable phenomenon took place off the shore of parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The whole coastline was suddenly inundated with menhaden—fishermen call them bunker. Huge schools. Millions of fish. They coated the water like an oil slick. There were so many that you could throw a bare hook in the water and reel it in, and more often than not you’d catch a menhaden by foul-hooking it. Bluefish and bass feed on menhaden, so all of a sudden there were masses of bluefish feeding in schools right off the beaches. In Watch Hill, Rhode Island, people were wading into the surf and catching bluefish with rakes. Garden rakes! Just shoveling the fish out of the water. Then the big predators came—big tuna, four, five, six hundred pounds. Deep-sea fishing boats were catching bluefin tuna within a hundred yards of the shore. In harbors sometimes. Then suddenly it stopped. The menhaden went away, and so did the other fish. I spent three weeks down there trying to figure out what was going on. I still don’t know. It’s all part of the ecological balance. When something tips too far one way or the other, peculiar things happen.”

“But this is even weirder,” said Brody. “This fish has stayed in one place, in one chunk of water only a mile or two square, for over a week. He hasn’t moved up or down the beach. He hasn’t touched anybody in East Hampton or Southampton. What is it about Amity?”

“I don’t know. I doubt that anyone could give you a good answer.”

Meadows said, “Minnie Eldridge has the answer.”

“Balls,” said Brody.

“Who’s Minnie Eldridge?” asked Hooper.

“The postmistress,” said Brody. “She says it’s God’s will, or something like that. We’re being punished for our sins.”

Hooper smiled. “Right now, anyway, that’s as good an answer as I’ve got.”

“That’s encouraging,” said Brody. “Is there anything you plan to do to get an answer?”

“There are a few things. I’ll take water samples here and in East Hampton. I’ll try to find out how other fish are behaving—if anything extraordinary is around, or if anything that should be here isn’t. And I’ll try to find that shark. Which reminds me, is there a boat available?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say,” said Brody. “Ben Gardner’s. We’ll get you out to it tomorrow, and you can use it at least until we work something out with his wife. Do you really think you can catch that fish, after what happened to Ben Gardner?”

“I didn’t say I was going to try to catch it. I don’t think I’d want to try that. Not alone, anyway.”

“Then what the hell are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to play it by ear.”

Brody looked into Hooper’s eyes and said, “I want that fish killed. If you can’t do it, we’ll find someone who can.”