“Say again, sir?” Hendricks had served in Vietnam as a radio man, and he was fond of military terminology.

“One of my house guests went for a swim at about one this morning,” said Foote. “She hasn’t come back yet. Her date found her clothes on the beach.”

Hendricks began to scribble on a pad. “What was the person’s name?”

“Christine Watkins.”

“Age?”

“I don’t know. Just a second. Say around twenty-five. Her date says that’s about right.”

“Height and weight?”

“Wait a minute.” There was a pause. “We think probably about five-seven, between one twenty and one thirty.”

“Color of hair and eyes?”

“Listen, Officer, why do you need all this? If the woman’s drowned, she’s probably going to be the only one you have—at least tonight, right? You don’t average more than one drowning around here each night, do you?”

“Who said she drowned, Mr. Foote? Maybe she went for a walk.”

“Stark naked at one in the morning? Have you had any reports about a woman walking around naked?”

Hendricks relished the chance to be insufferably cool. “No, Mr. Foote, not yet. But once the summer season starts, you never know what to expect. Last August, a bunch of faggots staged a dance out by the club—a nude dance. Color of hair and eyes?”

“Her hair is … oh, dirty blond, I guess. Sandy. I don’t know what color her eyes are. I’ll have to ask her date. No, he says he doesn’t know either. Let’s say hazel.”

“Okay, Mr. Foote. We’ll get on it. As soon as we find out anything, we’ll contact you.”

Hendricks hung up the phone and looked at his watch. It was 5:10. The chief wouldn’t be up for an hour, and Hendricks wasn’t anxious to wake him up for something as vague as a missing-person report. For all anybody knew, the broad was off humping in the bushes with some guy she met on the beach. On the other hand, if she was washed up somewhere, Chief Brody would want the whole thing taken care of before the body was found by some nanny with a couple of young kids and it became a public nuisance.

Judgment, that’s what the chief kept telling him he needed; that’s what makes a good cop. And the cerebral challenge of police work had played a part in Hendricks’ decision to join the Amity force after he returned from Vietnam. The pay was fair: $9,000 to start, $15,000 after fifteen years, plus fringes. Police work offered security, regular hours, and the chance for some fun—not just thumping unruly kids or collaring drunks, but solving burglaries, trying to catch the occasional rapist (the summer before, a black gardener had raped seven rich white women, not one of whom would appear in court to testify against him), and—on a slightly more elevated plane—the opportunity to become a respected, contributing member of the community. And being an Amity cop was not very dangerous, certainly nothing like working for a metropolitan force. The last duty-related fatality of an Amity policeman occurred in 1957 when an officer had tried to stop a drunk speeding along the Montauk Highway and had been run off the road into a stone wall.