34

White Lake

Still Sunday, 23 September

“A shark?” I say. “It’s a motherfucking shark? You heard Reggie’s crackpot story and you put a shark in the lake?”

McQuillen spits water. “What do you want? A dragon?”

“No, actually a shark is fucked up enough. It’s a shark!” I shout to Violet.

I’m slightly high on how easy it’s being for me to think and say “sharks.” Later on I’ll figure out why and get depressed,^[68] but at the moment it just seems cool.

“There may be more than one,” McQuillen says, avoiding my eyes. “Originally there were four.”

“Originally?” Violet says.

“When Chris Semmel Jr. bought them.”

“You mean when you told him to buy them,” I say.

“Not so they would kill anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking. Autumn and Benjy were an accident. The bulls were never supposed to survive the first winter.”

“So what was the point of them?”

“We wanted to get some video of them attacking something. A dog, or a deer. Ideally a moose. But the bulls must have been too small back then. All we got was one eating a loon.”

“I’d say you got a little more than that.”

“What about the bite marks?” Violet says.

McQuillen answers me instead of her. “I told you: Autumn and Benjy were an accident. It was a year later. We didn’t think anything was still in the lake.”

“Bite marks,” I say.

He clears his throat. “It was a board. Just a two-by-four with some nails at the end of it. I only needed to modify the front of the bites to make it look like they were from Liopleurodon ferox instead of Carcharhinus leucas.”

“You were the one who recovered the bodies?” I say.

“No. Of course not.”

“Then how—”

I realize how.

“You’re the county coroner.”

He nods.

“You said they’d been killed by a boat propeller, then altered the bites to make it look like they’d been attacked by a dinosaur. Maybe that was the most you could do. Too many people had already seen the bodies for you to make it seem like they’d been through an actual accident. But at least that gave you some evidence for your hoax. And established your credentials as a skeptic at the same time.”

Violet, both saddened and disgusted, says “You did all that so you could fool people?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try her,” I say.

“Ford was dying. People there needed a way out. And it was my responsibility.”

“In what way?” she says.

“I was their doctor.”

“Were you Chris Jr. and Father Podominick’s doctor?” I say. “Because I’m pretty sure arranging to meet your patients on a dock at midnight and then shooting them because they’re your co-conspirators in a hoax that’s already killed two teenagers is outside current medical guidelines. Particularly if you then use one of the patients you’ve just murdered to front a boat purchase.”

“Chris Jr. agreed the bulls needed to be put down. We all did.”

“But Chris Jr. and Father Podominick didn’t want to keep the way Autumn and Benjy died a secret. Which is why you murdered them. You’d kept them quiet as long as you could.”

“Chris Jr. and Father Podominick were two people in a town of two and a half thousand.”

“So worth killing to save your reputation?”

“My reputation?” McQuillen looks up at me with what seems to be genuine anger. “I don’t give a damn about my reputation. Everyone who knows me is either an alcoholic or a junkie. Or both. You think they’ll remember me? Or thank me? And before you get any ideas, I’m not scared of prison, either. I’m seventy-eight. I probably wouldn’t survive a trial.”

“You seem pretty spry to me.”

“I have to be. I’m the only doctor Ford’s ever going to get. I couldn’t give my practice away. You’re a sorry excuse for a doctor—would you take it?”

It’s actually kind of a thought-provoking question. Just not for this lifetime.

“You’re right,” I say. “I respectfully decline. Let’s get out of here. How does the radio work?”

“I can figure it out,” Violet says.

McQuillen says “Wait.”

Violet swings her legs over the side of the Zodiac to go fuck with the radio.

“You’re planning to turn me over to the police?” McQuillen says. “Get yourself some revenge?”

“More or less,” I say.

“What about Ford?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure whoever picks us up can take us straight to Ely. We can skip Ford entirely.”

“I mean what’s going to happen to it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Yes you do. You’ve been there. You’ve seen what those people are doing to themselves.”

“Right…” I say.

“We can still help them.”

“Bringing you in is helping them, McQuillen.”

“Horseshit! We have the opportunity, right now, to make the White Lake hoax real. Benjy and Autumn died. That was an unintended tragedy, and the rumors it started eventually blew over. Then the Chinaman died—also unintended, and partially your fault: if you two hadn’t interrupted me, I might have caught the bulls that night. But this time the rumors won’t blow over. Twice now people have died here. And I know you’ve seen the autopsy photos of Autumn and Benjy. Together that is easily enough to turn this place into a tourist destination.”

I stare at him. “That’s some kind of joke, right?”

“I don’t believe in humor. I’ve got sonar and dynamite. We can clear out the sharks tonight. No one will ever know they existed. After which you can do whatever the hell you want to me.”

“What do you think, Dr. Hurst?” I say to Violet.

“Keep going with the lying and killing?” she says. “No thanks. But if he calls Teng Wenshu ‘the Chinaman’ again, I might change my mind.”