“Can you be more specific?”
“I don’t know. I think it was a white. But…”
"Can you estimate the size?”
“Big.” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know. It all happened so fast." He paused. "Maybe 20, 25 feet?"
The largest great white on record was around 20 feet. This shark was probably much smaller than Lance remembered. But under that kind of stress, it would be easy to imagine the shark as larger-than-life—especially up close and personal, watching your girlfriend get shredded.
I took Lance's contact information and gave him a card. Then I talked to Brenda. "What do you think?"
She shrugged. "It's a little out of my area, but by the bite radius, I’d put it in the upper great white territory. Can't be anything else. I'll know more when I get her back to the lab. I'll bring in Jay from the Oceanographic Institute to consult on this.”
We trudged through the sand, marching back to the parking lot.
Paris Delaney closed in with her cameraman. A fluffy boom mic hovered overhead. "Deputy Wild, what can you tell us about the attack?”
I shrugged. “I'm sorry, but we don't know much at this time.”
"Are you going to close down the beach?”
"Temporarily.”
"For how long?”
"That's up to the sheriff.”
"Was this indeed a great white?”
“I can’t comment at this time.” With that, I pushed out of frame.
JD and I walked back to the parking lot, hopped into his 1979 Porsche 911 SC, and drove back to the station to fill out reports.
Afterward, we set out to find Whisper’s parents and give them the bad news. I was sure Lance had already told them.
2
“Idon’t understand,” Mrs. Williams said, sobbing into a tissue. “Whisper has been swimming in these waters since she was a child, and nothing ever happened.”
A grim frown tugged my face. There was nothing I could say that would make the situation any better.
JD and I sat on the sofa in the living room, talking to Whisper’s parents. They lived in a nice cottage home on Willow Trace. It had pastel yellow siding, a white picket fence, and a small pool.
The media had swarmed outside.
“What’s going to be done about the shark?” Mrs. Williams asked.
“We will try to locate, identify, and track it.”
“Track it!?” Whisper’s father snapped. “I want the son of a bitch dead!”
“Great whites are federally protected.”
“Federally protected? What about my daughter? She was 17 for Christ's sake. Is she federally protected?”
“I understand your feelings. This is a difficult?—“
“You don’t understand shit.”
