Based on the woman’s looks, I’d expected grandmotherly speech and deportment. Not even close.
“Fucking bad luck.” Gearhart’s laugh came from deep within her substantial girth. “Or good. Who knows? I applied for med school, got bonged. A prof I was sleeping with recommended the marine bio grad program. Seemed a better option than marrying and popping out kids.”
“Why sharks?” Ryan didn’t miss a beat.
“Some yank-off beat me out for the dolphin fellowship.”
I was about to ask a question when Perry appeared. Today the hair spikes were emerald, the lids chartreuse.
More greetings, intros. I watched Ryan’s face. Discreetly. Perry’s. Neither gave a hint of past history.
Perry said she’d had the remains pulled from the cooler.
We trooped single file to the same autopsy room I’d visited on Tuesday.
A black plastic bag lay on a stainless steel cart. A small one.
Perry, Gearhart, and I gloved. Ryan watched.
Perry opened the bag, slid a glob of bone and tissue onto the cart.
The smell of salt and decaying flesh filled the room.
I lifted and inspected the soggy mass.
One glance told me I was holding a portion of human calf. I could see a fragment of fibula, the slender outer bone of the lower leg. The tibia, or shinbone, was in better shape. Its ankle end was recognizable within a mass of tangled tendons and rotting muscle.
Both bones were covered with shallow cuts, deep gouges, and long grooves. Both terminated in jagged spikes.
I looked up. To six expectant eyes.
“It’s part of a human lower leg. Decomp is consistent with the remains we examined on Tuesday.”
“So’s the shark damage, right?” Perry.
Stepping to the cart, Gearhart nudged me not so gently aside. I moved back.
“Oh, yeah. This was shark.”
“Can you tell what kind?” Perry asked.
“Got a magnifier?”
Perry produced a hand lens.
We all clustered around Gearhart. Her short stature worked in our favor.
“Look here, inside this groove.” Gearhart positioned the glass. “See how fine and regularly spaced the striations are? That means the teeth were ridged, like a serrated knife. I’d say we’re talking
The collective lack of response was question enough.
“Tiger or white,” Gearhart said.
I couldn’t help it. A few beats of the
“White sharks are pretty rare in Hawaiian waters, so I’d put my money on tiger. Based on distance between the striations, I’d say this baby’s probably twelve to fourteen feet long.”
“Jesus.” Ryan.
“Hell, that’s nothing. I once met a twenty-two footer, up close and personal. That mother had to weigh nine hundred kilos.”
Quick math. Nineteen hundred pounds. I hoped Gearhart was exaggerating.
“Do tiger sharks really deserve the nasty Hollywood image?” Ryan asked.
“Ooooh, yeah. Tigers are second only to whites in the number of recorded attacks on humans. And they’re not what you’d call discriminating diners. These buggers’ll eat anything, people, birds, sea turtles, plumbing parts. Generally tigers are sluggish, but tweak the old taste buds, they can really move. You see one, it’s best to haul ass.”
“Where might I see one?” I asked.
“They’re mostly active at night.”
Yep. The opening scene from
“—reason tigers encounter humans so often is that they like to enter shallow reefs, lagoons, harbors, places like that. To feed. Mostly after dusk.”
Perry interrupted the nature lesson.
“Can you tell if the vic was alive when the shark bellied up?”
Gearhart played her lens over the remains.
“The random nature of the tooth marks suggests the leg was fleshed at the time of feeding. The tiger’s pattern is to bite down then shake, allowing the serrated teeth to rip through the flesh. The jaw muscles are astounding. Strong enough to slice right through bone, or the shell of a tortoise.”
