Read Online Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron - Free Book Online Page A

the tank running his fingertips through the wet sand with a dreamy expression on his face. He wore sandals and
     a white tennis shirt and his bald head was covered by a blue cotton hat that matched his blue shorts. He smiled when he saw
     me. “This reminds me of when I was a boy and we’d come down from the hills in the summer to rent a place on the beach. My
     dad would set up a small tank so we could catch fiddler crabs and snails and minnows. He had a shore guide to marine life
     and we’d spend the week trying to identify everything. It was always sad when we had to leave and put them back in the ocean.”
    “We must have had that same book,” I said. “My mother was always trying to get us interested in nature. Only instead of a
     tank, we used a plastic shower curtain.”
    “Shower curtain?”
    I nodded. “My brothers would scoop out a hole in the sand and we’d line it with an old shower curtain. That’s where we’d put
     the things we found. Like you did. Only we had to empty it out every evening so the tide wouldn’t take it away.”
    We were joined by a pudgy-faced child in shorts and tank top who looked exactly like Bernie except that he was only half as
     tall and he had a headful of hair that was cut in a modified mullet. He also had a clump of taffy in each hand and was busily
     stuffing his cheeks full.
    I was about to tell Bernie how much he and his son looked alike when he said, “Emily, this is Judge Knott.”
    The girl stared at me unblinkingly as Bernie finished the introduction, her mouth too full to speak.
    Bernie tried to interest her in the hermit crab that was moving its heavy whelk shell ponderously over the sandy floor of
     the tank, but she handed him a wad of wax paper wrappers to dispose of and said, “Can we go back upstairs now? I wanna watch
SpongeBob
.”
    “Honey, you watched that thing three times on the drive down. Look! These are live ocean animals. Starfish! Horseshoe crabs!”
    She scowled. “You promised! Momma said.”
    Bernie sighed. “Okay, okay. Go ring for the elevator.” He gave me a sheepish smile. “What can you do with ’em at this age?
     And I did promise my wife that I’d amuse Emily so that she could have the day to herself to shop and go out with some of the
     other wives.”
    “You’re a good husband,” I said, feeling charitable.
    He beamed and hurried after his bratty daughter while the pragmatist whispered in my ear, “
Good husband, stupid dad.
”
    Some of my brothers claim that I was spoiled, being the only girl and the youngest after a string of eleven boys, but no way
     would my parents have let me program their free hours like that.
    I lifted a scallop from the shallow tank and waited till it slowly, cautiously opened a narrow crack to reveal a ring of shiny
     blue metallic eyes.
    My earliest memory of the beach was of sitting in the gentle waves at Harkers Island. I was probably three or four at the
     time, so the older boys were either married or working summer jobs. The younger ones were there, though—Zach and his twin
     Adam, and Will, the oldest of my mother’s four children. If Jack was there that week, I can’t remember, but Seth, who’s five
     up from me, was my protector when the others wanted to dunk me or hog the inner tubes we used as floats. Ben was there, too,
     but he was always pestering Daddy for the car keys so he and Seth could go juking at Atlantic Beach.
    If Mother had hoped to turn any of us into marine biologists with her shower curtain aquarium and the
Golden Guide to Seashores
, it didn’t work. I doubt if any of my brothers could tell a lettered olive from a tulip shell anymore, but when it was time
     for the hermit crab races, Will had an unerring knack for finding the fastest.
    Check out all the whorled shells in a tidal pool till you find one inhabited by a hermit crab. Draw a big circle in the sand,
     put your crab in the center, ante in a dime. If your crab makes it out of the circle first, you take