Jaws

Patrolman Leonard “Len” Hendricks reads while manning the desk of the Amity Police Department. He receives a telephone call from Jack Foote to report Chrissie as a “missing person” (14). After noting down Chrissie's description, Hendricks promises to contact Jack if the police find any sign of Chrissie. Hendricks decides to wake his boss, Chief Brody. Because he is new to the police force, Hendricks works the “usually quiet” midnight to eight o’clock shift (15).

Brody is woken by Hendricks's call. After planning to drive into work, he studies his sleeping wife, Ellen. She is the mother of their three children and has retained her “handsome and young” appearance far better than Brody (16). Unlike Brody, Ellen was not born in the small tourist beach town of Amity. She visited when she was 21, met Brody, and she moved to the town to be with him. Brody knows that the presence of the tourists from New York reminds Ellen of “chances missed and lives that could have been” if she was not stuck in a small town (17). Though she has tried to reunite with her old friends from New York, Brody knows that his wife feels a sense of detached from Amity in the presence of the so-called “summer people”.

Brody drives to the police station, passing the beach to check for any signs of the missing person. With Hendricks, he drives out to talk to Foote and Cassidy. Brody inspects the beach; after half a mile, Hendricks finds a “mass of tattered flesh” that he recognizes as the dead remains of a woman (21). He alerts Brody. Cassidy identifies the dead woman as Chrissie. 

Brody returns to the office to file the paperwork. Carl Santos, the coroner, calls him to say that the likely cause of death is “a shark” (22). However, Santos is hesitant to complete the paperwork. News of a shark attack in Amity could destroy the summer tourism trade which sustains the town through the lean and difficult winters. Brody, like everyone else, is “expected to do his bit to make sure that Amity remained a desirable summer community” (23). In the past, Brody has helped keep rumors and news of crime quiet so as not to spook the tourists. Brody and Harry Meadows, the editor of the local newspaper, have a tacit agreement to maintain this “delicate balance” (24). Despite this arrangement, Brody plans to close the beaches for several days to “deprive the fish of any more people” in the hope that it will swim elsewhere (25).

Brody meets Meadows, who agrees that the cause of death is likely a shark attack but notes the strangeness of a shark being present “when the water’s still this cold” (27). Meadows has been researching sharks and he believes that Chrissie was attacked by a great white shark, also known as the “man-eater” (27). However, Meadows’s research leads him to believe that the shark has likely left the area, so there is “no reason to get the public all upset” (28). Brody wants to inform the public of the danger, but Meadows says that he has been pressured by local business owners and the owners of his newspaper not to publish the story. Meadows also reminds Brody that he is an elected official who can “be impeached” if he annoys the Amity electorate (29).

Brody returns to his office where Larry Vaughan, the mayor of Amity, is waiting to talk to him. Vaughan is “obviously upset” (30) by Brody's plan to close the beaches (30). Though he claims to be “embarrassed” (31), Vaughan threatens to fire Brody if he closes the beaches. Brody reluctantly agrees to keep the beaches open. That night, he complains to Ellen that “the powers-that-be” are forcing him to do nothing in response to the shark attack (32).

Tourists begin to arrive in Amity for the summer season and the beaches are “speckled with people” (34). A boy pleads with his mother to go play in the sea. As he rides his “raft” out into the deeper water, the shark patrols the shoreline. The boy begins to “paddle toward shore” and the energetic splashing attracts the shark (36). In “a sudden rush” (37), the shark bites the boy in half and the commotion attracts the attention of the beachgoers.

Brody’s lunch is interrupted by the news of the shark attack. He immediately feels guilty for not closing the beaches and now “a child [has] been killed because of it” (38). Brody meets Meadows at the police station and learns that the national media are now interested in the story. Meadows can’t avoid publishing the story any longer, but he insists that there was “no conspiracy” (39). Brody meets with the dead boy’s grieving mother and a witness but his attempts to console them are “clumsy” (40). Outside the station, Brody talks with the reporters from the national media. His attempts to downplay the danger fail when Hendricks arrives with the news of “another attack” (41). An old man was attacked by a shark while just beyond the surf. Hendricks, who had been on the beach, tried to help, but he was left holding the old man’s severed arm. Brody tells him to “find some notices that close the beaches” (42).

By Monday morning, the story of the two deaths is in the national newspapers. The story notes that the likely species of shark is a great white, “known throughout the world for its voraciousness and aggressiveness” (43). Though Meadows has tried not to “[pin] everything” on their earlier decisions in his own report (44), Brody is angry that he has been framed as negligent. Meadows suggests that they try to hunt and kill the shark. Their discussion is interrupted by the mother of the dead boy, who accuses Brody of causing her son’s death and says he “won't get away with it” (46). Though she is quickly taken away, Brody is concerned that she may be right and that he “could have prevented” the deaths (47). Vaughan calls, and Brody asks about his mysterious business partners, but Vaughan is insulted and ignores his questions. However, he offers to pay whatever it takes to “get rid of that thing” and save the tourism season in Amity ahead of the Fourth of July weekend (48).

On a boat some distance away, an experienced fishing boat captain named Quint discusses the shark attacks in Amity. He believes that he and the shark will inevitably “find one another, all right” (49).