Page 19

NINETEEN

CASEY

Thursday

“Thanks again, Chenda.”

Chenda Wall was in her late forties and had been Casey’s liaison since he started working for the state. He liked her, which, since he didn’t like many people, meant he looked forward to seeing her even under the current circumstances.

“No problem. Gourmets of the world thank you for your service. But, obviously, not the poachers.”

“Yeah, it gets worse every year,” Casey said heavily.

“Yeah, it does. Sorry for not making it out sooner.” Chenda heaved the last of the harvest into the back of her minivan. “Lunch rush ended up being out of control, but I’ll take care of these beauties ASAP and get the paperwork over to you. And hey, don’t be a stranger. Come to ours for a meal soon?”

When she wasn’t at work for the Department of Agriculture, Chenda and her brother helped their parents run the best noodle house on the peninsula. And she had two kids in college as well. Chenda was a busy person .

“I’ll make amok…” she teased. “I know how much you like it.”

Casey’s stomach rumbled its agreement. The Cambodian coconut fish curry was one of his favorite dishes.

“Fine, twist my arm. I’ll give you a call in a week or so.”

“You have my number. Bring a friend, there’s always enough.” With a last wave, Chenda rolled up her window and drove off toward Westfort, taking the thousands of dollars’ worth of wild fungi with her. At least they wouldn’t go to waste.

Beside him, Bowie harrumphed impatiently.

Casey looked down at his dog. “Yeah, I’m antsy too. Let’s go see what happened at the Point.”

Casey often thought he wouldn’t talk to anyone at all, especially at this time of year, and if it weren’t for Bowie, he might not speak all day. The exception was Elton Cox, who checked in with Casey as regularly as Casey checked in on him. Over the years, Casey had learned that if he didn’t stop by Elton’s place, Elton would eventually come find him at the marina or the office.

Oh, he’d claim to be out on errands, but Casey knew better.

His parents had moved off Heartstone when Casey went to college, unable to stand the gossipmongers any longer. Casey had understood they needed a change. But he knew Mickie was innocent and the only way to prove it was to return and keep looking. And once he had, Elton had unofficially become his family still on the island.

“He’s always taking strays under his wing, isn’t he? And now he’s worried about Gordon. Which means I should be too.”

Bowie leaned against his leg as if he understood.

On their way to the niche in the split wood fence that counted as a public parking spot, Casey spotted Mercy Dawson, one of the residents of the Paulson Point neighborhood, piling brush into the back of her truck. Her husband must have been working the grocery store right now.

Casey rolled down his window. “Need a hand?”

Mercy looked up and smiled at him. “Nah, you’re just in time—this is the last of it.”

“Perfect timing, then,” he responded with a laugh.

“Yep, you and my kid.” Mercy’s high-school-aged daughter was nowhere in sight. Casey thought he remembered she played on the high school soccer team.

“Did you hear about the fire last night?” Casey was sure she had, as tight-knit as the neighborhood was.

“Yeah, but not much of a fire. I kind of thought it was someone using one of the grills, maybe used too much lighter fluid.”

“The park is officially closed to camping for the season,” Casey pointed out, feeling a bit like a record with a skip. Again, an image of the infuriating Gabriel Karne popped into his head. Clear green eyes and a smile that skated between impish and sly. Charismatic but in that borderline used-car salesman way.

Not. His. Type.

He dropped the picture into the mental lock box it belonged in and visualized locking it. He did not need to be thinking about exactly where on his personal checklist Gabriel Karne deviated from his type. Because dammit, Casey didn’t have a type.

He reminded himself that Karne was less trustworthy than most people. Casey’d run a background check on the guy and while there were no glaring red flags like a convenient arrest, Karne had huge gaps in his employment record and many, many changes of address. Casey knew the signs. Either the man was not reliable or he’d moved around a lot to avoid being tapped for fraud of some kind. He’d bet his tiny 401k that Charming Fucker was a scammer.

“True,” Mercy said with a nod. “Shirley called it in anyway. I saw the sheriff’s car drive by, but whatever it was, it had been out for a while by the time they got here. Whoever showed up didn’t spend more than a few minutes. I don’t think they got out of the car.”

“I didn’t hear about it until this morning.” Casey rolled his eyes. “Bowie and I are heading in to check out the damage if there is any. Thanks, Mercy.”

“It’s nice to see you, Casey. Don’t be such a stranger.” Mercy heaved the lift gate up and secured it with a thunk. “Stop by for dinner one of these days.”

Casey figured the invitation was by habit and not because she really wanted him sitting at her dinner table, so he responded with something noncommittal and pulled around the corner to park by the wooden stanchions that barred vehicles from going any further. The park hadn’t been built for cars. In fact, people couldn’t camp there unless they had a human-powered vessel. Did that mean that someone had once hiked in from the land side with a kayak so they could camp? Of course it did.

“Come on, dog.”

Bowie jumped out and raced ahead of Casey but, as always, stayed within sight. The trail was narrow and, like Casey’s favorite hiking path, overgrown this time of year. Since most nonresident visitors to Paulson Point boated in, the footpath was never that well-traveled. Which made it sort of magical, in Casey’s opinion.

Wayward brambles snagged his jacket and cargo pants, and mud squished under the soles of his boots as he made his way down the slight incline and around the backside of the residential properties. Overhead, the trees creaked in the constant wind— the park was a point, after all. The wind only got stronger the further along the trail a person went.

After approximately ten minutes of walking—and, in Bowie’s case, sniffing—they reached the vault toilet, a small cement building with a green corrugated metal roof. Close by, but not too close, was the picnic table and grill Mercy had mentioned.

Casey inspected the table. It had been made from slabs of timber almost six inches thick. There was some scorching on the underside, but it didn’t seem fresh, although it was hard to be certain in the wet weather. Could’ve happened recently or months if not years ago. He didn’t think the damage was from last night’s blaze.

As far as the rusted-out grill was concerned, the storm had washed any evidence away, but Casey agreed with Mercy—the fire hadn’t done much damage. It could’ve been worse, especially if it had happened during the dry summer months.

Because he didn’t visit Paulson Point as often as he liked, Casey decided to take the trail all the way out to the Point where the marine campsites were located. Both to make sure there was no other damage and to check out the view, not that it changed much. Ironically, the footpath had swaths of unusual and rare mushrooms growing along both sides of it, likely because there was no handy way to harvest them. The neighborhood also kept a tight watch on strangers. Or called when they saw the Perkinses skulking around.

This last probably wasn’t true, but Casey like to imagine the possibility of the brothers getting their due. The thought did remind him, again, of the somewhat recently formed TC Watch. The citizen watch group was the inbred-brainchild of Fred Russell, who just happened to be a close friend of the other two founders, Eli Rizzi and the county commissioner, Albert Frost. Small towns meant the government was often uncomfortably incestuous, but Casey really distrusted those three men.

The path ended at a steep slope, where a set of wooden stairs led to a rocky beach. The five boat-in campsites were located just before the staircase. To Casey, they looked as undisturbed as they always did this time of year. With the winter wind and no fires allowed, campers were guaranteed cold nights.

The tide was on the low side, so he called Bowie over and they tramped down to the beach. Just as he stepped off the last stair, a bald eagle soared in from Casey’s left and landed in the branches of a Douglas fir.

“Hey there,” Casey said. Bowie chose to ignore the bird and trotted down to the water line to sniff at rocks.

The bird stared back at him, its gaze disdainful.

“Yeah, I know, dogs on leashes. And humans suck. What can I say?” Returning his attention to Bowie, who’d wandered further than Casey liked, he called, “Get back here.” As always—except where the orange cat was concerned—Bowie returned to his side right away. “It’s getting late, let’s head to the office.”

On the drive back to headquarters, Casey spotted what looked like a fresh-looking gap in the bramble hedge that hugged the water side of the road. He hadn’t noticed the damage coming the other direction. The high winds in the past hour might have caused the gap to open further, but he thought some of the branches looked bent or crushed.

He pulled off as far as he could, which meant his truck stuck halfway out into the road, and set the parking brake. Streetlamps were few and far apart on Heartstone, so it was easy to imagine a car going off the road in the dark.

“You stay here,” he told Bowie.

Bowie slumped down, his head resting on his paws.

“Don’t give me the sad eyes,” Casey said. “It’s not going to work.”

Bowie looked properly affronted at Casey’s questioning of his powers.

“You’re right, usually they do work. Not tonight though.”

Checking in his side mirror just in case a random car was passing by, Casey grabbed his heavy waterproof flashlight from the glove box and climbed out. The wind tugged at the door and plastered his coat against the front of his body. If he’d been wearing a hat, it would’ve been long gone. As it was, his pants were soaked and stuck to his skin.

Making his way around the front of his Wagoneer, Casey flicked on the flashlight and shone it down the steep embankment.

“Fuck.”

Almost at the bottom, partially hidden by brush, brambles, and loose leaves, was the back end of Gordon MacDonald’s blue Nissan pickup.

“Goddammit.”

By some miracle, Casey had two bars of cell service. Before he started the climb, he called the Sheriff’s Office. As little as he enjoyed working with the sheriff, he was not equipped to pull the truck back up the hill or extricate Gordon—if he was still alive.

“Ten minutes,” said the dispatcher briskly.

Casey tucked his phone and flashlight into his coat pocket and started to pick his way down the incline. Now that he knew the truck was there, the traces it had left in its wake were easier to see, but still not obvious for someone driving by. The pickup had careened over the edge almost where Casey was parked and bumped down the hill, then had eventually been stopped by a lone stump. From where he stood, Casey couldn’t see into the cab. There was no way to tell if Gordon was inside or if he’d managed to get out and wander off, only to fall over the ledge.

If it weren’t for the remains of the tree, the Nissan would have kept going, all the way over the cliff’s edge and into the chilly waters of the Salish Sea. The water was deep there, and the drop-off immediate.

Casey shuddered, and not just from the cold. Gordon was a bit of a goofball, but Casey liked him. They chatted when they were in line for coffee at the same time. Fingers crossed the man hadn’t died waiting for help to arrive. Casey’s boot slipped on rotten leaves and shot out from underneath him. He landed with a grunt on the muddy and rocky hillside and slid the few remaining feet to the back of the truck. Just his ass was sore, but he was glad he’d made Bowie stay in his vehicle.

The bed of the Nissan provided him an anchor. Holding tight to it, Casey made his way to the front. The door hung open and the windshield was shattered. Prepared for the worst, he shone the light around the inside.

The airbag had deployed but the cab was empty. Gordon’s body was not slumped over the steering wheel or lying crumpled across the bench seat. Casey sucked in a breath. A pang of grief speared him in the center of his chest at the thought of a disoriented Gordon wandering off.

“Shit.”

Swallowing, he straightened and glanced closely at the ground around the truck. The rain had been merciless the last couple of nights; there were no obvious footprints left behind that might indicate Gordon had gotten out. Casey looked inside the cab again, more carefully this time. There was, he realized, what looked like blood smeared on the door. Gordon had been hurt; that was not good. On the off chance that Gordon hadn’t stumbled and fallen into the sea, where could he be?

The distant siren of the county fire and ambulance reached his ears. Casey started to scramble back up the embankment so he could get out of the way. The rescuers had harnesses in their kits and would be able to check over the ledge. Of course, Gordon’s body could’ve been carried off by the current and be far away by now.

When he reached the top again, Casey debated making another phone call, this time to Elton, but in the end, he decided to wait until he had real news, not just speculation.

With a sigh, he climbed back inside the truck and waited for the emergency vehicles to arrive.