Page 42 of The Last Grift
“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 oftenuncomfortably 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 driveback 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.
Bowieslumped 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.
