Desperation Reef

29

But something more than just Bette Wu is bugging Casey. It’s like a little present in his head, trying to give itself to him.

At his backyard picnic table, he tries to draw the black Sprinter he saw leaving the Barrel as it burned. As he sketches in the van, the unclear logo partially resolves itself in his memory and appears on the paper: a towering, white-capped mountain. Orange script at the bottom.

Nothing to do with seafood or fish.

Meaning what?

Not King Jim?

Not Imperial Fresh?

He’s pretty good with pen and paper, having spent half his K–12 classroom hours sketching waves and little stick boys and girls riding them.

He completes a decent image, based on his night-vision, fire-addled, scared-to-shit memory of that night.

Casey clickety-clacks in his flip-flops down Broadway to Forest, the Laguna Beach cop house a short half mile from his Dodge City cottage, and for the second time this week lucks into Detective Brian Pittman in his cubicle.

“Interesting,” says Pittman. He’s an older guy, tall and slender, with thinning white hair and the suntanned, sun-lined face of a fisherman. Casey’s pretty sure that Detective Pittman grew up here in Laguna. Grandpa Don said he was cool.

“You fish for the Barrel catch-of-the-day specials, don’t you?” Pittman asks.

Casey nods. Studies Detective Pittman’s steady gray eyes as they look down at the Sprinter sketch.

“How far away was it?” he asks.

“Hundred and fifty feet, maybe.”

“Three A.M. But the streetlights there are good.”

“I wouldn’t have looked if it hadn’t burned rubber.”

Pittman nods. “Good thing you did. The security video is pretty bad.”

He considers the sketch thoughtfully. Taps on his desktop keyboard and waits. Taps and waits more. Then turns the monitor toward Casey.

Where Casey sees a black Sprinter with a decal of a dramatic snow-capped mountain on the driver’s side, tiny skiers gliding down it, and the words, in vivid orange lettering at the bottom:

Casey’s questioning blue eyes meet Pittman’s questioning gray.

“What’d you get on Google?” asks Casey.

“Zip. No such place.”

“Out of business?”

“Five years ago.”

“What’s that mean to us?”

“It’s a nice little whiff to send dogs like us down the wrong trail.”

“Did you talk to that fire setter? Orchard, that Mom wrote about?”

“No,” says Pittman. “He’s in the wind, where he likes it.”