This content is available to subscribers and issue purchasers.
When Mike Brewster graduated from the Kent Regional Training Academy, his dream wasn’t to become the rookie member of the Nut Theft Response Unit. “This must be a joke. Who would steal almonds?” he said, reading through the file on his first case. “They clocked them doing a hundred-and-two on I-Five south of Bakersfield, in Castaic, like a bat outta hell,” the intern, Morgan, who spent all his free time schmoozing the sheriff in charge of the unit, said. “They’re probably in Tijuana by now. We’re never gonna find ’em,” he added, even though no one had asked his opinion.