“Yes, you are a good boy, and your fur is as soft as down.” He must have thought I was telling him to lie down because that’s what he did. Then he inched forward close enough to put his head on the toe of my sneaker.
“Isn’t that sweet? I don’t think he should spend the night alone after the trauma he’s been through.”
“He sure cleans up well. What a well-mannered, sharply dressed guy he is. It’s almost like he’s wearing a tux.” The smart dog knew Brien was talking about him. He happily thumped his tail.
“He does look great. After I gave him a thorough exam to make sure he wasn’t injured or sensitive to the touch anywhere, one of our veterinary assistants fed him, cleaned him up, and brushed him. He loved that, by the way. It calmed him right down, and he fell asleep.”
“Kim’s right that it’s a shame to leave a fine dog like him alone all night.”
“I’ve already got a menagerie, so I can’t take him home.”
“We can,” Brien and I said almost in the same breath. Bonnie paused for about half a minute and then nodded.
“I’ll keep him until the end of the day. If he’s okay and his owners haven’t been located by then, you can take him home as his foster parents. Remember what I said, though, about making sure he gets plenty of rest.”
“Will do! Does he have a name?” I asked.
“No, the chip only gives me a registry number. When I contacted the registry, I got his owners’ names, address, and phone numbers. I’ll write them down for you,” she said as she copied the information onto a memo pad and then tore off the page. Brien looked at it and slid it into his shirt pocket. “I called your security team and left a message for Al. You can check to make sure he got it. If not, you’ll give him that copy, okay?”
“You can count on it.”
“No junk food, either. When you come to pick him up, I’ll have his kibble, a leash, and a couple of other things for him.” When we left, Brien and I were exuberant. Why the owners hadn’t claimed such a wonderful dog was nagging at me.
“May I see the information about the owners?” I asked Brien as soon as we’d stepped out of the vet’s office. “La Jolla’s an expensive place to live. Dr. Elliot Mason must be well off.”
“I wonder what kind of a doctor he is,” Brien said as we climbed into the golf cart and headed back to the resort.
“I intend to find that out during my next break. Doctors attend lots of public events, so I’m confident I can even get a picture of him.” My stomach growled. “We need to eat. Do you want to stop along the way or eat at the employee café?”
“I sure could use a burger or two, but it’s probably quicker to go back to the resort and eat at the café. The lunch rush ought to be over by now.” Brien sped up as he said that. “Dr. Mason could be staying at the resort or might have used the facilities like the spa or tennis courts.”
“I’m sure Big Al has already checked out all that. I’ll work on it, too, though. Lots of doctors play golf, so I’ll see if he’s been out on the course.” I was making notes to myself, now, as my snooping to-do list grew longer.
“And he’s got to eat, so don’t forget to see if he’s had dinner reservations anywhere. I’m sure you’re right that the doc’s got money, so I’d start with The Abbey,” Brien added.
“Or El Pescado Fresca since their seafood is pricy, too,” I reminded Brien as if anything at the resort doesn’t cost a lot. It was almost twenty bucks for a sandwich and a coke at the snack bar by the pool. My stomach grumbled again. I generally drift toward vegetarian dishes, but I do enjoy the fresh seafood that’s available here on the coast. “I love El Pescado Fresca’s Mariscos en Salsa, with all the capers and those little green olives, and shrimp…”
“I can’t drive any faster, Gidget. Can we put the food talk on hold?” He paused for a few seconds. “Since you brought up fish, that reminds me that we should visit the marina. Dr. Mason could be here for the awesome fishing and a member of the sportfishing crew might remember him. Big Al dropped by the marina this morning as soon as Bonnie left with the dog. No one he spoke to had noticed any trouble or anything out of the ordinary, but I’m not sure he talked to the guys who run sportfishing charters.”
“That’s a great suggestion for tomorrow morning since we’ll be busy picking up our dog this evening. No matter what, we should go back and talk to people now that we’ve got Dr. Mason’s name. If Dr. Mason is in town for the regatta, he could have a boat at the marina and might even be planning to enter the race.”
“When I left for lunch, I saw Big Al with one of the honchos who has been organizing the race. Maybe that’s what they were talking about because they were having a serious conversation. I’ll ask Al if Mason’s entered in the regatta as soon as I get back to work.”
“Not just any boat will qualify to participate in the regatta. I’ll review the entry requirements so we’ll have information about the type of boat that can enter the race. That might help us understand why Dr. Mason’s in the area even if you can’t have a conversation with Big Al before we need to leave to get our dog.”
“Foster dog.”
“I do keep saying ‘our dog,’ don’t I?”
“Yes, you do,” Brien replied.
“Can you believe it? We’re sort of going to be parents—foster parents, I know.” I corrected myself before Brien could do it again.
“It’s a big responsibility, but we’re ready for it, don’t you think?”
“It’ll be a good test, Moondoggie. It’s still possible his owners will claim him, so I don’t want to be too disappointed if we can’t bring him home with us.” Brien nodded. I was trying to be reasonable, but my heart wasn’t in it. In fact, it was doing a little pitter-patter as I talked about taking ‘our dog’ home.
As Brien reached the resort property, he stopped to use his employee keycard to enter. The arm swung up and let us pass. It was easy to leave by this route, but security had added new measures to make it harder to enter the property from town. Given that the beach is open to the public and the resort abuts a preserve the monks had created, it’s still possible to come and go without being a registered guest or employee. Once we were through the gate, we slowed down as the foot traffic had increased.
When we reached the café, Brien and I raced to the door. The minute we were inside, all eyes were on Brien. He’s a striking figure with his blond hair, muscular build, and bright smile, but there was more to it than that today. Most everyone in the café knew his name, and the word was out that he’d rescued the dog, even if the press didn’t know it yet.
“Way to go, Brien. We heard you saved the day again.” I wasn’t sure who had said that, but the two or three people in the café all gave him the thumbs-up sign.
“Thanks, guys. That dog was trying so hard, I didn’t want to let him down.”
“Lucky dog!” Cathy Statler said as we reached the counter. I’d gotten to know her well since Brien and I had moved to Corsario Cove. Cathy is an aspiring surfer like me. She’s joined us a couple of times when Brien was coaching me. “Do you have any idea how he got stranded in the water like that?”
“No, but I hope someone will figure it out. Bonnie Wilcox, the vet who is holding him at her clinic, has tried to contact his owners. Have you heard anything?” I asked. Cathy looked around the room before she answered me.
“I’ll take your orders, and then I’ll share a little Sanctuary Grove gossip with you when I bring your food to the table.”
“Thanks, Cathy. I’m starving.”
“I’ll bet you are. Let me guess—you want two double California cheeseburgers with French fries and a liter bottle of water. Extra jalapeno peppers and guacamole on the side, right?”
“That’s perfect!”
“Veggie burger and fries or a salad today, Kim?”
“Veggie burger and fries, please. I’ll have spicy jack cheese on the burger, too.” Cathy rang us up and then handed us our water—a huge bottle for Brien and a smaller one for m
e.
“Hang on,” she said. “Nachos, on the house, while you wait.” Brien didn’t even sit down before he started eating. Once we were seated, I dug in before Brien scarfed them all down. With the edge off my hunger, I wondered what gossip Cathy had heard. I watched her every move, willing her to hurry even though Brien’s burgers were holding things up.
“I’m taking a break!” Cathy hollered in a loud voice as she put her soft drink on a tray with our food and brought it to our table. At this point, there wasn’t anyone in the café other than the three of us. She seemed more relaxed as she leaned in to give us the scoop.
“I heard this while I was in the line-up yesterday, so it’s from the Sanctuary Grove surfers, not the resort staff.” I nodded as I dug into my food. “At least a couple of the guys were talking about tourists being whacked before the regatta even started. When I asked what they meant, they said they’d seen two guys on the beach the night before ‘having a beef.’ One of them took a swing at the other one.”
“Uh, oh,” I said. “Did they call security?”
“Heck, no! They sounded as if they were disappointed when it ended without turning into a full-blown fistfight. Here’s what made me feel like I should tell you about it. The argument ended when a big dog with the guy who was about to get popped in the face jumped and knocked down the other guy. Even though he was already on the ground, the dog’s owner pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.”
“No way!” Brien exclaimed.
“I find it hard to believe, but that’s what they claim.”
“No one reported it?” I asked. Cathy shook her head no. “He must not have fired the gun, or someone would have alerted the police even if the surfers didn’t do it.” She sipped her drink, then continued. “I’d like to believe that even the hang loose surfers in Sanctuary Grove would have reported someone shooting a gun.”
“He was going to shoot him?” I asked.
“That’s what they thought, but he didn’t have time to shoot if you can believe an even weirder part of their story. I chalked the whole thing up to one of their ‘epic’ tales until I heard about the dog that was rescued this morning. One of the surfers said he’d seen the dog before on the marina. I wondered if those two men might have gone at it again this morning on a boat, and the poor dog was shoved overboard, you know?”
“That’s as plausible as any other scenario we’ve come up with at this point,” I replied. “What was the even weirder part of their story?” I asked.
“You know how they exaggerate, so it’s probably not worth repeating. They said this little guy lying on the ground sprang up to his feet from flat on his back. Then he did a karate kick, knocked that gun out of the bigger man’s hand, took off for the boardwalk, and disappeared.”
“That’s weird all right. Did they hear what the fight was about?”
“They weren’t sure, but they thought it had something to do with a disagreement about access to a boat launch or something like that. There’s not much room anywhere right now. The guy who took that swing hollered at the other guy about a dock.” The last bite of my veggie burger went down the wrong way when I heard the word “dock.” I choked, and Brien was on his feet, ready to administer the Heimlich maneuver.
“I’m okay,” I squeaked, adding a wave to go with my words. Then I guzzled water until I could manage to speak a full sentence. “Could he have been calling the guy he was arguing with ‘Doc’?”
“I have no idea, but I’ve seen those surfers before so you could ask them. One of them has part of a front tooth missing.”
“Snaggy!” Brien said in instant recognition of the man Cathy meant.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Cathy added. “The other man was enormous. I think they call him Moose. He sure is built like one.”
“Thank you so much, Cathy. You’ve been very helpful. We’ll take a trip down into Sanctuary Grove tomorrow to see if Snaggy and Moose are hanging around.”
“We’ll also visit the marina and see if anyone else has seen a guy with a dog arguing with a little dude. Thanks for the nachos, too. Tell Diego they’re awesome, as usual!”
“He’ll be happy to hear it, coming from a nachos fan, like you.” With that, Cathy left. I was still in a daze when Brien sprang into action.
“We’re going to be late if we don’t make haste.” I smiled as I stood. “That’s correct, isn’t it?”
“It is, indeed, Kind Sir,” I quipped. “It’s a little formal, but also courtly—like a knight.”
“Maybe I’d better call you my lady instead of babe.” As he said that, he crushed me to him and kissed me in a most uncourtly fashion. Then he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the café, holding the door for me. As he whisked us away in our golf cart, Brien grew quiet for a moment.
“If that guy was trying to punch Dr. Mason, and the doc was carrying a gun, this is serious, isn’t it?” Brien asked.
“I’d say so, but we already figured that might be the case,” I replied. Then, we both lapsed into silence. We only had to drive a short distance before we reached the side entrance of the main building at the resort where the administrative offices are located.
“I don’t want to call Bernie Mitchum, but it sure would help to have a consult with the police. I know Big Al checked with the Coast Guard about recent mishaps at sea. I’d like to know if any unidentified bodies have turned up at the morgue. Or if anyone has recently filed a missing person’s report, witnessed a fight, or reported an assault. If Snaggy and Moose aren’t making it up, someone else might have reported the conflict on the beach to the police rather than calling security.”
“You and that dispatcher, Deb Merritt, hit it off. Won’t she answer your questions—off the record?”
“She might do it. How are you going to check the license plate number on the car Teddy, the phony reporter, was driving?”
“I hope Big Al can get it done. If not, I could call Peter March and ask for his help. Under the circumstances, he can probably come up with an angle.”
“Al might not get chewed out if he calls Mitchum and asks about the license plate numbers. Never mind, he’ll have to tell the detective he got them from you, won’t he? Why don’t you give them to me? Deb might be able to help us before you have to call Peter.”
“Okay, write them down. Please, be careful and don’t do anything rash without checking with me first.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to be a mom soon. Even if it’s a doggy mom and only for a short time, I’ve got new responsibilities.” I leaned over and gave Brien a peck on the cheek.
When I slid out of the passenger seat of the golf cart, I stood facing Brien. His head was cocked to one side, like a cute puppy. When he turned his head the other way and folded his arms across his chest, I finally got the point.
“I won’t get my hopes up. I’m ninety-nine percent certain Dr. Mason isn’t going to show up to get his dog today. If he’s still alive, he must have bigger problems than a missing canine companion.”
“Yeah, I get what you’re saying and it’s not good that they’re the kind of problems he’s counting on a gun to solve. Wait for me inside, not out here.” I nodded in agreement with Brien’s request and then blew him a kiss as he left.
4 Do Not Disturb
Despite all the extra work I had to do, it seemed like days, not hours, until five o’clock. That could have had something to do with the fact that I hadn’t been able to reach Deb at the local police department. I’d also had a busy afternoon and didn’t have as much time as I’d hoped to play detective. Still, I’d learned a few things and hoped Brien had news to share, too.
“Let’s go rescue that dog again,” I said as soon as Brien stopped along the walkway next to my building.
“Don’t I get a kiss first?” he asked.
“Of course, you do—you’re still the top dog in my life!”
“Bow wow!” Brien said as he turned around and headed back to the golf cart path that led out of the resort toward town
. “I’ve been thinking about choosing a name for the dog. It won’t be too confusing for him, will it?”
“He’s so smart, it might be an insult to keep hollering ‘hey, dog’ at him.”
“So, what should we call him?” I asked, running through the dog names that came to me. “I’ve already been trying to figure out what his real name could be.”
“We could just try a few, and maybe we’ll hit on it. If it’s like a regular dog name,” Brien suggested.
“I checked, and a purebred Portuguese Water Dog comes with quite a price tag. With a championship pedigree, the cost goes way up. He probably has a name like Prince Archibald du something.”
“We could try Prince if you want. The Archibald name reminds of something Bede said on the beach about archer.”
“As in shooting arrows at a target?” I asked.
“It sounded like that. At first, Bede said be-lo a-cha-do.” Brien pronounced each syllable with deliberation. “When I asked him what he said, he repeated it and told me it was Portuguese for a lucky find. Then he started giving me a lesson on conjugating the verb archer. I told him thanks, but I’m still working on conjugating English verbs.”
“Once a professor, always a professor. You’re not going to get him to miss a teaching moment. I suppose we can add Portuguese to Italian, French, Latin, and Greek. Who knows how many languages he can read or speak? Let me look up the translation for archer.” I typed the word into the search engine on my phone. “Good memory! ‘Belo achado’ does mean lucky find or quite a find. The verb is ‘ar-char.’”
“Isn’t that what I said?” Brien asked.
“Close, but if we call him archar, I bet I won’t be the only person who hears archer instead. I don’t want to have to correct or explain it to people, do you?”
“He won’t be with us long, remember? How many people will we have to explain it to?”
“Mick and Willow are coming over tonight,” I reminded Brien.
“Oh, yeah. We’ll have to explain it quickly or listen to jokes about hitting the target or making a bullseye as he acts out taking an arrow to the chest.” Brien was silent for a moment. “Okay, how about Archie, like the character in one of the comic books in Mick’s collection?”
Radical Regatta! Page 3