Cowabunga Christmas

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Not bright at all. Willow kept putting the pressure on him to wise up, stop what he was doing, and get rid of the merchandise piling up in her shack. Owen blew a gasket one night and claimed he wasn’t as dumb as she thought he was. He had worked it out, had made connections—as in internet connections. Willow has no idea who Owen was talking about, but whoever it was had set up an online auction site to sell the counterfeit goods.”

  “Wow, okay. That would be a way to move merchandise. Not too fast, and he’d have to have a partner with computer skills, like you, Kim.”

  “I agree. That didn’t stop Willow. She kept arguing that the crew he was going up against wouldn’t let him get away with it. Finally, she gave Owen an ultimatum—stop the thievery or end their relationship. That’s when he got all testy, pointing out others’ misdeeds. The Sheriff Taylor bit Mick mentioned had to do with Opie suddenly ragging on his neighbors about dope-smoking at Sanctuary Grove. That’s what they call it, by the way, Sanctuary Grove.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mick called it that too. He says it was named that before the resort was built because the monks let them hang out there. Even after the resort developers complained about it, the monks made them agree to leave the inhabitants of Sanctuary Grove alone. Willow was precedent wasn’t she, Kim? She knew the runners would catch on to what Owen was doing.” I went blank for a second trying to translate that question about Willow being precedent.

  “Do you mean prescient, Brien? Are you saying Willow was prescient, as in prophetic or clairvoyant?”

  “Exactly! Like she had the power to see into the future.”

  “Well, I don’t believe it required special powers to see that Owen was cruisin’ for a bruisin,’ Moondoggie. Your hunch about Owen’s scheming getting complicated is a good one. Mix that with his not being too bright and you’ve got a deadly combo. I do love it when you let one of those five-dollar words roll off your tongue.” I smooched him. What I loved was the effort he made to venture to the farthest reaches of his vocabulary. No one tried harder than Brien to express himself. I hope that’s not too patronizing. I don’t mean it that way at all. I tried to get us back on track.

  “More complications means, more crooks, and more people who could have had it in for Opie. If his bosses at Corsario’s Hideaway confiscated his stash of knock-offs, and he protested, that could have resulted in a confrontation. Or he could have had a falling out with his partner running the internet site. We can’t overlook the fact that Owen also ticked off his pals in Sanctuary Grove, so they could have helped take him down. He really crossed the line when he destroyed a private plot of marijuana plants the smokers were cultivating.”

  “Whoa, Kim, you’re right. That could have gotten a Sanctuary Grove member angry enough to squeal on Owen, or maybe even take more extreme measures on their own.”

  “Since he was killed at the resort, I’m leaning toward the idea that someone ratted on Owen to the counterfeit ring. My money’s on Mick as the snitch.” That brought Brien to an abrupt halt.

  “Mitch? What makes you say that?”

  “It’s obvious there was no love lost between Mick and Owen. Plus, I caught Mick staring at Willow more than once. It could be he felt he had a better chance with her if Owen went away. Mick fancies himself the boss, and Willow says even after Mick told Owen to get out and stay out, Owen kept showing up. Mick’s a smart guy, so if Owen caught on to the guys running goods through the cove, I doubt Mick missed it. Willow said as much—that they all knew something was going on in the cove before Owen clued her in on it. I bet Mick figured out Owen was doing more than spearfishing in the cove. Until Owen had his melt down it was live and let live, you know? Willow told me Mick vowed to fix things. I have a sneaking suspicion he did.”

  “Wow, if Mick squealed on Owen, he got him killed. That’s not live and let live. What if Mick was in on killing Owen, too?”

  “I can’t see Mick as a murderer. What I can imagine is that when Owen trashed their weed garden that was the last straw. Mick had a Sheriff Taylor moment of his own. He could have gone to the police about Owen’s involvement with the pirates of Corsario Cove, but went to the runners instead. He seemed genuinely surprised to learn the dead Santa turned out to be Owen, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, and he was really shook up about it. At one point he stopped talking about surfing and said, ‘I can’t believe they killed Opie.’ It’s like he was feeling this deep pain about Owen’s death. Guilt, too, if he committed the heinous deed you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t believe he meant to get Owen killed—he just wanted him out of Sanctuary Grove. If he did put the bad guys on to Opie, that means Mick knows who they are. That might not be such a good thing for Mick. As much as I hate to do it, Brien, we need to call Detective Mitchum and tell him what we’ve discovered. The list of potential suspects is getting longer—runners in the cove and others in the counterfeit ring, Owen’s auction site partner or anyone else who knew where Opie stored his merchandise, and angry villagers in Sanctuary Grove. That’s quite a long list for such a young guy. We don’t have one bit of hard evidence. It’s all based on hearsay and speculation, unfortunately.”

  The thought of calling Mitchum killed my Christmas spirit. Not that I had a whole lot left after all the talk about our crafty, but not too bright, and very dead Santa. At least we hadn’t been accosted by Bad Santa on the way back to the hotel. I didn’t feel any better after leaving a message for Detective Mitchum, but took solace from the fact that I didn’t have to speak to the grouch.

  Bah humbug! Not even the glorious holiday lights at the hotel, Christmas music from carolers strolling about in vintage costumes, or the happy chirping of manic kids splashing in the pools, playing tag, or dueling with fake pirate swords could break through the Christmas Eve funk that had settled on me. An old familiar feeling, I thought. The cynical, despairing Grinch-that-stole-Christmas side of me took over as it had year after year—before my liberation from Mr. P in LA-LA land, and before Brien loved me.

  What had Owen been thinking? Who was I kidding? He was young and dumb, and thinking that way. I knew it well, having done it myself for too many years. Brien sensed my mood. Once we were on the elevator headed up to our room, he grabbed me, pulled me to him, and kissed me. That kiss set off a surge of joy that sent the Grinch packing. Mr. Grinch took Scrooge with him, too, as the milk of human kindness swamped me. Heck with those dinner reservations, I intended to share a little Christmas spirit with Brien.

  And so I did. I raced Brien to the bedroom that had been cleaned while we were gone. Fresh pine boughs exuded a Christmassy fragrance. My eyes flitted from a startling arrangement of fresh flowers to a basket of fruit and candy—more Champagne, too. We didn’t even notice the note on the floor until later. Showered, dressed, and with about two minutes to get to dinner on time, we found it.

  9 Leave It Alone

  On the way to dinner we called and left a second message for Detective Mitchum asking that he please call us as soon as possible. We could have called hotel security about that note except that Brien and I were both too spooked by the possibility that a member of security was in on the counterfeit ring. If Owen knew what he was talking about and this began as a way to skim money from the resort, a staff member pretty high up in management had to be involved. More worrisome was the fact that security patrols monitored the grounds of the resort at night. Surely, runners loading a truck at the dock would have been nabbed unless the guard on duty was in on it, too.

  I felt like I had dodged a bullet when I made the first call to the detective and got his voice mail instead of speaking to him. Now, after finding that note, I wanted to talk to him. Sooner rather than later!

  “Why do you suppose he doesn’t call us back, Brien?”

  “It’s Christmas Eve, Kim. Even cops get time off to spend with family. We have to be patient. He might not even check his messages until tomorrow, or the day after. It could be another day before Mitchum picks up the messages we left. D
on’t worry, we can always call 911 and get the cops out here pronto if anyone hassles us. I’m sure management has them on alert if there’s any sign of trouble here at the resort.” Brien reached out and took my hand. “Besides, if anyone tries to get to you, they’ll have to get past me first!”

  “I know that, Brien.” I squeezed his hand. He was so handsome in his silk Aloha shirt and black slacks—another of the outfits Jessica had helped him pick out. It was obvious Brien had a say in this one. The Aloha shirt had Santas on it—surfing Santas. I couldn’t help but smile, despite my uneasy feelings about that note.

  “Leave it alone if you want us to leave you alone.”

  Short and to the point, the message was clear. Scrawled on a plain piece of paper, the note had been placed in an envelope with the hotel logo on it and slid under the door. Brien had opened the envelope and pulled the note from it before realizing it contained a threat. I had gone immediately to the bar area in our sitting room and taken a clean, unused little plastic bag from the ice bucket. We stashed the note and envelope in the bag until we could pass it along to Mitchum.

  Sitting across from Brien in the glow of candlelight, amid the clatter and chatter of the Christmas Eve crowd, I had this moment of clarity about our good fortune. I felt certain that encounter earlier in the day with Bad Santa had been intended to send a similar message to the one in that note. Back off. Get out of the way. Let it go—or else! We were lucky the warning had not been delivered more ruthlessly.

  “Why is it bad guys always see more crime as the solution to getting away with the crime they’ve already committed?” I wondered aloud.

  “Once you cross a line, it’s easy to cross it again, Kim. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill.”

  “What?” I asked, sipping the champagne that had been poured shortly after we sat down.

  “Think about the first crime as this little snowball you make.” He wadded up his napkin in a little ball about the size of his fist.

  “You plan to throw it to cause a little mischief, but it’s not like it will kill anybody or anything, right? So you give it a toss and it starts rolling.” I watched as he became more animated. He made these circles with his fingers. Then he stretched his hands farther and farther apart as he continued to speak.

  “It gets bigger and bigger and starts smashing things as it rolls. Soon, if you have any sense you’re like, ‘Oh no, Man, what have I done?’ You get out, right? Most of these guys don’t have any sense, Kim and they start acting like Godzilla or King Kong—a big, ugly monster like that.” He was now snarling, swinging his arms, and making motions like Godzilla or King Kong attacking the Empire State Building. I was fascinated. So were kids at several tables seated around us.

  “Then, boom!” he said, slamming his fists on the table top causing it to rattle, shaking everything on it and making a resounding noise. Loud enough to be heard above the steady hum of background sounds, including Christmas music being piped in—Oh Holy Night. A hush fell, and much of the motion in the room ceased. My quick, surreptitious scan of those around us picked up astounded faces, mostly on the children. One of the youngest kids—who knows how old since I’m no good at guessing baby’s ages, sat close to us. She looked stunned, then her bottom lip quivered and she opened her mouth to wail. All hell was about to break loose at the Abbey of the Sanctuary on Christmas Eve.

  “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!” I jumped out of my skin—more shocked by that cry than when Brien had smacked our table moments earlier. Santa had entered the building! All eyes shifted to him. Santa dropped his bag to the ground and began pulling presents from it. Stuffed baby reindeer, snowmen, angels, Disney princesses, and other toys like that began to get oohs and aahs from the kids in the room. Baby girl wasn’t sure she liked bellowing Santa any better than table-slamming Brien. She buried her face in her mother’s arms, taking alternate peeks at Santa and Brien, keeping tabs on both of them. I tried not to laugh. I felt relieved.

  “Saved by Santa,” I muttered to Brien.

  “What?” he asked, apparently oblivious to the scene about to unfold before Santa had stepped in to save the day!

  “Never mind. Don’t start pounding the table again, but tell me what you mean by boom.” I just had to hear the end of Brien’s story.

  “The army surrounds Godzilla and they smoke him. Or when it comes to Corsario Cove’s pirates, they send in the Coast Guard or a S.W.A.T. team. The end.” Brien grabbed the last of the breadsticks that he had been working his way through since we sat down. He flipped open the menu. “Wonder what’s good here.”

  I mulled over Brien’s analogy of the rolling snowball. It had merit, apart from the sheer entertainment value I derived from his animated delivery of the tale. The pace of events had begun to gather momentum on day two of our most recent venture into the vortex of heinousness. Clearly, we were on someone’s radar. I doubt it had anything to do with our official profile the resort was creating ‘to anticipate our every need.’ No, this was more like ‘anticipating our every move.’ A wave of paranoia hit me. I scanned the room to see if anyone was staring at us. Silly, given moments earlier all eyes had been on Brien.

  My mind went into rampant speculation mode. Brien’s questions must have garnered more attention than he thought. Or maybe it was enough to have attracted the interest of Detective Mitchum. If the detective thought we knew something, someone else might think so too. The one-two punch of the warning from Bad Santa on wheels and the message in that note had me reconsidering our plan to solve the mystery of a dead Santa at Corsario Cove.

  “What if we do as they suggest in that note, Brien, and leave it alone? It is our honeymoon after all. It’s not like we don’t have plenty to do. We haven’t even begun to take advantage of the amenities this place has to offer. Who knows when we’ll have time off again to enjoy sun, surf, spas, or explore the resort and the town... ” I sounded like a pitch artist for the resort.

  “Kim, whatever you want to do is fine with me. After talking to Mick, I can’t wait to surf in the cove and give you that lesson.” He smiled sweetly as he spoke those words before looking around the room. “What does a guy have to do to get a little attention around here?” I almost choked on my fizzy champagne. I put the glass down.

  “What kind of attention do you want?”

  “I’m hungry. I want to order an appetizer—this baked brie with puff pastry and cranberries sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes and very Christmassy. This is a slow food place, Brien. You have to signal a server when you’re ready to order.”

  “Uh, okay.” He went back to perusing the menu and I picked up the subject of murder and mayhem once again.

  “It’s not like we haven’t done a lot already. If Mitchum follows up with Willow and Mick and others at Sanctuary Grove, I’m sure he’ll get a lead or two that will get him closer to finding out who killed Owen.”

  “I hear you, Kim. I agree.” He leaned in over the table and dropped his voice. “We’ve already done plenty, Doll. Enough to blow this case wide open, see? The fuzz can take it from here, see?” I think he was trying to do James Cagney or DeNiro doing Cagney... I couldn’t tell for sure. His silliness was more disarming than his promise to use all that burly brawn of his to protect me. Accent aside, Brien had the right idea. I broke out in a smile. I was ready to give the Christmas Eve menu my full attention. Mm, porcini and chestnut soup... that sounded so good. I looked up from the menu.

  “I’m with you, Dude, see? We’ll let the fuzz handle it from here, see?” My Cagney was as bad as his. The decision made, I held out my glass and clinked Brien’s.

  “Here’s to letting it alone!” Then I switched gears and poured on the sweetness. “Eat hearty, Surfer Boy. You’re going to need your strength later.” Brien’s face lit up with a grin more dazzling than a whole string of Christmas lights.

  “I’m ordering two of everything.” He did. I watched in awe as he put away a feast fit for a king or two. The servers were astoni
shed as they brought him food and more food. The Abbey did not disappoint, living up to its five star rating. Every item they set in front of us was exquisite—fresh local ingredients, perfectly prepared. Imaginative combinations of ingredients, too, a feature that always appeals to me.

  I didn’t order two of everything, but I did sample Brien’s choices. That baked brie was amazing. So was my porcini and chestnut soup. I even tried one of the raw oysters Brien ordered as a second appetizer. Harvested year round at nearby Morro Bay, it was surprisingly delicious. It was a first for me, since I tend to graze on the vegetarian side of the foodie fence. I had already cheated with that Wagyu beef bacon we ordered for breakfast, so what the heck?

  Brien’s paella, a house specialty, was fabulous too. The rice had that wonderful saffron flavor, but was infused with a smokiness having been prepared over an open grill. Paella Mixta, it combined meat and chorizo sausage that I skipped, with fresh seafood that I tried. Awesome! The only thing I couldn’t bring myself to taste was the venison tenderloin Brien ordered as his second entree. Having grown up around Disneyland, with early memories of Bambi’s mother’s fate, I drifted toward vegetarianism. My occasional faithlessness did not let me cross the line to eat venison.

  I ordered fresh, handmade ravioli in colors of the season. Each color was filled with a different delight. Little pockets of bliss stuffed with pumpkin, wild mushrooms, or cheese sat atop a spicy, sage brown butter sauce. A side of winter vegetables accompanied the dish, roasted in a savory blend of herbs and garlic. Monk’s bread, too, of course—a mainstay at the Abbey. Supposedly, based on a secret recipe obtained from the monastery, it was soft, dense bread with a crunchy crust. Brien was a convert.