Cowabunga Christmas

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “True! How could I ever forget you flying off those rocks and tackling the bad guys like a Marvel comic-book hero, Brien?”

  “Cowabunga, Baby! Just call me Super Surfer.” Brien put both arms up and struck a pose, so that those biceps bulged.

  “Okay, okay, you two. Enough of that super hero nonsense. You’re lucky that Santa in the golf cart, the hotel exec, or another of his little loser helpers didn’t just shoot you.” I ignored him.

  “Will our boards be okay out there until morning, Brien? Should we go back and get them?”

  “No, no, no! You are not going back to what is now a crime scene. If Davis was out there with a gun, trying to get you or Willow to go with him under duress, that’s kidnapping. Who knows what else has gone on out there, depending on what we find in that cave. I’ll make sure we get your boards back into the hands of resort staff.” He was shaking his head.

  “Hell of a honeymoon, you two.” He waved as he walked away. “Merry Christmas and a cowabunga to you!”

  “Thanks for taking care of our boards, Man. That’s righteous. Merry Christmas!” Brien called after him. Mitchum just waved again as he hustled down the path back toward the cove.

  “You know what, Gidget?”

  “What, Moondoggie?”

  “It’s still Christmas. Cowabunga, Baby!” With that Brien lifted me right off my feet and spun me around.

  “We have more presents to open. Let’s get cleaned up and go find food first. This hero business takes a lot out of a guy. You were a super sleuth out there today, so you have to be starving, too.”

  “Wow, Super Surfer and Super Sleuth. What a pair.” Starving was an understatement.

  “Let’s go get some grindage, Super Surfer.” I dashed the last few feet through the lobby and to the elevator.

  “Right behind you, Super Sleuth. The Christmas brunch buffet isn’t over until three o’clock. We still have time for turkey and all the awesome eats that goes with it!”

  I felt quite sure I could help Brien add a whole new chapter to our personal profile here at the hotel. After that we would have Christmas evening all to ourselves. We could watch the sunset and open our gifts. One of the gifts Brien had yet to open was certain to put more cowabunga into our Christmas. Once I modeled it for him, of course. No more Santa hats though—I’d had all I could take of Santa for one Christmas.

  14 The Day After

  The day after Christmas I rolled out of bed, slowly. I hurt all over. My arms were especially sore from carrying the surfboard and all that paddling. I definitely needed to develop more upper-body strength if I was serious about keeping up with the Super Surfer in my life. Brien was sleeping like a log! I let him sleep a little longer since we didn’t have to meet up with Mitchum in San Albinus until after lunch.

  Wearing the comfy Surf Chick t-shirt and pajama bottoms Brien had bought me for Christmas, I did a few stretches out on the balcony and admired the view. The cove was awash in brilliant sunlight, mesmerizing as it played on waves that broke into frothy chaos when they hit the beach. I wondered what was going on over in that cave. What had they found up on that ledge? Had that gun turned up? How about that GPS device? I’d ask Mitchum when we saw him later. Not that the detective was obliged to answer my questions.

  The view indoors was fine, too. That handsome dude of mine lay sprawled out on the bed in all his epic buffness. Buffness is not a real word, I know, but it seemed apt. Brien would be starving when he woke up—or when I woke him up. After our pig out at brunch, we had stayed in our room and eaten fruit and cheese from the basket left for us on Christmas Eve. To Brien’s delight, the basket included more of those gingerbread men with Santa hats. I let him scarf them down, helping myself to chocolate truffles instead. Food wasn’t urgent for me this morning. Coffee—lots of coffee was another matter. I didn’t have to face Detective Mitchum until later, but I intended to tank up on caffeine now.

  We planned to bicycle into town, using the resort cart paths to get more exercise, at Brien’s urging. If we got back early enough from our meeting with Mitchum, Brien also planned to hit the gym. He had slacked off for a few days, even with the ‘most excellent’ equipment awaiting him in the resort gym.

  Spa treatments were more my style—with a sea salt body scrub or a facial until Brien joined me for a couples’ massage. Ah! I could feel my sore muscles being soothed. Too bad we couldn’t skip the question and answer session with our new detective friend and go straight to the gym and spa.

  I picked up the room service menu to place an order. As I reached for the phone, I noticed a message light was blinking. There were two messages. Staff at the front desk had our surfboards downstairs. Yippee! The second message was from Mick.

  “Yo Brien, I need to talk to you, Man. It’s critical. Call me soon, Bro. Uh, I know where Opie left his GPS whatchamacallit. S’later. Uh, oh yeah, here’s my number.”

  Oh great, I thought as I wrote the number down. “Too little, too late, Mick,” I muttered. By now, the San Albinus police had that GPS whatchamacallit if it was in that cave. It had to be there. Maybe Mitchum already knew what coordinates were saved in that device, and why they were so important to Davis.

  At least Mick was alive—good news. The guy was a double jerk in my book. That didn’t mean I wanted him dead. It was bad enough that the big Kahuna, headman, or whatever he fancied himself to be in Sanctuary Grove took a hike when trouble started. To make matters worse, when I called Willow for an update about her condition, she still hadn’t heard from him. Mitchum had been there to check on her and get her version of events. Two residents of Sanctuary Grove were with her when I called, but no Mick. Double jerk! Willow’s sister from Salinas was on the way, so she had plenty of company last night. Brien and I decided to wait to visit her in the hospital today. We agreed to drop by before we met with the detective.

  I called the front desk to have them send up the surfboards and then placed that order with room service. I shut the French doors that separated the bedroom and sitting room in our suite, hoping not to disturb Brien until the food arrived. No sooner had I done that than there was a knock on the door. I used the peephole before opening the door. Two guys in hotel uniforms stood there, each carrying a surfboard. I let them in and they leaned the boards up against a wall. I bade them farewell with a thank you and a nice tip. Minutes later there was another knock on the door: room service!

  Room Service Guy rolled that cart into the room, took a look at the ticket with our order on it and then scanned the room. “You want me to set this up for you and your friends?” He glanced at the ticket again. “Sorry, you and a friend?”

  “No reason to apologize. I ordered a mega-breakfast. Doesn’t our personal profile have a note in it by now that an ‘eating machine’ occupies this suite?” Brien must have set a record or two at the Christmas brunch the day before. Room Service Guy didn’t seem to know how to answer that. I had him roll the cart on out to the veranda and then sent him on his way. When I had our breakfast set up on the veranda, I threw open those French doors and implemented my fast action plan to wake Brien.

  “Um, yummy-yummy, Super Surfer. Breakfast is served.” I waved a strip of Wagyu bacon under his nose. Then I chomped away on that savory treat, taking yet another detour from my path as a vegetarian. I abhor fanaticism, what can I say? My plan worked like a charm. Brien was awake!

  Two hours later, after more huffing and puffing than I care to think about, we were strolling down the streets of San Albinus. The bike ride was not all that long—thirty minutes from the resort at a leisurely pace. A leisurely pace was all I could manage. Still, we had to make that return trip later. By the time I got to the spa my legs would be as sore as my arms. I’m whiny, I know. I keep it in my head and off my lips most of the time.

  Once we were in town we stashed the bikes in a stand set up by the resort—an attendant gave us a claim ticket. Then we found our way to the small local hospital on a side street, several blocks from the village square. The hospit
al sported a faux Spanish façade with much less attention to detail than that given to the architecture downtown or at the resort. A person seated at an information desk in the lobby directed us to Willow’s room.

  “Willow you look great. How are you doing?”

  “I feel fine—nothing’s broken. The doc says I should take it easy on the ankle for a few days. They put a couple stitches in my leg that should come out on their own in a day or two. Then I’ll be good as new.” I did not believe her. She might be fine, physically. The psychological damage from being held at gunpoint by the man who murdered her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—would take longer to heal.

  “These are for you, Willow.” Brien handed her a bouquet we had picked up at a quaint flower shop on the square. She smiled and took a big whiff of the dried lavender mixed with fresh yellow roses, green fern and wispy, twisted flowering vines I didn’t recognize. “We’re glad you’re okay. Davis is bad news, but Mitchum’s got him.”

  “Thanks you guys. I’m glad you’re okay, too. That Davis is a tool, all right. I’m not sure what would have happened if you two hadn’t been there. I might have ended up like Owen. You, too, Kim. I’m sorry Owen and I got you into this mess—and on your honeymoon.” Clouds of sorrow gathered around her.

  “You didn’t do this, Willow. You tried to save Owen’s neck!” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “I hope Davis rots in prison. I should have called the cops on Owen. He’d be in jail, but at least he’d be alive.” Tears fell.

  “Hey, we’d all like to see into the future, Willow. If we could, we’d do a lot less of the bogus stuff we do. Consequences are hard to see—really, really hard for some of us.” My Brien’s sweet side was out. His insightful side, too. I reached out and clasped his hand.

  “I don’t get why they want that GPS gadget so bad. Mick called and said he intended to get it before those thieving pirates could get their hands on it. Can you believe that?”

  “Oh, shoot! I forgot to tell you, Brien—Mick called you this morning and left a message. He wanted you to call him back. I wrote the number on a note pad next to the phone in our room. When did he call you, Willow?”

  “Not too long ago—thirty minutes at the most.”

  “Did he say where he was, or where he was going?” Brien jumped in, tag-team style.

  “No, but he said he’d stop by later—so I figured he was here in town.”

  “What’s he planning to do with it when he finds it?” I wondered aloud. “That’s a silly question, isn’t it? Mick’s about two steps behind the rest of us, Willow. There’s a good chance Owen left it in the cave and the police have it by now. That’s what I was about to tell you when Davis showed up with that gun. Owen had a stash hidden in there. I found his dinghy, fake doubloons, but who knows what else was in there? The police were already on their way to check it out by the time we got back to the dock area. I’d be surprised if that GPS isn’t bagged and tagged—you know placed into evidence by the police?”

  “I hope you’re right, Kim. That stupid thing has caused way too much trouble already.”

  “Did Mick leave a number?”

  “I have the one that popped up on my cell phone when he called.” She reached into the drawer beside her bed and found the number for me on her phone. I copied it down.

  “Do you want us to come back this afternoon once we’ve had our chat with Mitchum?” I asked.

  “No, I’ll be out of here by then. My sister’s on her way to pick me up—I’ll spend a night or two with her in Salinas before I go back to Sanctuary Grove. Will and Rachel visited yesterday to tell me they took care of my board and picked up some of the mess Davis made. They brought my phone and wallet, a change of clothes and a few personal things like that, so I’m good for now.”

  “Okay, we’ll catch up with you in a day or two when you’re back in the cove.” She was still holding that bouquet. I put the flowers on the table beside her bed, feeling bad she was alone. As we walked out a woman dashed past us. I grinned at her and breathed a sigh of relief. She was the spitting image of Willow with a few additional pounds and years on her frame.

  Brien called Mick twice at that number Willow gave us. He didn’t answer, but Brien left voice mail messages. We spent another hour roaming around town. The main street was really quite lovely—flower baskets everywhere, carts set out on the street with fresh fruit, and lamplights that must be gorgeous after dark. It was more fun than I thought it would be, meandering from shop to shop. Our progress slowed when Brien found a great surf shop. I hung out for a few minutes until the talk got too technical. I told Brien he could find me in a nautical shop next door that had vintage scrimshaw and an old metal diver’s helmet in the display window.

  A bell jingled when I opened the door, and an older man nodded from behind a glass-enclosed case that served as a counter. He was waiting on tourists that were buying bags of shells, toy spyglasses, pirate eye patches—kid stuff. The shop smelled musty, in a woodsy, beachy way as though the shop owners had just hauled in cargo from the hold of a ship, or dragged it up from the bottom of the sea.

  Display items were captivating. Old mariner’s maps adorned the walls, along with thickly braided strands of rope and netting with cork buoys. An odd assortment of antiques too, including a ship’s wheel made of wood and brass. Shelves held many interesting objects: glass fishing net floats, shiny brass bells, vintage sextants, spyglasses and compasses.

  Books lined the shelves. A few featured the history of Corsario Cove and other areas up and down the California coast. One caught my eye—a small, light brown pamphlet-style book entitled: Lost Treasure of Bouchard. The cover contained an illustration of a vintage ship. Well, who knew? California did have pirates.

  In 1818, French pirate Hippolyte de Bouchard had launched a series of attacks on Monterey, San Juan de Capistrano and other spots along California’s coast. Those raids yielded treasure—including a six-foot gold cross, a jewel-encrusted chalice, gold and silver coins, pearls and gemstones. Bouchard stashed that treasure in hideaways along the coast as he went from one raid to another. Rumors abounded that he abandoned some of it when forced to make a speedy retreat to the Sandwich Islands—the Hawaiian Islands now. Bouchard had lost most of his crew to disease and marauding, and had to beat it to safety to put together a new crew fit for piracy.

  Had I been too quick in discounting Corsario Cove as a clever misnomer and doubting the need for intervention by the monks or St. Albinus? Very interesting, I thought as I paid for my copy of that little book. Don’t ask me why, but reading the introduction to that book had caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. Maybe it was all the recent swashbuckling with modern day pirates. Buried treasure seemed intriguing, but far-fetched. If Bouchard put together a new crew wouldn’t he have returned to reclaim his hard-won plunder? I left that shop brimming over with curiosity about the book I had just purchased and the history of the cove area.

  15 That’s A Wrap

  When we arrived for our meeting with Detective Mitchum I was struck by two things. First, by how modern the small police station was once we got past the street-front façade that blended in with the rest of Old Town. Second, by how jovial Detective Mitchum appeared to be as he greeted us. That large Tom Selleck-Jesse Stone mustache of his could not hide his smile. He was affable as he directed us to an interview room where we were seated with fresh coffee.

  He introduced us to his partner, Officer Dickson, and then took us quickly through our interviews. They did not even bother to separate us as we each told our version of what had happened since that close encounter with Owen Taylor at the pool on Christmas Eve. Brien went first and quickly related details about the Q & A session he had with hotel security, the encounter with Bad Santa, and the time he spent with Mick and others at Sanctuary Grove.

  When he got to the part about the note we found in our room, we handed it over. Maybe they could get a fingerprint or other evidence by examining it. Davis made it clear he knew what was in tha
t note, but that didn’t mean he had written it. Nor did it mean he had left anything tangible on it that could be traced back to him if he had penned it.

  Our stories diverged at various points because we had gone our separate ways for short periods of time on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, too, since Brien and I were sometimes in different places as events unfolded.

  I heard blow-by-blow details from Brien, for the first time, about what happened when he left Willow and me at the tide pool so he could go get help. Brien had Snaggy stay with us while he and TonyO surfed back onto the beach. Brien hit the beach, ran and called 911 from a small burger shack near the dock. He picked up a couple bottled drinks for me and Willow, left TonyO to wait for the police and the rescue squad, while he paddled back to the lagoon. In all the excitement since then he had not even mentioned how, on his return trip, he found Snaggy. Snaggy had been badly injured and was out cold, floating on his back in a shallow pool near where Willow and I were being held at gunpoint.

  “The guy had a nasty, deep slash on his head where somebody had beaned him,” Brien said. “I spotted Benny and could hear him yelling about getting out of there. I ducked down and stashed those bottles of soda pop in between the rocks. I wasn’t sure what to do because I could also see two guys were in the lagoon with Willow and Kim. Kim had Davis talking and Snaggy was bleeding bad, so I dragged him onto my board and paddled back near where TonyO was waiting. This lifeguard dude from the resort was there by then. He and TonyO waded out and hauled Snaggy to shore. Snaggy’s sure lucky that lifeguard was there to help. TonyO wasn’t in very good shape to do it.”

  That was an understatement. TonyO had hurled at the sight of that gash in Snaggy’s head. Brien took off again, making yet another trip back to where Willow and I were being held by Davis.