Gnarly New Year (Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery #2)

Gnarly New Year

Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery #2

Anna Celeste Burke

Copyright © 2016 Anna Celeste Burke

All rights reserved.

http://www.desertcitiesmystery.com

Published by Create Space

All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher except brief quotations for review purposes.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by Anna Celeste Burke

Photo by
© 
Konstanttin
 | 
Dreamstime.com
 

ISBN-13: 978-1530845781

ISBN-10: 1530845785

DEDICATION

To love, the most excellent adventure of all!

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to friends and family who support my writing in so many ways. Especially my husband who taught me, a long time ago, that love is the most excellent adventure of all!

I’m also grateful to my author colleagues and readers who offer  encouragement  in so many ways. I am particularly indebted to Ying Cooper for an excellent job proof-reading the book line by line. In addition, I greatly appreciate Andrea Stoeckel and Debi Paglia for catching snafus and offering feedback about the book in record time. Thanks as well to the other readers who took on the challenge of reading a proof copy! Thanks in part to all of you, writing mysteries is also a most excellent adventure.

1 New Year’s EVE

The week between Christmas and New Year has always been anticlimactic for me. Not that I ever made a big deal out of Christmas. Growing up poor and then hitting the streets as a teen didn’t leave me with much money to deck the halls if I’d had halls to deck. Still, with all the hoopla going on around you, it’s hard to ignore. Despite my bah-humbug attitude about the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I have to admit the celebratory spirit touches me. For weeks, there’s more color, bright lights, lively music, and the excitement is palpable. Then, bam! It stops, and you’re face-to-face with the end of another year.

It used to be such a letdown! Not anymore. After our most recent misadventure in paradise while on our honeymoon here, in Corsario Cove, I’ll never complain again about an uneventful week following Christmas. I felt relieved, in fact, that the past week had been everything a honeymoon should be. Days filled with romance, relaxation, excellent food, spa visits, and no surly detectives or dead Santas.

Surfing, too! Brien and I woke up early, checked the surf, and if it looked decent, we grabbed our boards and hit the beach. I was better at handling my surfboard on and off the water. Not that I possess the panache my hubby displays as he glories in riding the waves.

My hubby! I can’t believe how easily that term of endearment rolled right through my mind like it was old news. I stopped to savor the prospect of becoming an old married woman. What would it be like to have years and years of shared memories like the ones we were storing up now?

I gazed at the surf, not yet as adept as Brien and other experienced surfers at “broceanography,” as the surfer dudes call it. Reading the swells rolling into the cove is an art I haven't yet mastered. That's the case for most of my other surfing skills, even with my determination to improve.

What I saw this morning held me spellbound. Stunning black cliffs cast against the golden glow of rolling waves tinted by the sun as it sits on the horizon. A single figure dressed head-to-toe in a black wetsuit stood on the beach, alongside a surfboard held upright in the sand. It could be Willow. She was back. Her physician had told her to take it easy while recovering from injuries sustained as she ran from a gunman on Christmas morning. In a few days, though, she was out in the cove, surfing with us again.

Could it be Mick? From this distance, I couldn’t tell. There had been no sign of him since Christmas day. Everyone agreed that was odd for “the Kahuna,” would-be tribal leader of the make-shift surfer community, Sanctuary Grove. We were all curious about where he’d gone, but residents of Sanctuary Grove, hidden away in the woods near the cove, honored Mick’s ‘live-and-let-live’ edict. They would wait for Mick to turn up on his own.

Besides, Detective Mitchum with the local police in San Albinus had promised to track Mick down. He intended to tell Mick there was no need to continue searching for a missing GPS device that had belonged to Owen Taylor, a recently deceased member of the surf community in Sanctuary Grove. The cops were on it. That GPS device was one of the several loose ends they were wrapping up after discovering modern-day pirates running amok in Corsario Cove. Staff members at the spectacular Sanctuary Resort & Spa we had chosen as our honeymoon destination had helped move counterfeit goods through the cove. Police were on that too, ferreting out and bringing charges against the conspirators as they rounded them up.

Brien and I hadn’t tried to find Mick either. We had made a vow to “leave it alone,” as Mitchum had told us to do, and decided not to pursue those loose ends. That didn’t sit well with me. Being told what to do, whether by the bad guys or the good guys, goes against my nature. Still, it felt right, under the circumstances. We are on our honeymoon and have too little time as it is to indulge ourselves. It would be over in a few more days. The two of us would return to where we live in the desert near Palm Springs. Brien would go back to his job with a high-end private security firm, and I would resume my position as a legal assistant at a posh law firm on El Paseo—the desert’s answer to Rodeo Drive.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to be working on the right side of the law after years of servitude to a maniacal Hollywood music producer:
The
Mr. P. The weasel is now cooling his wicked little heels in prison thanks to Jessica Huntington. She’s my boss and a good friend. And I don’t just feel that way because she’s loaded and insisted on financing this luxurious honeymoon. Soon, Brien and I would be back at work, scrambling to find quality time—heck, any time at all just for us.

“Leave it alone,” I sighed, as I put away thoughts about Mick’s absence and picked up the phone to call room service. We needed coffee. Coffee would get Brien up on his feet so we could decide if surfing would inaugurate our celebration of New Year’s Eve.

If not, we had other options. The resort had activities planned all day with dinner, dancing, champagne, and fireworks set to close out the evening and the old year. We had made our reservations for that New Year’s Eve bash when we booked our honeymoon trip. It promised to be fabulous and I hoped it would make ringing in the new year more exciting—gnarly even, as Brien likes to say. As soon as I ended my conversation with room service, there was a knock at the door.

“That was quick. Too quick!” I muttered.

“Oh hell, no!” A peek through the peephole revealed Santa standing there. “Go away, Santa, you’re too late—Christmas is over!” Not that the resort seemed to agree with me. Santas continued to roam the grounds, distributing gifts and belting out tributes to the Christmas season. Every once in a while I felt uneasy, considering our recent experiences with more than one bad Santa. I also couldn’t shake the memory of a ghostly glimpse of Santa standing up on the cliffs overlooking Corsario Cove as a rescue boat had whisked us away. I chalked it up to the stress of the day. Willow had not been alone in that Christmas morning confrontation with a gunman. I was at her side.

When I peeked again, I was now eyeball-to-eyeball with Santa. That was so creepy, I yelped! Brien heard me even though I had closed the French doors that separate the sitting room from the bedroom in our luxurious suite. He came running. Half asleep, and not realizing I had shut those doors, he bumped into them. I could see him rubbing his nose through panes of glass that weren’t covered by billowy voile curtains. I ran to open the doors for Brien. Santa pounded again, louder this time.

“Brien, are you okay?” Not waiting for a reply, I continued. “Santa’s at the door. I told him to go away.” Brien, wrapped in nothing but a sheet, tripped as he took a step toward the door. He caught himself before falling and threw the long edge of the bed sheet that had been dangling on the ground, over his shoulder. That gave it the shape of a Roman toga. Santa knocked again. Brien lunged at the door and bellowed above the pounding.

“My wife told you to go away, Santa!”

Aw, his wife
, I thought, distracted for a moment by that reference to my new status. It had sounded so natural the way he said it. Brien was getting the hang of this married thing, too!

The sudden silence brought me back to the matter at hand. Santa had stopped pounding.

“Has he gone away?” I whispered. Brien peered through that peephole.

“Nah, he’s still there. Call security. No, wait, hold on!” Brien slipped the chain off the door, swung the door wide open, and Santa fell in, landing face down on the floor of our sitting room!

2 OLD ST. MICK

“Mick, Mick. Talk to me!” Brien was on the floor, kneeling next to Santa. He rolled Santa over onto his back. The edge of the sheet slipped down off of Brien’s shoulder. “Whoa, you don’t look so good,” Brien said as he tossed that sheet and a long shock of blonde hair back into place. “We’d better call security or the police.”

“No, no hotel security! And no police, either. Please, Man, okay?” Mick was writhing around on the floor, trying to sit up. He reached up and yanked that sheet off Brien’s shoulder.

“It’s cool, Mick. No cops!” Shaking Mick loose, Brien let him slump back onto the floor.

“Promise?”

“Sure, Mick, I promise—no hotel security. No police.” Just as Brien uttered those words, a voice called out.

“Room service!” The door to our suite was wide open. The guy delivering our coffee gaped at the scene on the floor. He took two steps, stopped and, glanced at me, trying to manage a polite smile. I could see the wheels turning—not on the cart carrying our coffee, juice, and smoothies, but in the troubled young man’s head.

I racked my brain for something sensible to say as I watched Room Service Guy stare at Brien and Mick. As far as I could tell, he was seconds away from hitting ‘tilt.’ Santa moaned, and I jumped out of my skin. Room Service Guy reacted with a lightning quick, impromptu version of the moonwalk as he slid several steps back out into the hall, dragging that cart with him.

“Whoa, take it easy, Dude,” Brien said to the spooked Room Service Guy. It’s not what it looks like.”

“What exactly is that, Brien?” My toga-wearing, blond surfer boy was rapidly on his way to ‘tilt’ trying to figure out how to respond.

“Hey, it’s none of my business as long as everybody’s all right.” Room Service Guy had mustered the courage to speak now that he was back out in the hall. He picked up the ticket with our order on it. “I only brought breakfast for two. You want me to bring a smoothie for Santa?”

“Hang on a second,” I said to Room Service Guy. “Mick, are you sure you're okay?”

In response to my query, Mick made a ridiculous attempt to give me the “hang loose” sign surfers like to use. His pinky and thumb were extended with the other fingers on that hand folded down on his palm. His pinky finger did not look right, sticking out at an odd angle. That wasn’t all that didn’t look right.

“I’m chillin’ now. Ho, ho, ho and a…and a bottle of rum!” He smiled a lopsided grin.

How on earth did he pass through the lobby in his condition?
I wondered. Maybe the fluffy white Santa beard and dark shades had been enough to hide the mess someone had made of his face. Tucked now under Mick’s chin, he must have pulled that beard down to reveal his identity to Brien. When he fell on the floor, his sunglasses had flown across the room. Mick had quite a shiner and a gash under his eye. Plus, a swollen jaw and lips puffed out like that well-known Mick—Mick Jagger.

“Where’s my Santa bag?” Mick asked as he tried to sit up, flopping around like a fish out of the water.

“Settle down, Bro,” Brien said as he leaned over and pushed Mick to the floor. Then he pulled back fast, covering his nose. “Whoa, more like gin than rum. Don't anybody light a match in here.”

“You’ve got to get that bag! Opie’s whatchamacallit is in it!” Mick was back to pawing Brien, yanking at that sheet again, trying to pull himself upright. Opie was the nickname given to the late Owen Taylor by members of the surfer colony. Until all the trouble began, they had considered Owen a naïve, freckle-faced kid like the one played by a young Ron Howard in the Andy Griffith Show. He was, in fact, a hapless schemer whose schemes had caught up with him in a bad way.

“I hear you. Where’d you leave it?”

“Uh, I don’t know, Brien. I had it on the elevator with me, I think. That must be where it is. Don’t let them get it.” Mick grabbed Brien with both hands. Brien gently removed his hands as Mick weakened his grip. I could have sworn Mick had tears in his eyes.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find it.” Brien looked up at Room Service Guy. “Did you see a bag on the elevator when you came up here?”

“No. There are eight elevator cars though. Who knows if I came up in the same one Santa used?”

“Good point,” Brien said.

“What kind of bag are we talking about? How big is Opie’s whatchamacallit?” Room Service Guy asked, with hesitation in his voice. He didn’t sound so sure he wanted to hear the answer to that question. Mick lay there, motionless, making no effort to respond. Had he passed out?

“I guess we need to find that out, don’t we?” I said. “Bring us another pot of coffee when you come back, please. Let me help Brien get Santa out of the way so you can roll that cart in here.” I knelt down on the floor next to Brien.

“Oh, Baby, you were not kidding about the booze! He’s soaked in spirits like a holiday fruitcake.”

“Hey, Gurfer!” Mick blubbered as Brien and I rolled him toward us. “Who are you calling a fruitcake?” Not passed out. No sign of tears, now, either. Instead, he wore a wise-guy smile on his busted up face. That expression more like a leering horror movie carnival clown than a grin. “Ooh, ow, ow... that hurts,” Mick winced. Grinning, with that fat lip of his, had not been a good idea.

Instant Karma
, I thought.

Mick’s slurred speech grew muffled as we rolled him toward us and out of the way. As soon as Room Service Guy had the cart clear, I let go of the stinker. Brien did too, and Santa flopped onto his back again with a couple more “ows.”

“If you find a smelly bag on one of the elevators—no matter how big it is or what it looks like—will you let us know?” Room Service Guy nodded in response to Brien’s request.

“Sure, if I spot it I’ll call you. I can’t guarantee anyone else who finds it won’t put it in the garbage if it’s as big a mess as Santa.” Room Service Guy was probably right. Mick got all stirred up when Room Service Guy spoke those words.

“Oh no, no. It’s one of those black Santa bags that came with the outfit. No presents, but it’s not empty,” Mick moaned. “You can’t let them throw it out!”

“We won’t! Don’t worry. We’ll find it,” I lied. How did I know that? We only had Mick’s word for it that it had made it back here to the resort with him. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if someone had dumped the bag in the garbage without even looking at what was inside.

“Have you asked that Opie guy? Maybe he took it back.” Brien and I glanced at each other, not quite sure how to break it to Room Service Guy that Opie was no longer with us. Slipping into a morose drunk mode, Mick blurted out the sad story.

“Opie doesn’t have it. Opie’s dead. They killed him and shoved him off a balcony. Poor Opie, I’m going to miss him.” Mick was getting weepy. A slow look of recognition swept over Room Service Guy’s face.

“He’s talking about that dead Santa, right?” Room Service Guy looked around before he spoke. “That guy they arrested for his murder was a real jerk around here. Nobody will miss him. Sorry about your friend, though, uh, uh, St. Mick.” I think he meant to say St. Nick, but what the heck? Close enough. Brien sprang to his feet.

“I’m getting dressed. You might as well order breakfast—a real breakfast.” I had only ordered coffee and smoothies in case Brien gave the morning surf a thumb’s up. “We’re not going surfing or anywhere else for a while,” Brien announced as he tried to keep that sheet from getting tangled up with Santa or sliding off.

As my Brien retreated to the bedroom, I caught a glimpse of that fine behind of his. I don’t think Room Service Guy saw it. He was still staring at Old St. Mick, plastered to our floor. I signed for the stuff on the cart and included a humongous tip. Then, I ordered Brien’s usual mega-breakfast, plus Wagyu bacon and fruit for me to go with my smoothie. I added dry toast, scrambled eggs, and lots more coffee for Mick. Room Service Guy entered the items I requested into a tablet device.

“The kitchen’s got it, and they’re working on it!”

“Great! There’s another tip just like this one if you’re back here quick. And, uh, please don’t put any of this in our hotel profile, okay?” I leaned over trying to check out what he had typed into that tablet. We had learned that the hotel keeps meticulous records about guest habits and preferences. Ordering as much food as we usually did, had already created quite a stir. I wouldn’t be surprised if next to Brien’s profile there was a note that read “Brien Williams, epic eater” or “mega-mouth.”  My buff, brawny surfer boy, sure can pack it in.

“No problem, Gurfer, although the profile says your name is Kim. I’m not even going to try to report any of this. What would I say? Who would believe me? I will be right back. I’ll bring you a bucket of ice too. Santa’s going to need help with that fat lip and the black eye.”

“Gurfer is a new one for me, too. Girl surfer, I presume. Let’s go with Kim, okay? Good thinking about the ice. Thanks!”

With that, Room Service Guy was gone, taking the cart with him once I had unloaded it. I shut the door, poured coffee, added milk to cool it down and guzzled the delicious brew. I watched Mick lying on his back now, eyes closed, and still. Where was he for days and what had he done?

Had the arrogant surfer been in a barroom brawl? My few previous encounters with him led me to believe he could provoke a fight with just about anyone from sheer irksomeness. As drunk as he was he had to have been even more irritating than normal. Heck, he might even have thrown the first punch. A pit of anxiety opened up in the bottom of my stomach. What if someone was still after him? We had to get him in good enough shape to answer my questions as soon as possible.

When Brien stepped out of the bedroom minutes later wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he looked hot. My concern about Mick warred with my annoyance that he had crashed our honeymoon. On New Year’s Eve, too! That pit in my stomach gave way to the determination to figure this out and fast!  Why not call the police and let them take him off our hands? Because my Brien had promised not to do it, that’s why.

“My turn to babysit Santa while you get dressed. If we can get him sober and cleaned up enough that we can stand to be around him, maybe he’ll tell us what happened.”

“My thoughts, exactly! Coffee and a shower will help get him clean and sober. Then we’ll try to find out if Old St. Mick’s naughty or nice.”

“Naughty or nice? That’s a good one!”

Brien beamed a smile that made me shiver with delight. A smile that vanished as he stared at Santa in a heap on the floor. For a moment,
my
“naughty Kim” side flashed on the idea of making Mick the next Santa to be tossed off a balcony at the Sanctuary.
That would be wrong
, I concluded, as I dashed into the bedroom.