Gnarly New Year (Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery #2) (4 page)

5 john doe

The more Mick said about that “chamber of heinousness,” the surer I became that Mick ought not to mention it to Mitchum. I found it hard to believe much of what Mick said about the place he claimed to have found Owen’s GPS device. If I found it hard to believe, he wouldn’t stand a chance with Mitchum. Besides, we didn’t have that GPS device. I argued that he should keep the chamber of heinousness part to himself.

"Don’t mention the heinousness. Just say you found it in another part of the cave."

Unfortunately, despite my coaching, Mick did just the opposite. When he got to that point in his story about "how I spent my week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve," he launched into a surfer dude rant about it.

“This is where things started to get all dark and edgy. Like I triggered a curse. Maybe, I never should have gone in there, Detective, but I found Opie’s GPS in the chamber of heinousness.” Mick bobbed his head up and down a little. I suppose that was intended to convey mystery or intrigue. He had barely uttered the words when Mitchum cut him off.

“It’s Owen, not Opie! And please, none of that nonsense about a vortex of heinousness.” Mitchum’s feet and his mustache got all twitchy. Brien couldn’t stay out of it either.

“Uh, no, that’s not what Mick’s talking about, Detective. Don’t you remember? The
vortex
of heinousness is what we get sucked into when we hang out with Jessica Huntington and help her hunt down rich, lowlifes. Mick here’s talking about a
chamber
of heinousness. That’s totally different.” Brien wreaked of sincerity. Mitchum’s twitching grew worse. The tapping of his feet registered like the tick of a bomb about to explode.

“Vortex! Chamber! What do I care? Nor do I care about that imaginary GPS device that holds such fascination for you all. What I want you to explain, Mick, is how Corsario Hideaway’s owner ended up sleeping with the fishes.”

Hoping to calm the man down, I used another trick I had learned from Bernadette. If the way to a surly detective’s heart is through his stomach, you have to stoke the fire in his belly from time to time. It worked for Bernadette, so I gave it a shot.

“Another donut, Detective? I don’t think you’ve had one of these chocolate ones frosted like fireworks, have you? They are delicious.” Before he could answer, I put one on his plate and refilled his coffee cup. The twitching stopped as he bit into that donut, bathing him in a new burst of sugary bliss. I put one on Mick’s outstretched plate and winked at Brien as I passed the dwindling platter of donuts to him. When Mitchum spoke again, his tone had mellowed.

“If you had that GPS device, I might find your story more compelling, Mick. You all can keep chasing the Maltese Falcon until the cows come home. Even if it does exist, I’m not convinced Owen Taylor discovered a darn thing worth tracking down. My guess is any marine coordinates saved on that device lead straight to an underwater loser-land inhabited by a whole lot of nothing, like the mountains of junk we hauled out of that cave.”

“Don’t say that! You don’t know what I went through to get that thing. It’s here at the resort, somewhere. I swear. That’s what those guys were after when they grabbed me and that bartender, Dude!”

“Bar owner, not bartender,” Mitchum corrected Mick. He paused a few seconds longer before continuing. “I suppose you three might not be the only ones foolish enough to be chasing after Owen Taylor’s GPS device. Too bad you couldn’t hang on to it,
Dude
. Can we please get on with your story? Where were you when ‘
those guys
’ grabbed you?”

“When I found that GPS I felt excited. I left the chamber of...” Brien and I shook our heads, no, stopping him before he could utter the heinousness word again. He heeded the warning.

“I headed for San Albinus to give it to Willow. It’s hers. She should be the one to decide what to do with it. When I got to the hospital, two guys were standing around outside. One of them, I had seen before with Owen. I thought they were cove-runners waiting for Willow to be released so they could nab her. I had to warn her! Before they could see me, I went around the back of the hospital and put on my Santa suit. I had it in the bag with the GPS, just in case I needed to use a disguise again.”

I tried not to harrumph as I heard that part of Mick's story a second time. That Santa suit made sense at the resort where Santas roamed the grounds by the dozen. In San Albinus, an aimless Santa would stand out. No wonder he got caught. I held my tongue. When no one else responded either, Mick continued.

“My plan was to walk right by those goons with a ‘ho-ho-ho’—like I was making a delivery to someone in the hospital. All cheery-like, you know?”

Okay, so maybe his plan hadn’t been completely bad. Brien and I nodded. Mitchum shifted in his seat.

“When I came back around to the front of the hospital in my Santa suit, you two were leaving.” Mick pointed to Brien and me. “They didn’t notice, but those guys were right behind them, Detective. That’s when I decided to follow them.” What an absurd little parade that must have been, with Santa bringing up the rear.

“They were just wandering around town. I tried to get Gidget's attention once before she went into that boat junk shop.”

“It’s not boat junk, Mick. And I didn’t see you.” I spoke directly to Mitchum as I explained.

“Mick is talking about that little shop downtown with the nautical theme. When you interviewed me at the police station, I told you I’d been in there, remember? If I had seen Mick, I wouldn’t have told you he was missing, given you his cell phone number, and asked you to find him.”

“You sicced the police on me?” Mick wore an indignant expression on his face. A hard look to pull off with his black eye and still-puffy lips. It came across as weirdly pouty.

“I didn’t sic the cops on you, Mick. We were worried about you. Mitchum made us promise to stay out of it and let the police follow up on the loose ends. You were a loose end. I never saw you.” Mick interrupted.

“When you went to that boat shop, I whistled and yelled ho-ho-ho at you. You ignored me.”

“I didn’t
hear
you, either, Mick. Trust me, if I had spotted a Santa in San Albinus whistling and waving me down, I would have done something about it.”

“That doesn’t sound too stealthy, Mick, if you were trying to stay off the radar of those two cove-runners tailing us. Santas don’t just go around waving and whistling at hot Babes, like Kim.” Brien winked. I blew him a kiss. Mitchum rolled his eyes.

“Whoa, you could be right, Brien. I wondered how those guys following you decided to make a grab for me. Maybe that was it.” He shrugged before chowing down on the donut in his hand.

“It never occurred to you to go to the police station and tell me that a pair of cove-runners were following your friends?” Mitchum asked, shaking his head. “You were downtown when I met with your honeymooning surf buddies later. Why didn’t you walk in and join us?”

Mick crammed more of that chocolate donut in his mouth and washed it down with coffee before answering. Should I have ordered more? We were making our way through the dozen donuts fast. Not unusual with my hunky Brien at the table. Mick and the detective were keeping up with him!

The lovely, handmade confections were scrumptious. A delight to the eye, too. Each one adorned with colorful holiday decorations and arranged on a silver platter. Who could blame my Brien for helping himself to another one?

He caught me watching him, smiled, and did this thing where he slings his blond hair back out of his eyes, and it falls into place. That always gets to me. I wanted to throw Mick
and
Mitchum off the veranda and help myself to my favorite confection in the room. Mick’s voice grated on my nerves as he finally replied to the detective’s query in a whiny tone.

“I never saw them go to the police station. This is the first time I’ve heard the cops were looking for me, thanks to Kim.” He glowered at me.

Ooh, scary
, I thought. I folded my arms and scrunched up my face at the beat up guy in a fluffy white bathrobe, with frosting on his lips. He looked away.

“I followed Kim and Brien to Corsario’s Hideaway. When they went around back, I went with them. A few minutes later everything went black.” Mitchum’s eyes darted from me to Brien and back to me. Before I could get the words “another donut, Detective?” out of my mouth, he was huffing and puffing.

“I don’t remember you mentioning that you went around to the back of the bar. As I recall, you told me you cruised by the place looking for lunch.” I squirmed a little under his gaze.

“That’s true.” It just hadn't been the whole truth. Hey, we hadn’t taken that vow to leave it alone, yet! In all honesty, we had gone to the bar hoping for more than just lunch, although Brien had been in the mood for a burger.

Since Owen had worked at Corsario’s Hideaway until shortly before his death, Brien and I hoped a coworker might know what the heck Owen was doing with a marine GPS device and where he could have stashed it. Not that we had thought too far ahead about how to broach the subject. I had counted on the willingness of locals to engage in a little gossip.

The story of Owen’s dismal end was everywhere the day after Christmas. It had turned up right away on local TV. “A Dead Santa at the Sanctuary Resort” was front page news in The Habit, the town’s paper, and was being broadcast on other social media outlets. By the time we were in San Albinus with the cove-runners and Mick tagging along behind us, another big story had hit the news: “Santa killers nabbed for piracy.”

We'd had no chance to chat up anyone that day. Not a soul was around, and the bar owner had posted a sign that the local hangout was “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.” Brien and I had done a teeny-weeny bit of snooping, hoping that the bar owner was inside. No luck when we knocked on the back door.

“As we told you, the place was closed. We took a look around. That’s all.”

“Kim’s telling you the truth. Nobody was there when we went to the front door. Kim and I went around to the back, just to be sure. I wanted to try one of their burgers.” I made an effort not to reveal my surprise hearing Brien tell that little white lie. He looked innocent enough as he spoke those words. It could be he was speaking sincerely.  Burgers are, after all, a dietary staple.

“Yeah, well it’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it? Let’s give Mick, here, a chance to get on with it. You may think that cops sit around all day eating donuts and drinking coffee. Not so.” With that he reached for donut number three or four—I had lost count.

“You can believe what Brien and Kim are saying. I was there, too. When they banged on the back door, no one answered, and they walked on down the alley. I was hiding behind a dumpster when I saw this old guy stick his head out of the back door, trying to see where Brien and Kim had gone. Before he could shut it again, one of those sneaky cove-runners came out of nowhere. He had a gun and pushed his way inside. That’s when somebody behind me stuck a stinky rag over my face, and I went down, fast.”

“Chloroform—you got knocked out with chloroform?”

“I don’t know what it was. It had a funny smell, and I was totaled!”

“Does that matter, Detective?” I asked.

“Yes. We found a rag in the bar that still had traces of chloroform on it. Using that stuff can be tricky. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you when they kidnapped you.”

“Whoa, kidnapped. I didn’t think about it like that. That was a kidnapping, wasn’t it?” Mick stopped to ponder that thought, putting down the donut he held. “Kidnapped and almost murdered,” he muttered, drifting off into space. Mitchum shifted in his seat about to say something when Mick snapped back into focus.

“When I woke up, they had me tied up with duct tape again. Like the day before in Willow’s shack. They were smacking that old guy around and asking him questions about Owen and that GPS device. I pretended like I was still conked out. He kept telling them he hadn’t seen it, but might have thrown it out when he emptied a storage unit Owen had used. That old guy tried to give them the keys to the storage place so they could look for themselves. They asked him where he’d dumped the stuff, he tried to tell them and even offered to show them. While one guy worked that bar owner over, the other one searched the bar. He didn't trash it like Willow’s shack, but he wasn't careful, either, if you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, it was easy to tell someone had searched the place. What happened next?”

“They decided to give it a rest, quit beating on that old guy, and called somebody. The boss, I guess. I overheard the cove-runner—the one I had seen before—telling whoever he was talking to all about Opie's storage unit and the dump. The other guy went into the kitchen and made food. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since morning, and it was getting dark outside by then.” The idea of being held that long without food got to Brien.

“No food. That’s bogus.”

“Tell me about it... I decided I'd better quit pretending I was out cold.”

“Bogus, whatever... I don’t need the blow-by-blow right now, Mick. What I want to know is how you got from Corsario’s Hideaway to a boat? What boat? Where?”