Beachcomber Santa: a Beachcomber Investigations Novella

by Stephanie Queen

  In the Jeep, he waited, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel and cursing himself. Hadn’t he been all about holiday warmth? He darted an accusing glance at the cookies he’d tossed in the console. She shouldn’t have put on that jacket. He shouldn’t have let his guilt get to him about having tossed the matching jacket she’d given him in the trash after she’d left.

  Not that he had any right to expect her to stay. He promised himself to try for the Christmas spirit as she opened the door and slid in next to him. He was lucky, once again, she hadn’t turned around and run the other way.

  “I knew you were cold,” she said. Her lovely brow arched high and a half smile—half condescending—lit her regally beautiful face. “Or else you wouldn’t have jogged ahead in such a rush.”

  “You got me.”

  She did have him. But damn he didn’t want her to be so noble about it. Didn’t want her to know his secrets. Not before he did.

  “Apparently Santa is the store manager’s alcoholic uncle and he’s on the wagon and house-sitting for his nephew, Ted Gates, while he’s on hiatus for the winter.”

  “Who’s minding the store?”

  “Jim Evans the deli man.”

  “Why didn’t they go to the police?”

  He took his eyes off the road then. It was safe now. Business was always safe.

  Almost always. A flash of Shana in her bikini on her surfboard and almost getting stabbed reminded him of the less safe bits of their business.

  “You know the drill. He hasn’t been gone 24 hours yet. And he’s a transient.”

  “Snob.”

  He laughed. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Sure. But we both know you’re only taking this case to appease me.”

  “Sure.” He wasn’t taking the case to appease her. He was taking the case to be near her. But close enough.

  They pushed through the back door of the Vineyard Haven Grocers and were met by Ronnie Ryan bouncing like an excited puppy.

  “Jim is waiting.”

  They followed him to the deli.

  The store looked deserted, but it was mid-week, mid-afternoon, and about as off-season as it would get. Dane spotted a gray haired lady heading the other way before he took a left toward the deli and saw Jim. If Norman Rockwell was in the neighborhood, he’d paint Jim and put him on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post as the quintessential grocer—from about 1950. He wore a white apron and a warm smile. But looks could be deceiving. Dane knew Jim was a cagey ex-marine who probably had MOM tattooed on one arm and Apple Pie on the other—and an ace tucked up his sleeve.

  “I have some special imported prosciutto in,” Jim said to him. “Straight from Italy. I thought you might want to try it. Come on out back for a minute.” The deli man gestured to the swinging door with the frosty window that lead to the refrigerated meat locker beyond where he operated behind the scenes. Dane wasn’t particularly anxious to enter a refrigerated room having only warmed up a fraction on the ride over to the store. But Jim all but gave him a conspiratorial wink.

  Dane darted a glance at Shana and she knew Jim was up to something. She rolled her eyes and took Ronnie’s arm and said, “Show me Santa’s locker.”

  Dane went with Jim into the butcher back room, pushing through the doors and tensing up for a new blast of cold air.

  “I wanted to let you know that Santa—Rusty Gates—may have had a bigger problem than taking a few extra nips here and there.”

  “No kidding. Does this mean you’re not going to give me a sample of imported Italian prosciutto?”

  “Of course I have the prosciutto—I wouldn’t joke a bout a thing like that to a connoisseur like yourself.” Jim went to a stainless steel drawer and pulled it out. He withdrew a foot long roll of marbled pink meat and flipped a knife from the utensils hanging from the rack in front of a metal counter.

  “You have considerable skills with the knife, Jim. Remind me not to piss you off any time soon.”

  “Hah. I’m a butcher, ain’t I? Not to mention an ex-marine. Course I got knife skills.”

  “So what about Santa’s secret vice? He a gambler?”

  “No—more like a bookie. He’s been running a moving poker game operation using Craigslist to find players, but he’s not running the games out of Ted Gates—his nephew’s house where’s he’s been house-sitting.” Jim shook his head. “I got to give him credit for that.”

  Dane considered his next question and figured he ought to ask the obvious.

  “And you came about this knowledge how?”

  Jim laughed. “I gamble now and then. The island is slow in the winter.” He stopped his slicing and gave Dane a speculative look. “You’re not usually around in the winter.”

  It was a question, or a request for an explanation, but Dane didn’t feel compelled to answer. Plus, he had no answer, no explanation as to why he was still on cold and lonely Martha’s Vineyard this winter. But Jim was no idiot. He gave Dane one of those annoying knowing smiles as if he understood the secret without being told.

  “Never mind. I understand. If I had a partner like Shana George to spend the winter with I don’t suppose it would matter to me where the hell I was spending it neither.”

  Shana sauntered into the back room and into earshot with the kid in tow and scoffed out loud with a half cough-half laugh.

  “Anything in the locker?” Dane asked.

  “No clues. I already checked,” the kid said.

  “His Santa suit is still there. I checked the pockets. The usual assortment of loose change, gum, match books and a few business cards,” Shana said. She held up an array of business cards with a shiny smile that Dane could interpret as somewhat genuine—but it mostly looked too bright and professional and polished, and lacked the real warmth he wanted. He craved. Desperately.

  He nodded. “We’ll check out the business cards,” Dane said.

  “What about me?” Ronnie asked.

  “Don’t you have a job?” Dane looked at him and back to Jim. Jim shrugged.

  “It’s slow, man,” Ronnie said. “Besides, I want to get into the spying business—it’s massively cool.”

  “The boss is only paying Beachcomber Investigations for this case,” Jim said. He washed his hands and reached into his pocket.

  “We don’t need—” Dane said.

  “We’ll give you a holiday discount,” Shana cut him off.

  “Sure—the holiday discount is free.” Dane folded his arms across his chest. No way he was taking advantage of the locals during the slow season.

  “No—this is a real job,” Jim said. “The boss wants peace of mind. And he doesn’t want anything on the police blotter if you know what I mean.” Jim winked. He handed an envelope to Shana without looking at Dane. Shana’s beaming smile took on sunlight proportions as if she were a true mercenary. She acted like one in moments like this. But then again, she had rent to pay now. Maybe that’s why Dane didn’t want to accept money—keep her poor and needing to move back in with him. He scoffed at himself and shoved the notion aside. Even he wasn’t that mean or desperate. Not yet anyway.

  Ronnie nodded eagerly. “I can be a stringer like last time. Do some spying around town.”

  “Surveillance. Intelligence gathering. Not spying,” Dane said. The kid was going to get himself in trouble. Then Dane would have to get him out of it. Happened every time he had a stringer help out. Some help.

  “I can help. I’ll do a really good job,” Ronnie said. Dane could imagine the kid’s tail wagging he was so excited.

  “Fine. Do only as you’re told,” Dane said. He was out of his mind. This would undoubtedly cost him.

  Shana patted him on the back. He stiffened and she drew her hand away.

  “Don’t worry, Dane. He’ll be okay. I’ll keep an eye on him,” she said. She could read his mind. Partly.

  The part she couldn’t read was thinking that he would be watching out for both of them—her especially. Always. It was a glad burden. Most days.
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br />   “I thought we all agreed this business was too dangerous.” Dane eyed Ronnie.

  “We won’t have him do anything dangerous—”

  “I seem to recall a tazering incident—”

  “Tazering?” Jim asked.

  “It was rad.”

  Shana scowled at him. He wanted to grin, but he didn’t. She hefted her hands onto her hips and said, “We need to mentor him. He can’t deliver food the rest of his life.”

  “We’ll probably need food while we’re on a stake-out or something,” Dane said.

  “I can do that—food is my specialty. Then I can help out with the stake-out too.”

  “What stake-out? We don’t even have a plan yet.”

  “We’ll probably be staking out a poker game at some point.”

  Shana raised a brow at him. Dane exchanged a glance with Jim.

  “Fine. The kid can canvas the neighborhood—all of Vineyard Haven—while he’s delivering food. He can ask around and see if anyone’s seen Santa sleeping it off somewhere.”

  She smiled at him. The wash of pleasure would have knocked him over if he hadn’t been the stone cold block of granite that he was. Not for long if she kept it up. He could feel a volcanic meltdown coming on.

  “About the poker game stake-out—”

  Jim didn’t want the kid to know, so Dane said, “I’ll explain on the way to the first business card.”

  “That would be Rita Lane, realtor. We’ll stop at the beach shack first and get you properly attired,” she said. She took his arm and led him toward the back door the way they’d come in.

  Two opposite feelings struck him at once and sandwiched his mouth shut in the middle. Annoyed and bucking with defiance at the high-handed hijacking of his attire as if he were an adolescent pushed in on one side while warm amusement and affection at her caring hold on his arm squeezed him on the other. He could feel it pressing on his chest and tightening. He said nothing. It was the melt down. He wanted to let himself melt into someone who could enjoy the sappy Santa holiday traditions, the kiss under the mistletoe in particular. He’d been that way once upon a time. Able to let down his guard and enjoy simple things without concern for the next problem around the corner, the next mission on the horizon. The next loss.

  He had no missions on the horizon. And yet he still felt the anvil over his head as if the call would come at any moment to take him away from all this, from all the normalcy and warm holiday moments. Because none of this was real in his world.

  His world had been filled with kill or be killed for too long.

  He waved a good-bye to Jim and told him and Ronnie he’d be in touch. He and Shana pushed out of the not-so-automatic grocery store door and walked outside into the cold. But even as the wind whipped him, billowing his t-shirt, he didn’t feel it. He walked to the Jeep in silence, feeling her slip away with each step.

  “What’s bothering you?” she asked. There was a waver in her voice, like she knew she was out on a limb, taking liberties. She let go of his arm.

  “Our Santa runs a moving poker game. Uses Craigslist to set them up. We check the ad in today’s paper and we check out the game,” he said without answering her question. There was no answer. She knew that. She knew better than to ask.

  Chapter 3

  “Rusty Gates is a Craigslist poker gamer.” Shana said it like she was trying to convince herself as they headed to the Jeep.

  “That so hard to believe?” The cold air seeped in, getting under his skin. Dane didn’t care. He could feel Shana’s warmth slide away at arm’s length where she held him once again—literally and figuratively. He was back to pretending he was a block of granite.

  “I think we ought to talk to Cap about this.”

  “Of course you do.” Dane sighed. She was right. “What about our promise to our client to keep Rusty out of trouble? The reason they called us was to keep the cops out of it.”

  “Cap is okay. He has better things to do than worry about a floating poker game.”

  “Except the games are in other people’s houses. That would concern him.”

  That was the very reason they would need to fill in Captain Colin Lynch, their mild mannered friend and top state cop in charge of Martha’s Vineyard.

  “It won’t take us long to find Santa. Cap’ll give us a few days while we do his legwork,” Dane said.

  Shana slid him a skeptical look. She still had law enforcement in her blood and her habits, but he could skate this one on the line.

  Dane walked with her the rest of the way to the Jeep, not arm-in-arm like he wanted to. Not even shoulder-to-shoulder. The distance was still there.

  They had three days until the Christmas party at the church. Everyone still stuck in Vineyard Haven and environs for the holidays showed up according to Cap. Ever since Cap mentioned it he couldn’t get the picture of Shana in a short red elf suit standing under the mistletoe out of his head.

  He’d heard one too many Christmas songs on the radio. His mind was going soft. Maybe he needed to soften up the rest of his sorry pretend-granite self and play that scene out in real life. He had three days to bridge the gap between him and Shana. Three days to bridge the gap between his past life reality and the new Vineyard Haven reality. He had to fit himself into his new life. He was there physically, but his soul was somewhere else with the anvil hanging over it. The anvil didn’t have to fall to stop him from being in the moments of his new life. It all seemed like a dream. He had the constant feeling that wherever he went, whatever he did, a bomb would explode, or guns would fire or he would be attacked with a knife, and he had to be ready. That was his reality. Always being ready to fight off the attack, protect the innocent and rescue the victims. That was what he did. That had been his life.

  It still was, wasn’t it? What sort of life was this he was leading now and why was he still there? He’d come for a rest. The rest turned into a mission. And now … now what? Shana.

  They got in the Jeep simultaneously as always, slamming their doors in synch. The deep pang took Dane by surprise and he drove the short distance to State Police headquarters in silence while he tried to beat the pang back, desperately trying not to examine it or think about it.

  What he’d succeeded in beating back was all the holiday largesse that had amassed since he’d arrived at Shana’s door. He discovered this when he saw the giant wreath hanging above the glass door entry of the police station. His chest tightened and his face scowled back at him in the glass door as he yanked it open fast enough to make Shana jump back.

  She’d been a half a step behind him. He’d been aware of her lurking like one of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghosts rather than the warm respite he sought. How the hell that change came about was beyond him, but one thing was for sure—he was goddamned tired of being buffeted by his emotional turmoil where she was concerned. He had to find a way to be at peace with her.

  Hell if he knew how he’d accomplish that.

  The blast of Christmas music and Cap’s not so terrible voice belting out Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer greeted them as they walked through the lobby and down the hall to his office. This did nothing to help his mood. But at least it focused his fine agitated state of disagreeableness on the holidays. He’d turn into Scrooge yet. And Cap would help keep him from doing anything crazy like going soft.

  “Is there any way I can convince you not to come in and sit down?” Cap said from behind his desk as Dane sauntered through the door and slouched onto the uncomfortable wooden visitor chair. He could feel his scowl deepen to growling wolf proportions. He felt Shana follow him in, but even if he hadn’t, he’d know she was right behind him by the bright smile suddenly lighting up Cap’s face.

  Cap stood and, as usual, came out from behind his desk for his customary hug of greeting from Shana. Goddamn it. He made it all look so easy.

  “Merry Christmas, Cap,” she said, her special sunshine only-for-Cap-smile beaming.

  “It is now. Have a seat. Stay a while.”

 
“Cut the crap. We’re here on business,” Dane said.

  Cap laughed. Dane knew his friend enjoyed tormenting him about his complicated relationship with Shana. But he wasn’t in the mood. He flipped Cap the finger. Of course Cap laughed again, but he took his seat behind his desk. Dane ventured a glance at Shana. She was grinning that eye-roll on the inside kind of grin—at his expense.

  “What is it with you two?” she said. “There’s a man missing—”

  “You’re here about the missing Santa?” Cap asked.

  “Yes,” Shana said. “Jim Evans said he reported it, but he hired us to find Rusty Gates on behalf of the store manager, Ted Gates—Rusty’s uncle.”

  Cap nodded. “I told him there’s not much I can do. He’s hardly been gone a day and there’s no sign of him at the hospitals or shelters. We’ll keep an eye out. I didn’t tell him this, but if his body turns up, I’ll let him know.”

  “So you don’t know about the poker games then?” Dane enjoyed the look of surprise on his friend’s face.

  “Explain,” Cap said.

  Shana jumped in to explain. Dane stared at her, but he let her speak. He ought to be put out that she’d usurped his role as leader in their two-person band, but he wasn’t. She was just as much an alpha dog as he was, but she was a girl. He—or his hormones—had always made allowances for girls. They were not competition. They were in an entirely different league. If he wasn’t in a hell of a mood, he’d even admit that Shana was damned good at communicating succinctly and clearly, emphasizing all the right points.

  “There should be another Craigslist ad today with the location of tonight’s game—unless Rusty came to harm or left town before he got to it,” Dane said.

  “You can check it online—” Shana put in.

  “Already on it,” Cap said as he tapped his keyboard. “Here it is. There’s an address for a summer vacation house for rent listed by PSanta.”

  “That’s it. He’s Poker Santa in person, PSanta online,” Dane said.

  “What time?” Shana asked.

  “You’re going? Maybe I should—” Cap said.

  “For what?” Dane said. “You going in to break up a local poker game? Not even your jurisdiction.”