Danger Point

by Douglas J Bourg

  “Hello.”

  “Murphy,” the curt voice on the other end of the phone says, “What’s up with a rush on that body down in San Clemente?” It’s his boss, Captain Mark Sprague, a penny pinching bureaucrat. It is way too early for him to be calling; this cannot be good.

  “I thought he was just some homeless bum who offed himself,” The captain continues.

  “Sir, he wasn’t a bum and he wasn’t homeless,” Murphy explains. “My preliminary investigation found that he had a home in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and had money in the bank, not a lot, but enough. I knew him a little from when we were in high school. I don’t think this is the kind of guy who would kill himself. If he was going to do that, sir, why not just do it in Mexico? Why travel over a thousand miles to kill himself on one of his best friend’s jobsites? I have a gut feeling that the suicide is a cover up, but I have nothing concrete.” He can almost hear his boss thinking on the other end of the line.

  “Okay, Murph.” His boss finally says with a sigh. “Try to get a handle on this thing, and do it quickly. You know the County is having all sorts of money problems and they aren’t going to be happy about wasting valuable resources, okay?”

  “Yes sir. I’ll keep you in the loop.” He isn’t sure Captain Sprague heard his last sentence because the phone is dead before he can say anything else. He turns around and takes off running back up the beach, thinking about where to start looking for the reason that Micky Webber came back to San Clemente, and why might have he killed himself. Or why someone else might have done it for him.

  ◆◆◆

  DJ and I had arranged to go surfing the next morning. I wake up early and DJ is knocking at my door at 5:30 a.m.

  “Come on in,” I call out from the bathroom. “There’s a cup of coffee on the table for you.”

  “Not that instant crap you drink is it?” he calls back.

  “No, you ungrateful shit, I brewed it this morning. You’re welcome.”

  After inhaling our coffee, we load the surfboards and wet suits into the back of his truck and make the short drive to the private beach where we’re going to surf. It is 6 a.m. when we get to the beach, and the sky is beginning to open to a soft grey blue. We pull up to the guard house at the entrance to Cypress Shores, a private community of multi-million dollar homes. It’s a little early to be allowed in to go surfing, but we know the gate guard.

  “Good morning, Chris. Bobby and I are going to the Nichols house.” DJ says.

  “Here’s your parking permit, DJ.” He says with a nod, “Good morning, Bobby”.

  Chris has been the gate guard at Cypress Shores since he retired from Boeing when the aerospace industry tanked in the 1990’s. He’s known both of us from all the work we’ve done in the ocean front community. He hands us the colored pass required for all guests and service personnel coming in – bright orange for today. The pass color is changed weekly for a quick ID of anyone who is not supposed to be inside these exclusive gates.

  DJ remolded the Nichols’ house on the bluff a few years ago, and they were so happy with the job that Dr. Nichols told us we could surf at the private beach whenever we wanted. He left our names on a permanent list at the gate. The view is incredible from the bluff. Even though the train tracks run between the bluff-top houses and the ocean, they don’t affect the 180 degree ocean view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island.

  DJ pulls into the parking lot beside the cliff-top clubhouse and we look down at the ocean.

  “Wow, DJ,” I say, “It is going off.” The surf must be at least six to eight foot, or bigger, and perfect. We look out over the water; it’s glassy with the sets breaking out on the second reef.

  “Let’s get in the water before this place turns into a zoo,” says DJ with a grin. He’s still as competitive as when we were surfing against each other in contests.

  DJ hops out of the truck, grabs a towel and wraps it around his waist. He drops his jeans to the ground, and from under the towel he starts slipping into his wetsuit. Glancing over at me, he says, “The job’s going to be down at least until the middle of next week, then the hazardous material clean up team has to get finished at the house, and then the city has to sign off on the cleanup. We will be down for at least another week or more. So, you can do what you have to about Micky. I’m here if you need any help.”

  “Thanks DJ There are some things that just don’t add up. We both know Micky was afraid of needles, you know, sharp stuff, so for him to use a knife to kill himself is just out of the question. I’d like to look into how and why Micky died. Is that cool with you?” I ask.

  DJ stops and looks at me and for a moment becomes silent, thinking. Finally he says, “You know it is. Just remember what Murph said. He doesn’t want any interference from us.”

  “I know what he said, but Micky was our friend. I’ll take you up on your offer if I need anything,”

  We grab our boards and head down the hill toward the beach, through the gate, through the tunnel under the railroad tracks and onto the beach. We don’t say anything more as we start to paddle out.

  DJ and I are out of the water by seven thirty a.m., just when it’s starting to get crowded. What a great way to start the day. DJ drops me off at my house on his way home. I need to figure out what to do next.

  Chapter 7

  After a quick shower, DJ heads off to the San Juan Capistrano jobsite. The house is a modernized version of a Spanish Hacienda, high-up on a hill with incredible views of the ocean and Saddleback Valley.

  As he pulls on to the jobsite, his phone plays “Little Surfer Girl” by the Beach Boys, letting him know it’s his wife, Maria.

  “Hi, Babe, what’s going on?”

  “Hi, Honey. You had a priority envelope delivered this morning with no name and no return address.”

  DJ loves Maria’s voice. She still has a hint of a Spanish accent, even though she’s been in California since she was ten years old. Her parents were diplomats and she was raised in Spain before returning to California. DJ always thought her accent was sexy, and he still does.

  “Just put it in the office on the boat with the rest of today’s paperwork, would you, please?” The beep in his ear indicates that he has another call waiting. “I’ve got another call, Babe. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tonight,” he tells her as he clicks over to the incoming call.

  The other call is the engineer for the T-Street job, demanding to know why DJ is not at their meeting. DJ starts to explain what happened at the jobsite, but the engineer hangs up without letting him finish. What an asshole. Let them have the meeting without him. He has too much else to do. He already knows it’s going to be a very long day.

  However, the day ends up flying by, with all the crew and sub-contractors asking him what happened at T-Street. After his final meeting, DJ heads down to the harbor to try and catch a few quiet minutes on his boat. Maybe he’ll go for a stand-up paddle ride through the harbor. That always helps him relax and think.

  As soon as he arrives at the boat, his neighbor jumps down from his Lures 32’ Sport Fisher, and heads over.

  Shit, DJ thinks, I can’t deal with this nosey bastard today. The neighbor, Herb, is a retired CEO, a control freak, micro-managing jerk-off, used to telling everyone what to do. Nobody has to do his bidding anymore, but he just doesn’t get it.

  “Hey, DJ,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “I read all about you and your San Clemente job in the paper today. What a mess.” DJ suspects that he’s fishing for information.

  “We’ve been shut down until the sheriffs complete their investigation. The clients are on vacation and they’re going to be very unhappy when they find out someone died in their new home,” DJ says as he climbs on board his boat. Before his neighbor can say anything more, DJ looks at him with his best, piercing glare. Maria hates this look. She calls it the Hairy Eyeballs.

  “Herb, I’ve been answering this shit all day. Would you give it a rest, please?” Herb steps back, opening his mouth as if to say som
ething more. He’s not used to being spoken to like that.

  DJ doesn’t give him a chance. He walks down into his floating office, a Yankee 38, one of only seventeen built during the 1970’s. He and Bobby spent the better part of four years restoring this boat to near pristine condition. Another month or so and she’d be ready to sail in any type of weather. DJ has been thinking of racing her, the way he and Bobby had when they raced on his dad’s boat.

  Sitting down, DJ sees that Maria has brought down the mail, and the priority envelope is on top of the pile. Opening it, he looks inside and sees there are two envelopes, one with his name on it and one with Bobby’s. He feels a chill when he realizes that it’s Micky’s back-handed scrawl. DJ can’t do this without fortification so he gets up, walks over to the tiny on-board fridge and grabs a beer. Sitting back down, he twists the beer open, takes a big gulp and begins reading:

  DJ

  I am in some real trouble and I need you to get the other envelope to Bobby as soon as you can. There are some very dangerous people looking for me and if you are reading this then most likely I have been killed. Tell Bobby I am sorry for bringing him into this shit-storm, but he is the only person that I trust to make this thing right. Thanks, DJ, for everything. Being your friend for all these years has meant more to me than you will ever know. Be cool and cover Bobby’s back. He’s going

  to need it. Stay real.–Micky

  DJ sits for a long time sipping his beer and thinking. He is overcome with sadness and fear as he realizes that Micky must have been murdered. He finishes the beer before he reaches for his phone to call Bobby.

  Chapter 8

  Crap. I’m late again. I never used to be late for anything. Yet, here I am, late for my standing weekly appointment with my shrink.

  When I got sober and off the drugs, the dreams about the boy got so frequent and so bad that I started thinking about eating my gun. I knew I was in trouble and it was time to get some help. I’d been exonerated by the Department of Internal Affairs and the D.A.’s office. I’d been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, after the shooting. I was still a guilt-ridden mess. I didn’t want a police department shrink and a friend had recommended Dr. Kris Summers. It had taken me a long time to make that first appointment, and even longer to trust Dr. Kris, but after a couple of years I was finally starting to feel better. I was ‘making progress’, as she put it.

  I pull into the lot across the street from her office and pay a quarter for every fifteen minutes I’ll spend with Dr. Kris. I always wonder what the city does with all of the parking money it raises, because they sure don’t spend it on street repair. I cross the road and run up the stairs to her home office, in a condo which overlooks the San Clemente pier.

  When we were young DJ, Micky and I were always playing on the beach near the pier, where we first learned to surf. One day my dad let us use one of his old surfboards. We took turns using the board until our parents thought that it was time for each of us to get our own. We won our first contests there with our parents cheering us on. From then on, we were unstoppable.

  “Bobby, please come in,” Dr. Kris says as she opens the door, “You’re late, again. You need to be on time. I can’t give you the whole hour if you’re not here.”

  I look at the ground sheepishly and mumble an apology. At least she’s nicer than DJ when she gives me shit.

  Her face softens, and she smiles as she says, “Sorry, Bobby. My last client was a hard one. How are you doing today?”

  The doc is a looker, standing about 5’8” with a firm body from playing tennis. She has jet black hair, bright blue eyes and a smile that could melt ice. The hair may or may not be natural, and the eyes may or may not be contacts, but who cares? She’s beautiful. No wonder people fall in love with their shrinks. She’s also very professional, never mixing business with pleasure. I’d often thought about asking her out, but I’m sure she’d say no, at least as long as I’m a client. Right. Like that would be the only reason she’d turn me down. I really do need a shrink.

  “I’m all right,” I reply wearily as she leads me into her office. I take a seat in one of the two leather chairs that face each other; no couch here. Her office is decorated more like a living room than a shrink’s office so you feel at ease when you sit down for your face-to-face session.

  She asks me, “You seem a little down today. Are your dreams still occurring with the same frequency?”

  “The dream comes and goes. I’ll always blame myself for killing that kid. No amount of sleep will ever fix that.”

  “That young man’s name was Travis Lee; he was pointing a gun at you when you shot him. You acted on your training as a police officer.” She always tells me to use his name, but I can’t bring myself to do it, at least not yet anyway.

  “I know.” I reply quietly, looking down at my hands. “Being a cop still doesn’t prepare you for shooting a twelve-year-old kid.”

  “Nothing prepares you for shooting anyone, least of all a child.” She stops, picks up a pair of reading glasses and glances down at her notes. She decides to take a different tact. “How is everything else going? Are you drinking?”

  “I had a couple of glasses of wine the other night while visiting a friend.”

  “That sounds okay. Please tell me more.”

  Fasten your seatbelt, I think. “Well, a childhood friend slipped into town and tried to get in touch with me. Apparently he was in some sort of trouble and needed my help. He left a cryptic note in my jeans’ pocket; I’d left my work jeans in the back of the truck while I was surfing. Then he turned up dead on a jobsite where I’m working, all in a span of twenty-four hours.” I know I’m rambling, but it’s the first time I’ve actually been able to say it all out loud. “I hadn’t seen him in a few years and I guess I feel that I wasn’t there for him when he really needed me. Yesterday, I called an old friend I knew in Hawaii who lives in Laguna now to see if he knew anything about Micky being back in town.”

  When I finally look up, she’s staring at me over her glasses. She’s trying to process what I’ve just told her, but resists the urge to push me harder for more information. “And did this friend know anything about Micky’s problems?” she asks, resuming her note taking.

  “No, he said he didn’t know anything about Micky being back in town, but my gut is telling me he knows more than he’s letting on. His attitude changed toward me when I questioned his answer.”

  “This friend of yours, how did you two meet?”

  I think about that for a moment, wondering how much of this I should share with her. I open and close the clasp on my watch – a nervous habit. I’ll break the watch one of these days, and it was my father’s watch. Finally, I tell her, “Micky, DJ and I met John Gomez– that’s his name - in Haleiwa, on the North Shore of Oahu in 1991, my first full year on the pro surf tour. DJ and Micky…” It’s such a long story. I don’t know if I have the energy to go into it all right now.

  She looks up at me again, a question on her face. She’s heard me speak of DJ many times before, but I had never really filled her in about Micky.

  “Micky Webber was the friend who was found dead on DJ’s job site, where I’ve been working. The police think that he cut his own throat. He was found a couple of days ago. Anyway, DJ and Micky flew over to Hawaii to watch me make a run at the Triple Crown of Surfing.”

  Another questioning look. I guess the world of pro-surfing is pretty foreign if you’re not part of it. “It’s the total accumulation of points for surfing the three contests on the North Shore of Oahu. The contests are: the Haleiwa Open at Ali’i Beach, The Sunset Open at Sunset Beach and the Pipeline Masters at Eauki Beach. We talked to John G. for a while and just before he took off, he told us that if there was anything we need, anything, he said, stressing it, you know, he says to call. Then he gave us all cards with his phone number on them – nothing else, just his phone number, and then he left. And a couple of days later, Micky called him to score some green.”

&nb
sp; “Green?” she asks.

  “Weed, you know, pot. Micky wanted to see if the Hawaiian pot was as good as everyone said it was. From then on, Micky and John G. were friends,” I explain. “During the rest of our stay, John G. was always around taking us to dinner, you know, hanging out at the contests and getting Micky stoned.”

  Dr. Kris and I talk for a while longer and she chides me about smoking pot. I tell her I used to, but I’m too old to do that anymore; although, some days it feels like it might not be a bad idea to take it up again.

  We haven’t made it back to talking about Micky when Dr. Kris glances at the wall clock behind me. She smiles as she says, “Our time is up, Bobby. I’ll see you next week at the same time. And try to be on time, wont’ you?” She uncrosses her legs and unfolds from her chair. I stand up and she walks me to the door, handing me an appointment card.

  “You’re doing much better,” she says, “We’re making real progress here. I know this is hard for you. Nobody, especially an ex-cop, wants to admit they need help. It’ll take more time, but you will get your life back. You’ll be able to go to sleep without having that dream.” She smiles as she closes the door to get ready for her next appointment. I like this about her office: you’re alone in the waiting room, go into her office, then when your appointment is over and you leave through another door. You never run into another patient. It’s very discrete.