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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.