Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

lowest price you will accept and your board will sell fast.” I sold a ten foot T & C there in one day.
    Inside the shoebox-shaped shop I made a beeline for the glass counter piled high with cylinders of pastel-colored surfboard wax. My favorite is coconut-scented “Sex Wax.” Expressly for warm water, this milky-white wax has an ambrosial island fragrance that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. I selected one disk of wax the size of a hockey puck and set it on the counter.
    “Hi, Kai!” Jenny greeted me with a big grin. “Heading up to the North Shore?”
    “Nah, I was just there yesterday at Waimea. Nearly killed myself on a thirty-footer.” I exaggerated. “Today I’m heading out to Pops.”
    “Kai, for Waimea you need a gun.” She looked concerned. “That nine-six nose rider of yours isn’t built for big waves.”
    “I know, I borrowed a gun from my cousin Alika. It was OK. Didn’t suit me exactly, but close enough.”
    “I took in a big gun nearly a month ago. It’s got an amateur patch job, but it would have sold instantly if she hadn’t put such a high price on it,” Jenny explained. “She wants $350.”
    “A woman is selling a big gun? Not many women surf Waimea.”
    “She said she’s selling it for a friend who left the island,” Jenny replied. “I’m surprised she didn’t put it in a shop in Hale‘iwa, ‘cuz the address she gave is on the North Shore. The board, though, was made in California.”
    “Wait a minute. Can I see this board?”
    “It’s over there between those two tankers.” Jenny pointed to a wall lined with boards standing in file on their tails. There it was—red and white stripes like a candy cane, its narrow pointed nose rising nearly a foot above the longboards next to it.
    Jenny gingerly plucked it out like a stick of gum from a pack. California surfboard label. No leash. And those telltale stripes.
    “I want to buy this board.” I tried to mask my rush of emotion. “How much does she want for it again?”
    Jenny drew a card from a small file box behind the counter and glanced at it. “Too much, Kai. You’re a good customer. How about I cut my commission and drop the price to $300.”
    “Did it come in with a leash?”
    “You don’t want that leash. It was sliced right in two—I only got the part still hooked to the board.”
    “Sliced or snapped? I think a surfer wiped out on this board at Waimea—the leash could have snapped or been shredded by coral.”
    “No, this one looks sliced like bologna.”
    “Do you still have it?”
    “I threw it in the scrap bin in back. But that was weeks ago—and I’m not the only one who goes back there.”
    “I’ll pay three hundred if you can find me that leash and give me the woman’s name and address.”
    “Sorry, Kai, I can’t give out her personal information. I promise all my customers confidentiality.”
    “No problem,” I replied. I didn’t want to offend her or push my luck. To avoid trading in stolen boards, Jenny was a stickler for gathering and protecting detailed information on her clients.
    She set the card on the counter and covered it with the wax I had put there. Then she stepped into the back room.
    I glanced at the card. The seller’s address and other vital information were concealed under the wax. I wasn’t about to move it. But on the edges of the card not covered by the wax, I could just make out a first name, “Maya,” and the last four digits of a phone number. That was enough. I knew already the North Shore prefix. So I had myself a complete number.
Bingo!
    Jenny returned with a four-foot section of leash. I carefully studied the severed end. When a surfboard leash snaps in the heat of a wipeout, the broken surface looks irregular and jagged—with tiny peaks and valleys and burrs. But this leash appeared to have been sliced clean, as if with a knife. A few fine, curved parallel lines over the otherwise flat surface suggested the sawing movement of a sharp blade.
    “Thanks for the cord,” I said. “It may come in handy.”
    “A broken leash? Handy?”
    I peeled off three of Summer’s rumpled Ben Franklin’s.
    Jenny eyed the bills. “I love cash.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    With sliced leash and badly-patched candy cane in hand, I stepped from the surf shop beaming.

Nine

    Nearly eleven feet of surfboard proved too much even for my spacious Chevy. Luckily, I always carry along a pair of soft roof racks. Within minutes I had positioned