by Martin Brown
The Gossiping Gourmet
A Murder in Marin Mystery – Book 1
Martin Brown
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Chapter One
On the first Monday of every month, Warren Bradley, community newspaper columnist extraordinaire, catered a lunchtime feast for Sausalito’s men and women in blue. His generous offer was driven by selfish reasons. Bradley was always in search of scandal and did not object if the information he dredged up lacked context, provided it came with a healthy portion of innuendo, supposition, and plausible conjecture.
Headquartered in a two-story building that took up an entire block at the end of Caledonia Street, Sausalito’s self-proclaimed “resident-serving commercial district,” the police department had a state-of-the-art lockdown area, a meeting room with richly appointed mahogany walls, and a workout facility that was the envy of all other Marin County police departments. All at the disposal of a force of two dozen uniformed officers, five support staff, a chief, and a deputy chief. It was undoubtedly more police coverage than any town of seven thousand required—particularly given that the county sheriff’s department maintained a Southern Marin station just two miles north of Sausalito’s lavish police headquarters.
The fire station, on the opposite side of the street, was equally grand. Day visitors, which Sausalito attracted on summer weekends by the thousands, often mistook its massive windows and antique brickwork for the front of a luxury hotel. But firefighters, in spite of their opulent surroundings, were never treated to Warren’s garden of culinary delights. When Bea, one of Warren’s compatriots in the game of know-and-tell, asked why he worked so hard to accommodate the local police, but not Sausalito's firefighters, he explained, “Grease fires and cats stuck in trees are of little interest to me or my readers.”
For Sausalito’s finest, however, he prepared his best dishes, and they reciprocated with unexpected delicious morsels of salacious details that raised his standing in a social circle above his actual station in life, and made the hours of shopping, preparation, cooking, carrying, and serving all worthwhile.
The department’s rank and file much appreciated his efforts, from Captain Hans Petersen down to the city's newest patrol officer, Chris Harding, who had escaped policing the mean streets of San Jose for the quieter, and safer, surroundings of Sausalito.
Warren’s gourmet lunches were the highlight of the department's month for those who normally subsisted on diets of Arby’s and Subway sandwiches. Officers who might have called in sick that day, with plans to go deep sea fishing or out to Peacock Gap to play eighteen holes of golf, chose other days to be stricken with an unexpected case of "blue flu." Chief Petersen was particularly impressed when officers with the day off showed up around eleven forty-five, to get something they had “forgotten” out of their lockers.
As a connoisseur of indiscreet conversation, Warren made sure that when the food was plated, he would be first to the table, anxious to catch any new gossip. Sometimes, it was nothing more than a small gem, like a 415 call—disturbing the peace—caused by one or both of the mayor’s drunken teenage sons.
And, sometimes, it was a precious stone. Case in point: the assault and battery arrest of Grant Randolph, chair of the Sausalito Fine Arts Commission. In that instance, his timing could not have been better. Twelve hours after Randolph was booked into the county jail, Warren busied himself preparing his caramel chicken. Eighteen pounds of chicken legs and thighs marinated in a sauce of light brown sugar, peeled ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and vegetable oil—a blend of fantastic tastes that nearly brought every hardworking law enforcement officer to tears.
The night of Randolph's arrest, Harding and his partner, Steve Hansen, were the first two officers on the scene. Between bites and praise of Warren's chicken, Harding said, “The EMT boys had to take Randolph's wife up to the hospital."
"She was in pretty bad shape when we arrived,” Hansen added.
All at once the tips of Warren's ears tingled as he stopped to contemplate the value of this news. Randolph seemed to take delight in correcting Warren at every one of their encounters. Perhaps the tables were finally about to turn.
Warren’s upper lip, which balanced an unruly salt and pepper mustache, puckered forward with a laugh when he heard the surprising news. “No, I don’t believe that! Really? Grant Randolph? I didn’t think he would hurt a fly, even if he seems to be built like someone who could.”
“You’d know he could pack a wallop if you had seen Mrs. Randolph flat on her back, sprawled across their living room floor,” Harding replied.
“Wow,” Warren murmured, as he proffered another piece of sweet and spicy chicken to his new favorite police officer.
Warren’s aging social set considered Randolph a bit too aggressive. Undoubtedly, he had the right pedigree in the arts, and his financial standing was beyond question, but accepting the chairmanship of the town’s art commission when he had taken up residence only months earlier seemed presumptuous.
If it had not been for the fact that no one else was interested in investing the time and effort needed to do the job, with the likely exception of Warren himself, Randolph would not have been handed the position without objection.
Mrs. Alma Samuels, who had been married to the late San Francisco attorney Roger Samuels, also thought Randolph was a bit presumptuous. But she tolerated the man because, as she explained, “he has unquestioned credentials in the world of fine art.” However, she shared with Warren and her close group of friends, known locally as the Ladies of Liberty—Ethel Landau, Marilyn Williams, Bea Snyder, and Robin Mitchell—that she too felt uncomfortable with the man she often referred to as “an east coast know-it-all” (an opinion that grew in Alma's mind from a seed planted there by Warren).
Armed with this shocking bit of news, Warren knew it would not be long before word of Randolph’s arrest was whispered loudly into Alma’s one good ear. The hearing in the aging widow’s right ear had been gone almost as long as her husband.
Best of all, news of Grant’s arrest would be the perfect item to lead Warren’s column, “Heard About Town,” which appeared in the town’s only newspaper, The Sausalito Standard.
But, was it wise to be so hasty? Would it be a waste of a delicious piece of gossip that could be doled out more carefully, Warren wondered as the room buzzed with a half dozen different conversations.
Fortunately for Warren, the paper’s publisher, Rob Timmons, was not on the best of terms with Chief Petersen, having written one too many stories about unsolved residential burglaries in Sausalito.
“The guy’s a muckraker,” Petersen complained to Warren on numerous occasions. “If his family hadn’t lived in Sausalito
for three generations, and his father hadn’t been the town’s fire chief for thirty years, no one would pay attention to what he wrote in that weekly rag of his.”
Rob had long known that Chief Petersen preferred he write about anything but Sausalito’s finest. Unfortunately, their bloated budget and the repeated bumbling of various cases made them an irresistible target. Among the citizens of Sausalito, complaints about their police department had long been a cause for debate. Nearly all of those who were home by nine and in bed by ten thought their police did an outstanding job. But those who lived a more active life, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the short drive into San Francisco for the symphony, the theater, or various social events, thought differently.
Traveling through Sausalito after eleven o’clock at night could be risky. Patrol officers, who were expected to issue a certain number of traffic citations during an eight-hour shift, would pull over vehicles for such offenses as a “rolling stop,” as opposed to making a full stop at one of the city’s endless gauntlet of stop signs.
The careful policing of traffic violations was particularly galling to someone who arrived home minutes after being stopped by a patrol officer, only to find their house had been burglarized.
Incidents like these led to a steady flurry of reader letters to The Standard complaining that, “Sausalito’s well-paid police are busily working speed traps while thieves are cleaning out our homes of jewelry and other valuables.”
Rob knew that his often-critical coverage of the Sausalito PD pleased many of the town’s most successful individuals. People who in turn would make a point to patronize local merchants, and who were not shy in expressing their support for the “good work of Sausalito’s community newspaper.”
Rob’s less-than-cordial relationship with Petersen’s police force was counterbalanced by his close relationship with the county sheriff’s department, where his former high school basketball teammate and longtime best friend, Eddie Austin, served as the department’s lead investigator.
Eddie shared Rob’s view that the Sausalito PD was “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.” He and Rob also knew the situation was exacerbated by the two departments having jurisdictions that bordered one another.
It was always a tightrope walk for Warren—the what, where, when, how, and who of dishing the dirt. Many factors had to be taken into consideration. Keeping secrets from one, sharing them with another, while laying out a plan of attack. All the while remaining aware that telling too little meant not holding his audience’s attention. But telling too much meant losing control of whatever bit of gossip was in his grasp that given week.
Warren tantalized his loyal followers with a blend of half-truths, disregarding Mark Twain’s sage advice, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Understandably, Warren was always pressed to recall what he had said and with whom he had shared his noxious blend of truth and assumption.
Later that afternoon, hours after his caramel chicken was both praised and devoured, Warren sat in a small nook in his spare, one-bedroom cottage. His aging fingers were curled menacingly over a keyboard where many of the letters had all but faded from view. Fortunately for him he knew the position of every key by heart, and any letter hit in error appeared on a monochrome monitor that by logic should have gone dark several years earlier. Poised to strike at his prey, Warren ached to tap out the name Grant Randolph. But an uncertainty welled up inside of him, and he paused.
With little time before his deadline, he chose, as he had previously, to fill his column with a mix of his usual reflections: the amusing differences between cats and dogs; the need to keep our “small city’s streets tidy in spite of the daily abuse they encounter as hordes of tourists trample through downtown, carelessly discarding unfinished ice cream cones, ketchup packets, hamburger and hot dog wrappers!”
Warren concluded with a lament about the woeful absence of manners in today’s youth. “We were raised to respect our neighbors’ right to quiet and privacy. Has kindness and consideration disappeared completely?” Warren asked in a fever pitch, certain his latest offering would please adoring readers.
Each Wednesday, when The Sausalito Standard containing his latest mix of rumor and admonishments landed in every mailbox in town, Warren anticipated several calls from admirers praising his latest efforts. But while praise was the expressed purpose of their call, most had only one question: “Warren, what do you hear in your travels through town?” And since most of these callers were age eighty or older, Warren was in the habit of speaking up.
His usual approach was to start with a question: For example, “Did you know that Penelope Jones is planning to remarry?”
His caller might respond, “Why, I didn’t think her divorce had been finalized!”
“That was my first thought,” Warren added with a short laugh.
From that point, the conversation would devolve into speculation.
Warren: “Bill Butler is going to need a hip replacement. I was wondering, do you think his wife pushed him down the stairs, or that he just fell down drunk on his own?”
Caller: “Oh, Warren, you’re so right! That man’s life would improve greatly if he gave up the bottle.”
Warren’s phone circle always included longtime members of the Sausalito Women’s League. Simply known as “The League,” it started back in the early years of the twentieth century and was organized as a clandestine effort to support the suffragette movement. Over the intervening years, the organization grew into the paramount social set for Sausalito’s established gentry.
Alma Samuels’ service as president emeritus was all the proof needed of the club’s continued high standing.
In 1976, in recognition of the American Bicentennial, Samuels—who was the one person in Sausalito in whom social and political power reached its pinnacle—formed her own tight-knit circle, which she called the Ladies of Liberty, of whom Marilyn Williams, age 72, was today its youngest member.
Within this group, Bradley’s columns were received with a blend of giggles and false admonishments. “Oh, Warren, you’re just awful!” they’d tease after he put into print a particularly nasty piece of gossip.
He’d chuckle in a conspiratorial tone and declare, “I suppose I just can’t help myself!”
Early each week, before his column was due, Warren’s phone would ring. Invariably, Alma Samuels was the caller. This served as Warren’s opportunity to invite himself up to her expansive and sadly empty mansion atop one of Sausalito’s highest points. From that lofty height, the views of Richardson Bay were a breathtaking collage of blue water and white sails, against the backdrop of the Tiburon Peninsula’s rolling green hills and opulent estates.
“Alma,” Warren said in a volume a bit higher and certainly more ominous than usual, “you will not believe the trouble Grant Randolph has gotten himself into. It’s too delicious to tell you over the phone. I have to see your reaction with my own eyes.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get yourself up here,” Alma croaked, and then announced, with a flirtatious giggle, “Prying minds need to know!”
Chapter Two
The Samuels mansion sat on a leveled lot up near the top of Monte Mar Drive. The street was less traveled than many other roads in Sausalito, all of which eventually led down to the bay and the tourist-impacted part of the small town of seventy-two hundred souls.
Its absence of traffic was one of the pluses that attracted Roger and Alma Samuels to purchase the home in 1967, well before Sausalito emerged from what many thought of as the dark days of the counterculture, highlighted by San Francisco's infamous Summer of Love.
During that era, the Samuels’ rarely visited the small downtown where, on weekends, hippies often stripped down to their underwear, or less, and frolicked in the fountain that graced the small, green, palm tree-lined city center park, Vina Del Mar. (Twenty-five years later, one of those nude bathers served a term as the city’s mayor—a topic rarely discussed in polite socie
ty.)
The Samuels homestead had been in desperate need of repair. But both Alma and Roger—a securities attorney who had a cold, distant heart and a keen mind—could see its enormous potential. The house sat on a beautiful piece of land, with broad vistas that stretched from Mount Tamalpais to the north, Berkeley to the east, and San Francisco to the south. The iconic Golden Gate Bridge was not visible because of the Marin Headlands to its southwest, but the views it did have were picture-postcard worthy. And so, the up-and-coming attorney and his adoring wife took a chance on a community that had seen grander days and put their money into the decaying mansion that had what Roger Samuels called, “respectable old bones.”
The mansion turned out to be a wise investment. What sold for ninety-five thousand dollars in 1967 was valued today at (depending on which one of Sausalito’s ever-gracious but endlessly optimistic real estate agents you asked) fifteen to eighteen million dollars.
Warren Bradley got a thrill by merely driving up to the grand old mansion.
While it was impressive, and while Roger Samuels had left a generous estate that assured Alma’s future regardless of the number of years she lived, the care she might require, or the maintenance that the old home might need, there was still a feeling of sadness and obsolescence about the place.
Alma’s one child, a daughter who had followed in her father’s footsteps and entered the world of business law, was long gone from the house. For many years, Alma had been left on her own to wander from one empty room to another. And although she tried to keep herself busy, the physical burden of her ninety years had begun to weigh heavily upon her.