by Martin Brown
“Yes…right,” Rob said, as he bit his lip to keep from smiling over the idea that Warren was anything like the daring, hard-working journalists that Bea had just described. It didn’t surprise him that the comment had been taken out of context, or that it carried the apparent subtext: Warren’s recent reporting on Grant Randolph’s arrest had somehow led to his murder.
Rob then realized that Alma's ladies must be spreading this line of reasoning to anyone willing to listen. At the same time, he felt grateful for what he viewed as a momentary truce with his most persistent critics.
Rob was in mid-bite of a piece of chocolate cake when Holly tugged at his sleeve. “Jeez, you were spreading the manure a bit thick up there, don't you think?”
“Would you have preferred if I called him an officious little snob with an overinflated sense of self, who had a bad habit of airing other people’s dirty laundry?” Rob said in a whisper.
“That would have been perfect!” Holly replied with a broad smile.
They both laughed. Holly then stood on her toes and whispered in Rob’s ear, “I think Warren’s killer is in this room! How about you?”
“That would be interesting,” Rob said, as he returned the smile and nod of one more of the Ladies of Liberty.
Holly scanned the room. “So, let’s see…how about Randolph’s pal, Ray Sirica?”
“A little old, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but the guy works out like five days a week! He may be in his fifties, but he’s built like a tree trunk. I don’t think he’d have too much trouble carrying Warren around like a play doll and leaving him posed on his back deck.”
Rob looked over at Sirica, who had come without Debbie to the service. While he never gave a man’s physique a second thought, he could appreciate Holly’s point. He had a benign smile, but there was a certain physical power about him that suggested he could have quickly suffocated Bradley if he was so inclined.
“And, of course, that letter he sent in about Warren spreading ‘half-truths’ regarding the incident between the Randolphs and saying, ‘None of us would want to be placed in the crosshairs of the gossiping gourmet,’” Holly said, as she used air quotes. “I don’t know him very well, but I wouldn’t want to get up in that guy’s grill.”
In the middle of their exchange, Karin walked up. “What are you two up to? You look thick as thieves.”
There was no jealousy in Karin regarding Rob and Holly’s relationship. Readily aware that they’d been comrades under fire for several years, she jokingly referred to Holly as Rob’s office wife.
In fact, Karin knew better than most the stress of Holly's job, having worked alongside Rob before leaving the paper to start a family.
“Believe me,” she explained to any friend who asked, “Rob needs a strong woman to keep him in line, both at the paper and at home.”
“We think there’s a good chance that Warren Bradley’s killer is in this room,” Holly explained quietly.
“Really?” Karin said. “So, you’re both going into the detective business as a sideline?”
“No, but we’ve bought into Eddie’s theory that Warren knew his killer. We’re thinking he might be here, hiding in plain sight,” Rob explained.
At that moment, Eddie came over and joined them.
“See any suspicious looking characters?” Eddie asked Holly.
She gave a short laugh, “It’s Sausalito, they all look pretty suspicious.”
Chief Petersen cleared his throat as he walked up and stuck out his hand, “Rob, you did a good job up there.”
“These occasions bring people together,” Holly whispered into Karin’s ear.
“Thanks,” Rob said, as he thrust out his hand and shook Petersen’s, who in turn greeted Eddie, Karin, and Holly.
Flanking Petersen were Chris Harding and Steve Hansen.
“He was a very nice man,” Chris said, as he also shook hands with Rob and Eddie. After introductions, he nodded to Karin and Holly.
“We’re still talking about that great caramel chicken he made for us a couple of weeks back,” Hansen said. “Gosh, that was good. Not to mention some of his chocolate cherry brownies. I’m sure going to miss that guy!”
“Yeah, that man knew how to cook,” Harding added with a broad smile. "That pasta with veal, sausage, and porcini ragu was also incredible!"
Rob was tempted to point out that the only thing he did better than cook was to spread rumors about his neighbors, but he kept that thought to himself.
“I suppose you’re going to do a big piece about Warren and his death in next week’s paper,” Petersen said, causing Rob to wonder if he was fishing to see how he would approach the story.
Petersen, Rob assumed, was hoping that this would not turn into a “Sausalito Police dropped the ball once again” type of story. Or, in this particular case, dropped the body.
“You know, in a murder investigation, we’re pretty much sidelined. We don’t have the staff or the resources to handle something like this,” Petersen explained.
Hansen and Harding, who, like Petersen, were in dress blues, smiled and nodded in agreement with their chief.
“That’s why we’re thankful to get the assistance of Eddie here and the sheriff’s department,” Petersen added.
Eddie nodded and smiled, but did not comment.
After another round of handshakes, the three officers faded back into the crowd. Holly tugged Rob in close and whispered, “Hansen and Harding look healthy enough to throw Bradley over their shoulders and play dress-up with him as well.”
“I suppose you think that Warren wouldn’t cough up that caramel chicken recipe of his no matter how much they pressured him, so they murdered the old tattletale? You know Holly, you can’t place everyone who is into bodybuilding on your suspect list. Go to that Gold’s Gym up in Corte Madera that runs an ad for new members in our paper once a month, and you can arrest a couple dozen suspects on the spot.”
“Who knows? Maybe if I tied Hansen and Harding up, I could slap the truth out of them.”
“I think you’ve read one too many of those hot cop romance books you enjoy."
“A girl’s got to have some fun,” Holly pouted. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the community news business can get a little dull at times.”
“What? You mean you don’t enjoy a good ‘sewer replacement project cost overrun’ story now and then?” Rob raised his brows in mock horror. “Let’s see what they have in this joint for dessert.”
“Sadly, nothing that compares with Warren’s chocolate cherry brownies,” Holly warned.
Later that afternoon, while the children were napping, Rob shared with Karin what he had learned from Eddie about Bradley's final “Heard About Town” column.
“They collected some of Warren’s things and brought them to the county crime lab for analysis. They were happy to have his laptop. If it had named who dined with him Tuesday night, they would have been a good deal happier. Unfortunately, that day’s calendar just said, ‘dinner here.’ The most interesting item on it was his next ‘Heard About Town’ column, the one he never sent. In it, he demanded Randolph’s resignation from the arts commission.”
“Wow!” Karin said.
“Eddie is wondering if he was looking for a comment from Randolph about what he was planning to write. Maybe that’s what brought Ray Sirica to his door sometime between six-thirty and seven that evening. His computer indicated that Warren made his final edits on that piece less than a half-hour earlier. But there was no mention in his column about his talking with Sirica or Randolph requesting a comment. Perhaps he intended to add that later but never got the opportunity.”
“I'm sure Eddie would love to figure out what happened in the hours between when Bradley finished that column and when he wound up on the back porch with both his hands missing."
"From what I can tell, sweetheart, that's all Eddie's been thinking about for the last four days.”
Chapter Twenty
&
nbsp; On Sunday morning, Rob awoke with the thought that he still needed a fresh angle on the Bradley murder investigation to lead his coverage for the upcoming edition of The Sausalito Standard.
The dailies, television, and radio outlets rushed in and covered the questions of who, how, when, where, and what. Now, it was Rob’s turn to cover the story’s most important aspect: the why.
To that end, Rob called Eddie to check on a couple of facts.
Eddie, always concerned about anything said over the phone, suggested that Rob come by his place. “On your way over, pick up some bagels,” Eddie suggested. “You’re looking for an angle, and I’m looking for some food. Seems like a fair trade.”
Thirty minutes later, Sharon greeted Rob with a kiss on the cheek as he came through the door.
“There he is, the great orator himself!” Eddie announced. “You should have heard him, Sharon! He had those old ladies weeping away for their dearly departed gossiping gourmet.”
“Don’t let him tease you, Rob. I ran into Marilyn Williams last night at Mollie Stone’s Grocery. She said that all of the Ladies of Liberty were very impressed with your eulogy. She even let it slip that Alma saw you in a quote, ‘new and more positive light.’”
“Oh, yes, our boy is quite the local star,” Eddie said, putting on a cockney accent. “Sharon, put the kettle on so we can pour the lad a nice cuppa tea.”
“Knock it off, you two. I’ve got to get serious and write a real piece for this week’s paper. Hopefully, with some angle the pack of news hounds that blew through here last week never considered.”
“So, your real purpose wasn’t to bring us bagels but to pepper me with more questions?” Eddie scowled teasingly. “You want something the daily news boys and girls missed when they came racing through town last week? Well, fire away, Clark Kent. But remember, I haven’t got much, pal.”
“I’ll leave you boys to your work,” Sharon said, grabbing her hot cup of tea and a just-toasted buttered bagel. “But, Rob, think about giving Holly a shot at knocking out a lead on Warren Bradley. He once called her, and ‘a woman of questionable morals.’ Of course, he never said that to her face, nor in his column. Just a little gem he passed along to a neighbor who, in turn, passed it along to me.”
“I’m just trying to get a little red meat to throw at my readers,” Rob replied with a shrug.
“I know, darling,” Sharon said, as she bent down and kissed Rob’s cheek. “I’ll leave you and Sherlock to your work.”
“We both married interesting women,” Eddie said, still in his pajamas, and putting his bare feet up on the chair Sharon had just left empty. “As for the Bradley case, it’s pretty much where we left it Friday afternoon. Unless it’s the murder of a VIP, investigators and the crime lab are off the hook when it comes to pushing cases forward over the weekend. But tell me what you’re thinking, and let me see if I can add something to it.”
“Some basic facts are already out on the table,” Rob began, thinking out loud in the hope that an idea might occur to either of them. “Could I write about any suspects—that is, people questioned about their whereabouts at the time of the crime?”
“Okay, let’s think about that,” Eddie countered. “A lot of people in town know about the dust-up between Randolph and Bradley. You could ask me if Randolph has been questioned, given their contentious relationship, and I could say, ‘The Randolphs flew to New York City on business Wednesday morning. They have been contacted by the Sausalito Police, who requested an interview upon their return.’ I don’t think that’s been reported on and that should stir up some conversation.”
“I’ll use that for sure. What else?”
“You could also note that Warren had an elevated blood alcohol level at the time of his death. Police assume that he was entertaining a guest in the hours before he was killed and that no one yet has come forward to say that they were that guest or to suggest they know who that guest was.”
“Can I mention that you interviewed Ray Sirica?”
“That’s fine. The fact that Sirica was seen driving to Bradley’s home in the hours before the Bradley murder originated with a neighbor. Just call the neighbor. You could also call Sirica for comment on the case.”
“And if he doesn’t disclose that the police interviewed him?” Rob asked.
“Just mention that Marin County Sheriff Department Detective Eddie Austin was seen entering his home, and he’ll give that up. I didn’t pull up in front of his house and walk up to his door shielded by a cloak of invisibility.”
“True that,” Rob laughed.
“Some of Sausalito’s pinheads want to make Sirica out to be some mob syndicate guy, mostly because his last name ends in a vowel. That’s small town nonsense! Sirica is about as hard to crack as a soft boiled egg,” Eddie said with a shrug, as he took another bite of his bagel.
Rob nodded. “Okay, so what was Bradley’s blood alcohol level? And what, if anything, did it mean?”
“It doesn’t tell us much more than he had enough alcohol in him to get a DUI from Sausalito’s finest, which isn’t very much, as you and I learned as teenagers. But it was not at a level that would have contributed to his death. At least, not directly. The unknown factor is whether that amount of wine would make him sleepy enough that the apparent suffocation was much easier to perform. In that scenario, the alcohol would be a contributing factor. It’s not an exact science; in a thirty-two-year-old, that scenario would be unlikely, but at seventy-plus, it could certainly have slowed his fight-or-flight response, if he ever responded at all.
“You could also say that minus his hands, we have no evidence of whether he scratched at his killer’s arms, but as I told you before, any real struggle would have led to at least some bruising to the face, and there was none.”
“So then, I can say that police suspect that Bradley’s hands were severed, most likely as an attempt by the killer to send what, at this point, is an undetermined message or to eliminate incriminating evidence?”
“It’s a free press, Rob. Say anything you want. Just do me the favor of passing by me any quotes you’re attributing to me.”
“Of course. And could it have been something more potent than wine that Bradley was drinking?”
“Interesting you should ask that. A simple blood test can’t distinguish between beer, wine, and whiskey. But because the ME’s staff wanted to check for any toxic substances slipped into Bradley’s drink that would make killing him that much easier, they confirmed that the only identifiable element in the alcohol they found carried the chemical signature of wine.”
“Could they still get accurate results, given that his body was not examined for approximately twenty-four hours after his death?”
“Yes, because he was outside on a mild Sausalito afternoon, and on a back porch that gets the sun only in the morning. That wouldn’t affect decomposition of the body over a relatively short time period. More than likely, he was out there through most of the previous night, when temperatures were down in the upper forties. The afternoon high that following day briefly reached seventy degrees, but by that time of day Warren's back porch is already shaded, so it never got that hot. Now, on the other hand, leave a body on a porch swing in Houston for eighteen hours in the summertime, and you have a lot worse situation. In any significant heat, a body begins to decompose far more quickly.”
“Did his stomach contents tell you much about the time he was killed?”
“Some. A good deal of what he ate that evening had not been fully digested, but it doesn’t help us much as it pertains to a time frame. At the time a corpse is examined, a body’s temperature can give you a reasonable guesstimate. But in a case like this, where you’ve got a dead guy sitting out on a porch on a chilly night and the following day, the old ‘time of death’ estimates can get a little squirrelly. Their best guesstimate is death occurred between eleven and midnight on Tuesday night.”
“You must have done some things to look for prints and other biosignatures
that the killer could have left behind.”
“Listen to you, Rob—‘biosignatures’! Well, la-dee-dah. You’ve been signing up for those FBI Citizen Academy forensic courses in your spare time, haven’t you?” Eddie teased. “Granted, some of those Design Review Board meetings can get pretty heated, but they rarely lead to murder. Admit it—you don't mind the occasional murder mystery to spice things up in our quiet little town.”
“Moving on,” Rob muttered with a raised eyebrow and a half smile. “So, there’s nothing you have in the way of prints, or physical evidence?”
“You’re leading the witness,” Eddie laughed while shaking his head. “The crime lab boys gave that place the once-over. The porch swing had prints, but they all belonged to the Sausalito PD and the fire guys, from when they were doing their Three Stooges act trying to move Warren off the swing and onto a stretcher. Other than that, we came up with a whole lot of nothing. I think our biggest break is that the body was found on the back porch of the cottage. Can you imagine the mess those cops and fire rescue boys would have made if they had gone traipsing through the crime scene?”
“You still turned up a little helpful evidence inside, correct?”
“Yes, but we need a better idea of where the evidence begins and the contamination ends.”
Eddie paused and took a long sip of tea. “Rob, personally, I have no doubt the killer was deranged. Not to suggest any killer is in his right mind. As we were saying the other day, Warren’s killer was methodical enough to clean up his prints. He also knew to wait long enough after the victim died so that he could whack off the hands without making a mess. And he removed any napkins, paper, or cloth that could have contained his DNA. We went through the trash and Bradley’s laundry bin and came away with nothing. Let’s say he knows more than the average crime of passion killer about the condition of a dead body and how to avoid leaving DNA samples as evidence. I wouldn’t want you sharing that particular information with our fellow citizens.”