by Martin Brown
“I’ll run by you whatever I’m thinking before I put it into print.”
Eddie laughed. “If The New York Times’ food critic gets in on this case, I doubt she or he will give me the same consideration.”
“Not too likely that The Times will get involved. In fact, I think the San Francisco, Oakland, and Marin daily papers will drop the story until there is an arrest.”
“That would be my guess. Dear Warren was only a star in our small corner of the world.”
“I’ll do a wrap-up story on the case this week. I’m sure I’ll get some reactions from the ones most likely to want to give comments.”
“I trust you have Alma on speed dial?”
Rob chuckled, “Heck yeah! The girl of my dreams.”
“Go with the Randolph angle for now. You know—an undisclosed source close to the investigation suggested it was likely that Grant Randolph would be questioned upon his return from New York.”
Rob nodded. “That will shake things up a bit.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, Rob! I’ve got an even better angle. You should print the final column of the late great gossiping gourmet.”
“What? …Why?”
“A couple of reasons. First, it gives you something no one else has: a final plea from Warren Bradley to his fellow citizens to purge Randolph from his leadership position. Second, it will keep the Ladies of Liberty busy rounding up a lynch mob for Randolph. And third, if my guess is right and Bradley was killed by one of our fellow citizens whose initials are not GR, it encourages our killer to continue hiding in plain sight. Every day he or she thinks they’re in the clear is one more opportunity to fall victim to your own conceit,” Eddie grimaced. “Killing someone and thinking you've gotten away with it can be a real high. While Alma is busy campaigning for Randolph to be arrested, we might have the time we need to find Warren’s real killer.”
“Are you that sure Randolph isn’t your man?”
“Absolutely!”
“Why?”
“Warren's killer waited around after the kill to clean up prints, chop off hands, and dress up the body. The whole crime was not only methodical; it was pretty damn cocky. If Randolph has an Achilles heel, it’s his temper. This wasn’t an act of uncontrollable rage. I’d be more suspect of Randolph if we found Bradley’s body riddled with bullets, stabbed a dozen times, or beaten over the head with one of the great chef’s iron skillets. I’m betting that whoever killed Bradley had been thinking about killing him for a very long time. This was meticulous, the opposite of rage.”
By now, Rob was anxious to start writing his first full story on the Bradley killing—something that went far beyond the short posts he had written on the paper’s website the past few days, all of which ended with a promise that there would be much more in the Wednesday print edition of The Standard.
“By the way, have you written anything about finding the body in the online version of your paper?” Eddie asked.
“No. I’ve been trying to keep myself out of it. Why?”
“For starters, there are a lot of cases where a killer is the first person to report the crime.”
“Why the hell would I want to kill Warren Bradley?”
“I know you wouldn’t. But in any normal investigation, your story would have been analyzed for discrepancies.”
“What are you getting at?”
“It’s simple, Rob. You should do a feature on finding Bradley. It tells the readers that, not only was he a contributor to the paper, but that you cared enough about him to want to learn why he vanished and missed the deadline for his weekly column. Particularly after he called to tell you he was in the process of completing it and promising you that it would get to you by your deadline. It ties you into the story in a personal way no other reporter, or news organization, can claim. It also is a great set-up for running Bradley’s last column—those final words he promised to send you, but never had the chance to deliver.”
“I have to admit, detective, you can be one smart newsman when you want to be.”
“I love you too, pal. Now, get busy and make Miss Alma proud!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rob came home to an empty house. Karin had left a note, with her signature Hershey’s Kiss sitting next to her Xs and Os, explaining that she’d taken their two children down to Dunphy Park to throw fishing lines out into Richardson Bay.
As always, it was unlikely that the children would catch anything with their kiddie rod-and-reel sets they had gotten for Christmas. Still, at ages five and three, it provided them with a two-hour diversion while Karin caught up on this week’s copy of People.
There was no better time to tackle the first print article in what Rob suspected might be several stories on the Bradley case, particularly before an arrest was made and charges filed.
Rob was troubled by the fact that many homicides go unsolved. Approximately sixty-two percent of cases are cleared and thirty-eight percent go unsolved. Rob hoped Bradley’s murder would not be one of those cases that stayed open. In a town where secrets have a remarkably short shelf life, he could not bring himself to believe that the name of Warren’s killer would not surface in the days or weeks to come.
Surely, somewhere in town, someone knew something that would reveal critical clues. Small towns seem to work that way. Eventually, the whole story should begin to unravel and the killer exposed. It was a hope Rob clung to. Regardless of how engaged his readers were at this point, he knew their interest would diminish with each passing week.
As Rob began writing his story, he felt a bit of guilt over a sense of happiness that came over him. He wrote stories about chili cook-off contests and school science fairs. He could not help feeling excited. As his fingers flew across his keyboard, a smile remained fixed on his face.
As Rob worked, he wondered if Warren might be alive today if he hadn’t used his column as a bully pulpit. After all, his murder wasn’t a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Random, deranged killers don’t knock on doors at the end of quiet streets and say, “It’s been ages since I’ve suffocated someone and chopped off their hands. Mind if I come in and join you for dinner?”
Rob reasoned that any guilt he felt in publishing Warren’s column was misplaced. The righteous vitriol Warren spewed in his recent columns regarding Randolph hadn’t led to his murder. If it had, as Eddie pointed out, it's unlikely that Grant would have acted in such a methodical fashion. Warren’s killer wasn’t someone who had arrived after his dinner guest departed. It was far more likely that the killer was Warren’s dinner guest.
Rob was not a betting man, but the more he thought about this mystery, the more convinced he was that Eddie’s line of reasoning made perfect sense.
When Monday’s mail was pushed through the door slot, Holly raced out to retrieve them. “Five bucks says we’re going to have a full mailbag column for our Sausalito edition this week.”
“I’m not taking that bet,” Rob shouted as Holly flew past him.
Already, a half-dozen letters had come in online, most of those tributes to the late chef. But, if Holly was right, the “blue hairs,” as she often referred to the Ladies of Liberty, would send in their comments the old fashioned way: on light pink stationery decorated with flowers on top and bottom opposite corners of the page, with a matching envelope and a postage stamp promoting some worthy cause.
Holly sorted through the letters like a kid throwing packages around on Christmas morning.
“Oooh, here’s one from Alma!” Holly said as she slipped a letter opener under the envelope’s seal. “Ten bucks says she and her pals are already griping about the Sausalito PD not nabbing Warren’s killer yet.”
“I'm not betting against that either.”
Holly quickly scanned Alma’s missive, then exclaimed, “I knew this would be good!”
“Okay, give it over. What does Sausalito’s grand dame have to say from her lofty perch?”
Holly’s eyes quickly scanned the second of two
pages, handwritten on rose-colored stationery in perfect penmanship in deep blue ink that contrasted dramatically against the sheet. “Ha,” Holly declared, as she slapped down the pages on the corner of Rob’s desk and said, “Here, read it yourself! I think you’ve got a new admirer.”
“Oh, great. Now what?” Rob asked. As he grabbed the pages off the edge of his desk, Holly gave a sinister giggle.
It started as he expected, with Alma recalling the “artistry of Warren’s cooking…the charm and wit of his disarming humor, his kindness and generosity, and what will be most missed, his tireless service on behalf of our community.”
She then added, “The Sausalito police have been longtime recipients of Mr. Bradley’s unstinting generosity, in the preparation and presentation of a monthly gourmet luncheon for our brave men and women in blue. I trust that they will honor his kindness by being vigilant and unstinting in their efforts to bring this vicious killer to justice.”
“Wow!” Rob looked up at Holly, who winked knowingly at him. “You’re right; she laid it on pretty thick.”
“Oh, you haven’t come to the best part. Keep reading.”
He quickly scanned through a few more lines about Warren’s Easter ham dinner at the senior center and his gourmet cookie packages, which were distributed during the holidays each year to a long list of neighbors and friends.
But then, Rob came to his name and started to read the letter aloud.
“I guess you mean this part: ‘As a small community, we have only The Sausalito Standard to speak on behalf of justice—a single voice that must remain vigilant in pursuit of the truth. I have not always been of like mind with the editorial policy of our local newspaper—for example, when it urges modernization, while others, like I, have called for restraint. But, as its publisher, Rob Timmons, demonstrated during his moving tribute to his distinguished longtime columnist, this is a time when all Sausalitans must stand together and insist that every resource needed be applied in pursuit of this crazed killer, even if it leads to shocking revelations involving people in high places. Now is the time when every rock must be lifted to see what evil lurks beneath.’
“I imagine the ‘people in high places’ means her least favorite member of the arts commission,” Rob murmured. “You’re right, Holly! The old girl went all out with this one.” He looked down and read Alma’s closing lines, “I trust that Mr. Timmons will be a tireless voice in following the trail wherever it leads. Now is the time for answers!”
“Sounds like you and Alma are becoming an item.”
Rob shrugged and causally said, “The old girl looks particularly fetching out on the bay at sunset.”
“You mean when anchored to a block of cement?”
“Oh, Holly, you’re such a romantic.” Rob rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s cut the nonsense. We’ve got a week’s worth of papers to get out. And, by the way, on page fifteen, I’ve decided to run Warren’s final ‘Heard About Town’ column.”
“What?” Holly squawked. “You’re going to stir up a lot of trouble if you run that! It will be like a voice from the grave. And any chance you and Karin had of being invited to the Randolphs for cocktails will go right out the window for good.”
“Frankly, I see it as a final tribute to Warren.” Rob was determined not to tell Holly the truth—that Eddie asked for him to use Warren's final column as a distraction to focus more heat on Randolph, hopefully putting the real killer at ease.
“Shame on you, Rob. I get it—great for business and all that. But it sure will make Randolph’s life miserable.”
Rob winced. He knew she was right.
At the same time, if Eddie was right, and the tactic helped to flush out the killer, in the long run he’d be doing Randolph a great favor.
“If I were you, I’d watch my back. If Randolph did kill Warren, my guess is that you’re numero uno to be victim numero dos.”
On Wednesday, The Sausalito Standard carried an unusual banner headline:
Who Murdered Warren Bradley?
Rob knew he was milking the murder for all he could, but if he was ever going to have an issue that would be read by everyone in town, this was likely to be the one. Barring, of course, the interest over a suspect being apprehended.
Knowing he needed to follow through on the goal he set for himself of having information that no other news outlet carried, he contacted both Warren’s neighbor and Ray Sirica for comments.
Ray couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his voice. His wish from the moment he learned of Warren’s murder was that he had not gone up to see Bradley at his home hours before his slaying.
While Ray tortured himself, Debbie reminded him, “You didn’t have a crystal ball. No one would have guessed what was about to happen. It was just a case of bad timing. Leave it at that.”
Of course, Ray already knew this. “Believe me,” he told her, “I wish I could turn back the clock on that decision.”
Naturally, there was a part of both Debbie and Ray that wished they had never eaten at the same café in Healdsburg on the day Grant and Barbara walked in and sat down beside them. It was simply one more example of bad timing.
Despite his frustration, Ray was forthcoming when Rob called for a comment about his meeting with Bradley on that fateful night. “I thought the situation was escalating between Grant and Warren,” he explained. “Those columns put a lovely couple in a terrible light all because they had a colossal misunderstanding. I don’t mind you quoting me saying that I think Warren was unfair and unkind to both of them. I went up there to explain to Bradley that their entire fight, serious as it had been, in reality was nothing more than a comedy of errors. But Warren wasn’t interested in writing a story about how one misunderstanding can lead to another and lead to awful consequences. In fact, he told me that he had a guest arriving shortly. And then he added, in these exact words, ‘Please leave now.’”
Rob knew Ray had to be uncomfortable discussing Grant’s situation with the publisher of a community newspaper that played a role in making his friends’ lives difficult. Rob regretted that, along with the inevitable balancing act he faced every week attempting to remain neutral in Sausalito’s ongoing social and political infighting, the platform he gave Warren might have played a role in his murder.
He looked for the words to explain to Ray that he and Warren were two very different people. “Warren’s gossip column has upset people in the past,” Rob explained. “As you know, this is a small town. When some of the lifers around here decide you’re not their sort of people, not only will they imagine that you had a part in Bradley’s killing, they’ll also presume you committed every murder in a hundred-mile radius.”
“Don’t you think you went a little hard on Grant Randolph?”
Karin’s question had Rob choking on his lunch. The latest issue of The Standard had just been delivered to their home mailbox.
“How so?” he asked reluctantly, not sure he wanted to hear her answer.
“Well…you go into the run-in he had with Warren at the opera park event.”
He shrugged. “And?”
“I don’t know…It’s just that it puts Randolph in such a bad light! Frankly, I feel sorry for the guy.”
“I agree with you. But it’s a part of the story. If days before some guy gets killed, a third of the people in town see you having a confrontation with the victim who’s found murdered and dismembered, it’s not going to put you in a good light. And it’s probably nothing more than rotten timing that the Randolphs left for New York only twelve hours after Bradley’s body was discovered. But those are the facts, and you can’t objectively edit them out of the story. Remember that in the news business you can get in trouble for what you choose to leave in or leave out of a story.”
Noting Karin’s silence, Rob again jumped into the void. “When you’re the publisher and lead reporter for a small town newspaper, you’re swimming in a fishbowl. That’s one of the things I most like about doing the other editions, in Tiburon/Belvedere,
Mill Valley, and Ross Valley; I don’t know near as many people that I pass than when I’m in Sausalito. Both of us grew up here. We’re the third generation of the Timmons family to live in this house, and The Standard has been published in town since the nineteen-fifties.”
“…And, so?” Karin asked.
“More so than any other town in Marin, what I do here is looked at under a microscope. I guarantee you: for every one person who asks me why I mentioned Grant Randolph in the Bradley story, there’s another nine who would wonder why I did not mention their confrontation.”
“You’re right, Rob. I can see that. But then running that last column of Bradley’s, isn’t that rubbing salt in the wound?”
“Just between us, that was Eddie’s contribution to this week’s edition.”
“You don’t mean he wrote it, do you?”
“No, of course not. It's Bradley’s actual last column. But Eddie knew it would stir up more suspicion about Randolph. He believes that Bradley’s killer lives or works, or both, right here in Sausalito. The more attention that’s focused on Randolph, the greater the possibility that the real killer will let down his guard—in other words, hopefully, get careless.”
“No one but you and Eddie knows this?”
“I haven’t even mentioned it to Holly. She too thought I’d lost my marbles when I told her I was running Bradley’s final column.”
“I can’t imagine what the Randolphs are going to think when they see this coverage, not to mention the column. Bradley went over the top with that bit about ‘expelling this viper from our midst.’”
“Like his mentor, Alma Samuels, Warren had a flair for the dramatic. Personally, I think Randolph is probably a decent guy. But he’s certainly got a bad temper. Perhaps he should cut back on all that weightlifting—maybe he's dealing with a little too much testosterone. That said, going from having some anger issues to doing what was done to Bradley is a pretty big leap. But if God forbid, Grant Randolph did kill Warren Bradley, and I never mentioned that night at the opera incident, I’d be laughed out of town.”