The Gossiping Gourmet: (A Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 1) (Murder in Marin Mysteries)

by Martin Brown

  The Gossiping Gourmet

  A Murder in Marin Mystery – Book 1

  A Novel by

  Martin Brown

  © 2014 Martin Brown. All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Signal Press, San Francisco, CA

  info@signaleditorial.com

  To my sweetheart, Josie

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  NEXT UP

  ABOUT MARTIN BROWN

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  Warren Bradley had two passions that drove him: one was the gift of creating fine cuisine. The other was his love of gossip.

  Not a deadly combination by definition, but when added to the fact that Warren was a “gentleman of leisure with a love of mischief,” lethal results might have been a likely, if unanticipated, outcome.

  Warren was a minor celebrity in the small city of Sausalito, California. Connected to San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge, this seemingly idyllic town inhabited by seven thousand people living on the southern tip of Marin County, could swell to double its population on sun-filled weekends when hordes of tourists descended upon it for an afternoon of dining, strolling, and picture taking.

  Nearly all of its visitors came and went, blissfully unaware of the complex world of petty bickering and social climbing that created the daily undercurrent of life in many of those picture-perfect hillside homes.

  Warren’s passion for gossip led him to insert himself into the middle of this garden of social delights, replete with hidden thorns. He would flit about like a busy bee, from one end of town to the other. The old money and the new, the well-connected and those who wished to be all opened their doors to him—or more specifically, to his lemon caper calamari steaks.

  As you might suspect, his social calendar stayed quite full.

  Warren was a frumpish man in his early seventies. The care he took in the presentation of a plate of salmon with snap peas, yellow peppers, and dill pistachio was a care he never took in his own appearance.

  He wasn’t disheveled or careworn, but for a retired gentleman of supposed means, and considering his thin patina of local celebrity, his appearance came up well short of expectations. This air of fine garments that had suffered from overuse helped to feed rumors that Warren’s parachute from the world of banking was perhaps brass instead of gold.

  Warren knew of the whispers, but rightly reasoned he would be in an awkward position to raise any objection. In truth, it was one of many slights that he simply chose to ignore. Between delicious innuendo and fine dining, he was busy with other matters.

  In fact, it was not fair to place at his feet the blame for every shockwave of gossip that rippled through the canyons of Sausalito, like a mild to moderate tremor. After all, good gossip needs an anxious audience. Without listeners, and without those who happily add to the din of that week’s serving of unsavory and often unfounded stories, any busy bee would have fallen well short of the sweet essence needed to sustain life.

  But in this town of steep hills, breathtaking views, and hungry ears, there was little danger of that. The long knives may appear to have been sheathed during any of the more than one dozen major events that made up the year’s social calendar, but that was only a momentary truce. The very next day, the rumor mill was back at work, busy grinding a toxic mix of truth, partial truth, and complete fabrication.

  “I couldn’t believe that man, Grant Randolph, showed up with his wife and his mistress in the very same room,” Alma Samuels complained to her closest and longest surviving friend in town, Ethel Landau.

  In turn, Ethel called Marilyn Williams to suggest that Randolph’s mistress, Kitty Collins, was pregnant.

  By the time Beatrice Snyder ended her phone conversation with Robin Mitchell, Randolph’s wife and his mistress were both expecting.

  And so the mill kept working, albeit with time off each year only for the most important holidays.

  It was not so much the rumors themselves that kept the mill turning, but the deep-seated resentment that the town’s old money had for its new—two generations twenty or more years apart, separated by vastly different life journeys.

  When you clear away the clutter of the daily tourist deluge that drives the small city’s economic success and look a little deeper, you discover that Sausalito has nearly as many different subgroups as it has souvenir T-shirt and trinket shops. There are young families with one child, and another on the way. In most cases, they had lived in San Francisco as eager twentysomethings, worked hard by day and partied hard by night. But now, as married thirtysomethings, they want to raise a family in a place that moves at a much slower and seemingly safer pace. A place where, simultaneous to noticing your dog has gone missing, a neighbor calls to say that Bowser was just spotted wandering down Caledonia Street on his way to the muffin shop in search of generous souls willing to share a part of their breakfast pastry with a sweet, sad-eyed dog.

  In time, most of those families with one or two children move on to bigger houses in the central and northern parts of Marin County, where real estate prices dropped from the outrageous, to the mildly insane.

  The families left behind by this diaspora of the upwardly mobile were mostly renters and houseboat people. Their children, usually early and late teens, make up the relatively small corps of what is referred to as Sausalito’s “disaffected youth.” Their occasional moments of acting out help to support a local police force, which is comprised of individuals who choose to serve where acts of lawlessness most often involve candy store thefts and cars doing forty in twenty-five mile-per-hour zones.

  There are also middle-life singles and marrieds who never had kids and have no intention of starting a family as they approach the fifth or sixth decades of life. When not working to make an income, they often involve themselves in the political or charitable aspects of the community. Some of these forty- and fiftysomethings would engage with the town’s older retired citizens. But many others made a point of avoiding Sausalito’s landed gentry, and thought of their quiet community as a place to sleep at night, and play tennis, bar hop, bike, boat, (or all four) on the weekends. To this group, not being in the presence of old power brokers like Alma Samuels meant little, if anything at all.

  Warren Bradley’s social set was mostly between the ages of sixty and death. This group—about a quarter of the town’s year round population—are themselves divided into subgroups, mostly determined by income and social standing. The standing rule is you had to have lived in Sausalito for two or more decades to be considered for a place in the top social strata. However,
a biography that included such citations as a high government position, or a retired president of a Fortune 500 company, or an aging actor retreating from the vulgarities of life in Southern California, helped you and your significant other to move quickly toward the top tier.

  And, of course, being blessed with an oversized financial portfolio, coupled with an eagerness to associate with the “right type of people” all but assured your entry into Sausalito’s social elite.

  The teardown of an aging upper hill mansion and the start of new construction would inevitably set the gossip mill into action. This was a principle reason why Warren Bradley believed in keeping friends close, enemies closer, and local real estate agents on speed dial. One slip for Warren in this game of know-and-tell, and his currency as a busy bee would begin to diminish, along with invitations to all the right gatherings.

  “Did you see what’s going on up on Cazenau?” Warren buzzed for several weeks into aging eager ears. “From what I hear, this is going to be quite a huge home!” While friends on the local planning commission—a plum volunteer position for any and all local busybodies—often provided a quick answer as to the who, what, and where of new wealth coming into town, much of the information was still maddeningly elusive.

  This was commonly the case for two reasons. First, extensive interior remodeling of one of the town’s aging grand homes was limited in its review process, as opposed to a lot-clearing followed by new construction or substantial exterior renovation. The commission being able to lay claim only on what came into public view. And, second, often those with the most recognizable names and/or largest portfolios have ways to hide behind the use of attorneys, agents, contractors, and engineering and design firms.

  But there is only so long that anyone can hide. Moving day, either in or out of town, inevitably comes, and inquisitive eyes watch for both moving vans and delivery trucks.

  Whether the new arrival is a mogul or a movie star, it all comes out in the buzz. Most maddening, however, for Warren and his devotees were the wealthy humble: people for whom that 1950s era home is just fine. The structure was massive enough, the lot big enough, and the driveway steep enough to frustrate the most determined prying eyes.

  Warren was wise to bide his time. Perhaps one of the local art gallery owners would find themselves unexpectedly blessed by a new resident who is certain that their wonderful painting of the Marin Headlands plunging dramatically into the Pacific was the perfect touch for a new home. Or a People magazine tabloid star who peers over her sunglasses to ask the butcher at the local Mollie Stone’s how long the tri-tip in the display case has aged. Or a DUI stop made of the new arrival by one of Sausalito’s finest.

  Rewards inevitably come to those who are patient.

  Food was the golden key to unlock many secrets.

  That was the only reason Warren graciously offered to cater a monthly lunch for the Sausalito Police Department. The officers’ juicy bits of news fed Warren’s insatiable appetite for innuendo, supposition, and blatant conjecture.

  It was his mission to see that the best of the dirt came first to him.

  SPD’s headquarters was a two-story building that took up a full block at the end of Caledonia Street. Besides a well-appointed reception area, and a state-of-the-art lockdown area, the facility had a meeting room with richly appointed mahogany walls. Considering that the police force consisted of only a dozen uniform officers, five support staff, a chief, and a deputy chief, it was certainly more police coverage than the town required—particularly given the fact that the county sheriff’s department maintained a Southern Marin force, just two miles north of Sausalito police headquarters.

  But this was a special benefit that the town’s residents chose to give themselves. A greater police presence was one of the luxuries their success—and the healthy influx of tourist dollars—allowed them to afford.

  The fire station was just as grand. In fact, day visitors often mistook it for a luxury hotel. But the fire brigade was never treated to Warren’s garden of culinary delights. When Ethel Landau once asked him why, he retorted, “Grease fires, and cats stuck in trees are of little interest to me and are not the type of news I look to report.”

  But for Sausalito’s finest, Warren had a much different view. Warren brought his most creative dishes, and they’d bring more news for his rumor mill.

  Those unexpected delicious morsels of salacious details that reignited his standing in a social circle above his actual station in life made the hours of shopping, preparation, cooking, carrying, and serving all worthwhile.

  His efforts were greatly appreciated by the department’s rank and file. From Captain Hans Petersen down to Chris Harding—the city’s newest patrol officer, who escaped the mean streets of San Jose for the quieter and safer life of Sausalito—it was a happy exchange for Sausalito’s men and women in blue.

  In fact, Warren’s gourmet lunches were the highlight of the month for those who subsisted on steady 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 some other day of the month to be stricken with a bad case of blue flu. Chief Petersen was particularly impressed when officers with the day off showed up around eleven forty-five, just to “get something out of their locker.”

  As a connoisseur of indiscreet conversation, Warren made sure that he was first at the table when the staff’s food was plated, and the gossip was about to be dished. Sometimes, it was nothing more than a small gem, like a 415 call—disturbing the peace—caused by the mayor’s drunken teenage sons.

  And, sometimes, it may well be a precious stone, case in point, the assault and battery arrest of Grant Randolph, the newly appointed chair of the Sausalito Fine Arts Commission. On the morning after Randolph was booked and released from county jail, Warren had busied himself preparing his latest delight, caramel chicken: eighteen pounds of chicken legs and thighs marinated for a full day in a sauce of light brown sugar, peeled ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and vegetable oil—a blend of amazing tastes that nearly brought Sausalito’s Finest to tears.

  The Saturday night of the arrest, Patrol Officer Chris Harding was one of the first on the scene. Between bites and praise, he slyly reported to Warren, “The EMT boys had to take his wife up to the hospital. She was in pretty bad shape when Officer Hansen and I arrived.”

  It is uncertain what the tongue of the baby-faced patrol officer was loosened by, but when he began to talk about Grant Randolph, he never thought to stop.

  Warren quickly emerged from a fog of fear that this month’s feast would bring him no reward. All at once the tips of his ears tingled as he stopped to contemplate the value of this news. Randolph seemed to take delight in correcting Bradley at every one of their encounters.

  “Warren’s upper lip, which balanced an unruly salt and pepper mustache, puckered forward with a guffaw when he heard the surprising news. “No, I don’t believe that! Really? Grant Randolph? I didn’t think he could hurt a fly.”

  “You wouldn’t think that of Mr. Randolph,” Chris Harding offered, “if you had seen Mrs. Randolph sprawled across their living room floor.”

  “Wow,” Warren murmured, as he proffered yet another piece of that sweet and spicy chicken to his new friend.

  Warren’s circle also considered Randolph to be a bit too aggressive. Undoubtedly, he had the right pedigree in the arts and his financial standing was not in question, but accepting the chairmanship of the town’s art commission when you had taken up residence less than a year earlier? Well! That was more than just a bit pushy.

  If it had not been for the fact that no one else was truly interested in investing the time and effort that was needed to do the job, he probably would not have won the position in the first place.

  Mrs. Alma Samuels, who had been married to the late great San Francisco attorney Roger Samuels, thought Randolph was a bit presumptuous as well. But she tolerated the man because, as sh
e 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, Beatrice Snyder, and Robin Mitchell—that she too felt uncomfortable with the man she often referred to as “an east coast know-it-all.”

  Armed with this blazingly hot 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 her right ear had been gone almost as many years as Mr. Samuels.

  Best of all, news of Grant’s arrest would be a wonderful item for the lead for Warren’s weekly column, “Heard About Town,” in The Sausalito Standard.

  But perhaps that would be a waste of a delicious piece of gossip that should be savored rather than gulped.

  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 home burglaries in Sausalito.

  “The guy’s a muckraker,” Petersen repeatedly told Bradley. “If his family hadn’t lived in town for three generations, and his father hadn’t been the fire chief, no one would pay any attention to what he wrote in that rag of his.”

  Rob had long known that Chief Petersen preferred he write about anything but the Sausalito PD. Unfortunately, their bloated budget and repeated bumbling of various cases made them an easy 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, going into San Francisco for the symphony, the theater, or social events, thought differently.

  Traveling through Sausalito after eleven o’clock at night could be risky business. Patrol officers, who are expected to issue a certain number of traffic citations during an eight hour shift, would often 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, or traveling down a deserted street at thirty-seven miles-per-hour in a twenty-five zone.