by Martin Brown
Eddie put his index finger up to his lips and signaled her to come outside. She did so with a look of complete bewilderment. “Stay right here, and don’t move.”
Eddie slipped inside and cuffed Chris’s right hand to the side of the old iron rail headboard, and to his amazement, Harding continued his light rhythmic snoring.
He then went back out, and Holly said, “What’s up?”
Eddie took Holly by the arm and walked her around to the front of the driveway, where two SWAT officers swept her away.
Rob was standing fifty yards down the road, talking with both of the Sausalito patrol officers. “We’ve got her from here, fellas. We’ll take her back to her place,” Officer Hansen said.
Holly, looking utterly bewildered, said to Rob, “What in the hell is going on?”
“They’re arresting Chris Harding for the murder of Warren Bradley.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, no! That can’t be! He’s—he’s so sweet, Rob.”
“Come on, Holly,” Rob said, as he slipped his arm around her shoulder. “I have a few things to tell you.”
Chris woke up a few minutes later to find Holly gone, and his bed surrounded by a SWAT team, two Sausalito patrol officers, and Eddie.
“Not good, I guess,” were Chris’s first words as he pulled on his cuffs.
“No, not good, buddy,” Eddie responded.
“Where’s Holly?
“Back out looking for Mr. Right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The news of Chris Harding’s arrest for the murder of Warren Bradley was an even bigger shock to Sausalito society than the murder of the gossiping gourmet.
The evening news gave it two minutes, the San Francisco papers put it below the fold, and the Marin Independent Journal headlined, “Sausalito Police Officer Arrested for the Slaying of Local Chef and Columnist.”
By Tuesday, the story was placed on the back burner. But Rob’s office phone rang incessantly.
For the citizens of Sausalito, the arrest of Chris Harding created far more questions than answers.
Rob finished that week’s edition of The Sausalito Standard with Karin’s help—as Holly spent Monday and Tuesday in bed with what she insisted was the worst hangover of her life.
Dozens of phone messages and email questions went unanswered, including one from Alma, who left a voice mail pleading with Rob for answers.
Wednesday morning, as postmen across Sausalito dropped that week’s edition of the Standard, all those lingering questions were duly answered.
As the Ladies of Liberty, the members of the Women’s League, the Siricas, the Andersons, Grant Randolph’s fellow arts commission members, and hundreds of others in the tight-knit circle of Sausalito friends and frenemies opened their copies of the Standard, they found that Rob had fulfilled the charge Alma had thrust upon him two weeks earlier: “Lift every rock to see what evil lurks beneath.”
What Alma had feared from the time of her conversation with Rob regarding the missing past of her beloved chef, she instantly knew had come to pass as she looked in horror at the Standard’s headline:
“Homicide and Arrest Reveal the Secret Life of Warren Bradley.”
For Bea and Robin, Warren’s staunchest supporters, the story was a tsunami of bad news, erasing what they thought they knew about Warren, and leaving only scattered debris in its wake. There was William Benedict’s arrest and murder trial for the killing of Elaine Hayden, the heartbreaking story of Elaine Hayden’s son, James, followed by the equally sad story of Chris Harding—all of which redefined Warren Bradley in the long history of Sausalito’s heroes and villains.
By the time he came up for trial, Chris Harding had been transformed into a poster child for neglected, molested foster children. Those fortunate enough to win one of the few available seats at the trial often wept openly as Chris retold his story, starting with the day William Benedict entered his life, and ending with the day he ended Warren Bradley’s life.
“But, why the hands, Mr. Harding? Why did you sever the hands of Mr. Bradley?”
“I really loved my brother James and my mother Elaine, even though I knew them for far too little time. After they were gone from my life, after I was passed from one dismal foster home situation to another, I thought about his hands. Those hands pushed Mrs. Hayden down that flight of stairs, and those hands molested my brother James.”
“And what about you, Mr. Harding? At age seven, you testified that Mr. Benedict had not molested you.”
“I was just a kid, scared to death. I was separated from James and placed in a different children’s shelter. One of the other boys told me that if I said I had been molested, other kids would make fun of me for the rest of my life. But, just like James, Benedict molested me as well. I hated the memory of his filthy hands touching me, even more than I hated him,” Chris insisted, as he broke down in sobs that echoed from every corner of the courtroom.
The judge declared a recess in the proceedings for the balance of the day.
Just as the prosecution’s missteps in a Flagstaff courtroom helped set William Benedict free, the outcome for Chris Harding was also fortunate.
By the time the trial neared its conclusion, with the jury in all but open rebellion against the prosecution, the county district attorney struck a deal with the defense. Chris Harding would be placed in a psychiatric institution for at least the period of one year, at which time a court appointed psychiatrist would determine if he should be reintegrated into society.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rob’s coverage of the murder, arrest, trial, and sentencing earned him a feature story in the New Yorker. It was to be entitled, The Secret Life of the Gossiping Gourmet.
Chris Harding agreed to be interviewed for the piece.
Rob was as excited about speaking with Harding as he was to meet with Eddie the day he returned from Flagstaff. There was still so much that fascinated him about this strange and terrible case.
Harding was housed in the psychiatric unit of a state prison facility, just north of Santa Rosa in the Sonoma wine country. Rob walked in and met him in the private room that the prison had provided for their interview. He looked relaxed and at peace with himself.
One guard sat quietly in a far corner of the room. No one seemed particularly concerned that there would be any sudden acts of violence. Nevertheless, Rob, who was only accustomed to interviewing people who made hurtful comments about one another, was still ill at ease at first.
Fortunately, Chris Harding’s relaxed smile and comfortable manner made Rob quickly forget how dangerous he’d once considered the prisoner.
“How did you know that Warren Bradley wouldn’t recognize you when you met him as a police officer?” Rob began.
“I wondered about that, too. But when I sat next to him for an hour at his monthly department luncheon, I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. The last time I was in his presence, I was only seven years old. Better still, when I expressed interested in learning how to cook, he eagerly offered to give me private cooking lessons.” Chris winced. “I knew I’d easily have my chance.”
“And what happened with the Randolphs? Why did you decide to share that information with Warren?”
“That whole thing was a gift from the gods. When I was called to the Randolphs’ home I knew I had a juicy bit of gossip that he’d find impossible to resist. It played out better than I could have ever hoped. When Grant Randolph almost coldcocked the creep in front of half the town on that opera night they put on, I knew I’d never have a better moment than that to kill the SOB.”
For Rob, however, there was one question that was the biggest of all, “You almost got away with the perfect crime. You left the house clean of prints. From what Eddie says, there was no clear evidence of a homicide until you decided to whack off Bradley’s hands and remove all doubt. Why would you do it?”
“I’d imagined killing Benedict, perhaps a thousand times or more, over the last twenty-
eight years. I kept refilling his glass with wine in the hope that it would put him sound asleep. It worked beautifully. By the time I put the pillow over his head, I don’t think he was aware that he was unable to breathe until moments before he died. Afterward, I went around cleaning up everything I had touched.”
“No one would have known,” Rob murmured, “except for the fact that you cut off his hands. Why did you do it, Chris?”
“As I was getting ready to leave, I looked at him and thought of how peaceful the bastard looked. I killed him, but what if I had done such a good job that the story of his life ended with people all talking about this great guy who did all this good volunteer work, and died in his sleep at the age of seventysomething? I saw myself having all those little old ladies telling me over and over what a great guy their dear Warren was! And that’s when I snapped. If I whacked off his hands—and I certainly enjoyed doing that— the world would ask one simple question: Why in the world did that happen?”
It was chilling to Rob how much sense it all made.
On the hour plus ride back to Sausalito, he kept thinking, what in the world would I have done? A foster home kid, finally in a loving home, and then it all turns into a nightmare. Your new mom is dead, the new big brother you thought you had is now out of your life, and as you’re dragged from one place to another, you have only one thought that consoles you: One day you’re going to kill the man that sent your life into a death spiral.
There were three things that Rob wanted to do when he arrived back home. One was to hold and hug his two young children like he never had before, second was to start writing an article based on this true terrible tale, and third was to be thankful for Karin and all the wonderful aspects of his life that he rarely gave a second thought.
The article’s release in the New Yorker was celebrated at the No Name Bar.
As Holly lifted her glass high for the first toast, she declared, “I’ll bet when you were covering the three-year debate over fixing Sausalito’s dog park, you never thought this would happen, huh? Well, here’s to a great writer, a good friend, and a reasonably decent boss.”
“So, Holly,” Eddie asked slyly, “Will you be resurrecting your relationship with Chris after the doctors say he’s free to go?”
Holly shrugged. “He’s a terrific guy, and it’s very sad what happened to him…but I don’t think we have a future together.”
“Why not, Nancy Drew?”
“I can give you ten reasons.” Holly raised both her hands and wiggled her fingers in Eddie’s face.
He gave a long laugh and said, “Can’t give a guy a hand or two?”
Holly shook her head adamantly. “I’d rather appear small-minded with hands, than broadminded without them.”
In time, the name and memory of Warren Bradley was purged from many of the carefully crafted histories of Sausalito. “He deceived us!” Alma declared.
She and her clan never spoke again of the man she had once so admired.
Just days after Chris Harding’s arrest, Grant and Barbara Randolph returned to their lovely cottage above the stunning blue bay.
Within two weeks, they were invited to a half dozen gatherings. It was amazing and gratifying for both of them to witness their resurrected social standing within Sausalito’s smart set. Nevertheless, a year after Warren Bradley’s death, the Randolphs quietly placed their home on the market, and left Sausalito for the quieter life of Manhattan.
After a few weeks of discussion on the Randolphs unfortunate experiences, news raced through town that an up-and-coming dot-com CEO, Patricia Smith and her husband Mario, had purchased the Randolph cottage.
On the week they arrived and settled into their home, Oscar and Clarice Anderson came to welcome them both, bringing along a plate of chocolate dipped cherry fudge brownies.
The successful young couple invited them in. When Patricia Smith took her first bite of Warren’s heavenly brownies, she exclaimed, “These are delicious! Do you mind giving me the recipe?”
For just a brief moment, Clarice hesitated and considered her response. The image of Warren standing at her doorstep holding his brownies flashed through her mind.
Finally, Clarice smiled and said, “I’m happy to my dear. It’s an old recipe that’s been in my family for years.”
NEXT UP
RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 2014!
In Book 2 of the MURDER IN MARIN Mysteries:
Like everyone else, newspaper publisher, Rob Timmons, his childhood friend, Sheriff’s Detective Eddie Austin, and their sidekick, Holly Cross, are baffled by the disappearance of Marin County’s most recent celebrity resident, Willow Adams—better known to the world as the super-model with her own signature scent, Willow Wisp.
When Belvedere’s most eligible widower, billionaire William Adams, married Willow, the local social grand dames were in an uproar—one that only got worse when they suspected Willow of lifting many of their most precious jewels.
But when the woman they refer to as “the wicked wife” turns up dead, the real finger pointing begins.
Was Willow’s murderer one of her burglary victims? Maybe one of her many former (and current) lovers got tired of her half-truths. Or was it her cuckolded husband, who learned only too late that his ultimate trophy wife had too many secrets of her own?
ABOUT MARTIN BROWN
Martin Brown is an author and journalist whose articles on health and relationships have appeared in Redbook, Playboy, and Complete Woman magazines.
Martin, a native of New York City, is a graduate of the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He began his career as a community affairs writer with WCBS Radio. He also worked as the public affairs officer for the New York City police association; and later in the same capacity for the Atlanta and Georgia police associations.
He began his work as a community news reporter in Atlanta with Creative Loafing. Later, in Marin County, he founded Signal Newspapers published in Sausalito, Tiburon, and Belvedere, California.
Today, he and his wife, novelist Josie Brown, live in the city of San Francisco, where their grown children and granddog also reside.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
The Gossiping Gourmet
A Murder in Marin Mystery – Book
A Novel by Martin Brown
© 2014 Martin Brown
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of information contained herein.
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Published by Signal Press / San Francisco, CA
For information, contact Signal Press via email: [email protected]
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© 2014 Martin Brown
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ISBN# 978-0-9895588-4-6
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The author and publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk, personal and otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.
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