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

by Martin Brown

  To the untrained eye, it may have seemed an impossible task for a news organization essentially run by two individuals—in this case, Rob, with the support of his full time assistant/production manager, Holly Cross.

  For community news coverage, Rob recruited a host of mostly retired or semi-retired volunteer contributors in all the areas of the county in which the weekly Standard appeared. Local stories were rarely subjects that received any attention from one of the Bay Area’s major news outlets. Nevertheless, there were local readers who greatly appreciated knowing about the planned opening of new bike only lanes, road repair, and construction projects that would cause a detour somewhere along the route of their daily commute, or interviews with a new commission member espousing on ways in which they plan to enrich the lives of their community. Most importantly, homeowners wanted to know about new school and construction bonds before they appeared in the form of additional property taxes from the county assessor’s office.

  Although not yet thirty-seven, Rob’s hair was already flecked with gray. That, along with the web of tiny lines edging his watery blue eyes, gave him the appearance of a man several years older. He grew up in Sausalito, the southern-most of the county’s web of small towns. His earliest memories centered around the town’s annual Fourth of July parade, in which Robbie (as he was known then) got to sit atop the city’s one fire truck alongside his dad, Sausalito’s fire chief. At one time, the family even had a Dalmatian named Smoke.

  Two-thirds of Marin County is state or federal parkland, much of which Rob explored as a boy on foot. It was an endless maze of wooded paths and dramatic trails that crisscrossed the grassy headlands and peaked at several hundred feet before sloping down into a canyon, deserted river beds, or the edge of the Pacific. As teens, Rob and his friends—Eddie included—rode their bikes on the pedestrian paths that connected Sausalito with other Marin towns located in and around iconic Mount Tamalpais—Mill Valley, Corte Madera, Larkspur, San Anselmo, and Fairfax. With the exception of occasional blues and rock concerts in Golden Gate Park that were half music, half open-air pot parties, Robbie, like his parents and their neighbors, tended to stay on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Compared to the excitement of San Francisco, Rob’s hometown had a slow and lazy rhythm in which each day blended quietly into the next. The summer brought some of the chilly air that annually invaded the San Francisco peninsula from June through September; the days were mostly idyllically sunny and mild. Winters could bring scattered days of dark clouds and occasionally heavy rains, but mostly the weather was as benign as the surroundings. Tranquility was the general rule that marked Sausalito’s days and nights—provided you avoided the city’s tourist district, which stretches for approximately a mile along a street called Bridgeway where, during the peak summer travel season, camera-toting visitors packed the town to capacity.

  Awed by an idyllic location that combined houses perched on hills above the boats bobbing gently in its harbor, with a verdant mountain to the north and sparking city lights across the azure bay to the south, many who came to Sausalito were immediately entranced. Others found life in Sausalito maddeningly peaceful and retreated back into livelier San Francisco or more diverse parts of the Bay Area. To those who asked, “Will you miss the peace and quiet of this place?” The reply would often be an emphatic, “No.”

  As an adult, Rob came to appreciate both points of view. He married Karin Klein, the daughter of the local family dentist. They settled into a rental on Easterby Street that they both called, “the love nest.” By the time their son and daughter, born two years apart, were both in preschool, Rob’s parents had retired to a condominium in San Diego and handed Rob and Karin the keys to the family homestead, up on Filbert Street. With the help of friends, Rob’s grandfather had built the house in the 1930s. As family legend had it, with no neighbors in a section that was designated for homes with an address in the 300s, Grandpa Jack, a devout Catholic, chose 333 Filbert for his address, in honor of the Holy Trinity.

  As far back as Rob could remember, Sausalito was a town filled with colorful characters. The most eccentric of which were the “houseboat people”—artists and other bohemian types—who lived in abandoned boats and floating homes now tethered along the communal docks that once made up the town’s Marinship boat yards. Some were decades-old fixtures, whereas others just drifted into town for a few months or a few years, and then just as quietly drifted away. Since Sausalito’s beginnings as a weekend retreat for San Francisco’s wealthier families, the “hill folk” had always been a wide mix of interesting characters as well.

  The changing American economy in recent decades only helped to exacerbate the distance in Sausalito, and most Marin communities, between the haves and the have-nots. With a slow but steady influx into most Marin townships of well-heeled newcomers, the economic difference could now better be described as the haves and the have-mores.

  The town’s value was always in flux, but in recent times, the small homes that once housed city workers and bridge and road builders—usually two-bedroom bungalows located off of the spine of Caledonia Street, known to locals as “the flats,”— began to sell for prices nearing the million-dollar mark.

  The steady increase in property values has eroded the base of Sausalito’s third and fourth generation residents. In the town’s two old local-serving bars, Smitty’s and The No Name, the children and grandchildren of Sausalito’s greatest generation of tradesmen and day laborers could be heard assuaging their regrets over selling the family homestead over mugs of beer with the uplifting realization that, “at least I’ve now got enough money to pay cash for a nice big home in the East Bay.”

  Rob knew that he and Karin might make that choice in twenty-plus years, after their kids were grown and living independent lives. But his real ideal was to keep the home in the family, and if possible, live out his years there. “A lot of people dream about ending up in a place like this,” he told Karin one mild star-dusted night after getting their two young children to sleep. “We’re already here. Sure, I’d like to travel and see the world one day, but after we’re done, I’d probably want to come home to Sausalito.”

  The very first thing Warren did upon returning home from his visit with Alma, was to open a fine Madeira. As he sipped it, he wondered about his next move. He was having second thoughts about that weekly column he had written just two hours earlier. Even he was growing tired of his oft-repeated complaints regarding careless littering tourists and inconsiderate surly teenagers.

  How heroic he would appear if he used his column to make a direct assault on that social climber, Grant Randolph! At that moment, his pre-smart cellphone rang.

  The caller ID flashed: Alma S

  He hesitated to push the talk button, but knew he must. There was never any point in avoiding a call from Alma. She would simply track you down within in an hour or two.

  Quickly, he cleared his throat, slapped an imagined smile on his face, and hit the accept button.

  “Yes, hello Alma.”

  As she often did, Alma ignored pleasantries and went straight to the reason for her call. “I want you to call Ethel Landau and discuss this situation with her. She’s been on the arts commission for years and supported Randolph becoming chair of the commission. I think she’s the best person for you to speak to about this.”

  Warren’s palms involuntarily dampened as he considered the obvious:

  This situation was quickly escalating.

  Landau was another longtime member of the Ladies of Liberty. Warren was well aware that any thing you said to either her or Alma quickly got back to the other.

  “I’ll call her right now,” Warren promised, hoping to sound cheerful.

  “I’ve been thinking about this since you left my house. This man Randolph could be a black eye to the integrity of every other member of the commission, including Ethel! You are well aware of my feelings—his continued position on the commission is untenable! After you have filled Et
hel in on the details, I’ll speak to her as well. Call me back,” she barked, and then clicked off.

  Warren could not remember Alma this animated since she organized the effort to prevent outside café dining in the city’s downtown district.

  In fact, the Ladies of Liberty was first formed as a subcommittee of the Women’s League, charged with organizing Sausalito’s annual July 4th parade. In the many years since, this group became something of a punch line in town. When anything that was popular with the under fifty set was legislated out of existence by the Sausalito City Council—a body dominated by Robin Mitchell for more than a quarter of a century—it was assumed that the Ladies of Liberty were the unseen hand behind the effort.

  As to chairs and tables on city streets, their unified battle cry became, “Outdoor dining indeed!” In their view it was just another tactic by realtors and merchants to lure tourists to stay and dine and deny locals the quiet enjoyment of their downtown.

  Warren often imagined himself as being the hidden hand driving events. Clearly now, with Alma and the Ladies of Liberty committed to Randolph’s ouster, events were driving him.

  Perhaps it was time for him to take action of his own. He was, after all, the only one among them who had a newspaper column that was delivered weekly into every home in Sausalito.

  When feeling pressed by unexpected events, Warren would go to his kitchen and make himself a treat. Food preparation gave him time to consider his next step.

  He made himself a nice crepe, with eggs, milk, vanilla and a half-cup of brandy, topped with apricot jelly and sprinkled with powder sugar.

  A half hour later, his outlook on life was already looking a lot brighter. Sipping a cappuccino, he was fortified enough to do as instructed by Alma, and called Ethel Landau.

  He had no concern about building a case against Randolph out of thin air, but if the ladies were going to ask him to press for Randolph’s removal as commission chair, he’d need more than the idle chatter he so often spun into news. He was not naturally given to the life of an investigative reporter: gathering facts, checking and re-checking sources, and digging through files. But clearly, Alma was pushing him to lead the “Randolph Out Now” movement. It wouldn’t hurt if he came to the party armed with a few facts.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Grant Randolph and his wife, Barbara, had moved to Sausalito two years earlier, and were therefore still newcomers in the eyes of many of their long-established neighbors.

  The two had managed to create a minor buzz upon their arrival in town. It was said that he had run a successful art gallery back in New York City, and had recently sold it for a very handsome profit.

  This was a part of his story, but not all.

  Grant Randolph was a native of Providence, Rhode Island. Degreed at Brown University in art history, he came to New York City during the dismal period of the early1990s. After two years of working at a long-established Upper East Side gallery, he, along with two equally young and adventuresome partners, made a bold move into the emerging art scene in the lower Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo. The area, south of Houston Street and north of Canal Street, was in transition at the time, with one block showing the promise of the future, and another block still showing the scars of the 1960s.

  But their gamble turned out to be a wise one. As the city and the nation began to emerge from a decade of sluggish growth, their gallery, The Discerning Eye, became a destination for artists on their way up, and for buyers looking to purchase the art of a select few painters and sculptors with hopefully promising futures.

  Barbara Salem came to work as a sales associate for The Discerning Eye just at a time the gallery, thanks to a feature in the New York Times, was gaining far greater awareness. She had a newly minted degree in art history from nearby New York University. That, and her twenty-five year-old body, soon attracted the eager eyes of the now thirty-year-old partner and gallery director, Grant Randolph.

  They were both attractive people. Grant had thick dark wavy hair, brown eyes, and a sweet smile that, to Barbara, seemed to say, “I’m a lot more dangerous than I look.”

  And Barbara was a young woman who defined “Wow!” to many of her admirers. Her light brown hair was cut short in style with the times, and her dark blue eyes held the stare of anyone who looked her way. In very little time, she became a topic of admiring comments and conversation in the tight circle of New York’s art gallery world.

  Barbara’s carefully presented appearance—proper with a hint of daring—attracted Grant’s intellectual and carnal appetites. At the same time, Grant’s intelligence, charm, and purposeful demeanor were wildly alluring to Barbara.

  Within six months of Barbara’s arrival at the gallery, Grant had kicked his Jamaican artist girlfriend to the curb, and moved Barbara into his condominium. It was in one of Manhattan’s crop of new high rises, and offered sweeping views of lower Manhattan, framed by the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center.

  On the day before 9-11, Grant begged off an eight o’clock breakfast invitation for the following morning at Windows on the World with a London art broker. He and Barbara had planned to sleep in, take in an exhibit at yet another new SoHo gallery, and then enjoy a leisurely day in celebration of their fifth wedding anniversary.

  Because of the double-paned windows that helped soften the din of a city that never sleeps, the Randolphs never heard the plane that crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 AM. But the scream of sirens that began moments later caused both Grant and Barbara to bolt out of bed. They didn’t think to turn on the TV until thirty minutes later, when they looked on in silent horror as a second plane flew directly into the 80th floor of the South Tower.

  “What the fuck!” Grant screamed.

  Barbara’s knees buckled as she watched the unfolding horror. The South Tower fell first in an explosion of dust that gave it the appearance of an erupting volcano in reverse. They were both staring in stunned silence, mumbling, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  Thirty minutes later, they gasped and held their breaths with the same sense of stunned disbelief as the North Tower collapsed in another thunderous roll, releasing a mushroom cloud of dust that left a fine gray powder on Grant and Barbara’s windows.

  Barbara wept, tormented by the senseless destruction of human life, a mere eight blocks from their home.

  Grant remembered as a college student coming down from Providence for a weekend trip to Manhattan. Walking the quiet streets of lower Manhattan on a Sunday when all the bulls and bears of Wall Street had gone home to rest, he would look at the ancient grave stones next to Trinity Church, then walk toward the massive twin towers. They were viewed at that time as grossly out of scale with their surroundings when they were first completed. But twenty-five years later, the twin giants had long become a part of the landscape.

  On their weekend walks through their Tribeca neighborhood, Grant and Barbara often made it a point to stand at the very foot of one of the twin giants and look straight up while shaking their heads in wonder.

  The tragedy of that day was something neither of them could shake from their bones. It was one thing to watch the disaster on TV. It was a completely different experience living less than a half-mile away.

  For three days, they stayed inside their home. The gallery closed for the entire week. On Friday, four days after the disaster, they made their first venture outside. Both were prepared with cloth handkerchiefs to place over their noses, fearing the potentially toxic particles floating through the air. Their walkabout didn’t last very long. Seeing people desperate for information, posting pictures anywhere they could of missing friends and loved ones, made the loss of thousands of innocents all the more overwhelming.

  The London gallery owner wisely chose not to dine alone at Windows on the World up on the 102nd floor of the North Tower. It was a fortunate choice; no one who was in the restaurant at 8:46 that morning survived. The following month, Grant’s London friend sent him a note that concluded, “I imagine the only reason we
’re both alive today is because you and Barbara decided to marry on September 11, 1996. I know, for certain, that I will always remember your wedding anniversary!”

  In the years after 9-11, the city recovered, but Grant and Barbara never fully did. They had been deeply changed. While never directly in harm’s way, the close proximity to the event left them both with a sense of survivors’ guilt. They realized that they would never know how many of the victims of the disaster they may have sat next to at lunch, or passed on the street in the years preceding the attack, but they both deeply felt this unexpected loss.

  With each person he watched taping a picture to a door or a lamppost of a missing loved one, he thought of Barbara doing the same if he had not turned down a simple invitation to breakfast with a long time acquaintance.

  Both he and Barbara had always enjoyed casual evening cocktails, but alcohol after the tragedy became a refuge for both of them. A place where they could put life’s disappointments aside, and find peace in the warm embrace of an intoxicating drink.

  The words, “We’re here today and gone tomorrow,” was a phrase often said to each other.

  As for the gallery and the surrounding area, life went on, and profits kept growing—in fact, bigger than either of them had ever imagined possible.

  In early 2012, Grant and his partner got an offer to purchase their business that was simply too outlandish to refuse. Grant, who was blessed with an uncanny sense of timing, chose to sell many of the art pieces he had acquired over the past twenty years. He sold off all but his personal favorites, and parked his profits in a low-risk cash management fund until he and Barbara could decide what to do next.