The Gossiping Gourmet

The Gossiping Gourmet
A Murder in Marin Mystery – Book 1
Martin Brown


Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Chapter One
On the first Monday of every month, Warren Bradley, community newspaper columnist extraordinaire, catered a lunchtime feast for Sausalito’s men and women in blue. His generous offer was driven by selfish reasons. Bradley was always in search of scandal and did not object if the information he dredged up lacked context, provided it came with a healthy portion of innuendo, supposition, and plausible conjecture.
Headquartered in a two-story building that took up an entire block at the end of Caledonia Street, Sausalito’s self-proclaimed “resident-serving commercial district,” the police department had a state-of-the-art lockdown area, a meeting room with richly appointed mahogany walls, and a workout facility that was the envy of all other Marin County police departments. All at the disposal of a force of two dozen uniformed officers, five support staff, a chief, and a deputy chief. It was undoubtedly more police coverage than any town of seven thousand required—particularly given that the county sheriff’s department maintained a Southern Marin station just two miles north of Sausalito’s lavish police headquarters.
The fire station, on the opposite side of the street, was equally grand. Day visitors, which Sausalito attracted on summer weekends by the thousands, often mistook its massive windows and antique brickwork for the front of a luxury hotel. But firefighters, in spite of their opulent surroundings, were never treated to Warren’s garden of culinary delights. When Bea, one of Warren’s compatriots in the game of know-and-tell, asked why he worked so hard to accommodate the local police, but not Sausalito's firefighters, he explained, “Grease fires and cats stuck in trees are of little interest to me or my readers.”
For Sausalito’s finest, however, he prepared his best dishes, and they reciprocated with unexpected delicious morsels of salacious details that raised his standing in a social circle above his actual station in life, and made the hours of shopping, preparation, cooking, carrying, and serving all worthwhile.
The department’s rank and file much appreciated his efforts, from Captain Hans Petersen down to the city's newest patrol officer, Chris Harding, who had escaped policing the mean streets of San Jose for the quieter, and safer, surroundings of Sausalito.
Warren’s gourmet lunches were the highlight of the department's month for those who normally subsisted on 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 other days to be stricken with an unexpected case of "blue flu." Chief Petersen was particularly impressed when officers with the day off showed up around eleven forty-five, to get something they had “forgotten” out of their lockers.
As a connoisseur of indiscreet conversation, Warren made sure that when the food was plated, he would be first to the table, anxious to catch any new gossip. Sometimes, it was nothing more than a small gem, like a 415 call—disturbing the peace—caused by one or both of the mayor’s drunken teenage sons.
And, sometimes, it was a precious stone. Case in point: the assault and battery arrest of Grant Randolph, chair of the Sausalito Fine Arts Commission. In that instance, his timing could not have been better. Twelve hours after Randolph was booked into the county jail, Warren busied himself preparing his caramel chicken. Eighteen pounds of chicken legs and thighs marinated in a sauce of light brown sugar, peeled ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and vegetable oil—a blend of fantastic tastes that nearly brought every hardworking law enforcement officer to tears.
The night of Randolph's arrest, Harding and his partner, Steve Hansen, were the first two officers on the scene. Between bites and praise of Warren's chicken, Harding said, “The EMT boys had to take Randolph's wife up to the hospital."
"She was in pretty bad shape when we arrived,” Hansen added.
All at once the tips of Warren's ears tingled as he stopped to contemplate the value of this news. Randolph seemed to take delight in correcting Warren at every one of their encounters. Perhaps the tables were finally about to turn.
Warren’s upper lip, which balanced an unruly salt and pepper mustache, puckered forward with a laugh when he heard the surprising news. “No, I don’t believe that! Really? Grant Randolph? I didn’t think he would hurt a fly, even if he seems to be built like someone who could.”
“You’d know he could pack a wallop if you had seen Mrs. Randolph flat on her back, sprawled across their living room floor,” Harding replied.
“Wow,” Warren murmured, as he proffered another piece of sweet and spicy chicken to his new favorite police officer.
Warren’s aging social set considered Randolph a bit too aggressive. Undoubtedly, he had the right pedigree in the arts, and his financial standing was beyond question, but accepting the chairmanship of the town’s art commission when he had taken up residence only months earlier seemed presumptuous.
If it had not been for the fact that no one else was interested in investing the time and effort needed to do the job, with the likely exception of Warren himself, Randolph would not have been handed the position without objection.
Mrs. Alma Samuels, who had been married to the late San Francisco attorney Roger Samuels, also thought Randolph was a bit presumptuous. But she tolerated the man because, as she 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, Bea Snyder, and Robin Mitchell—that she too felt uncomfortable with the man she often referred to as “an east coast