The Gossiping Gourmet: (A Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 1) (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (11 page)

Ray Sirica was the first to
notice the lead in Bradley’s “Heard About Town” column.

“Holy hell!” he called out,
and then added, “Debbie, you’ve got to get in here!”

Debbie became so angry at
what Warren had written that she started to shake.

“That malicious little man;
this is just disgraceful! Raymond, what are you going to do about this?”

“What do you mean, ‘What am I
going to do?’”

“I don’t know what I mean.
When we were telling Grant and Barbara what a wonderful town Sausalito is, we
never dreamed of anything like this.”

“What I’d like to do,” Ray
said, “is pick up that nasty troll by the scruff of his neck and slap him
senseless.”

“But what you’d like to do,
and what you can do, Ray, are two different things.”

They both sat silently for a
moment, staring out at their picture book view of the bay.

Debbie spoke first, “Should
we call Barbara and Grant?”

“I’ve never heard them say a word
about looking at the
Standard
, although I’m guessing Grant sees it for
coverage of the arts commission, if nothing else,” Ray said.

They toyed with the thought
that perhaps their friends would not see the piece, but decided that was
wishful thinking. If nothing else, one of his fellow commission members was
certain to ask Grant about what happened.

“No,” Ray said, having
clearly settled on his next move. “We have to let them know what this little
weasel, Warren Bradley, put in the paper. Deb, call them and see if they’re
home; tell them we have something to show them.”

The Siricas arrived at the
Grants to find them blissfully enjoying their day. Barbara worked that morning
for the gallery from home, and both she and Grant decided to spend the afternoon
working together on the small garden area that hugged their side patio.

Debbie and Ray knew that they
would be ruining what appeared to be a perfectly blissful moment, but they were
resolved in their belief that it was better they heard about this from friends.

Barbara insisted that they
both sit down at the patio table and she would bring out something to drink.
Her guests sat down, but waved off the beverages.

The bruise along Barbara’s
left jawline was already much improved, but still clearly visible. Grant, still
uncomfortable over the embarrassment of what the two of them now called, “The
mother of all misunderstandings,” pulled off the gardening gloves he had been
weeding with, and sat down as well.

Debbie smiled and pushed
Ray’s knee under the table, as if to say,
Please, you start.

Ray pulled that week’s issue
of the
Standard
out of his back pocket. He laid the paper out on the
table, and opened it to Bradley’s column.

“That spat you two had was
picked up in the local gossip column—”

The words were hardly out of
Ray’s mouth when Grant grabbed the paper and started to read the first few
paragraphs of “Heard About Town.”

With his voice rising, and
with Barbara’s face reddening, Grant read, “Sausalito Police sources confirmed
that the argument led to Mr. Randolph’s arrest and Mrs. Randolph being rushed
to Marin General Hospital over concern that she had suffered life-threatening
injuries.” Grant was greatly annoyed by Ethel’s suggestion that, “perhaps it
was time we reconsider Mr. Randolph’s participation.”

“I’ll quit before they ever
have the chance to ask me to leave!” Grant said, as his face reddened.

But what angered Grant and
Barbara the most was Warren’s claim that “at press time, neither of them were
available for comment.”

“That’s complete and utter
bullshit!” Grant said, as he slammed the paper down on the table.

Barbara grabbed it off the
table and reread the story in silence. When she had finished, in a quiet voice
she said, “This is awful, just awful!”

After a few moments of
silence, Ray, the only one of the three of them not intimidated by Grant’s
anger, said, “I don’t like that little shit any more than you do, Grant, but we
all know what he wrote isn’t a total fabrication.”

“I don’t mean what he said
about the fight. That was mostly true—although I think he deliberately
over-dramatized Barbara’s condition. What really pisses me off is this bullshit
about neither of us being ‘available at press time,’” Grant explained.

“In other words,” Ray said,
“you think the little prick was avoiding you because he didn’t want your
comments, knowing you’d at least try to explain what happened.”

“Exactly! He wanted to put it
in the worst light possible, right down to his wisecrack, making it sound as if
we just arrived here off the set of
Gangs of New York
!”

“I have no doubt of that.
With my having the last name of Sirica, Bradley would gladly imply that I’m a
retired Chicago mobster. In truth, he’s lucky my dad was in the pajama game,
and not in the syndicate, or Warren would be on his way to the bottom of the
bay in a cement swimsuit.”

The four of them shared a
much-needed laugh, and paused to imagine how much better a place their world
would be if Warren Bradley was entombed in cement and deposited into the quiet
waters between Sausalito and Tiburon.

Barbara, trying to take this
new disaster in stride, said, “Between the hatchet job Bradley did on me for
turning down the league’s invitation, and now our knock down drag out fight,
maybe I should just get fitted for a burqa for when Debbie and I take one of
our walks through town.”

That, along with fantasies of
Warren going cement diving in the bay, broke the tension, to Ray and Debbie’s
great relief. 

At that moment, the four of
them looked up as they heard the gate on the white picket fence open and shut.
Oscar and Clarice Anderson were walking toward them. Clarice was dabbing her
eyes with a handkerchief. After exchanging greetings and an introduction to Ray
and Debbie, Oscar said, “Clarice and I just read what that awful man, Bradley,
wrote about the two of you. We never read the
Standard
, and we didn’t
even know about his column.”

“How’d you find out?” Ray
asked.

“A friend called us to tell
us that our names were in the paper!” Clarice explained. “So, we fished the
paper out of the recycling bin. That’s what happens every week—it comes in the
mail, we look at the front page to see if there’s any news that concerns
us—street repairs, bond measures and such—then we put it in recycling.”

“Do you even know Warren
Bradley?” Grant asked.

“Oh, sure. We’re on a couple
of committees with him,” Oscar said.

“When he showed up at our
house with a plate of brownies yesterday morning, we, of course, invited him
in,” Clarice explained. “We were both surprised to see him. He’s never done
anything like that before.”

“When we saw his column
today, we, of course, realized why he was being so nice. He was fishing for
information,” Oscar said with a scowl.

“I’m so sorry,” Clarice
sobbed. “I’m even sorry that we called the police! But when we heard Barbara
scream, we didn’t know what was going on.”

Barbara, tearing up, stood up
and embraced Clarice. “Don’t cry, dear. This all started over a stupid
misunderstanding; both of us had way too much to drink, and everything from
that point on got out of hand.”

Grant’s face reddened with
feelings of both anger and embarrassment.

After hugs were exchanged,
the Andersons left. Clarice was still dabbing tears from the corner of her eyes
as they walked slowly back toward the white picket fence.

“If I ever see Bradley again
at a meeting of the arts commission, I’m going to wring the man’s neck,” Grant
said, as Ray and Debbie got up to leave.

“Don’t do anything to make
things worse, pal. This will all die down in a week or two,” Ray said, hoping
silently that he was right.

Every Saturday evening in
May, Sausalito held a Night at the Opera event at Gabrielson Park, just steps
away from the ferry terminal and the Sausalito Yacht Club.

The mild evening air and
selections from Verdi’s
La Traviata
brought out what was likely the
biggest opening night crowd long-time attendees of the festival could remember.

All of those usually seen
about town were in attendance: the five members of the city council, members of
the city’s numerous commissions: planning, design review, historical, parks and
recreation, and fine arts; also, the Sausalito Women’s League members, many of
whom served on the committee that arranged refreshments for the night; and most
notably Alma, and her Ladies of Liberty, who sat at one of several reserved
tables for distinguished guests and local officials.

Grant decided not to sit at
the group table reserved for the arts commission, choosing instead to join
Barbara, Ray, and Debbie on a blanket spread on the park’s thick green grass.
His suggestion to Barbara that they go was at first resisted. It had only been
three days since Warren’s column had appeared, and Barbara dreaded knowing that
staring eyes would be pointed at them from all directions.

“I’m not sure yet that I’m
ready to be seen in public. I’m still waiting for that burqa from Bergdorf I
ordered,” Barbara said, only half-jokingly.

Debbie was also ambivalent
about attending the event, but Ray and Grant separately presented similar
arguments to their wives. “People like Warren Bradley are not going to spoil
this, or any night in Sausalito, for us.”

Both Debbie and Barbara
agreed to go and have fun, although they both would have preferred to do any
one of a dozen other things. But now that they were there and the evening air
was so pleasant and the wine and food they had brought was all so delicious,
they began to relax. Barbara noticed a few raised eyebrows, mostly coming from
Robin Mitchell and others seated at the Ladies of Liberty table. There were a
few whispers into cupped ears and nods aimed in their direction, but she
disciplined herself to focus on the music and the setting, and she pushed every
other thought aside.

During intermission, Barbara
noticed Warren flitting from table to table, smiling, laughing, and greeting
those whom she knew he considered as all the right people. With each laugh he
gave, she secretly wondered if she and her husband were the butt of his cutting
comments. Again, she pushed aside her irritation and willed herself to ignore a
deep and unwelcome sense of humiliation.

It wasn’t until an hour
later, when everyone was packing-up their blankets and picnic baskets that
Grant walked over and tapped Warren Bradley on the back. If Barbara, Ray, or
Debbie knew what Grant was about to do, they would have stopped him.

Perhaps his original intent
was merely, as he explained later, to say hello to a few of his fellow arts
commission members. But when he passed so close to Warren that he could feel
his own disgust and anger rising, he simply had to say something.

Warren’s look of feigned
innocence and barely disguised delight added to Grant’s increasing sense of
fury. Grant’s right hand formed a fist. Oh, how easy it would be to permanently
wipe that smirk off Bradley’s face. But inside, he could hear that controlling
half of his mind shouting at him,
No, you can’t do that!