The Gossiping Gourmet: (A Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 1) (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (4 page)

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
80
^th
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 102
^nd
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.

Unofficially retired and
still shy of fifty, Grant suggested that they take a driving trip along the
California coast. It was May, a perfect time for the two of them to enjoy this
unique part of the world.

They had visited Los Angeles
and San Francisco on several occasions, mostly related to their lives in the
acquisition and sale of fine art. But never had they taken the time to relax
and explore the California coast. They started at the busy beaches and
yacht-filled harbors of Newport Beach in Orange County, and took all the time
they wanted heading north.

They passed the mansions of
Santa Barbara, and strolled along Sterns Wharf. They stopped at Pismo Beach,
enjoyed the mission town of San Luis Obispo, and the ocean-front town of Morro
Bay. They were wowed by the old Hearst Castle in San Simeon, and held their
breaths at they proceeded cautiously up the winding and treacherous curves of
that next stretch of Highway 1 between San Simeon and Big Sur.

They stopped at Nepenthe for
an early dinner while they took in incredible views of the ocean-hugging cliffs
from the restaurant’s huge outdoor patio.

After enjoying the adjacent
communities of Monterey, Carmel by the Sea, and Pacific Grove they spent three
days on the Sonoma Coast, north of San Francisco. Ten days into their trip,
they parked their car along a deserted two-mile stretch of beach, about fifteen
miles north of Fort Bragg and three miles south of the picture book small town
of Westport, in Mendocino County. Walking barefoot, enjoying a warm sun and a
crisp breeze, Grant looked out to sea and caught the unforgettable view of a
massive gray whale breaching out of a calm ocean, perhaps no more than a
hundred and fifty yards from the spot where he stood. Less than a minute later,
he and Barbara, at the same time, said to each other, “Did you see that…” as a
second whale, also traveling south to north, breached dramatically as well.

They spread the small blanket
they were carrying, and sat down on the dry warm sand; for over an hour, they
watched as a parade of whales swam by. Later that afternoon, at the intimate
bed and breakfast inn they had booked in Westport for their last night along
the coast, they learned from the establishment’s manager that what they had
seen was likely a feeding frenzy for krill as a pod of gray whales made their
annual spring migration from the warm waters of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to the
Gulf of Alaska.

“You could wait years to see
a show like that,” the longtime Westport resident explained. “I suppose you two
were just born under a lucky star.”

It was that night, sitting on
the porch outside their bedroom, listening to the relentless waves hitting the
shore and looking up at a star-covered sky, that both of the Randolphs decided
to trade the East Coast for the West Coast. The next morning at breakfast, with
their appetites driven by the possibilities presented by new ideas, they began
planning their move in earnest.

They quickly decided that
they would look for a home in the Bay Area. But while they had made many visits
to San Francisco, mostly for studio openings, they didn’t know much about the
communities around the world-famous city. They resolved to take whatever time
they needed to learn about the East Bay, South Bay, and North Bay before making
their choice.

Traveling back to San Francisco
along Highway 128, they made several stops at wineries along the Anderson and
Alexander valleys. By the time they reached the Hotel Healdsburg, they had
enjoyed one too many stops at the countless tasting rooms along the way, so
they wisely took the last available room.

Shortly after opening the
door to their room, both Grant and Barbara fell on top of the king-sized bed
and fell sound asleep. They woke up to the first rays of sunlight coming
through the room’s heavy drapes. Sitting up on the bed, Grant looked around and
gave a long, low whistle.

“Barb, wake up. This has got
to be the nicest room that I ever woke up in that I don’t remember checking
into.”

Jeez, you’re right, Grant. I
wonder what we spent.”

Neither one of them was
pleased when they found out the room cost over nine hundred dollars for the
night.

“I guess it’s cheaper than a
DUI and all the shit the rental company would have put us through if I’d run
over a deer while driving around the back roads of Napa,” Grant reasoned. 

“And, God, what beautiful
country this is,” Barbara added. “Not to mention all the great wines!”

“Maybe we could be happy
living here?” Grant wondered aloud.

“I think 70 miles north of
San Francisco is a little far for you to be from a major city. You may love
fresh air and vineyards, but you’ve got steel, glass, and pavement in your
veins,” Barbara said with a laugh.

“You’re right, but there’s
something to be said about finding a little more peace in our lives.”

“I agree, darling. But too
much peace, and I could see you losing your mind.”

It was early when they
stepped out to meet the day, discovering, thankfully, that they were at least
sober enough to have parked their car in a legal spot.

They wandered past the neat
and charming town plaza and square, and found the perfect place to have a
relaxing breakfast.

They fell into a conversation
with the couple sitting at the two-top table ten inches away from their own.
Patrons of the popular breakfast place happily sacrificed some extra space and
greater privacy for the efficient service and wonderful food of this cozy
café.  Between generous cappuccinos, yummy omelets, and homemade biscuits, they
got to know the couple seated at the table next to them, Ray and Debbie Sirica,
who had relocated from their native Chicago to the Bay Area ten years ago.