The Gossiping Gourmet: (A Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 1) (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (6 page)

Later, back at their hotel,
Grant said to Barbara, “Thanks for saving me from that creepy guy—you know, the
one who thinks he’s a gourmet chef.”

Barbara shook her head. “You
should have seen his face when you passed on his appetizer. Talk about taking
it personally! You know, Grant, you could have told him you were
gluten-intolerant. Oh, by the way, he also writes for the local paper—
The
Sausalito Standard
.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “Let me
guess, restaurant reviews.”

“I hear it’s more like a
gossip column.” Barbara laughed. “Based on the look on his face when you dissed
his bruschetta, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re his next victim.”

“He did say he wanted to
interview us for the paper, after we settle into town. But that was before I
made him cry.” Grant shrugged. “I don’t know what we would tell him. Quite
frankly, I got the feeling that he was nothing more than an old busybody.”

“He seemed harmless enough to
me,” Barbara countered.

“I guess Ray and Debbie are
right when they say that the place is just an overgrown village with a lot of
different kinds of people. I’m just wondering if it might get a little
claustrophobic after a while.”

“Any time we want, there’s a
big city called San Francisco just a few minutes away that we can go visit,”
she reminded him.

“You’re right.” Grant’s mouth
relaxed into a smile. “Sausalito will certainly be a big change from Manhattan.
I’m just wondering if we’ll miss living in a place where hardly anyone knows
your name.”

Just four months after their
first introduction to Sausalito, Barbara and Grant pulled into the driveway of
their new home.

It wasn’t the Siricas’
mini-mansion, but it was probably the best three-bedroom “cottage” that two
million dollars could buy in Sausalito.

Between the sale of their
condo and the money from their share of the gallery, they still had a good
amount in savings left over, allowing them both to live in ample comfort.

Grant and Barbara had no
doubt that they would both re-engage with the world of fine art at some point.
But, for now, they wanted to focus on establishing a new life in a completely
different place.

As Grant soon discovered, all
of his unspent energy, once invested in the daily pressure of life in the Big
Apple and the challenge of staying ahead of his competition in the endlessly
competitive world of fine art sales, now needed a new outlet. Picking out
fabric swatches and comparing paint chips as they tinkered with every room of
their new home was not going to accomplish that.

While out for a walk one
afternoon with Ray, Grant shared with him that he was loving his new home and
his new surroundings. “But I’m itching to burn off some excess energy.”

“Been there, done that,” Ray
said without hesitation. “How about if we get ourselves a couple of gym
memberships? We could both benefit from some honest sweat. All this good living
is turning me into a pile of mush.”

“If I remember correctly,
there’s a gym near the Sausalito houseboat docks,” Grant suggested.

Ray shook his head. “Nah. The
place is 90% aerobics machines; it doesn’t feel like a real gym to me.”

“What’s a real gym?”

“I was a starting defensive
center on my high school’s varsity football team,” Ray explained. “With the
exception of the last few years, I’ve worked out regularly since I was fifteen.
I’ll know the gym we need when I see it.”

When they stepped inside of
Gold’s Gym, near the town of Corte Madera, about 10 miles north of Sausalito,
Ray knew they had arrived.

The place smelled like a gym,
for one thing. As they strolled around the cavernous space that had once served
as a distribution warehouse, Ray was particularly impressed at the three
different areas dedicated to strength resistance training. From racks of free
weights to dozens of pulley operated weight machines, Ray liked what he saw.
When one of the gym’s fitness associates told them that the monthly membership
was a mere thirty bucks with no initial membership fee other than an upfront
charge for the first month, they looked at each other, smiled, and signed on
the dotted line.

On the short drive back south
to Sausalito, Ray talked excitedly about their new gym. In fact, it was all he
could talk about, starting with the comment, “Thirty bucks? Debbie spends more
than that getting her nails done every week.”

“I’ve never been much of a
gym guy, but I’ve got to admit, I’m excited too.”

“Buddy, you’ll see what a big
difference this is going to make! Look, Grant, we’re both getting to the age
where we start to fall apart if we don’t do something to slow that process
down. In your twenties, you can coast, you should start paying attention in
your thirties, and if you’re not doing something to improve your body in your
forties, it shows.”

“Ray, you’re right. I enjoy
the good life. But cocktails, appetizers, steaks, and dessert while sitting out
on your deck and admiring the view is not going to get me into the best shape
of my life.”

“We’ll be a little sore the
first couple of weeks, but believe me, Grant, you’re going to see some real
changes over the next few months, and you’re going to like what you see.”

Grant did indeed like the
results that he was seeing only a few weeks after he started. He particularly
noticed the way Barbara ran her nails across his chest after he showered and
walked into the bedroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. While he
didn’t tell her, he was proud that she was noticing his progress.

Two months into what Ray
referred to as his “Sirica boot camp program,” the changes were becoming even
more noticeable. Grant’s body frequently balked at the demands he was putting
upon it, but the increased passion of his and Barbara’s lovemaking more than
compensated for a little strain here and a little soreness there.

It had been a long time since
Grant had caught Barbara looking at him longingly. This subtle but noticeable
change in her made his commitment to Ray’s rigorous workout program that much
stronger.

Ray admitted that he, too,
had seen a change in Debbie. “She hasn’t shown this much interest in me,
physically, since we were both twentysomethings. It’s really nice getting some
of that back.” 

The cottage was in good
condition, but it needed a lot of attention before Barbara and Grant would be
truly pleased with its appearance. For starters, there was the hideous
wallpaper in both the dining room and living room that had to be removed. The
bedrooms were painted soft shades of beige, probably a wise choice for the
seller seeking to provide muted tones that would not offend prospective buyers.

But it was certainly not to
the Randolphs’ liking; both of who believed that color gave a room life and
personality.

“And,” as Barbara noted,
going from room to room with Grant, “there are so many small changes that could
make a big difference, crown molding throughout, new windows, and new window
treatments.”

It wasn’t their initial
intention to sink more money into what was already a costly home, but it was
hard to resist. “A home with a lovely view, in an unquestionably lovely place
should present itself to the world with the tasteful touches it deserves,”
Barbara reasoned.

In the evenings, they sat on
the high terrace holding cocktails and continued to enjoy their expansive bay
view. The Siricas had warned them “for the first three to six months, the views
take up a great deal of your attention.”

“I think you always
appreciate the beauty, but it’s not quite so hypnotic after you’ve lived here
for at least a few months,” Ray explained.

After six months of loving
attention created the look and feel they had envisioned the first day they
walked through the door, it was time for both of them to look elsewhere for
diversions.

Barbara and Grant continued
to enjoy Ray and Debbie’s company, but after one more evening of hearing Ray
talk about how you decide when to drop one nightwear designer and go with
another, both of them decided it was time to “widen our circle of friends.”

To that end, Barbara happily
accepted an invitation to an early afternoon meet and greet at the Sausalito
Women’s League. That same day, Grant attended his first meeting of the
Sausalito Fine Arts Commission. 

Barbara noted that most of
the talk at the league gathering, held in a century-old building that was an
estate gift from the league’s founder Dorothy Landau, the grandmother of Ethel
Landau, centered on the Landau family, spoken of in reverential terms, and the
history of the group.

A light luncheon was served
with a mixed fruit cobbler prepared by, as Alma Samuels proudly announced,
“Sausalito’s master chef, Warren Bradley.”

During a pleasant, but as
Barbara later explained to Grant, a “rather staid event,” most of the
conversation centered around an annual program called the Winter Follies, a
holiday season satirical musical review of life in Sausalito.

Ethel Landau, in showing a
photo album to Barbara of previous follies, pointed to a chorus line of women
with red cheeks and red noses, and was told, first year members are expected to
join the “reindeer chorus.” Barbara smiled, as she looked in horror at the
pictures of overly happy women in ridiculous outfits that looked as though they
had been co-created by Martha Stewart and Hugh Hefner.

Warren made a point of
sitting next to Barbara for a brief time, and told her how impressed he was
with both she and her husband. After a few moments, she thought that Grant was
quite right in suggesting that there was something off-putting about
Sausalito’s generous gourmet.

Ray and Grant could not get
in their usual morning workout, so he was not home when Barbara came back from
her luncheon. Later, when Grant came in, he rushed to take a shower and then
head out for the commission meeting that, to Grant’s way of thinking, started
much too early at six o’clock.

The meeting took place in the
senior center, located in the basement of city hall. It had just started when
Grant entered and quickly took a seat. The five members of the commission sat
at a long narrow conference table facing five rows of chairs, seven seats
across, arranged for an audience that largely chose not to attend. In fact, there
was one more commissioner, five, than attendees, four.

With such a small gathering,
the commission’s elderly chairperson, Arthur Bingham stopped to introduce
himself and the other members of the commission to this first-time attendee.
Ethel Landau told her fellow commissioners that Grant had an “impressive
background in fine arts, and I hope he will be a regular attendee at future
meetings.”

Bingham invited Grant to
“stay for refreshments after the meeting, so we can all get to know you better.
“We have a mixed fruit cobbler that has generously been prepared by Sausalito’s
gracious gourmet, Warren Bradley.”