“Want me to drive you home?” Ray asked.
Grant shook his head. “It’s probably better if I walked. We don’t want Sausalito’s finest making you their big get of the night.”
Ray nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Besides, this isn’t New York or Chicago. The scariest thing you’ll run into in Sausalito late at night is a family of raccoons raiding a trash can.”
It was close to midnight when Barbara awoke and called out to Grant.
When there was no answer, she mumbled aloud, “He’s still not home! Where the hell is that louse?”
She walked over to the kitchen counter where she had placed her cell phone earlier and started stabbing her fingers against the phone’s cold glass touchscreen. Bringing up her “favorite contacts,” she angrily pressed, “GRANT.”
But her husband, who had left his phone on silent from the time he had entered the gym and then forgot to reset it during his time with Ray, was blissfully unaware of Barbara’s several attempts to reach him.
A few minutes later, when he walked through the door in a relaxed but inebriated state, a ripened grapefruit flew past his head, hitting the back of the front door with a dull thud.
Barbara shouted, “Where have you been, you bastard?”
Grant’s fog-shrouded mind immediately sensed trouble. He knew he was under attack, but he was bewildered as to the cause.
“Out late with your little whore girlfriend?”
“WHAT? WHO?”
“You heard me, you lying, cheating dirt bag!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Enraged, Barbara came rushing toward him. She was carrying an oversized hardcover coffee table book—a three-hundred-page retrospective on the work of Salvador Dali.
Grant’s adrenaline surged. Wildly, he swung his right arm forward to block the book from striking the side of his head. He missed the book, but his powerful forearm cracked across Barbara’s lower left cheek and jaw, and sent her reeling backward and crashing to the floor.
Barbara let loose with a bloodcurdling scream as she went down.
The commotion woke their neighbors, the Andersons. Concerned, they called the Sausalito police department. It was after midnight. The town was as peaceful as an undiscovered tomb—a quiet that was shattered needlessly by two patrol cars, blue lights flashing, racing up Bulkley Avenue.
The patrol officers, Hansen and Harding, knocked on the Randolphs’ front door less than three minutes after they were summoned.
Grant, who had run to Barbara’s side to make a tearful apology, rushed to the door when he heard a deep booming voice say, “Sausalito police! Open up!”
Reeking of beer, sweat, and tequila, Grant pulled open the door. Immediately, he muttered, “Everything is okay, officers.”
“Sir, is that your wife on the floor?” Harding asked, “We’ll have to check on her condition.”
He didn’t wait for Grant’s response. Instead, he strode to Barbara’s side. She was still laying flat on the floor. Looking up in a daze at the eager young faces of the two officers she heard them say, “Ma’am, are you alright? Do you need medical assistance?”
On top of suffering from a surprisingly powerful hit, she had struck the back of her head when she hit the bare tiled floor. Barbara, whose head was ringing, responded groggily to the officers’ questions.
Hansen called the fire department to send up the EMT crew.
Meanwhile, Harding took out his handcuffs. Before Grant fully understood what was happening, he had been restrained and was being escorted out the front door.
The officers drove him up to the county jail for processing on a charge of assault and battery.
A stretcher was brought in, and in less than a clear voice, Barbara said she thought it was unnecessary to take her to the county hospital, Marin General. But the EMT officers insisted, explaining that it was a precaution whenever someone had suffered a blow to the back of the head.
Oscar and Clarice Anderson, both in their early-eighties, watched in horror from their upstairs bedroom window as Grant Randolph was taken out in handcuffs, followed a short time later by his wife being taken on a gurney into the back of a Sausalito Fire Department medical transport vehicle.
“Oh, my God!” Clarice exclaimed. “They seemed like such a nice quiet couple!”
Oscar held his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Looks can be deceiving, my dear.”
They turned out their lights and returned to bed.
Chapter Ten
After Chris Harding and Steve Hansen’s retelling of the midnight domestic violence call to the Randolph home, and after Alma insisted that Bradley use his “Heard About Town” column to call for Grant Randolph’s removal from the arts commission, Warren had few remaining options. He needed to act as the swift hand of public justice or risk losing most of his column’s biggest fans.
He knew the why but was puzzled by the how. Then a thought occurred to him: Who might have overheard the Randolphs' battle and its aftermath?
Late Monday he called Bea, a living Who’s Who of Sausalito’s small army of community volunteers. He asked her who lived on Bulkley Avenue next door to, or nearby, the Randolphs. Once he heard about Clarice and Oscar Anderson, he asked Bea if they were active on any of the town’s volunteer committees. Bea thought for a moment and recalled them both helping the library foundation prepare for their annual community book sale.
Thirty minutes later, Warren was busy mixing up his irresistible cherry-fudge brownies.
Oscar and Clarice knew Warren through his volunteer efforts but had never read his weekly column. Instead, when The Standard hit their mailbox every Wednesday, they gave the front page a quick glance and then dropped it into the recycling bin.
The Andersons were a quiet couple who had lived in Sausalito for over forty years. They’d raised two children and were strict adherents to the rule of minding your own business.
Early on Tuesday, they were surprised to find Warren on their doorstep with a platter of cherry-fudge brownies.
“Warren, this is so nice of you!” Clarice declared as she welcomed him into her home. “Why the unexpected visit?”
“Bea and I were talking about how helpful the two of you
