“I understand that Warren was over seventy at the time of his death.”
She nodded. “That seems about right.”
“I reread all his columns to see if he mentioned his childhood, or his life before Sausalito. Unfortunately, he never did. My guess, however, is that he grew up back east. Did he ever discuss with you where that was?”
“I’m sorry, Rob, not that I recall. I guess there is very little I know about Warren’s life before Sausalito.” Her eyes opened wider at this realization. “It’s always been said that he was in the world of banking, or finance. But I cannot recall our ever discussing that time of his life.”
Trying to put a smile on his face to cover his disappointment, Rob shifted his focus to Bradley’s more recent years.
But when they got to the topic of Warren’s columns, Alma became agitated. “Warren sat in the very chair you’re sitting in now when I told him that I was concerned for his safety. Just one look at that Grant Randolph and you could tell he was a brute! But Warren was simply fearless. He was, by his very nature, a truth teller.”
Realizing that the conversation had devolved into a series of endless stories about Bradley’s “extraordinary generosity” and his “remarkable culinary skills,” Rob thanked Alma for her hospitality. But before he could make a hasty retreat, Alma took his hand in both of her hands. Staring intently up at the smile he had fixed on his face, she declared, “Whoever wanted to harm dear Warren may want to harm you as well. But, unlike Warren, you have a wife and two children, so please be careful, Rob! I can’t imagine what the loss of a second great journalist would mean to our small town.”
As Rob backed out of the driveway, he wasn’t sure whether to take Alma’s performance of tea and sympathy as kindness or gamesmanship. What he did know was that he had no more actionable information regarding Warren’s past than he had when Eddie asked him to dig something up on his background.
But, as every investigative reporter knows, you have to set aside frustrations over one or more blind alleys and keep pushing forward.
On the short winding drive through Sausalito’s labyrinth of steep hills leading down to his office, which was located steps away from the edge of the bay, Rob thought about his next move. At least one benefit, however, came out of his meeting: he suspected that, on some level, Alma too was uneasy with the thought that her beloved Warren entered her close circle of friends without a known past.
From phone interviews with Ethel Landau, Bea Snyder, Robin Mitchell, and Marilyn Williams, Rob came away with nothing more than the sparse facts Alma Samuels had already shared.
He endured the pain of their endless stories concerning Warren’s “noble efforts and volunteering spirit” in bringing food for one event or another, and offering help in any way he could with those causes that were most important to the Ladies of Liberty.
But Warren Bradley’s life before Sausalito remained a mystery.
Eddie worked a late shift on Friday. Once again, he bowed out of the end-of-week meet-up at Smitty’s with Rob and Holly.
Still, before leaving the office, Rob asked Holly if she wanted to join him for a drink. They had both worked a long week, and Rob’s increasing frustration with Bradley’s empty past led to his being short with her for most of the week.
“Is this your way of saying you want to kiss and make up?” Holly teased. “If it is, then yes, I’ll allow you to buy back my affections with a martini.”
“Good! I was hoping you’d say yes, so grab your bag and let’s get out of here.”
Ten minutes later, after they settled in on the quiet, far end of Sausalito’s most popular downtown watering hole, the No Name Bar, Rob took a long pull on a bottle of Guinness while Holly took a much-needed sip of her beloved martini.
“So, what’s up, boss? You’ve been more than your usual grumpy self this week."
“I’m sorry about that. I told you I’ve been trying to put together a piece about Warren Bradley’s life, and—”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” She frowned.
“I have to! His murder is the biggest news story we’ve had around here in a long time, and for six years he wrote a column for the newspaper. Sausalito readers expect me to do a complete piece on his life,” Rob explained, using the same line he’d used with each member of the Ladies of Liberty.
“Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“I keep running into the same blank wall! No one knows anything about Warren before he showed up in Sausalito. Nothing other than the couple of stories, attending Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and later the Culinary Institute of America up in Napa, that I think he seeded. Neither school has any record of him attending. Even in the career he supposedly retired from—a position in finance—I can’t find any link to him holding any position in that field. It’s like the guy one day just popped up out of the ground.”
“Gosh! I guess he was even creepier than I imagined.”
“Alma and her entire gang all spin the same story, but by now I’m pretty certain it’s all fiction.”
“Fiction that Warren must have created.”
“So, Holly, I was thinking—”
“Say no more, boss. I’ll see what I can do to track the guy down—hopefully, get us some idea of where he came from, and what he was doing before he landed here and started delighting some people and irritating others.”
“That would be great. I don't think there’s anything sinister to all this, but his past seems to have been buried, and I’d love to know why.”
“Happy to do it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and turn up something nasty on the old busybody. I’d love that, after all the misery he stirred up for others.”
“Boy, you seriously did not like Bradley.”
“In addition to his not-to-subtle suggestions that I was
