“I only wish I’d been paying more attention to what he was writing each week. I probably would have put an end to his column long ago. Too many editions and too many columns getting produced every week is my only excuse.”
“It helped Warren’s cause that the column was a favorite with so many readers. And where would we be without readers, not to mention advertisers?”
Rob waved to the bartender. “I think you need another martini, Holly. Let me get us another round.”
“Good idea!” Holly said as she finished the rest of her first. “Well, here’s to Warren—wherever he is, and whoever he was.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
In Rob’s view, running a chain of weekly community newspapers was like jumping on a treadmill that started running early Monday morning and kept going until Friday afternoon. And then there were those times when the job ran all seven days of the week. But for all its frustrations, there were moments of unique pleasure when you stumbled onto a story that everyone else missed.
Rob was quickly coming to the conclusion that the mystery of Bradley’s past might well be one of those overlooked, but nonetheless amazing, stories, made all the more shocking and relevant if a connection could be made between Warren’s murder and his undiscovered past.
As more letters landed on Rob’s desk asking why Grant Randolph was not in custody for the killing of Warren Bradley, the more Rob thought how ridiculous that idea was.
Unlike Bradley, Randolph had a well-documented past. From his childhood in Providence, Rhode Island, to his attending Brown University, to his developing one of SoHo’s most successful art galleries, it was all there through the Internet, easily accessible.
On the other hand, Bradley's past disappeared like San Francisco behind a veil of summer fog. If indeed he was over seventy at the time of his death, then Warren was probably in his mid-forties when he arrived in Sausalito. Rob reasoned that Bradley must have had a hand in obscuring his past. Why else did he create a tangle of lies about his life, all of which led nowhere?
Late Saturday, a frustrated Holly called Rob and provided further reason for his growing suspicions. “Wow, Rob, you were right! I spent the day coming up with blanks on Bradley. This has to be a case of a name change, and it must have occurred outside of California because the state’s database of application filings for name changes is pretty darn good. Unfortunately, California has nothing on the Warren Bradley we’re looking for.”
“Thanks, Holly. We’re both on the same page in believing that something stinks about all this, and it’s pretty clear at this point that Bradley played an active role in covering up his past. The big question is why?”
“When you or Eddie find out something nefarious about this guy, please let me know. And whatever you do, don’t tell the Ladies of Liberty until after they erect that statue. I want to be there when they have to tear it down.” Holly laughed at her own joke. “Ciao,” she added quickly and clicked off.
Rob stared at the first few paragraphs of the story he was trying to cobble together on his late columnist. After writing and then abandoning four story openings, Rob reasoned it was time to talk with Eddie.
On Sunday morning, they met for breakfast at a café in the small town of Larkspur. Being ten miles north of Sausalito, there was a very slim chance that they would run into any of their neighbors, let alone someone curious enough to listen in on their conversation.
“From everything I can put together, Bradley didn’t exist before he landed in Sausalito,” Rob said with a shake of his head.
Eddie smiled. “I’m starting to think poor Warren might have been a bad little boy. Maybe something—or more accurately someone—finally caught up with the great chef.”
“What do you guys do when you hit a wall like this? I mean, it’s got to be a name change or something like that, right?”
“Pretty likely. Every year, more about us ends up online. Bradley probably wanted to hide from prying eyes, and he probably started hiding before the Internet became a go-to resource. Unless you’re paying attention, there’s an awful lot of information about us that leaks out from social media and search engines. Of course, that wasn't the case back when Warren arrived in Sausalito.”
Rob took a sip of his coffee. “You must have a Plan B.”
“Yep, and Plans C, D, and E. Whatever nastiness Bradley fell into, it’s reasonably certain it happened before he arrived in Sausalito. But unfortunately, we can’t trace him through any government fingerprint data bank. The killer might have kept Bradley’s hands and the prints that went with them for that very reason. Therefore, we can’t know if in the past he worked one of a dozen different jobs that they fingerprint people for as part of standard personnel procedures. Not to mention new government programs like the TSA’s airport security pre-check.”
“So, what’s your next step?”
“I think it’s time for us to take a little jog together—say, five-thirty tomorrow morning.”
Rob groaned. “Why so early?”
“Because we’re going on a little hunting expedition up to Warren Bradley’s. When we were called to the scene and
