Free The Gossiping Gourmet: (A Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 1) (Murder in Marin Mysteries) by Martin Brown

league—something Warren would
certainly use against her.
    Wednesday afternoon, when she
pulled the Standard from her mailbox, she turned quickly to Warren’s
column and found this small item:
    Barbara Grant, who recently
declined an invitation to join Sausalito’s League of Women, has accepted a
position with the Moss Gallery in San Francisco as a new sales associate. She
describes herself as excited to be a part of the gallery’s team. As for the
league, she commented that, at her age, “I have to place my career above social
engagements.”
    Warren then quoted Marilyn
Williams, the Women’s League membership chair, about the nature of the league’s
efforts at community outreach: “I’m sorry to hear that Barbara Grant considers
the league to be nothing more than a ‘social engagement.’ In our annual student
scholarship drive, and in so many other ways, the league is an essential part
of what makes Sausalito, Sausalito!”
    As many of Warren’s cookbooks
pointed out, carving meat off a roast should be done neatly.
    That afternoon, he reread his
piece. He was satisfied that he had dealt a terrible blow to Barbara Grant with
a very light touch.
    Barbara was stunned with the
way the piece read. She toyed with the thought that Warren had set her up, but
decided she was being paranoid and just put it down to small town navel gazing
and let it go at that.

    The same afternoon that Barbara
read Warren’s column, Rob sat at his desk and read the entire edition of the Sausalito
Standard . After reading the “Heard About Town” column, Rob barked to Holly
to come into his office.
    “Do you think this guy Warren
is being a bit of an ass about this woman Barbara Grant? He pretty much trashes
her in his column this week.”
    “I think Warren likes doing
that a lot,” Holly responded. “Some of the people in this town act like the
‘cool kids in school.’ They can never feel good about themselves unless they
know they have caused someone else to feel bad. Rob, I’m telling ya, pal, if I
were you, I’d dump his ass.”
    “I’ve thought about it,” Rob
said, “but then Alma and her gang would be organizing another boycott of the Standard, and I’ve got enough on my plate to deal with.”
    “Well, at least have a talk
with Bradley about some of these hatchet jobs that he does on people. I’m sure
this woman Barbara is wondering what hit her.”
    During Rob’s walk home that
evening, Warren’s gossip column kept crossing his mind. In truth, he would
happily toss Warren off the paper’s community staff, but he knew that would
equal a loss of readership and a loss of sales…neither of which the Standard could afford. He resolved to leave the status quo for now, but made a promise
to himself to continue his monitoring of Warren’s weekly column. At some point
uncertain, he’d speak with Warren.

    Barbara remained willfully
unaware that she was slowly devolving into a social outcast. But one day,
several weeks after Warren’s column about her had appeared, she went for a
Saturday afternoon walk with Debbie and heard for the first time that she was
not well thought of by many of the women in town.
    Debbie, who had been a long
time member of the league—in fact, she was a onetime chair of the holiday
follies program—seemed shaken by it. “I was surprised to hear many of the women
in the league referring to you as the ‘ice queen.’ When I pressed them for what
that meant, the only answer I could ever get went something like, ‘Well,
actually, I didn’t say that, someone else told me.’”
    Further, when Debbie asked
them to recall who they heard that from, she was dismissively told, “I really
can’t remember,” which Debbie took to mean, “I don’t want to talk about this
anymore; it’s not my problem.”
    Debbie was annoyed by all
this nonsense. But, as she shared with Barbara, “I think they don’t like the
fact that you’re a professional woman with more on your mind than holiday
follies,