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

renewed interest
in their shared lovemaking, but other sexual exploits as well. A hunger so
great that perhaps she was failing to satisfy him.
    There was a part of Barbara
that badly wanted to share her suspicions with Grant, but she couldn’t bring
herself to do that. Then, when she arrived home from a busy Saturday at the
Moss Gallery, she detected a scent and a presence in her home she’d never
noticed before. As she wandered through the empty house, it came to her that
this was the same scent she had smelled on Kitty just a few days before.
    It was going on eight, Grant
was not home, and there was no note and no cell phone message. Between the
scent of that blond scamp that she now thought she smelled in every room of her
home and the irritating image of those perky breasts that announced their
presence so clearly under the light, tight cotton top she wore the night of the
Gate Six reception, Barbara was convinced that Grant had taken a turn away from
her and into the arms of a much younger woman.
    A fire began to burn in her
that could not be extinguished by the three ice-chilled margaritas she
consumed. Barbara fell asleep on the couch, wondering if Grant and his little
pet had made love there as well.

    As for Grant, it was rare for
him to go for a beer with Ray after an evening workout, but he did this night.
Mistakenly, Grant thought that this Saturday night was the evening of Barbara’s
reception at the Moss Gallery for a new artist’s exhibit. He was wrong; it was
the following Saturday night. So, when Ray invited him to come back to his
place, since Debbie was spending the night up in Healdsburg with an old
girlfriend visiting from Chicago, Grant thought for a moment, and then said,
“What the hell, why not?”
    Ray threw a couple of steaks
on the grill, and the two shared another couple of beers. It was a mild night,
so the two sat outside swapping stories about some of the interesting
characters that they had met at Gold’s. There was the guy who did dead lifts
while releasing a grunt that could be heard from one end of the gym to the
other, and another guy who both Ray and Grant assumed had dropped a weight on
his “noggin,” at some point, because he was just “a little off center.” He was
the one who asked them both in the locker room one night if they were gay, to
which Ray, not at all pleased by the question, replied, “Why the hell would you
ask that?”
    The fellow looked down at the
floor for a moment, trying to recall what gave him that idea in the first
place, then looking up, he furrowed his brow and said, “I don’t know. I guess
because I always see you both together.”
    “We share a ride,” Ray said
with obvious annoyance as he loudly shut his locker’s door. Grant, who was
lacing up his shoes, avoided eye contact with either of them, but laughed to
himself, considering that Ray could get so irritated with a guy who struggled
to have a single coherent thought even on a good day.
    By the time the steaks, and a
six pack of beer had been finished off, and Ray had pulled out some very
special Tequila Clase Azul for both of them to sample, and then sample again,
Grant got up, with some difficulty, and suggested that it was likely Barbara was
back from the gallery reception by now. Ray offered to drive him home, but
Grant said it was better if he walked. “We don’t want Sausalito’s finest making
you their big catch for the night.”
    “Yeah, I guess you’re right,”
Ray said. “Besides, this isn’t New York or Chicago; the scariest thing you’ll
run into in Sausalito at this time of night is a family of raccoons raiding a
trash can.”
    It was close to midnight when
Barbara awoke and called out to Grant. “He’s still not home! Where the hell is
that son of a bitch?” she mumbled to herself. 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 keyboard. Bringing up her