Sausalito Stories Literary Magazine -- July 2009

Sausalito Stories The Literary Magazine of OurSausalito.com July, 2009 Debut Issue Copyright © 2009, OurSausalito.com

Author Riette Gallienne works in Sausalito and lived here for a number of years. After earning her BA in English in Southern California, she has worked in a variety of writing, marketing and management roles over the last twenty years. Riette would like us to mention that although this story is based on actual recent Sausalito events, “Please tell them that none of the characters are based on any of my neighbors, the criminals are not based on any of my coworkers, and my fictional city officers and staff are just that: fictional!” Special Bonus: After the end of the story Riette lists the actual Sausalito events that form the basis for the mystery. The details may surprise you!

Barge Right In A Sausalito Mystery by Riette Gallienne Copyright © 2009, Riette Gallienne, All Rights Reserved.

It must have looked like I was staggering up that hill, dead drunk. My ankle ached, protesting every inch of progress. I swore out loud, furious at myself for ruining my favorite K-Swiss trainers. For doing exactly what the obnoxious bald kid at the store told me not to do, wearing them outside on rough pavement. I swore because the lot was full, because I had to park at the bottom of the hill, because my Coach flats have slippery soles and I’d lost my balance and twisted my ankle on the curb.

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The pain in my foot screamed at me to go home, pull out the ice pack, call my daughter and have her drive over and baby me. Instead I’d hobbled back to the gym bag in my trunk and changed into my trainers so I could climb that steep sidewalk to Sausalito City Hall without falling again. Because I had to make the meeting. I glanced down at my cell phone, white-knuckled in my hand. Still no text from Bob Gonzalez. I’d just solved one of the biggest crimes in Sausalito history by sitting through two meetings and by walking my dog. But you know what they say about counting chickens. So I kept climbing, sprained ankle be damned, six inches at a time. Finally I reached the level pathway and then the front door, where my windblown reflection in the glass sent me straight to the bathroom mirror. I didn’t have time to do it right, but I attacked my tangled bird’s nest of dark brown hair with the brush and at least made myself presentable before heading for the door. The long, wide hallway that runs the length of City Hall felt like the Oregon Trail as I limped along, and I paused at the halfway mark to lean against the heavy table outside the library. My ankle throbbed like a car with a sub-woofer booming in the trunk. A last deep breath and I set out again, finally passing through the old double doors of the Council Chambers. Why is it that my office has a conference room, but the City Council’s office has chambers? Never mind. Rhetorical question. And where was my message from Bob? *** When I joined the Historical Society after the divorce I did not expect to be solving crimes. Sausalito is a small town with a big reservoir of untold stories. I thought I might help document a few, gain perspectives that help The Present Day make sense.

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As an attorney I’m used to sitting through endless meetings, so it was logical that I volunteered to monitor City Hall for the Society. If there were any secret vaults beneath the antique wooden buildings in Old Town, the Landmarks Board would be the place to learn about them. But the Society’s Jenny Lawton was already on the Landmarks Board. She gets the big stories: the aging mansions of the would-be tycoons, the hauled-out ferryboats of the bohemian wanderers, the rum-runners’ warehouses two piers down from the ferry. So I cover the meetings of the Planning Commission, and as it turns out that’s just fine. I get the little insights into everyday life in Sausalito’s past. A sixties tilt-up that’s housed ten different restaurants. A back porch built on the wrong side of the property line… in 1928. A buried brick stairway that used to serve commuters walking down the steep hill to a long-gone train. I hobbled over and sat in the back row of the Council Chambers, right-hand section, far left seat. The same flamingo-at-sunset dark pink plastic chair where I was sitting four weeks before, where I first saw the criminal stars align. Back then I only knew the criminals, not the crime. That part came later. The meeting hadn’t even started yet and Alma Gaffigan was already yelling at Jeff Fuller, her voice like a dentist’s drill. Alma’s intricate silver earrings swung wildly in their orbits as she asked over and over again, “If my garage is dangerous, why won’t you let me fix it?” I wasn’t the only one who came here tonight to create some drama. Jeff’s been a Sausalito planner for eight years and he no longer takes it personally. “The minute we get the paperwork, we’ll expedite approvals,” he told her. “It’s my fault as a contractor, Mrs. Gaffigan,” the tall man next to her said. “I should have remembered the drawings for the driveway encroachment agreement.” “The garage hasn’t moved for 80 years!” Alma protested. “How can it be encroaching anything?” Her twenty-something jet-black hair made her sixtysomething face look pallid. I imagined that if I shook her hand it would be cold. “Jeff, I’ll have the package on your desk by end of day tomorrow,” the contractor was saying. “And Mrs. Gaffigan, I’ll drop another thousand dollars off the invoice.” 3

I smiled, looked at my cell phone again, stopped smiling. Still nothing from Bob. The commission chairman, Victor Goldman, called the meeting to order and they spent a few minutes making sure the voice recording worked and going over the agenda. During the open comments segment a young woman with short, curly brown hair stepped up to the microphone. She wore a drab orange sweatshirt over a drab calf-length flowered cotton skirt over drab dirty-yellow clogs. “I wanted to speak out about how pollution from these sewage spills is threatening endangered species in the Bay.” “I’m sorry, Ms…. Soulet,” the chairman said gently, looking down at the slip she’d filled out to speak. “That’s an issue for Public Works. We don’t have jurisdiction over the sewer system.” Jeff, the planner, scribbled something on a card and brought it over. “Here’s the direct line to call them here at City Hall, and the email address.” She looked down at the card, thought for a moment, looked back up at Goldman. “So you’re not going to let me speak?” “If you want your three minutes, it’s all yours, Ms. Soulet. But we’re not the ones who can help you on this issue.” She looked down at the card again. Goldman shuffled papers, reaching for his pen. “The herring population has been dropping at an alarming rate,” she offered. “Hell, the sewage has been spilling at an alarming rate,” said Bette Barnes, another commissioner. “Hon, we all agree with you. They need to fix the damn thing.” I looked at my phone again. Two words burned back at me. “Mission accomplished.” It was from Bob. I’d been right. Tonight was going to be fun. ***

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I’m not a criminal lawyer. I do family law, and after twenty years I’ve built a reputation as the person to call in a divorce case when there’ s a chance they’ll work things out. I’m a tough litigator, but sometimes I can settle the issues that push people apart instead of settling the estate they built by pulling together. In any kind of law, every case comes down to patterns. We follow precedents. When something’s out of line with precedent, we notice. That’s how I first saw the pattern… I shook my head, brought my mind back to the present. “OK,” Chairman Goldman was saying. “Next item is the request to modify the repair work at Scoma’s Restaurant to prevent damage from wave action in high winds.” A slightly pudgy balding man with short gray hair and a light blue sweater walked up to the podium. “Peter Holt, project architect,” he stated for the record, though they’d all seen him standing in this same spot many times. “We’re withdrawing this item,” he told the group. “The engineer reviewed it and said I was practicing architectural overkill. We’ll go for final inspections next week.” “Any comments from staff?” Fuller shook his head. “Staff sees no issues here.” “All right. Scoma’s item withdrawn by applicant. Next… Mrs. Gaffigan, would you like us to continue the garage and driveway item until the documents get filed?” The tall man who’d apologized to her for the delay stood and came to the microphone. “David Dunbar from Welldun Construction, Mr. Chairman. It was my fault we missed that last set of drawings. We’d like to continue the matter until the next meeting.” Alma Gaffigan muttered a single obscene syllable loudly enough for everyone to hear it, but the Chairman pretended not to notice. It took all my self control not to laugh. Instead I reached down and rubbed my sore ankle. “Very well,” Goldman said. “Gaffigan garage is continued to the next meeting.” Bob Gonzalez walked into the room and sat down beside me.

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“That was fast,” I whispered. I noticed that two uniformed officers were now leaning against the wall by the double doors. “Only three blocks away.” Bob looked down and rubbed his stomach. “I should’ve walked. I need the exercise.” “Did I have it right?” He gave me the look over his glasses. “Riette, am I going to have to listen to this story for the next twenty years? With Jake snorting at me every time you tell it?” I thought about it. “Yes, I believe you are.” “We’ll finish off the Welldun Construction items here with Mom and Pop’s Donuts,” Chairman Goldman was saying. “Mr. Holt, any luck on finding the documentation on those outdoor tables?” The architect shook his head sadly. “No, Mr. Chairman, City Staff was right. Mr. Bayer never got approvals to put tables in Bayer’s Bakery, or to serve coffee, or any of the other things he added to the menu over the years. There was nothing in his files.” “Someone was asleep at the wheel,” the chairman said. Jeff ignored him. Past sins from back before his time. “We’re starting from scratch,” Holt reported. “We just need a couple of rulings where city ordnances contradict the neighborhood plan so we know which one to follow.” “Staff?” ‘We just got the package this afternoon.” Jeff shuffled through some papers. “We should be able to put it on the agenda for the next meeting.” The Chairman tapped the handle of his gavel loudly on the table. “Mr. Holt, Mr. Dunbar, you’ve done business here for years, but tonight you set new records for inefficiency.” The architect and contractor both hung their heads deferentially. “Three of our items on tonight’s agenda, the lion’s share of the work, came from your projects. One should never have been submitted, and on the other two you’re missing routine documents.” “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman,” Holt murmured. 6

“So,” Goldman went on, “I had to ask a neighbor to pick up my daughter at the airport so I could come here tonight, and this was a complete waste of time.” I felt Bob stand up next to me and couldn’t keep from grinning. “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Planning Commission has done us a great service tonight.” The barrel-chested police captain’s deep voice filled the room without a microphone. Goldman looked at him, confused. Joshua Johnson, the best-dressed and worst-prepared politician in town, stopped looking at the tops of his shoes and shot to attention. He smelled votes. Bob walked up to the podium. “Roberto Padraig Gonzalez, Captain, Sausalito Police,” he announced. Bette Barnes leaned forward, a “What are you up to?” look on her face. “Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I’m happy to report that tonight we made two arrests at a construction site on Bridgeway,” Bob told them. “The old Bayer’s Bakery site, the same one from tonight’s agenda.” “My crew has thousands of dollars worth of tools in there,” Dunbar proclaimed. He looked concerned. Bob smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Dunbar. Your welding equipment is safe.” “That’s a relief,” Dunbar murmured. But he didn’t look very relieved. “You also have some tools stored in Mrs. Gaffigan’s garage, am I correct?” “I can’t get my damn car in there,” Alma chimed in. “All that stuff. Big tanks of gas that could explode!” Dunbar gave her a look of exasperation. “They’re empty, Mrs. Gaffigan. We told you that.” Victor Goldman looked down at Bob and raised his eyebrows. “What’s the Commission’s part in this?” Bob smiled. “Your agenda.” It’s what I’d noticed two meetings ago. The pier repairs in the prime-view stretch of downtown Sausalito. The little garage job on the hill. The small

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bakery remodel near quiet Caledonia Street. All with the same contractor and the same architect. And then the pier repairs had stalled. Sloppy permits meant the garage work couldn’t even start. More lost forms and they couldn’t build the bakery’s patio. I’d called Bob and explained what I thought was going on. He’d put all three locations under surveillance just hours before the barge began its voyage, setting the stage for tonight’s raid. “In addition to the two arrests,” Bob told the commissioners, “we’ve also recovered an extensive collection of jewelry, with tags from Hanson’s Jewelers in San Francisco. You may remember the big robbery there three years ago, where a safe weighing several tons was stolen, along with its contents.” The commissioners looked at each other excitedly. The story of the huge safe packed with millions of dollars in jewels in had been all over the news. The Chronicle had called the heist a comic book super-villain crime. “We’ve also recovered another item from Hanson’s Jewelers,” Bob announced. “Their safe.” The small crowd gasped, then someone started to clap and they all applauded, even the commissioners. Bob grinned from ear to ear. Dunbar looked stunned. Holt was rolling up his drawings, ready to make a hasty retreat. Bob turned to face them, his tone now serious. “Mr. Dunbar, Mr. Holt, I am placing you under arrest for possession of stolen property. You have the right to remain silent…” *** Once the plea bargains were done and the guilty were behind bars, Bob took me to lunch to acknowledge (reluctantly) that I’d solved a major crime by sitting in some meetings and taking a stroll with my dog. I was still walking gingerly as we managed the steps in the middle of the Horizons dining room en route to our table, but the ankle was definitely getting better. For the first time in a month I could wear my black Ferragamo pumps, and I’d paired them with my crème linen slacks, a black knit top and black blazer. Bob was off duty, which meant he wore a Hawaiian shirt, jeans and work boots. His other uniform.

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We’d asked for the corner table out on the deck, where we could look over at the spot on Scoma’s pier where the thieves had “hidden the safe in plain sight” for three years. “This wasn’t the first time that Holt and Dunbar pulled off a major crime,” Bob started, after ordering his Corona and my Honig sauvignon blanc. “But this was the first time they got caught. In fact, they probably started their criminal careers when they served in Kuwait together during the first Gulf War.” “But that was almost twenty years ago,” I said. “How could they go that long without tripping up?” “They weren’t greedy,” Bob said. “They’d use their access as architect and contractor to pull a job every three to five years, so the pattern wouldn’t be too obvious. They’d wait two years to sell or spend what they brought in, so the trail was cold. They were successful businessmen, so they could hide their wealth in plain sight.” “Are thieves usually that patient?” Bob laughed and shook his head. “No. That’s why they become thieves.” Over his left shoulder, a Blue and Gold ferry roared its engines and accelerated away from shore. I leaned forward so he could hear me without shouting. “How did they steal the big safe in San Francisco?” “They’d always arrange routine activities nearby, so they could pull off a big robbery while looking like innocent bystanders. In this case Dunbar underbid a remodeling project three doors down from the jewelry shop, so their trucks and crane had access to the alleyway behind the building. The shop owner was careless, so they had an easy time spotting the four-digit combination for the shop’s alarm system.” It made sense, I thought. “With all the valuables in the immovable safe, why pay for fancy lasers and fingerprint readers?” Bob nodded. “Exactly. One night the door in the back of the shop was jimmied, the alarm turned off, the safe wedged off the floor, and a hydraulic pallet cart tucked beneath it, all within three minutes. Two minutes later the pallet and safe were encased in plastic sheets with big signs saying it was an air conditioner. Five minutes later Dunbar’s crane had lifted the safe from the cart onto an unmarked truck and they’d left the area.” “Why didn’t they just drive the truck to a warehouse and take it from there?”

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“They wanted to leave it wiped clean and unopened for two years to let the trail go cold,” Bob answered. “But San Francisco has 700,000 pairs of prying eyes, and Sausalito only has 7,000 inquisitive people.” “So they brought it over the Golden Gate Bridge.” “Again, not that simple, because of all the inspections after nine-eleven. The truck with the safe went straight to a waterfront construction site in San Francisco. An hour later the safe was on a barge in San Francisco Bay and being towed to Sausalito.” “Where Dunbar was repairing the Scoma’s pier. He wastes $25,000 on bad bids to get the jobs, then makes millions on stolen jewelry.” The server brought our meals. Bob took a big bite of his smoked salmon omelet and breathed a deep sigh of joy. “Oh, that’s good.” I delicately took a single little shrimp from the top of my salad, determined to make it last. I told myself I wouldn’t still be hungry when we stood up, but I knew it was a lie. “So, what else I can guess?” I ventured. “They stash the “air conditioner” under the pier and wall it off from curious eyes.” “Yes. In fact, we think the safe was already tucked away here before the robbery was discovered the next morning.” “And since they knew the old piers always need repair, they wouldn’t have to wait too long for a legitimate reason to go back for the stolen goods.” Bob took another bite of his omelet and wiped his mouth carefully. “When Scoma’s had to replace timbers in their floors this summer, the timing was perfect. But Holt and Dunbar still needed a place to break into the safe to get the jewels. If they moved the safe by barge for any distance, they might be stopped by the Coast Guard anti-terrorist patrols. They needed to get it back on land and out of sight as soon as possible.” I pictured the area near Bayer’s Bakery. “Why that little shop?” Bob ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “It’s only a few blocks from the pier. There’s a boat ramp a block away. It was perfect timing when the job came up. And the plans called for the contractor to use jackhammers and saw concrete.” I took another bite of shrimp. “Because they had to cover up the noise from breaking into the safe in the back room.” 10

“Exactly.” “And Alma Gaffigan’s garage was the final piece in the puzzle,” I continued. “That’s why I took Cassie on those long walks to make sure I had it right, that you could see both buildings from the garage. I’m guessing it was Holt, the architect, who hid there last night to warn them if the cops or Coast Guard got too close. They brought in all that junk so Alma couldn’t park inside, where she might catch them in the act.” Bob nodded. “They had the keys to all three buildings, and could keep them until the jobs were finished. They could watch the area from the hilltop garage, move the big safe from the pier to the bakery, and then open it and take the jewels. And if it weren’t for you, their plan would have worked.” He lifted his almost-empty beer glass in a toast, looking directly into my eyes. “Riette, you were the only one who noticed how their paperwork mistakes lined up all three projects. That was great thinking.” “It’s something I learned as a young lawyer doing cross-examinations,” I told him, smiling. “What’s that?” “Whenever somebody smart is trying to act dumb, it means they’re up to something.” <<<< --- >>>>

What's real and what's fiction in Barge Right In? We asked author Riette Gallienne, “What’s real and what’s fiction in Barge Right In?” Here’s what she told us: “Everyone in Sausalito saw the big barge and crane next to Scoma's Restaurant recently as they did pier repairs. In fact, all the waterfront construction projects in the story are real, and the building work happened at the same time and in the same places. We all know the sewer leaks are real, especially the residents of Old Town! And when the new Amy’s Café opens near the Turney St. boat ramp this summer, their plans will have been delayed by the very problems with prior permits that plagued our fictional Bayer’s Bakery in the same spot. There is no Alma Gaffigan, but her house and garage are real… I’ll leave it to the readers to find that perfect lookout spot! And of course, all the scenes in City Hall, Horizons Restaurant and the streets of Sausalito are

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based on the real places. Those are the true stories of Sausalito behind Barge Right In – all I did was add the crime and criminals!”

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