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 co-
workers, 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.

1
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.

2
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 sixty-
something 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.

***

4
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.

5
“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

7
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.

8
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?”

9
“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

11
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!”

12