The Body in Bodega Bay: A Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler Mystery

Chapter 1

3 1 I’LL BE DAMNED. There’s a body on the boat.” We were sitting in The Tides having crab cakes for lunch when the news came in over Captain Andy’s CB radio. He relayed the information from the table next to us. Andy’s a commercial fisherman who works out of Bodega Bay. His mooring is opposite our house. “That,” said Toby, “explains the commotion in the harbor.” For months, a sailboat had been wedged in shallow water out by the mudflats, a good distance from either shore. From our dockside table we could see a launch make its way to the grounded boat. It stopped about fifty yards short of the sailboat, and two men emerged. They wore the familiar brown uniform of the Sonoma County sheriffs, but they had on waders—the right footgear for walking the muddy distance to the boat. The gossip in town was that the old boat, a decrepit nineteen-footer with a single mast, belonged to a bankrupt real-estate speculator from the city. Around here that means San Francisco. For a very long time, he hadn’t paid his mooring fees, and he hadn’t been seen, either. One night in a storm, his boat broke free and was driven by wind into the 4 shallows of the harbor, where it sank into the mud and tilted to one side. Since then, no one had been willing to pay for the derelict’s removal, so there it has remained. “Do they know who it is?” asked Toby, as we both stood to get a better look. Everyone in The Tides was pushing toward the windows, which wrap around the restaurant on three sides, with views over the water. “Naw. But it isn’t an accident—the guy was stabbed,” Andy replied, pushing back his chair and joining us at the window. “It’s a hell of a thing to happen in Bodega Bay.” Bodega Bay (population 950) is just sixty miles north of San Francisco on the Pacific Coast Highway, better known as Highway 1. We think it’s one of the prettiest sites on the coast. True, it straddles the San Andreas Fault, but that didn’t stop us from buying a small house overlooking the marina. My name is Nora Barnes. I teach art history at Sonoma College in Santa Rosa, a short commute from the bay. My husband, Toby Sandler, runs an art and antiques gallery in Duncans Mills, which is up the coast and a few miles inland on Highway 116. We chose Bodega Bay because it’s on the water, rural, about equidistant from our jobs, almost affordable by California standards, and—until now—peaceful. Nothing much has happened here since 1962, when Alfred Hitchcock came to town to film The Birds. Framed photos of the actors pass for décor at The Tides, where some of the scenes were shot, though the restaurant is a reconstruction of the original, which burned down after the movie was made. These days our little village is home to a dwindling fishing fleet, a swanky golf course, a few restaurants and motels, and us. “A hell of a thing,” repeated Andy. We could hear sirens wailing outside, as sheriffs’ cars veered into the parking lot. The morning had been foggy, but the sky had cleared by eleven and now the sun glinted on the water as we peered out toward the harbor. Officers were walking onto the wharf behind the restaurant. One was gesturing toward the boat. Another was talking into some 5 device in his hand as a small crowd began to gather, mainly tourists who had come up from the city for the weekend. “They’re waiting for the deputy sheriff before they can bring the body out,” reported Andy, who was monitoring communications on the police band. That would be Dan Ellis. Dan is married to my friend Colleen, and both are members of our Gourmet Club, four couples who meet for dinner every other month. Dan is Bodega Bay’s resident deputy, attached to the sheriff’s office in Santa Rosa. Maybe it was telepathy, but no sooner did I think of Dan than Toby’s cell phone rang. He put it on speaker so I could hear. “Toby? It’s Dan. Where are you right now?” “We’re at The Tides watching what’s going on in the harbor. Your...