The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (11 page)

But even with his growing wealth, Michael was still frugal in a variety of ways. The one-bedroom in-law suite in the private house that Milton had found for him when Fred wanted him out of the house continued to meet his expectations, so there was no need for a more expensive place, even though he could certainly afford to do that. His aging Honda needed parts replaced now and then, but delivered reliable transportation. Still, a newer used car that someone would be happy to part with for an envelope full of cash would be one way to put some of what he thought of as, “his hunting money,” to use. Another way would be spending some money on himself for clothes, toys, or just having fun.

For the first time since he began work at Milton’s shop, Michael asked for a proper two-week vacation, although he was not certain what he would do with that much time off. There were, of course, new targets he could perhaps hunt down, but other than that, he had no idea what to do with this much free time.
 

Then it came to him; it was time to discover the rest of Marin. He had learned well his own area in the northern part of the county, but he knew very little about Marin south of San Rafael. It was well past time that he learned.
 

Michael purchased a guidebook to the towns, state and national parks of Marin County, and found that planning two weeks of mostly day trips would be easy. He started by exploring one of the many trails of Mt. Tamalpais, the county’s highest peak. Mid-afternoon that same day, he drove down the west side of the mountain into the small seaside town of Stinson Beach and then drove the short distance up along California Route 1, to where he spent his first night at a quaint bed and breakfast cottage in the small town of Olema.
 

The next day, he traveled the length of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, a long winding road that begins at the western edge of the county at the spot of coastline where Sir Francis Drake, knighted by Queen Elizabeth I, is believed to have landed in 1579 and named the area Nova Albion, Latin for New Britain. There he stopped at Point Reyes Lighthouse and made a second stop, this time at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, to walk the Earthquake Trail. This forested walk traces the movement of the 1906 earthquake, as it tore a fissure through Marin on its path of destruction toward San Francisco.
 

Turning east, he headed back towards Novato, after making a brief stop to admire the giant redwoods in Samuel Taylor Park, which envelop both sides of Sir Francis Drake, leaving it in a perpetual state of shade. After many more miles of picturesque winding road, Michael came to the town of Fairfax, a place seemingly untouched by modernity. The age of flower power had ended nearly twenty years earlier, and Michael was excited to find a place where the peace generation still held sway.

 
Midmorning the following day, Michael headed south on Highway 101 to Sausalito, the town furthest south in Marin, ending shortly before the northern entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge.
 

He had first visited here at age ten, when his parents took him and his brother to see the big city, Sausalito to its north, and Berkeley across the bay to the east. By mid-morning, the often-present summer fog had backed off and sat just outside the bay, leaving clear blue-sky vistas of the San Francisco skyline several miles away, and equally grand views of the Bay Bridge and many of the communities of the east bay.
 

The streets were busy with tourists enjoying the start of their summer holiday season. Michael was glad that he brought his camera, because it seemed that everywhere he turned there was another picture perfect moment. He turned away from the busy pedestrian sidewalk surrounding the quaint Vina Del Mar Park and walked along the waterfront. Further down the path, he turned back, and halfway up a hill that was reached by a public stairway called the Excelsior Steps, there was a home off to his right, and out on the home’s deck he could see a man and a woman admiring the view.

Michael opened his camera bag and pulled out his beloved telephoto lens. Placing it on his camera, he could now clearly see a man who appeared to be older than the woman whose shoulder his arm hung around. He pulled her in closer for a kiss and they lingered there for a while.

Noting the age difference, Michael reasoned this could be an affair, and he wondered what might be the rest of their story. That thought vanished when two little boys came out onto the deck to join what he realized must be their mother and father. Each parent held a child in their arms and pointed to various boats that dotted the wide bay. Michael clicked a few more pictures and watched as the family left the porch and headed inside. He wondered if there was a time when his parents had ever been as happy as this family he had just found as a result of his ceaselessly prying eyes.
 

Not long after, he walked south along the old boardwalk that wrapped around Sally Stanford’s Valhalla restaurant just off of Richardson Avenue. The famous former madam ran an elegant brothel on Nob Hill that was reputed to be a gathering spot for delegates to the first-ever session of the United Nations, which took place in 1945 in San Francisco. Stanford-born Mabel Busby became Sausalito’s mayor in her later years.
 

Michael stopped at Southview Park, which sits up on the southern end of the small town in an area known to the locals as Hurricane Gulch. There, as he used his telephoto lens to shoot several shots of the city’s dramatic skyline and the island of Alcatraz, with its infamous shuttered federal prison, he thought perhaps this was the place for him…here in a town of just seven thousand souls with a mix of artists, houseboat hippies, San Francisco bankers, and attorneys happily ensconced in hillside mansions, living alongside lifelong residents, who simply could not imagine being anywhere else.
 

From the edge of the park, which provided an eagle nest’s view of a dozen Sausalito homes below and above him, his telephoto lens wandered down and came to rest on one house halfway down Third Street, near where it intersects Richardson. Through his lens, he caught the image of an elderly husband and wife sitting at a small kitchen table, eating what he assumed was a late lunch. For the fun of it, he clicked the shutter and captured the image. Before long, he was squeezing off pictures of a couple arguing in their living room, a man sitting in his underwear in front of his TV watching a baseball game, and two teenagers playing ping pong.
 

All of it stirred a thought that had never occurred to Michael; perhaps the business of spying and extortion could be approached in a different way. Rather than tracking a target to see what they were up to, just find a perch and start shooting away. Granted, it was far more random than his current approach, but perhaps it would pay off. As Michael had already learned from ensnaring Fred Winters, Marv Reagan, Ward Williams, and John Walker, it doesn’t take many victims to generate a very good living.
 

That night, Michael stayed at the Howard Johnson’s near Tam Junction, just off of Highway 1. He could have put up with the late afternoon traffic home, but why fuss when the HoJo’s was offering a twenty-nine dollar room rate with a chit for an all you can eat fried calamari strips with baked potato dinner? Plus, his plan for the next day was to explore Mill Valley, and from the motel it was just two miles to the center of town.
 

After a dinner where he proudly put what he hoped was a nice dent in the motel’s food budget, consuming three portions of calamari strips, he sat and rubbed his expanding stomach and looked up the town of Mill Valley in his guide book.
 

He learned that the town, which had been home to one of the Coastal Miwok tribes for as much as six thousand years, was established by European descendants in the mid-nineteenth century and was incorporated in 1900. The town’s first significant population growth came after the1906 earthquake, which caused many San Francisco residents to search for new homes outside of the heavily damaged city.

With a population of around twelve thousand, Mill Valley, as Michael experienced it in 1986, was a picture perfect place. The climate was warmer than that of often fog-shrouded San Francisco and a good deal cooler than Novato. In a relatively small geographic area, it offered a variety of wonders.
 

The town is bordered to the north by Mount Tamalpais, to the west, by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and to the south and east by the Tiburon Peninsula.