Bodega Bay Blues (Part One of Six)

Friday, March 8, 1940

I was sitting on a bench drinking good strong coffee outside a little combination general store and souvenir shop on California Route One sixty-some miles north of San Francisco in a tiny burg called Bodega Bay--bodega is Spanish for cellar, warehouse, and grocery store, take your pick. My view was of a small muddy bay surrounded by vacation shacks, probably owned by people from San Francisco who don't like their hometown any better than I do.

That's the WHERE part of all this. The WHY part is a little more complicated. The short version is a friend, another LA private cop, might be in trouble. Will Gardner came up to this mud hole on a case, and his new bride, Betty, expected him back, or at least a telephone call by now. She has not heard from him and is understandably worried. I decided to look into Will's absence and maybe put Betty's mind at ease.

At least that was the plan, but so far I wasn't having much luck. I began with Will's picture in my pocket and asking in places like the general store if anyone had seen him. They hadn't. That struck me as strange. Will came up here to look for a suspected smuggling operation. Like me, he's a city guy, and folks in backwater burgs like Bodega Bay tend to remember city folks who come nosin' around in their business.

All right, so move on to step two of the Official Mail Order Detective Course. It says, "Look around." I hoped I wouldn't need my Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass for looking around because I left it home. I tossed my empty cardboard coffee cup into a trash can, climbed aboard my Chrysler business coupe, and set off on a circumnavigation of Bodega Bay.

From northbound California Route One, I angled left and followed Westshore Road around to the west shore of Bodega Bay, where I came to an area known as Spud Point. Hey, don't look at me, I didn't name the place.

Spud Point was home to a couple of fisheries, including one joint with at least an acre of crab traps piled up outside their building. If you are a crab, best stay clear of Bodega Bay. Actually, that's not bad advice even if you aren't a crab.

Be that as it may, I followed Westshore Road nearly to the mouth of the bay, where it took off to the west again and made a loop past cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean shore. The actual shore was about a hundred feet below the top of the cliffs. I pulled to the side of the road for a gander.

I watched the mighty Pacific Ocean throw big waves at the rocks, sending geysers of white spray into the air. Mother Nature showing off always improves my mood. So, it was with a substantially improved attitude that I climbed back into my Chrysler, but my improved attitude didn't last long.

To Be Continued

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Story, design, and Bodega Bay images © Steve Eitzen
Header Graphic & HPO Logo © HPO Productions
Johnny Spicer fictional character © Mysteries In History