INSIDER A PRIVATE DETECTIVE’S CULINARY CASE.

It’s only fitting that detective David Fechheimer loves San Francisco’s fog. The veritable dean of American private investigators and respected Dashiell Hammett lay scholar is a man accustomed to operating in the shadows. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he’s deftly sleuthed for high-profile celebs, including radical academic Angela Davis and basketball superstar Kobe Bryant.

But Fechheimer loves heat, too. After decades of owning 100 acres of pristine wilderness near Healdsburg, he and his wife decided, rather than build on that land, to look for a second home nearby. In 2012, they bought the 1-acre Soda Rock Lane estate that once belonged to the founder of deLorimier Vineyards. So smitten was Fechheimer with the property’s swimming pool that “it really didn’t dawn on me until later that there was one-third of an acre of Cabernet grapes surrounding the pool, and that I now owned them and had to take care of them and do something with them,” he says.

At 75, Fechhemier hasn’t completely traded in his trench coat for a pair of overalls. Though he isn’t particularly serious about marketing Red Harvest, his Cabernet Sauvignon named for Hammett’s breakthrough noir novel, he enjoys the distinction of being possibly the only Californian who holds licenses for both private investigations and alcohol wholesales. “Both are hard work and not the best way to make a living, and require attention to detail, absolutely,” he says. “You can’t take your eye off the ball.”

Here are his favorite spots to sip, dine and relax around town.

Photos by Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle As a longtime private investigator, David Fechheimer has the skills to uncover the best places in his hometown of Healdsburg to shop and eat.