B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery (10 page)

Chapter 17

“Woo hoo, did
you see this?!” Pim asked excitedly, waving at a large photo on the front page
of
The Oregonian
as she sat in the bookmobile’s brown vinyl driver seat that
morning at the edge of Alberta Park.

Sunshine,
filtered by the Northeast Portland park’s lovely grove of tall firs, streamed
in the open window next to her, adding an extra glow to her canary-yellow Aloha
shirt decorated with fire-breathing tiki gods.

The air was
still refreshingly cool at 10 a.m., but the sun’s intensity promised a warm June
day to come, with a forecast in the mid-70s.

“Look, it’s Schnitzel,
the Wiener Dog restaurant’s mascot, on the front page!” Peering owlishly at the
photo caption, she added, “And oh my golly, Hester – he found the Rose
Medallion!”

A phone call
from the bookmobile barn early that morning had informed Hester that the police
were done with their forensic work and that the magenta bus could return to
service. In a quick call to Pim, they’d decided to go ahead and do the usual
Friday rounds. To Hester, a bit of normal routine sounded good at the end of the
discombobulating week.

“Goodness, how
did a dachshund find the Rose Medallion?” Hester marveled, happy for the
conversation while she tidied the shelves as they waited for the first patrons
to arrive. Pim continued reading, mumbling quietly to herself in a manner Hester
had come to find endearing over the years.

“Whoa, what a
story! The Rajneeshees even got involved!”

“Oh, dear, don’t
tell me the police chief and the dreadful TV news people were right all along?”

“No, no, it says
here the cymbal clinkers showed up in their peacemobile VW bus yesterday
afternoon at Forest Park for their annual squirrel feed…”

“They eat
squirrels
?”
Hester interjected, disgust twisting her features.

 “No, no, no –
they bring a big bag of dried corn they’ve raised on their organic farm and
feed it
to
the squirrels in the park! How about that? Every once in a
while those folks don’t sound so bad.”

“Oh. So what did
that have to do with Schnitzel the wiener dog?”

“Well, that’s
where the story gets good,” Pim said, twisting around in her seat like an
excited child to face Hester. “While the peacemobile crowd is getting mobbed by
squirrels under the Thurman Bridge, you have to remember that the park is still
crawling with medallion hunters, thanks to that Zeus Shoes guy. In fact, I was
out there for an hour yesterday myself with Lilly Pilly, because that little
dog has dug up the most amazing things over the years, but we didn’t have any
luck,” Pim said, using her pet name for her own canine housemate, Queen Liliuokalani.

“And?” Hester
cocked an eyebrow.

“So I guess the
cook from the Wiener Dog had the same idea, and he’s there with Schnitzel, who’s
actually the latest in a long line of Schnitzel dogs, the first of which was
the actual model for the Wiener Dog signs.
There’s
something to know
about the next time you play Portland Trivia!” Pim added, quelled from
continuing the line of thought only by Hester’s momentary glower of impatience.

“Anyway, I guess
when Schnitzel saw all the squirrels, he went crackers and chased one into the
brush. And when he comes back out, guess what’s in his mouth? The Rose Medallion,
hanging on a ribbon!”

A lilting
“Hellooo?” interrupted Pim’s triumphant conclusion to the story as a head popped
in through the open rear door and the day’s first bookmobile patron climbed
aboard.

Maybelle Adams
ran a soul-food café over on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and earned a top
spot in the “Bookmobile Patron Hall of Fame” because she never showed up
empty-handed.

“I have a couple
slices of sweet potato pie for you ladies, just because I know you’ve had a
difficult week and you need to keep your strength up!” she said, handing over a
paper plate wrapped in foil as she squeezed into the bus, her full figure wrapped
in a colorful African caftan. Her voice always rang like the Liberty bell
through the small space.

“Ah, Maybelle, I
have a new Ann Rule for you!” Hester responded to her most fervent True Crime
reader. “It’s about that grisly quadruple-murder cannibalism case in Cleveland.
I couldn’t stand to read more than a chapter, but I think it’s right up your
alley.”

“Just call me
Grisly Adams!” the grandmother of six chortled with a Cheshire-cat grin.

The morning went
quickly, with two more stops, first at the Albina housing projects, then a
quick stop at a St. Johns old-folks’ home where Hester delivered a big bag of
what she called “bodice buster” paperbacks to the lobby and picked up another
bag of returns. Like many senior-living facilities, this one was 90 percent
women, many of whom still enjoyed a titillating tale.

“Oh, and I was
glad to see Mrs. O’Donnell so I could clue her in to that rooty-tooty new Nora
Roberts – another of her Ireland romances – before the rotten desk clerk could
snitch it,” Hester reported happily as Pim guided the diesel-belching bus
toward their lunch stop.

The Motormouth
Drive-in on Interstate Avenue was another of Pim’s Portland favorites, a
vintage relic of the 1950s that still had carhop service and tinny-sounding
speakers on which you could place your order. They also had a fish sandwich and
tangy coleslaw that kept Hester happy while Pim gobbled her usual Megaburger.

“Oh drat, we can’t
do the carhop service today, we won’t fit under the carport awning with these
doggone canoes on the roof,” Pim scowled.

Hester had
momentarily forgotten that the bookmobile still carried the dugout canoes from
the Rose Festival parade.

“We might as
well leave them on there for the team-building canoe trip downriver next week,”
Bob Newall, the maintenance man, had told her that morning.

“So – I still
don’t get what this canoe trip is all about,” Pim sighed between chews of her
burger after they’d received their order at one of the indoor tables. Even
inside, they’d had to pick up a telephone to talk to the kitchen, which Pim called
“a marvel of 20
^th
century efficiency.”

Hester was only
slightly taken aback when their food arrived on a model railroad car that
followed tracks all over the restaurant.

“I think the
canoe trip is another horrible idea from Candy Carmichael in Human Resources,”
Hester responded, using her napkin to wipe creamy mayonnaise from her mouth. “Candy
was the one who led the whole ‘Seven Habits’ movement in the library a few
years back, when we all had to come up with five ‘win-win’ ideas a week in each
department. Remember when Reg Doolittle brought a chainsaw in to work and cut
down Candy’s office door after he’d been told to ‘sharpen his saw’ one too many
times? I’ve seen a few flameouts over the years, but he was a class act. For a
while, people all over Portland talked about ‘going librarian’ instead of ‘going
postal.’ ”

 Pim, chuckling
with the remembrance, paused to dab at her shirt where mustard from her burger
had dripped on a tiki god.

“So we’re
supposed to learn how to be team players by doing some sort of Outward Bounder
exercise with canoes? Has anybody told cute Candy that we’re not a football team?”

Hester shook her
head as she poked a fork at her coleslaw.

“I agree, Pim,
it sounds stupid, but I guess it’s supposed to tie into the whole Rose Festival
theme, following Lewis and Clark’s path and all that. I’m just going to pretend
it’s a fun day off work and try to enjoy myself. And if Candy tries to make us
sing ‘Kumbaya,’ we throw her in the river. Is it a pact?”

Pim gave a
thumbs up as she gobbled the last of her fries and they rose to return to the
bookmobile.

“Let’s see if
there’s any more news about the Rose Medallion,” Pim said as she climbed into
her seat and pulled out her transistor radio, just like one Hester had used to
listen to Beatles songs when she was 7.  

A patron who ran
an antique store had offered Pim good money for the old radio, pointing out
that she could use the cash to get a nice new Walkman. “Naw, that would have
too many twiddly knobs and things, and this good old radio still works fine,” responded
Pim, whom Hester often called “a loyal Luddite of the first order.”

Pim also vowed
to drive her 1977 Gremlin until it qualified for classic plates.

Pim thumbed the
tiny tuning wheel and the sound of KSNZ news radio squawked from the little speaker
just in time for a news report.

“This is Misty
Day, with a dramatic development in the Pieter van Dyke murder investigation.
Portland Police Bureau, in cooperation with the Washington County Sheriff’s
Office, is holding what they call a ‘person of interest’ for questioning in the
ritualistic killing of one of Portland’s most prominent civic leaders. Jean
Baptiste ‘Pomp’ Charbonneau VI, a printer for
The Oregonian
and
reportedly a direct descendant of a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition,
is being held so far only on a charge of reckless endangerment following an
incident when he fled police from his trailer home in rural Washington County
this morning. More details as they are available.”

Pim, her jaw
hanging open, clicked off the radio.

“Hester, they’ve
arrested my friend Pomp. How screwed up can they get things? Pomp wouldn’t hurt
anybody!”

Her eyes shifted
back and forth, then widened in realization. She turned to her colleague.

“This sounds
like your buddy the inspector, all over again! Can’t he get anything right?”

Hester, stunned
that the murder investigation just wouldn’t leave her alone, felt her heart
sink.

“I don’t know,
Pim. I just don’t know.”

Chapter 18

Saturday, June
15

Some of the week’s
worries faded on Saturday as Hester and Pim took the bookmobile on their
monthly run up into the lovely Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

It was another
blazing, blue-sky day. As the big bus rounded the 700-foot promontory of Crown
Point on the gorge’s winding, historic highway, Hester could look down and see
caravans of summer revelers turning off the freeway far below on their way to
the beach at Rooster Rock State Park.

“We’ll take this
bend a little carefully,” Pim said, as if to herself, the only acknowledgment
they made of the previous bookmobile’s demise when Hester had watched a
confessed murderer drive it off this cliff.

That evening, Hester
admitted she was actually kind of looking forward to the Macarena Cruise when Karen
picked her up at 6.

The day had
topped out at 86 degrees, and an open boat deck on the river might at least
offer a cooler evening than she’d spend cooped up in her hot apartment with a
fuzzy cat on her lap. And the promise of piña coladas didn’t hurt.

At Hester’s urging,
Karen had extended the invitation to Linda Dimple, the children’s librarian at
Grand Central Library. Privately, Hester didn’t think Linda spent enough time
with adults. She secretly also thought Linda’s wholesome presence might be a
welcome dampener to Karen’s matchmaking ambitions that evening.

“Oh, this is an
excellent opportunity for me, the kids just love that dance and I’ve been
wanting to do some research on it!” Linda trilled from the back seat of Karen’s
big BMW. “People often don’t recognize the academic side of being a children’s
librarian. In grad school, I once wrote an entire term paper on the color
blue!”

A half-hour
later, as the big stern-wheeler, the Portland Rose, pushed off into the
Willamette River from the dock at Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Hester and
Linda leaned on a varnished teak railing together looking at the skyline while
Karen went off in search of their first round of cocktails. Hester had changed
into another favorite sundress, this one bedecked in pink cabbage roses. Linda
wore a navy-blue sailor dress.

“I didn’t know
they made them in adult sizes,” Karen had whispered cattily as she and Hester
had walked up the gangplank behind Linda.

As the vessel
blew its steam whistle, Linda waved wildly at the joggers and dog-walkers on
shore.

 “Farewell, farewell,
we’ll send a postcard from Southampton!” she shouted, pulling a handful of rolled
confetti paper streamers from her pocket and unleashing them over the side.

To Hester’s look
of mild shock, Linda turned and explained, “I’ve never been on a cruise before!
I wanted to do it right!”

At that moment
Karen returned with three drinks squeezed together in her hands. As usual,
Hester’s childhood friend had dressed for the occasion – or, some might say,
overdressed. For the warm evening, she wore snug-fitting Capri pants in a red,
green and yellow floral print, a fire-engine red tank top and a necklace of
lacquered, nearly life-size papier-mâché fruit.

“Shouldn’t that
fruit be on a hat, Carmen?” Hester said dryly.

Karen scrunched
her button nose in a look Hester remembered well from grade school. “The night
is still young!” she replied saucily.

 “Speaking of
fruit, I’ve never had a drink like this!” squeaked Linda, as Karen handed each
of them a giant tulip glass with a large spear of pineapple and half a banana
poking from a golden, frosty froth.

“Well don’t be
shy, because Teri June Inc. got us the all-drinks-included tickets, and my
accountant says I can write it off as an entertainment expense because both of
you help me so often in my book research!”

“Just be careful
you don’t put an eye out,” Hester admonished, twisting her head sideways to dodge
the pineapple spear and get her mouth on the fat red straw.

“Not so fast,
ladies!” Karen interrupted, raising her glass to the golden sun that was just
lowering to the top of the forested hills behind the city. “First, a toast.”

The others
raised their glasses as Karen continued.

“To Almost
Summer, because it’s just a week away, and we had one of the wettest winters
ever seen.”

“Hear, hear,”
Hester chimed in.

“To being back
home in the sweetest little town around, because I’ve sampled plenty of others
lately!” Karen hung her tongue and made a face of pinched exhaustion.

 “And to dancing
the night away!” she concluded with a shimmy of her ample hips.

They clinked
glasses and took big sips.

A thoughtful
look crossed Karen’s face as she took a second slurp, swirled it between her
teeth and then winced.

“The thing with
these fruity, frosty drinks – First, they put hardly any liquor in them,
because you can’t taste it anyway. And second, they count on the fact that you
get such an ice-cream headache you’ll never be able to drink many!”

“Oh, I know how
to counteract that!” Linda piped up. “My brother did a research paper on it in
medical school. The trick is to rub your tongue on the roof of your mouth and
warm your palate. It’s a proven medical cure!”

For a moment all
three women took on the look of preoccupied bullfrogs as they busily worked
their tongues.

“Well, at least
it gives you something to do,
and
makes sure that people stay away from
you because you look like an idiot!” Hester quipped.

 “Humph!” Karen
responded. “Don’t take that attitude, Hester dear. Tonight we’re going to find
you a man!”

At that moment an
emcee with an overamplified microphone began to introduce the entertainers and Karen
turned toward the stage. Hester made a face behind her back.

From there, the
evening became a long blur in Hester’s mind: of pink and orange sky reflected
in the river; of the boat passing beneath what seemed like a dozen bridges, the
lowest of which had to raise for the sternwheeler’s tall black smokestacks; of
seeing curious Portlanders climb from their idling cars to look down and laugh
as the vessel passed beneath them. Hester wasn’t sure they were always laughing
“with” the dancing cruise-goers with outstretched arms windmilling in the air.

 And throughout
it all, endless repetitions of the signature “Macarena” song, played at evermore
deafening decibels. Apparently the band hired for the cruise didn’t know any
other tunes.

Karen managed to
cajole Hester into trying the dance a few times. Hester finally found a large
potted palm to hide behind to escape the advances of a Bert Parks-lookalike
with a terrible cheap toupee that showed baseball stitching up the part.

She was peeking
through the palm fronds when she heard someone clear their throat. She looked around
to see one of the wait staff offering her a tray with miniature tubs of
guacamole and chips. Hester smiled wanly and shook her head at the curly-haired
young man with two pierced nostrils.

Only after he’d
stepped away did she remember him as one of the Rajneeshees who hung out on 23
^rd
Avenue and regularly urged her to donate a dollar for a “free” flower. Was the
murder case trying to edge back into her brain?

But that wasn’t
the big surprise of the evening.

Taking Karen’s
encouragement to heart, Linda Dimple hadn’t been shy about keeping her glass
topped up.

“No scurvy on
this voyage!” she had announced with glee around 9 p.m. as she chewed on her 12
^th
spear of pineapple for the night and stepped up to lead a conga line. While the
band was on a break, recorded salsa music trumpeted from the loudspeakers.

Hester closed
her eyes, fearing for Linda’s head in the morning, and knowing that Sunday was
one of the busier days for the children’s room.

But suddenly
Hester’s eyes popped back open, as what she had just seen registered more clearly
in her own slightly rum-addled brain.

The man in the
conga line just behind Linda. The bald man with his hands firmly planted on the
waggling hips of Grand Central Library’s children’s librarian. Didn’t she know
him?

Hester’s hand
flew to her lips as she stifled a slight burp. The buffet’s enchiladas hadn’t
agreed with her, and a slight sour taste filled her mouth.

A taste not
unlike sauerkraut.

Her hand pressed
her lips even harder at the sudden recognition. Wearing an open-collared cotton
shirt in an exotic Indonesian batik design above a pair of well-filled khaki
Dockers, he was dressed differently than she’d seen before.

But the broadly
smiling man behind Linda Dimple was Gerhard Gerbils.

“You sure weren’t
in mourning for long, Herr Wiener Dog,” Hester whispered.