B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery (19 page)

Chapter 40

Friday, June 28

Portland

Twelve days
later

Nate, Hester and
Pim gave a welcoming smile as their waitress deposited two galvanized buckets
of steaming butter clams and a pitcher of Henry Weinhard’s on their table at
Pal’s Shanty, a Sandy Boulevard institution famed for its hot bivalves and cold
beer.

“Do you need any
help getting the clams out of the shells?” Hester asked Pim, who still had some
bandages under her Aloha shirt to immobilize her healing clavicle. Today’s
shirt was fuchsia with images of the Pan Am Clipper flying over Mauna Loa.

“No, I think I
can just about manage this, but this achy old shoulder is probably going to
help me forecast the weather any time it gets damp,” she grumbled. “Maybe it
will give me an excuse to move back home to a warmer climate – someplace with
law and order, where library folks aren’t getting themselves killed all the
time, and the wrong people don’t keep getting arrested for it!”

Darrow’s eyes
met her glare for a moment. He let her approbation wash away with a long swallow
of cold beer.

“And how’s your
head, Hester?” Darrow inquired as he used a fork to pluck a clam out of its
shell and dunk it in a bowl of drawn butter that the server had set down next
to a jar of Dijon mustard, Darrow’s other favorite clam dip.

“Well, Dr. Patel
in Astoria told me in no uncertain terms that I should never play football
again,” she replied with a note of irony, popping a clam in her mouth and
chewing for a moment. “He informed me, in the most precise medical terms, that
I had ‘rung my gong good.’ But the headaches have eased and I’m sleeping
better, thanks.”

Pim drained her
glass and held it out to Darrow for a refill. “And how’s Mr. Gerbils? Have they
moved him from the hospital to the jail yet?”  

Darrow refilled
glasses all around as he answered. “He’s going to be under guard in a rehab
unit at Providence for a while yet. He broke his left tibia in two places, but
he’s on the mend.”

Hester scooped a
portion of Caesar salad onto a plate and popped a deliciously soggy crouton
into her mouth before squaring eyes with Nate in a no-nonsense look.

 “So, how much
can you tell us? What was this all about? Once again, I think we’ve earned an
explanation.”

Darrow,
remembering Hester’s brave leap from the careening bookmobile and Pim’s mistaken
incarceration during his last investigation of a library murder, gave a small
nod and an ironic grin. “Yeah, you two need to pursue quieter lives. This
bookmobile business is dangerous.”

Pim flattened
her mouth and peered over the top of her cateyes at him. Darrow shifted his
eyes between the two determined women and waved a hand in surrender.

“OK, I’ll tell
you on a confidential basis, but this is under a total Cone of Silence.”

“You can always
trust Agent 99,” Hester replied, raising her right hand with her fingers
splayed apart in a Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” salute. Hester, who spent
much more time as a child reading books than watching what her father called
“the boob tube,” tended to mix up pop-culture TV references.

“OK, Inspector,”
Pim reluctantly responded, crossing herself as if about to say confession.

As a delaying
tactic, Darrow quickly speared clams from three shells, collecting them on his
fork like a shish kebab, swabbed them in Dijon and hungrily wolfed them down.
He took another swallow of the beer and then sat back and crossed his arms and
legs.

“Mr. Gerbils is
working a deal with the prosecutor, so he’s told all. He admits he shot Pieter
van Dyke but he claims it was an accident.”

“Oh, my!” Hester
exclaimed, letting her fork drop on the table. Pim took off her glasses and
stared open-mouthed.

Darrow nodded.

“His story is
that he was legitimately searching for the Rose Medallion. His restaurant is in
financial trouble and the prize money was enough to cover a loan that was due.
Without help, he stood to lose his business.”

“And he loves
that restaurant, it’s his family heritage, it would be like – like the
Partridge Family losing their bus!” Pim contributed. At this, Hester looked
mildly confused.

 Darrow slurped
some beer and forged on.

“He had
overextended himself with debt. He had sunk more than $100,000 into the Wiener
Wagen alone. Anyway, he says he had made a special arrangement with a former
client, a guy who drives an Oregonian delivery truck, to read him the medallion
clue around 4 o’clock every morning, at the start of his run. Well, that
morning, only a few dozen papers had come off the press before it broke down, but
Gerbils’ guy still came through, so Gerbils was definitely the only person in
Portland with the clue before 10 o’clock. So he was the first person in the
park and found van Dyke staked out in the horseshoe pit the way Charbonneau said
he left him – cold and shivering but alive.”

Pim gave a
self-righteous snort. “I told you Pomp wasn’t a killer!”

Darrow poured
her some more beer.

“So there was van
Dyke, in just his underpants, with his hands and legs duct-taped to horseshoe
stakes and his mouth duct-taped, with the Rose Medallion on a ribbon around his
neck and the old French pistol sitting on his belly where Charbonneau had left
it.”

Darrow took a
sip of beer to moisten his tongue. Hester took a nibble of salad, scooping up Parmesan
on top of a romaine leaf.

“But when
Gerbils pulled the tape off van Dyke’s mouth, apparently van Dyke assumed
Gerbils was in on the whole thing and began shouting all sorts of nasty things
about Gerbils’ heritage, calling him a Nazi torturer and that sort of thing.”

Pim looked
affronted. “But the Gerbils family fled Germany to get away from the
goose-stepping morons!”

“And few things
more infuriate a righteous man than being called a traitor to his cause – a
mutineer!” Hester interjected. “It’s – it’s like ‘Billy Budd.’ Melville!”

Pim and Darrow exchanged
shrugs, and then nodded as if they knew what she meant. It was their best
defense when Hester got literary.

Darrow, flinging
empty shells into a discard bowl in search of more clams, continued.

“So Gerbils says
he reacted badly and without realizing he’d picked up the pistol he was waving
it at van Dyke and telling him to shut up, that his father resisted Hitler’s
goons and was a hero in his day. And he says the pistol went off by accident.”    

Hester and Pim,
until then sitting on the edges of their chairs with palms covering their
mouths, simultaneously drained their glasses. Darrow waved to the passing waitress
and pointed to the empty pitcher with a beguiling smile. She scooped it up to
get a refill.

 “And could we
get a basket of that Parmesan garlic cheese bread?” he added.

Hester squinted
her eyes in thought.

 “OK, the
obvious question: Why didn’t Gerbils just call for help? Maybe some paramedics
could have saved Pieter! And Gerbils is a lawyer, he should have known that
turning himself in would be for the best if it really was an accident.”

Darrow rolled up
a lettuce leaf and ate it like celery between sentences.

 “Well, I think
you know about the mountain-rescue training he’d had. In fact, the doctor in
Astoria said Gerbils deserved credit for sending your hypothermic page to the
E.R. He said that kid could have died without the right care. And old Gerhard claims
he tried to give van Dyke CPR but that he pegged out almost immediately, and
Gerbils said he knows how to read a pulse. He says he just plain panicked –
that there were headlights coming toward the park and he was sure other
medallion hunters would be there soon because the clue was so easy. So he
grabbed the medallion, chucked the pistol in the creek and ran.”

Pim gave a
low whistle, using her good arm to pour beer for everyone from the newly
arrived pitcher. “Anybody for shuffleboard?” she asked, eyeing the indoor court
next to the pool tables at the far side of the tavern.

Hester and Nate
acted as if they hadn’t heard.

“So what about
the cook?” Hester wondered.

“He got lured
into it by the promise of a partnership with his future father-in-law, and it
seems he really didn’t know how Gerbils had come by the medallion. He’s agreed
to plead guilty to a minor fraud charge and he’ll probably get off with a
suspended sentence and some kind of probation.”

“But so much for
his bright future with the restaurant,” Hester observed. “I hear Zeus Shoes stopped
payment on the $50,000 medallion reward, and I doubt anyone blames them.”

Darrow, dipping
a hunk of cheesy garlic bread in the remaining clam nectar, gave a sardonic
smile.

“Well, it has come
to light that Gerbils, the efficient German lawyer, had already filed the
partnership papers. And Wiener Dog Inc. had an $85,000 insurance policy on the
Wiener Wagen, because it really was a valuable collector’s vehicle, and Gerbils
had inserted all sorts of obscure legal language to the effect that, although
the premium was helping to bankrupt him, the policy would pay off in just about
any circumstance, no matter who was to blame.”

Pim was
scowling. “What’s that all mean, in English, Inspector?”

“It means that
the insurance money should give Tony Pucci enough to pay off the creditors and keep
the restaurant afloat after all, even if his father-in-law is locked up. Which
might not even happen, if the German lawyer’s lawyers are good.”

 Hester’s mouth
suddenly formed an “O” as an alarming thought occurred to her.

“You don’t think
he meant to total the Wiener Wagen, kill himself – and
us¸
I might add –
and give his daughter and her future hubby a happily-ever-after in the process?”

Darrow’s eyes
smoldered, staring across the room at a trio of laughing pool players as he
considered Hester’s theory.

“Suicide by
motorized hot dog? I think I’m going to ask him exactly that, and maybe spread
the idea around the prosecutor’s office before they settle on any plea
bargain.”

Pim, arguing
that her aching shoulder required “a good liquid painkiller,” had poured
herself another schooner of beer.

 “One thing I’m
still wondering about, Inspector,” she said, stifling a small burp and sounding
slightly tipsy now, “is the Rajneeshees. They kept popping up like
whack-a-moles in this whole doggone business. What the hey-nonny-nonny was up
with that?”

Hester chimed
in. “Yes! There was even one of them on the Macarena cruise! And what about the
coincidence of Ma Anand Carla being released just in time for Pieter van Dyke’s
death? Mr. Gerbils even warned us about her!”

“Gerbils admits
that was just to send us off on a wild-goose chase. And ladies, I know this
goes against everything you learned from every murder mystery you ever read,”
Darrow explained in syrupy tones, giving them his best basset-hound eyes. “And
I doubt I’ll ever convince our esteemed police chief. But,” he concluded, now
feigning a Hercule Poirot French accent, “Sometimes a coinci-
dence
is
just a coinci-
dence
.”

With a
self-satisfied air of having wrapped up the case, Darrow dipped another piece
of cheese bread in clam nectar. But Pim wasn’t about to let Darrow off too
easily.

“OK, Inspector,
but what about another life you’ve ruint? I swear, you’re like that Mr. Toad.
We used to read about him in the kids’ story circles, how he sped recklessly
across the countryside without giving two hoo-ha’s about the destruction in his
wake.”

Nate looked at
her like she had toads crawling out of her ears.

“I’m talking
about Pomp Charbonneau! What happens to my friend Pomp?”

“Ah. The wild offspring
of Sacajawea.”

Darrow finished
chewing and swallowed before continuing.

“Well, Ethel,
Mr. Charbonneau isn’t exactly guilt-free in all this. There’s the question of
counterfeiting a U.S. postage stamp, though he’ll probably skate on that. It’s
a little too esoteric for the prosecutors. But he is plainly guilty of some
sort of assault charge for leaving Pieter van Dyke trussed up like a
Thanksgiving turkey in his skivvies, not to mention the damage to his poor old
landlord’s tractor out in Washington County.”

Pim nibbled on a
piece of cheesy bread, took a swig of beer and belched unabashedly in Darrow’s
direction.

“Pim! What would
your mother say!” Hester scolded.

“Barge coming
through?” Pim responded, drawing back her cheeks, crossing her eyes and sticking
her tongue out the side of her mouth in a Harpo Marx imitation. Hester slid the
beer pitcher away from Pim’s end of the table.

Darrow chuckled
and continued.

“But because
Pomp came clean and helped with our investigation in the end, I don’t think a
judge will go too hard on him and his oddball practical jokes. Last I heard, he
was going up before old Judge Augustus McGillicuddy, who has something of a
screwball sense of humor himself. Remember that UFO nut who was arrested for
faking crop circles with his old dump truck in a strawberry patch out near Amity?
The guy was a few sheets to the wind and never thought about how the tire
tracks were a bit of a giveaway. Judge McGillicuddy, who is a bit of a
strawberry shortcake fan, wasn’t about to let the poor fool off with just a
fine, though. So he sentenced him to four years on litter patrol. Behind his
back, the prosecutors call him ‘Garbage Gus.’ I suspect Mr. Charbonneau could be
looking at a lifetime of picking up candy wrappers along the Sunset Highway,
but he’ll probably be back for your re-enactments at the fort.”