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.”
Darrow paused to drain his glass, then continued as another thought struck him.
“He may have to look for a new job, though, after messing around with the Rose Medallion clue. The Oregonian takes the medallion pretty seriously.”
Hester rolled that over in her mind, then remembered a bit of news she had to share with Nate and Pim.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you both – and to thank you, Nate! You have saved Portland from the gimlet eye of Miss Sara Duffy!”
Darrow’s eyebrows knit as Hester laughed.
“Do tell?”
“Yes! When you were riding to our rescue and you sideswiped the Wiener Wagen on the Astoria bridge, the impact scraped Miss Duffy’s face off one side of the bookmobile. And Dora, the library’s delightfully cheapskate bookkeeper, has found that it’s thousands of dollars cheaper to have the whole bookmobile repainted than to have any of the fancy supergraphics restored. So we’re getting our plain old magenta bookmobile back!”
“Hallelujah!” responded a broadly smiling Pim, who was never a fan of the late head librarian and had made it no secret that she thought the new bookmobile’s outer decor was “as cheesy as Tillamook.” She happily pounded on the table with her good hand.
On the table, Pim’s fist caught the handle of a butter knife. Its blade rested under the edge of one of the clam buckets. The bucket flipped up, crashed on its side, knocked over the mustard jar, which caught an edge of the butter bowl. A torrent of Dijon, clam nectar, half-coagulated butter and empty shells cascaded into Nate Darrow’s lap.
Darrow leapt to his feet, sending clamshells flying, and looked down in shock at the brownish yellow starburst across the front of his khaki trousers
.
For a moment Pim looked like a deer in headlights, frightened at what she’d done.
Then, gradually, an impish look crept across her face.
“Well, Inspector,” she quipped, looking down proudly at her for-once spotless Aloha shirt. “Looks like lunch is on you.”
About the author
B.B. Cantwell is the pen name for the wife-and-husband writing team of Barbara Cantwell, a former Portland bookmobile librarian, and Brian Cantwell, an editor and travel writer at The Seattle Times. They live aboard their sailboat in Seattle, with two cats.
Learn more about Portland Bookmobile Mysteries at
murdermobile.weebly.com
Appendix
Candy Carmichael’s Library Cheer
Where do you get
great books to read?
Portland City Library!
Need answers to questions
in the nick of time?
Portland City Reference Line!
Can’t come to us? We’ll
come on wheels.
Portland City Bookmobile!*
*Hester always hated the last line
because it didn’t rhyme properly.
Recipe
Nana’s Cream Puffs
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Heat to a rolling boil in a saucepan:
1 cup water
½ cup butter
Stir in all at once:
1 cup sifted flour
Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture leaves the side of the pan and forms into a ball – approximately 1 minute. Remove from heat and beat in thoroughly, one at a time:
4 eggs
Beat the mixture until smooth and velvety. Drop by rounded tablespoonful onto a baking-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake until dry, approximately 45-55 minutes.
Custard filling
Mix in saucepan:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup flour
Stir in:
4 cups milk
Cook over medium heat, stirring until it boils. Boil one minute. Remove from heat. Stir a little over half of this mixture into:
8 egg yolks (or 4 whole eggs), lightly beaten
Blend the mixture back into the saucepan. Bring just to the boiling point and then cool. Blend in:
4 teaspoons vanilla
Thin chocolate icing
Melt together over hot water:
1 square unsweetened Baker’s chocolate
1 teaspoon butter
Remove from hot water and blend in:
1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 Tablespoons boiling water
Beat until smooth.
To make up the cream puffs:
Slice the top off a cooled cream puff. Gently pull out any soft strands from the interior. Fill with custard. Replace top and spoon thin chocolate icing over the top. If icing gets too thick, add a few drops of boiling water to it. Refrigerate cream puffs.
B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery Page 18
