Murdermobile (Portland Bookmobile Mysteries)

by B. B. Cantwell

  Murdermobile

  A

  Portland

  Bookmobile

  Mystery

  B.B. Cantwell

  Cover design by Stevie Lennartson

  Second edition, revised June 2013

  Text copyright © 2013 Barbara and Brian Cantwell

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Learn more about

  Portland Bookmobile Mysteries at

  murdermobile.weebly.com

  Another Portland Bookmobile Mystery

  available from Amazon.com

  Corpse of Discovery

  (sample chapter at the end of this book)

  In fond memory of Shirlee

  Preface

  “When I was your age, television was called books.”

  – The Grandfather to his ill grandson,

  in William Goldman’s screenplay for

  “The Princess Bride”

  If you grew up in an era when pay phones were how you called home to say you’d be late, and vinyl records weren’t the in thing because music sounded warmer but simply because there wasn’t anything else, you may have grown up with a bookmobile.

  These buses full of mystery novels, romance paperbacks, Beverly Cleary children’s stories and swashbuckling pirate tales would pull up and drop anchor in a neighborhood cul-de-sac or park every Saturday or so, and anybody could just wander in and check out a book. Or five.

  For children on summer break, it was like a magic carpet to hours of imaginary wanderings when there wasn’t much else to do – or anything better. It was how many of us got hooked on reading, and on libraries.

  Some libraries still have bookmobiles – and Portland, Maine, just brought the service back after a 20-year hiatus. But in many cities, bookmobiles have gone the way of doctors who made house calls. Through most of the 20th century, Portland, Oregon, still had a bookmobile. And it really did venture up into the Columbia River Gorge on the winding, historic highway. I was there.

  What happened on board, you can only imagine.

  – B.B. Cantwell, April 2013

  Chapter One

  February 1996, Portland, Oregon

  As the bookmobile shuddered violently in the gale-force wind, Hester pulled her chocolate-brown greatcoat more snugly around her thin frame in a vain attempt to keep the drafts at bay.

  Hester McGarrigle was tall, with thick, shoulder-length hair that her mother called auburn – Hester preferred “Katharine Hepburn red” – and blue eyes that were always ready to smile. She had not intended to spend her library career on the magenta, motorized dinosaurs of the Mobile Library Unit at the Portland City Library. She had envisioned a more scholarly endeavor. But, she had to admit, the bookmobiles offered variety – even if they also offered no heat in the winter and no air-conditioning in the summer.

  “Right now,” Hester muttered as a thunderclap shocked the afternoon sky and sent new torrents drumming on the metal roof, “I would give my pension for warm feet.”

  The bookmobile was at its last stop of the day. The circulation statistics were good for a rainy Friday in February, and likely to get even better; the stop at the top of Skyline Boulevard, offering a 360-degree view of forested hills, usually drew lots of patrons. But Hester just wanted to go home, light a fire and get cozy with a new mystery and a glass of good Oregon pinot noir.

  “We're not going to get anyone here today, Pim, I vote we go in,” Hester called down the length of the bookmobile to Ethel Pimala, her driver. “Pim” was wearing one of her garishly colored Hawaiian shirts. Today’s was turquoise, with bird-of-paradise flowers competing for space with hula dancers and coconut palms. Pim’s shirt collection would probably have been worth a lot of money if each wasn’t marked with at least one mustard stain.

  Pim was fiercely proud of her Hawaiian heritage. That she was just shy of 5 feet tall and somewhat pineapple-shaped did nothing to diminish her dignity, even if she did have to resort to wearing long johns under her Aloha-wear.

  “I remember the Columbus Day Storm back in '62. We did 200 circ here that day,” Pim called back as she continued to set up the portable circulation computer. “I remember that storm. Took me four hours to drive us back to the barn.”

  Pim had been driving Portland’s bookmobiles for 40 years – three years longer than Hester had been alive.

  Hester shook her head. She should have known. Nothing was ever going to compare with the Columbus Day Storm. Hester had been 4 years old. The storm had wrecked the best tree house she and her father ever built.

  A brittle rat-a-tat-tat at the bookmobile door roused Hester from her musings. With a strong push at the heavy door Hester helped Mrs. Loman up and out of the storm.

  Glad to have a customer, Hester began checking in Mrs. Loman's large-print mysteries.

  “We've got a new Dick Francis for you, Mrs. Loman,” Hester shouted at her favorite patron.

  Mrs. Loman was 85 years old, stone deaf and as avid a reader as ever. She loved whodunits. Hester, against library policy, always saved the new ones for her.

  Beneath her dripping plastic rain bonnet, Mrs. Loman’s face, wrinkled like fine parchment, lit up with the thought of the treat ahead for her. She quickly slipped the volume into one of the two huge plastic shopping bags she always carried.

  Another gust of wind brought aboard two more rain-soaked patrons: Mr. and Mrs. Westland. He read westerns, she read movie-star biographies. Each thunderclap seemed to herald a new arrival. Within 20 minutes the usual crowd of regulars had assembled.

  Mrs. Barrymore, wearing her pink wig today, was cornered with another regular, Jason Pablo, and emoting over last week's dismal reports of the current flu epidemic. Pablo affected a curious mix of artistic dishabille and Northwest comfort. In Portland, his gray beret and goatee somehow seemed to work with the red-and-black-checked lumberjack look.

  The Donaldson sisters were over at the paperback romances. Identical twins, each widowed after 40-year marriages, they had recently taken an apartment together and begun dressing alike. Mr. Fields, on whom the Donaldson sisters each had designs, was, as always, carrying under his arm solid non-fiction – biographies of founding fathers were his current pretense – while surreptitiously checking out the latest science fiction.

  Mrs. Kenyon and her grown son, Paul, were over at the children’s section. They muttered to each other as they perused titles on the picture-book shelves. Mrs. Kenyon’s tightly-belted gray raincoat dripped a small puddle around her leather ankle boots. Paul (age 34, according to his library card, Hester had noted) was conservatively dressed in khaki pants and a cream fisherman’s sweater. Dark hair, artfully cut to hide a slight thinning at his temples, framed TV-anchorman looks. He carried a leather-bound memo pad and made conspicuous notes with a silver Cross ballpoint as he and his mother combed the shelves.

  Paul Kenyon was the type to go into politics, Hester thought. There was something attractive about the way he always seemed to really listen when you talked to him. Hester was sometimes tempted to accept his offers to go out for coffee. Then she would remember his mother, and the urge quickly passed. Mrs. Kenyon was the driving force behind WWCAC – “Women Who Care About Children” – the local book-banning group. A large woman with steel-gray hair cut in a neo-German-helmet style, Marge Kenyon was not to be trifled with.

  Not content to whittle away at the local school libraries, WWCAC had recently turned its atte
ntion to the Portland City Library.

  Karen White and her three preteen daughters were here today, too. Karen and Hester had gone to grade school together. While Hester’s features had angles and curves that made her more handsome than pretty, Karen was a moon-faced, curly brunette. As a child, she had tended toward too cute and was always the teacher’s pet. She had married a struggling architecture student and helped put him through graduate school. Now that Steve was finally making it big, Karen – still perkier than anyone with all her grown-up teeth had a right to be – enjoyed raising her girls full-time.

  “Got any new Teri June books?” called out Karen, who wore the flashy leather car-coat that Hester often teased her about. In her newfound lifestyle of consumerism, Karen considered leather a sign of opulence. To Hester’s eye, the coat was more Marin County than Multnomah County, Oregon.

  Hester was helping Miss Sara Duffy – the “Miss” was her insistence – up the steep steps of the bookmobile. At the name “Teri June,” Miss Duffy flung off Hester’s helping hands and snorted.

  “That filth doesn't belong on the bookmobile,” Miss Duffy stated boldly, directing a meaningful glare at Hester. A trace of triumph played at the corners of Miss Duffy’s mouth. “Not once, while I was head librarian, did I ever order one of that woman's books.”

  Sara Duffy was often dismissed as just a frail old biddy. But she was not frail, merely tall and thin. Her tweed skirt was a size 8, same as she had worn when she graduated from Portland Episcopal School. She was inordinately pleased by this and often made reference to it. With the constitution of a draft horse, she walked everywhere, today with plastic rain boots tightly wrapping her sensible shoes.

  Hester sent her friend Karen a long, silent look. She reached behind the circulation desk and handed over two of the latest Teri June “young adult” paperbacks. One bore the title “Cheerleader Mom,” the other “Boy Krazy.” Karen read the titles out loud and handed them to her eldest daughter, Heidi.

  Miss Duffy was apoplectic. “When I was head librarian we had standards. What is happening to my dear, dear library? You,” she accused Hester, shaking with the intensity of her words, “are a smut peddler!”

  To Hester, the words had the same mind-numbing effect as the afternoon storm. She knew better than to argue. The battle rekindled every time Karen ordered more Teri June books for Heidi. Karen always waited for Sara Duffy’s presence before shouting out her request.

  Hester felt the familiar pangs of a migraine coming on and silently cursed her friend.

  The fracas went virtually unnoticed by the regulars on board, but Miss Duffy's outburst seemed to have impressed Zeus; the storm that had squalled all day began to ease in defeat. A watery ray of sunlight smeared across the front windshield.

  The patrons began to complete their selections and file to the checkout counter. As they departed, the Donaldson sisters managed to talk Mr. Fields into having tea – they promised Earl Grey. Mrs. Loman, with her equally balanced bags of books, teetered off across the park. As quickly as the bookmobile had filled, it emptied.

  Hester watched the customarily reserved Pim roll her eyes and silently flap her gums like a parrot behind the still-fuming Miss Duffy, who gathered her carefully selected historical novels and left in care of the Kenyons. Strong stuff for Madame Pim, Hester thought with bemusement.

  Turning back to her old schoolmate and recalling the scene she had just provoked, Hester groaned, “Why do you always do that?”

  “Because Sara Duffy has censored the library holdings for long enough!” Karen's usually high coloring was intensified as her cheeks still glowed with the heat of battle. “Don't you remember how awful it was before? What’s it been, three years? Thank God the library board forced her resignation. Not that she has let that stop her. You heard her. ‘My dear, dear library,’ my foot hurts! She all but threatened to fire you if you kept ordering contemporary novels. She makes me sick.”

  Hester understood only too well what Karen meant. The library had suffered from Miss Duffy's reign of terror after she had been converted to the ultra-zealous group of book banners, Women Who Care About Children, in the final years of her stewardship. Only her most outrageous attempts to purge the library gallery of the historic McLoughlin Collection’s voluptuous Rubenesque nudes had caused the library board to review her record and note that she was old enough to be pensioned off with a “golden handshake.”

  She went kicking; Hester had to give her credit for that. And, Hester thought ruefully, she has been kicking me ever since.

  Muttering “I know, I know,” Hester showed Karen and her girls out, pulled up the step and said, “Pim, take us back to the barn!”

  Chapter Two

  Monday morning started out with that rare, pale blue radiance that heralds a near-perfect day in the Pacific Northwest. At the Portland City Library bookmobile barn the maintenance crew filled the sleeping giant with gas for the day's run. Bob Newall, head mechanic, oversaw the last details.

  “Took an extra quart of oil, Ethel,” Bob told Pim as she clambered aboard. The bookmobile was always taking that “extra” quart these days. “Made a heckuva oily mess on the floor again, too. I spread more cat litter to soak it up, but you ladies watch your step.”

  “This old bus is nickel and diming us to death!” fumed Pim, today wearing her aquamarine shirt with frangipani, hibiscus and bananas. “When are they going to get a new one?”

  Pim's complaint was familiar to everyone in the barn, and it was a sentiment shared. The bookmobile service of the City Library dated back to the days of the Model-T and had a colorful history. (The colorful history included the bookmobile’s magenta hue, the favorite color of Portland’s first head librarian.)

  The current library administration, however, was not fond of history. Directors had hinted for some time that this bookmobile, the last of what had been a fleet, would not be replaced when it wore out. The service would end. With any luck the old relict would outlast the administration, Pim fervently hoped.

  Hester waltzed in carrying an armload of science-fiction paperbacks. She ducked to enter the bookmobile from the loading-dock ramp.

  “Frabjous Day, Pim,” she called with a twinkle.

  “Kaloo, Kalay,” Pim muttered, her mind obviously elsewhere.

  The word play was a familiar greeting between the two. Given the way in which Pim replied Hester could accurately gauge her colleague’s mood. Hester took the warning and went about her work restocking the shelves so they reflected the particular tastes of her patrons that day.

  Working on the bookmobile wasn't like working in a regular library. Instead of always carrying the broadest spectrum of books available, the bookmobile catered to the patrons on each run. This meant a lot of extra work for Hester. She restocked the shelves every morning. Today that meant heavy on the science fiction and an extra box of paperback romances with well-muscled pectorals and ample cleavage emblazoned across the covers.

  “Pim, is this the run where Mrs. Kenyon and Paul have been showing up?” Hester puzzled. “I mean, besides the Skyline stop.”

  From under the driver's seat a muffled “uh-huh” assented to that.

  “Pim, what are you doing down there?” Hester peered over the counter and saw Pim on her hands and knees down by the gas pedal.

  “Bob took my booster shoe off the gas again!” Pim said, tightening a clamp to secure a three-inch aluminum block to the gas pedal. Pim's short legs could not reach the gas pedal under normal circumstances. So early on in her driving career, she had devised a special clamp that added the missing inches.

  Dusting off her knees, Pim was all smiles again. “What was that about Mrs. Kenyon and little Pauly?”

  Pim, who remembered half her adult patrons as if they still wore Oshkosh B’Gosh coveralls, never checked out a book to the Kenyons without mirthfully recalling the time when Paul was 7 and wet his pants in the middle of the “Cat in the Hat” story circle. Paul, who thought her boorish, always turned beet red. That just
made Pim laugh harder.

  “Oh, I was just trying to remember if this was the other stop where that book-banning duo has been popping up,” Hester continued.

  “Well it is. Usually Toshmore or Holliday Plaza.”

  “Good! I have on board every book they ever wanted to burn!”

  Pim shook her head warily. If it was possible to avoid a public confrontation, Pim would always do so. Much as she liked her librarian, Pim secretly thought Hester's disposition was as fiery as her hair.

  When the bookmobile was loaded to Hester's satisfaction and the last of the boxes stowed, Pim fired up the beast. Leaving a huge and growing cloud of purple exhaust behind, Bookmobile No. 3 lurched out of the barn.

  The bookmobile pulled up to its first stop of the morning in the parking lot at Mt. Tabor Park. The park is home to the only extinct volcano inside city boundaries in the United States, the neighborhood’s readers had told Hester dozens of times. Hester's private view was simple: The volcano had grown tired of competing with the likes of Sara Duffy.

  Today sunbeams streamed through a tall stand of Douglas firs. A light breeze carried the morning’s chill into the old bus. Another glorious, albeit cold, storm-cleansed day in Portland, Hester thought, watching her breath steam the window.

  “Looks like we're a bit early, Pim,” Hester called as she trotted to the back of the bookmobile where Pim was setting up the Instie-Circ – a small computerized circulation desk designed to “take the hassle out of checking out books and free the clerk for other tasks,” as the gizmo’s manual boasted.

  “Is that awful thing working? I thought it was supposed to be in the repair shop.”

  “They said to try it again,” Pim grimaced. “They” meant Dora, the City Library's bookkeeper, who tried to maintain the library on a stringent budget. “Though why we have to use it in the first place is beyond me, I do faster with a paper and pencil. You never know what it’s going to do if you hit the wrong key. The other day I was trying to access the overdue list and ended up with the Friends of the Library budget. Tomorrow it’ll probably be the senior’s lunch menu for Loaves and Fishes! If this thing eats the day’s run again, I'm using it as a doorstop.”