Murdermobile (Portland Bookmobile Mysteries) by B.B. Cantwell Page B
Authors: B.B. Cantwell
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he
pointed to the top of the letter. “Take a look at that.”
The date typed at the top of the
crumpled paper was the previous Saturday.
“The day Miss Duffy died!” Hester
gasped involuntarily.
Darrow nodded mutely.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday morning dawned sunny and
crisp. It was Hester’s half-day off. After an exhausted and luxurious sleep in
until almost 9, she caught a bus downtown and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at
the Heathman Pub and Bakery. Large windows looked out on a corner behind the
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall – named for the Portland steel heiress whose
largesse had bought its renovation. Across the way was a stretch of downtown’s
lovely tree-shaded Park Blocks.
In brown grass across the street,
this morning brought a peek of orange from the season’s first crocuses, hearty
survivors of the week’s weather, Hester noted with amazement from her stool at
the window counter.
Her nine-grain bagel smeared with
ricotta cheese and tart gooseberry preserves was a favorite counterpoint to the
strong Italian coffee the pub served in mugs almost as generous as their pint
ale glasses.
But this morning, Hester couldn’t
give herself up to pleasant preoccupation with The New York Times crossword or
aimless people-watching as the mix of Brooks-Brothers-clad lawyers and
Norm-Thompson-clad everybody-else rushed past on the sidewalk outside.
This morning, she pondered the
puzzle of Pim.
She had talked longer than she’d
intended with her bookmobile colleague the previous afternoon, until the jail
matron finally came and shooed Hester away so somebody else could use the room.
Hester had asked Pim to recount
her conversation with Darrow at the bookmobile barn, word-for-word as much as
she could recall. That, plus what she’d been able to pump from Darrow and read
in the paper, now filled her mind. Slowly, she tried to sort the facts.
The autopsy said Duffy had died
Saturday night – sometime between 8 p.m. and midnight, the medical examiner
believed. She had been wearing her best outfit, the blue dress that she only
ever wore for special occasions – anybody at the library could tell you that.
Yet her whereabouts earlier that
evening and what led her to the bookmobile remained a mystery. Darrow said
they’d tracked her from the time neighbors saw her leave her Rose City-district
bungalow around 5:30, then to dinner, apparently alone, at her favorite
senior-citizen smorgasbord, North’s Chuck Wagon, out on 82nd. From there, she
had disappeared.
What had she been up to? Why all
dressed up on a Saturday night? Could it be Miss Duffy had a date? Maybe
meeting a friend at the theater or a concert? Maybe even a boyfriend?
Hester realized that neither she
nor any of her colleagues had ever thought of Duffy as having a private social
life, much less a romantic side. But even nuns were known to fall in love,
sometimes with the most unlikely of suitors. Had there been a mystery man in
the retired librarian’s life? Had the relationship somehow turned ugly?
But that didn’t explain why Duffy
was found in the bookmobile. Nor why Pim’s booster shoe had been the murder
weapon. Maybe the booster shoe wasn’t what actually killed her. Maybe she’d
been killed elsewhere, with some other kind of club, then her body planted in
the bookmobile and the booster shoe clunked on her head as a red herring?
“Right, Hester,” she muttered
under her breath. “And maybe there was a mysterious one-armed man with a bad
limp, a patch over one eye and a gravelly Mediterranean accent who met Duffy in
the foundations department at Meier & Frank, dragged her into a fitting
room and had his way with her before bashing her on the head with a frozen
codfish, which he then cooked and ate for dinner, heavy on the tartar sauce.”
She sighed. She’d probably read a
few too many whodunits to be a very realistic gumshoe.
But could Duffy and Pim have
somehow met that night? Hester couldn’t shake her disbelief in the
pointed to the top of the letter. “Take a look at that.”
The date typed at the top of the
crumpled paper was the previous Saturday.
“The day Miss Duffy died!” Hester
gasped involuntarily.
Darrow nodded mutely.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday morning dawned sunny and
crisp. It was Hester’s half-day off. After an exhausted and luxurious sleep in
until almost 9, she caught a bus downtown and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at
the Heathman Pub and Bakery. Large windows looked out on a corner behind the
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall – named for the Portland steel heiress whose
largesse had bought its renovation. Across the way was a stretch of downtown’s
lovely tree-shaded Park Blocks.
In brown grass across the street,
this morning brought a peek of orange from the season’s first crocuses, hearty
survivors of the week’s weather, Hester noted with amazement from her stool at
the window counter.
Her nine-grain bagel smeared with
ricotta cheese and tart gooseberry preserves was a favorite counterpoint to the
strong Italian coffee the pub served in mugs almost as generous as their pint
ale glasses.
But this morning, Hester couldn’t
give herself up to pleasant preoccupation with The New York Times crossword or
aimless people-watching as the mix of Brooks-Brothers-clad lawyers and
Norm-Thompson-clad everybody-else rushed past on the sidewalk outside.
This morning, she pondered the
puzzle of Pim.
She had talked longer than she’d
intended with her bookmobile colleague the previous afternoon, until the jail
matron finally came and shooed Hester away so somebody else could use the room.
Hester had asked Pim to recount
her conversation with Darrow at the bookmobile barn, word-for-word as much as
she could recall. That, plus what she’d been able to pump from Darrow and read
in the paper, now filled her mind. Slowly, she tried to sort the facts.
The autopsy said Duffy had died
Saturday night – sometime between 8 p.m. and midnight, the medical examiner
believed. She had been wearing her best outfit, the blue dress that she only
ever wore for special occasions – anybody at the library could tell you that.
Yet her whereabouts earlier that
evening and what led her to the bookmobile remained a mystery. Darrow said
they’d tracked her from the time neighbors saw her leave her Rose City-district
bungalow around 5:30, then to dinner, apparently alone, at her favorite
senior-citizen smorgasbord, North’s Chuck Wagon, out on 82nd. From there, she
had disappeared.
What had she been up to? Why all
dressed up on a Saturday night? Could it be Miss Duffy had a date? Maybe
meeting a friend at the theater or a concert? Maybe even a boyfriend?
Hester realized that neither she
nor any of her colleagues had ever thought of Duffy as having a private social
life, much less a romantic side. But even nuns were known to fall in love,
sometimes with the most unlikely of suitors. Had there been a mystery man in
the retired librarian’s life? Had the relationship somehow turned ugly?
But that didn’t explain why Duffy
was found in the bookmobile. Nor why Pim’s booster shoe had been the murder
weapon. Maybe the booster shoe wasn’t what actually killed her. Maybe she’d
been killed elsewhere, with some other kind of club, then her body planted in
the bookmobile and the booster shoe clunked on her head as a red herring?
“Right, Hester,” she muttered
under her breath. “And maybe there was a mysterious one-armed man with a bad
limp, a patch over one eye and a gravelly Mediterranean accent who met Duffy in
the foundations department at Meier & Frank, dragged her into a fitting
room and had his way with her before bashing her on the head with a frozen
codfish, which he then cooked and ate for dinner, heavy on the tartar sauce.”
She sighed. She’d probably read a
few too many whodunits to be a very realistic gumshoe.
But could Duffy and Pim have
somehow met that night? Hester couldn’t shake her disbelief in the
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