Murdermobile (Portland Bookmobile Mysteries) (4 page)

She added a dollop of hot coffee
to her mug. Darrow shook his head when she raised the carafe his way.

“But now that I think of it, Miss
Duffy went to all the Friends meetings, even after she left the library. Rumor
was she had money stuffed in a mattress, though somehow I can’t imagine her
parting with much of it to the Friends, unless it came with pretty tight
strings attached as to how it would be spent.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Hester quickly explained the late
librarian’s strong opinions on library materials. Grunting, the detective
scribbled more notes.

His coffee finished, Darrow
pulled himself out of the comforts of the old leather chair and struggled to
his feet. “Thanks for the coffee and your time, Ms. McGarrigle.”

“My pleasure. But once anyone has
dunked stale baked goods with me, they have to call me Hester.”

“Oh, OK. Hester.” He allowed a
corner of his mouth to flicker upward.

From the other chair, the
until-now softly snoring cat chose that moment to stretch – the entire yard of
him, from nose to tail tip – and loudly pule at Hester.

“Why, Bingle T., you cranky old
thing, you’ve decided to grace us with your company, eh?” Hester gathered the
28 pounds of feline fluff into her arms. Turning back to Detective Darrow, who
was staring in open amazement at the huge cat, Hester explained, “Originally I
named him after Bing Crosby, he was such a crooner. The initial ‘T’ came later,
for ‘troublemaker,’ because he is one. But he’s a lovable complainer. Usually
that means he wants crunchies.”

Hester plopped the cat into the
small kitchen and poured some fish-flavored Kitty-Os into a bowl on the floor.
She returned as Darrow stepped to the door.

“Do you always start your day so
early?” she asked. The radio was just starting the 7:30 news.

“Start? I'm not ‘starting,’ I'm
just finishing up!”

The door closed and Hester went
to the window to watch the detective leave. She craned her neck, went back to
her coffee, and then looked again. Nobody exited the building.

“Well, fishbreath, what do you
make of that?” she asked her fuzzy companion. “Better yet – ” she paused to
again scoop up the cat, kissing him on the nose – “what do you make of
him?”

Nate Darrow's visit rushed the
events of the previous day back into Hester's mind. The images seemed blurred
and unreal until she picked up the morning paper, finally delivered at noon.
Then the situation focused sharply.

“FORMER LIBRARY DIRECTOR MURDERED”
screamed
The Oregonian
’s headline.
“Sara Duffy, Portland City
Library’s longtime director who retired amid charges that she censored her own
collection, checked out for good Monday. A librarian found her bludgeoned body
in a back cupboard of the city bookmobile.”

“Bludgeoned.” Hester said the
word aloud and shivered. While she couldn’t miss the red stain to Miss Duffy’s
hair and the bloody hand prints smearing the cupboard door, Hester’s quick
glimpse had left her only one clear impression: that somebody had roughly
crammed the retired librarian into the tight cupboard as if she were an old,
patched coat. Her good dress was badly rumpled. Though Hester had had her share
of philosophical differences with her former boss, at least in life Miss Duffy
had always fiercely strived to maintain her own dignity. In death, she’d been
robbed of that.

Hester squeezed her eyes shut in
a confusing cloud of sadness and anger. How could a human being hurt another
person that way – especially someone who looked so much like Hester’s difficult-to-love
but well-meaning Great Aunt Hilda?

She read all the vile details.
She read herself quoted, although she didn't remember saying quite those
things. She read with embarrassment how she had “swooned” upon finding the
body.

Hester put the paper aside and
took a deep breath. Needing a dose of routine comfort, she decided to risk a
walk to the corner grocery for a few essentials, chocolate pudding being high
on the list. She dug from the closet her father’s old tasseled golf shoes.
Embarrassing though they were, she found the cleated, size 13 saddle shoes –
filled out with an extra pair of thick wool socks – perfect for walking
slippery sidewalks on silver-thaw mornings.

On her return from the icy
outing, a curious scene: An old Volvo sports coupe, rusty chains on its rear tires,
its trunk agape, straddled the curb. Nate Darrow struggled with a large
cardboard box on the front steps of her apartment building.

The Luxor wasn’t one of the more
anonymous buildings in the neighborhood. The Egyptian motif, complete with King
Tut sarcophagus figures framing the doorway and adorning every corner, was
quite the rage in the 1920s, Hester was sure. The three shallow steps had been
heavily salted and were clear of ice. Hester reached the top of the steps first
and held the door for Darrow.

He smiled a thank-you, the weight
of the box having robbed him of breath. Once inside he eased the box against a
carved stone elephant-foot planter to reposition the bulk in his arms. In the
tiny foyer, the faint smell of his sweat competed with tangy bay rum. Darrow
had taken time to shave, Hester noted.

“Going somewhere with that?”
Hester asked, her curiosity no longer containable.

“Just moving in, as a matter of
fact.”

“Oh, Mrs. Popadopolis's old
apartment?”

“Yes, I think someone mentioned
that an old Greek lady used to live there.” Darrow paused a moment. “She didn’t
die there did she?”

“Oh, goodness, no. She left for
Happy Heaven Hills retirement villas, out in Beaverton.” Mrs. Hera Popadopolis
was a recent widow and had lived for 30 years in the south apartment on the
fourth floor. With her husband's will through probate and her children urging
her to enjoy herself, she’d packed her belongings and gone to play pinochle and
bridge to her heart's content. “I got a card from her last week. She won the
door prize at the seniors’ line-dancing contest!”

Hester stopped. “Sorry, I’m
babbling again, and you must be exhausted.”

Nate shook his head, then slowly
nodded. “I’m a little fried. Catch the elevator for me, would you?”

When constructed, the Luxor
boasted all the modern conveniences, even an in-house phone system, for which
an ancient speaking tube was still affixed to Hester’s kitchen wall. Little had
been updated, as Darrow discovered when he tried to fit his box into the
broom-closet sized elevator with its accordion-cage door.

Hester held the door and Nate
thundered the big box into the tight space. “Thanks! Sorry there’s no more
room.” As the outer door closed, he looked back with an arched eyebrow and
called, “Nice shoes, by the way.”

As the elevator shuddered up the
shaft, Hester trudged three musty flights up to her own door, her thoughts turned
away from pudding.

As she turned her key, Hester
realized she was humming the lilting “Mister Rogers” theme song, drummed into
her head from the days of babysitting her three-year-old niece: “Oh,
won’t
you
be
my
neigh-bor
?”

“Get a grip, Hester,” she
muttered with an embarrassed smile, and clicked the door shut behind her.

Grand Central Library’s massive
doors opened and Wednesday’s 10 a.m. rush pushed past the large,
ornately-carved mahogany information desk. Hester knew that none of these early
birds needed assistance with library directions. These were the regulars. None
of them even noticed the faded grandeur of the well-trodden marble floor or the
huge marble columns reaching 40 feet to the gilded ceiling. These were the
retired folks from around the corner, along with street people in to use the
restrooms and find shelter from the bitter Northwest winter, or at-home mothers
with small children eager to enjoy the next story hour. To them, Portland’s
main library was a second home.

Behind the first onslaught, a
small group of professional-looking men and women headed straight up the graciously
curving staircase to use the latest business materials, as a determined group
of polyester-trousered women marched into the genealogy room.

Hester suppressed a smile. She
missed her bookmobile, but this temporary reassignment had its fascinations, if
only in the diversity of people roaming the halls of Grand Central.

Her temporary assignment to the
quick-reference desk in the lobby of the main library was a bit like being
thrown to the lions, Hester thought. The idea of a librarian coming in to Grand
Central from a branch or the bookmobile without any training and being able to
direct patrons and answer their questions was mind-boggling. Finding the right
book or periodical in the rambling old edifice was a bit like navigating a
haunted mansion, complete with secret passages and hidden panels. Fortunately,
Hester was also an avid library user and knew her way around Grand Central,
although she had some doubts about the convoluted directions she had just given
to a man looking for the map room.

Looking up, Hester saw Karen
White hurrying toward her, looking as ever like the naughty school girl who
never gets caught.

“Is it really true?” Karen
exclaimed. “Is the wicked old witch really dead?”

“Karen!” Hester was appalled as
Karen’s question echoed against the marble. “Keep your voice down.”

“Oh, you always were the
goody-goody,” Karen bit back, primly pleased with herself. “Besides, there’s
nobody around.”

Hester was relieved to realize
this was true. The first wave of patrons had dissolved into the library like
spindrift on a winter beach. Then Karen’s brow furrowed. She leaned over the
desk, put a hand on Hester’s and whispered, “Oops. Sorry, Hester, I forgot you
were the one to find her.”

Hester nodded as she recalled
Monday’s events. Puffing out her cheeks, Hester was about to give Karen a
carefully edited version of the story when a disturbance in the Children’s Room
erupted into the foyer from their left.

Three stout matrons wearing huge
coats and carrying Walmart shopping bags were being pursued by Linda Dimple,
the children’s librarian.

“You may not remove any books
from the Children’s Collection without checking them out!” the slight, blonde
librarian
announced in as commanding a tone as her squeaky voice could
muster. “And you may have only three books by the same author!”

The ladies steadfastly ignored
her and beat a hasty path to the front door. Here their way was blocked by the
checkout desk, straddled by electronic security panels that set off a buzzer
when an unchecked book passed them.

Linda Dimple was out of patience.
“You are REQUIRED to empty your shopping bags at this desk,” she shrilled,
dashing ahead of the three and blocking the exit with her outstretched arms,
displaying all the fervor of a 1960s protester blocking a campus doorway.

This was clearly not what the
trio expected. The leader of the group, the stoutest of the three and the
eldest, held a wrinkled hand to the temple of her rhinestone-rimmed spectacles
and spoke up indignantly.

“We are the Women Who Care About
Children and we
insist
that the library remove all Teri June books!” Her
voice cracked with intensity. “We will not be stopped!”

“So who’s going to go limp and
throw themselves in front of the door first?” Hester whispered to Karen, who
watched with her lips pursed.

But while the leader put up the
brave front, the two followers
had second thoughts. One, a woman of
about 35 with long braids and glasses, emptied her bag on the counter. Her haul
included eight Teri June novels, a dozen paperback young-adult romances and
five sci-fi fantasy books. Her companion also emptied a loaded bag. Seeing her
troops give in took the fight out of the ringleader. She shoved her own bag of books
on the wood-grain counter as she grabbed her accomplices by the elbows. The
trio bolted past Linda and out of the library.

“Did you see that?” Karen hissed
at Hester. “The gall of those people.”

Hester tried to peer over Karen’s
head to see which way the trio had gone and was rewarded by the vision of a
grim-faced Marge Kenyon
entering the building. Annoyance played across
her face as she stormed into the Children’s Room.

“What on earth did they think
they were doing?” Hester asked in amazement.

Linda Dimple directed a clerk to
collect the books from the checkout counter and reshelve them in the Children’s
Room. She walked over to the information desk.

“Did you get a good look at those
three?” she asked.

“Not really,” Hester confessed. “They
looked pretty ordinary. If they come in together again, I’ll spot them.”

Linda was not pleased. “This is
the second time they’ve done this. The first time they got away with it. They
just walked in and took about 10 Teri Junes. With what happened to old Duffy,
you might think they’d give us a few days of peace!”

“Linda!” Hester scolded. She took
a deep breath and let it go. “Watch what you say. The woman’s dead.”

Linda hung her head. “I know, I
sound awful. But you know half the staff isn’t exactly in mourning. Science and
Business sent out for doughnuts this morning. Jelly-filled.”

Looking toward the exit where the
WWCAC trio disappeared, Hester reconsidered what Linda had said a moment
earlier. “So just how many books has Teri June written?”

“Oh, you mean different stories?
Only about
eight, but we have multiple copies of them. They are so
popular, with the preteen girls especially, we can hardly keep them on the
shelves. We just bought 10 of each in paperback.”

From behind Linda a clerk wearing
an expression like a frightened mouse hurried over from the Children’s Room. “Linda,”
she whispered, almost out of breath. “There is a woman demanding to see you.”

“Demanding?”

“I think she’s one of those WWCAC
people.”

Linda closed her eyes for a
moment, straightened her back and strode off purposefully.

“She’ll get eaten alive,” Karen
said, watching the back of the youthful looking Children’s Librarian disappear
behind a timeworn cutout of Oscar the Grouch peeking from a cardboard garbage
can next to the entrance.

“If I had the money, I’d bet on
Linda,” Hester said, sitting back. “She looks like a kid herself, and that’s
what makes her so popular in there. The kids have no problem asking her for
help and she is so open and friendly the parents just love her. But at the same
time, she is an absolute stickler for the Library Association Bill of Rights.
Anybody trying to censor her collection is facing a brick wall. And the Library
Board backs her up.”

“But why target Teri June?” Karen
asked. “There are lots of really crappy books in the young adult section, why
not go after quality of writing?”

“Oh, come on Karen, you’ve read
her stuff. Your girls are her biggest fans.”

“Yeah, but there isn’t anything
in them that girls don’t have to know about or don’t already know parts of. I
should think getting the facts of life straight would be important to ‘Women
Who Care About Children.’ Growing up today isn’t the same as it was 100 years
ago,” Karen argued, her round cheeks flushing.

“Well, they think Teri June
writes about things that should be private. You know, mother-daughter talks,
that kind of thing.”

“As if every family was ‘Ozzie
and Harriet.’ ”

“Preaching to the
choir
,
Karen,” Hester responded in a lilting sing-song. She had participated in this
conversation before.

“Sorry, Hest, I know. But those
WWCACers make me crazy,” Karen admitted. She gazed up the long staircase. “I
really came in to get some interior design books. Steve has this weird idea
about turning our third guest room into an aviary. I wish the Arts Room wasn’t
on the fourth floor.”

“You can take the elevator,”
Hester said, pointing a pencil.

“And be trapped in it for life?
Never!” Karen said, resolutely starting up the marble steps.

Grand Central’s elevator was
another ancient fixture. It often stalled between floors. A periodic feature on
the elevator wall was a hand-scrawled sign: “ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.”
The maintenance staff waged an ongoing battle with whoever put up the sign, and
had yet to claim victory. The sign, Hester saw, was up again.

 Proud Portlanders built the big
library in the late 1800s. The design was based partly on New York Public
Library, with an ornate facade and huge, beautiful rooms. The structure was
actually two buildings in one. The public rooms were built around a central core,
known as “the Stacks.” This core, open to staff only and crammed with books,
had two to three floors for every one public floor. Nearly two-thirds of the
library collection was jammed into the Stacks. With iron-grate floors and a
series of short connecting staircases, the 10 floors of stacks were always a
highlight of any library tour.

Hester settled into her chair and
looked around for patrons. Things were slow this morning. Probably fallout from
yesterday’s ice storm. From her vantage point, just to the left of the
staircase, Hester could see into the Fiction Room. Just as she was wondering if
she might get a chance to grab something to read, a second wave of patrons
pushed open the doors.

After directing visitors up the
stairs to Business, Social Sciences and Periodicals, Hester came face to face
with Paul Kenyon.

“So you finally got a promotion,”
he said with a smirk that bordered on a leer.

“Just a temporary reassignment,
until the bookmobile is back on the road,” Hester replied coldly.

“Probably by the end of the week,
I should think,” Paul said. “We’ve pretty much done everything we can in there.
It’s up to the boys at the lab now.”

“
We?
” Hester asked, sucked
in to the conversation by Paul’s curious remark.

“Oh, I’m just giving the police a
little help,” Paul said with a smug smile. “Mother is the one who actually
volunteered me, of course. And with my background in police methods and as a
member of the ‘Friends,’ I wanted to help. Besides, the Police Bureau can use
all the help it can get. One of Portland’s worst murders in years and they have
a rookie on the case. A new guy named Darrold or something like that. Mother is
furious.”

Hester was dazed by this
information. “Do they have a suspect yet?” she asked.

Paul looked grim for a moment. “It’s
early days yet, Hest,” he said.

The undeserved familiarity made
Hester grit her teeth, but just as she was going to say something, Mrs.
Kenyon’s shoes click-clacked across the marble floor and she claimed Paul’s
attention.

“Paul, have you confirmed the
hall for tonight?”

 Marge Kenyon acknowledged
Hester's presence with a curt nod. Turning back to Paul, she nattered, “Have
you notified
The Oregonian
?” Without waiting for a reply she reached
deep into the leather tote she carried and produced a sheaf of gray fliers
edged heavily in black.

“These are to be handed out to
library patrons today,” she instructed Hester as she plopped the stack on the
counter. “Come along, Paul, we still have business to do.”

Paul gave his arm to his mother
and a bemused smile to Hester as the duo sailed out the front door.

“Women Who Care About Children
Emergency Meeting” blazed in bold type across the somber, shaded page. “In
Memory of Sara Priscilla Duffy, WWCAC will meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the
Mumfrey Mansion to discuss a fitting tribute. The public is welcome.”

Hester picked up her phone and
called the administration office. The library did not “distribute” anything for
anyone. There was a table out front where groups could leave fliers for people
who might want to take one. Hester’s call confirmed that these could go on the
table. She would put them there at the end of her shift, in another hour.

An arm reached over the desk and
plucked up a flier. “That woman is making an enemy,” Linda Dimple said with
quiet determination.

“What did she do in Children’s?”
Hester asked, leaning closer to Linda.

“Told me that harassing members
of WWCAC wouldn’t be tolerated...that social disobedience was to be expected
when, quote, ‘crude and pornographic materials were being forced into the hands
of innocent children.’ And that my job would be under review if I stepped over
some imaginary line...”