B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery (14 page)

Chapter 27

Monday, June 17

“Damn and blazes!”
Hester exclaimed as her wheeled “trail-along” suitcase tipped over yet again as
she tried to drag it over a doorjamb into the bookmobile barn, a garage in a
warehouse district near the Lloyd Center mall.

In one hand she
gripped a “Gigantor” dark-roast drip from a Jitters Coffee she had passed on
Burnside, while she used the other hand to yank the suitcase back upright.
Grabbing its leash like a dog walker with a reluctant beagle, she made a
beeline for the bookmobile, its shining magenta finish the brightest thing in
sight on this gray, overcast morning. On a wall above a stack of oil cans an
old clock read “7:20.”

“Wouldn’t you
know our sunny weather would disappear just in time for this ridiculous voyage
to the end of the earth?” came Pim’s gravelly voice from inside the driver’s
window, where Hester saw her perched and sipping her own usual morning
picker-upper, a mug of hot Postum.

 “Oh, Pim, there
you are. I’m sorry I’m running a little late,” Hester called. “It was just one
of those mornings.”

“Not a problem,
we’re still waiting for a couple others. Haven’t set eyes yet on Madge O’Hara
from Arts and Music. And Sage, the page, had to run back home because he forgot
his lucky paddling beret.”

Pim paused to
take in the full view of her bookmobile colleague, clad this morning in a
spotless new pair of ripstop nylon trekking trousers – the L.L. Bean catalog
had called the color “schist” – that would convert to shorts when the legs
were undone by zippers. Above, a breathable merino-wool T-shirt in “cinnamon,” under
a khaki safari vest with multiple cargo pockets.

Hester saw Pim’s
evaluative glance.

“Do you think
the T-shirt is OK? I like the merino because it can keep you both warm and
cool, depending on the weather, but they only had this one with the figure of
Kokopelli on front, and I’m not sure.”

 Pim, wearing a
shirt of mango orange with an image of the fire goddess Pele looking over a
field of erupting volcanoes, shrugged. She peered down at Hester’s suitcase,
then caught the librarian’s eye.

“Uh, Hester, you
do
know this is just a day trip, right?”

“Oh, I know, it’s
just that I haven’t been on a canoe trip before, and the weather forecast kept
changing, and I wasn’t sure just what kind of gear we might need, so I did a
little research and the consensus of several adventure authors was that it’s
better to be overprepared for changing conditions in the wild.”

“Ah,” Pim said,
trying not to smirk.

“And you can
take that smirk off your face right now, Ms. Pimala, because when we’re out in
a squall in the middle of the Great River of the West, you’re going to be glad
I packed two emergency ponchos so you have something other than that Aloha
shirt to ward off hypothermia.”

Hester paused to
give Pim a playful look of motherly concern.

“Besides, this
isn’t just gear for the paddle trip. I brought some special Lewis and Clark
history books and pamphlets from Grand Central for the bookmobile. I wanted to
do a special display when we’re in Astoria.”

From a knot of
people in shorts, sandals and floppy hats at the other side of the garage Candy
Carmichael spotted Hester and skipped over to welcome her.

Candy, the
library’s human resources director, had come to the library a few years earlier
from the same Zeus sport-shoe company that was paying the Rose Medallion award.
She had yet to “get” librarians. They sat quietly at their desks, didn’t make
lots of phone calls, and sometimes they even read books during business hours. “What’s
up with
that
?” she often moaned to the library director.

This was the
first time Hester had seen Candy in anything but high-fashion business togs,
usually including spiked heels. Today Candy sported day-glo green running
shorts on long legs that displayed a from-a-bottle tan. Her also-from-a-bottle
blond curls cascaded down over a Zeus hooded sweatshirt in raspberry and mauve
bearing the company’s hiply abstruse motto, “BE THERE.” Completing the outfit:
blindingly white knee-high cotton socks and a pair of Zeus multisport high-tops
that could have qualified her for the NBA.

 It occurred
fleetingly to Hester that this outfit was sure to renew whisperings among the
staff about Candy’s continuing “friendship” with the Zeus CEO, 20 years her
senior.

“Hester!
Welcome!” Candy gushed, displaying white teeth like piano keys. “We’re so
excited! I was just over there teaching everyone the Library Cheer! We’re going
to use it when we need to recharge during our paddle trip today!”

Three large dugout
canoes, each carrying eight library employees, were to make the journey,
launching around 10 a.m. from the Washington side of the Columbia at the quaint,
forgotten-by-time little burg of Skamokawa, its name meaning “smoke on the
water” in the Chinookan language.

They would
paddle 20 miles downstream and across the wide river to the Oregon side. They
aimed to arrive at the historic fur-trading and fishing town of Astoria in time
for a midafternoon picnic in a riverfront park with a delegation from the
Oregon Library Association’s annual convention, being held in nearby Seaside,
an old-time beach town replete with penny arcades and carnival rides. Dora, the
library’s notoriously tightfisted bookkeeper, had approved the whole junket
only because it could be charged to the director’s rarely-touched budget for
“education and conferences.”

To Candy
Carmichael, this was a trifecta: a team-building exercise that would double as
a public relations coup in the final days of the Lewis and Clark-themed Rose
Festival, while also showing off the flashy new bookmobile to colleagues from
across the state.

 She saw the
canoe voyage as demonstrating the library’s role not only as a repository of
history but as a community of scholars who bring history to life, re-enacting
some of the final westward miles of the Corps of Discovery.

“And the library
is closed Mondays anyway, thanks to the latest levy failure,” Pim sniped to
Hester.

Carmichael had alerted
all of the local TV news directors. A community-college cable channel out of
Clatskanie had promised to send an intern to film the launch.

 “OK, everybody,
listen up!” Carmichael shouted, as the final stragglers arrived. “We have a big
day ahead of us! We’ll be going in two vans, one of which is towing a trailer
with one of our three artisanal dugout canoes on special loan from the Chinook tribe.
Plus, as you can see, the other two canoes are coming atop the new Sara Duffy
Memorial Bookmobile, which will give us tremendous visibility, so let’s all
remember that every one of us is an ambassador for the Portland City Library
today! We will have TV coverage, so show what a good time you’re having!
Remember, a smile is just a frown turned upside down!”

Behind her,
Hester choked on a mouthful of her coffee, and from the door of the bookmobile
Pim mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

 Carmichael
paused to scan her to-do list, looking like a perky camp counselor, and then
looked up with a grin.

 “Remember we
asked each of you for your shirt size when you were picked for this trip? Well,
first thing I’d like everyone to do is go through one of the totes that Linda
is unloading from the van over there – ” Linda Dimple waved as she hefted
another box to the ground “ – and find the T-shirt with your name on it. Because
we’re all part of a team today, tackling a challenging trip, we’re going to
dress like a team.”

At this, Candy
unzipped her hoody and pulled it open to show off the bright red T-shirt she
wore, bearing the message “WE’RE BOOKIN’ for the Portland City Library.”

A mixture of
oohs, aahs and muffled groans came from the onlookers as a line formed by the
totes.

 “And I’ve been
saving this little surprise,” Candy continued. “I told you that you wouldn’t
need to worry about meals. Well, that’s because the entire day will be catered
by Portland’s beloved Wiener Dog Restaurant!”

Just as she
finished speaking, a boop-boop-a-doop honk drew everyone’s attention and heads
turned to the driveway just outside the barn’s open bay doors.

Hester gasped as
a vehicle shaped like a giant hot dog rolled to a stop. “Oh my gosh, isn’t that
– the thing that’s in TV commercials? Do we get whistles?”

Pim howled with
delight.

“No! It
used
to be
. The Wiener Dog family bought it surplus a couple years ago, painted
the wiener to look more like a bratwurst and added that dachshund hood
ornament. Now it’s the Portland Wiener Wagen! I saw it last fall at the
Clackamas County Fair!”

As she spoke,
Gerhard Gerbils, in his lederhosen today, hopped from the driver seat and waved
to the assemblage, raising from his bald head a little blue alpine cap with a pink
feather on one side.

 From the other
door came Tony Pucci, the Wiener Dog’s lucky, medallion-finding chef, in his
kitchen whites and tall toque hat.

“My goodness, I
can’t believe Mr. Gerbils himself is in on this!” Hester marveled privately to
Pim. “I would have thought he’d be in his law office on a Monday.”

“Oh, I’m not
surprised, Hester. He loves that restaurant, and he knows this is good
exposure!”

A half-hour
later, the library vans, followed by the magenta bookmobile topped by two
dugout canoes, and the garish Wiener Wagen, with puffs of smoke trailing from a
little chimney, made a conspicuous caravan as they headed northwest on Highway
30 out of the city.

Nate Darrow and
Harry Harrington waved at the entourage as they passed in the fast lane. Darrow
craned his neck and a curious look crossed his face as he observed the Wiener
Wagen and spied Gerbils and the now-famous cook through its front windows.

A half-mile
further on, Harry turned the blue Caprice to take the bridge to Sauvie Island,
with a KSNZ news van in hot pursuit.

Chapter 28

“This is Misty
Day with another KSNZ exclusive, reporting live from the Rajneeshees’ Downward
Dog Farm on Sauvie Island, where we’ve followed Portland detectives ready to finally
make a bust in the long, drawn-out investigation of the Pieter van Dyke murder,”
the reporter intoned quietly into her microphone as a live camera followed her
to the door of a barn painted with colorful daisies and smiley faces.

Just then the
door swung wide and Nate Darrow and Harry Harrington stepped briskly out. Surprised
by the TV camera with its red light shining, a murderous look flashed across
Darrow’s face, quickly replaced by a sinister smile.

“Detective, is
it true you’ve come to arrest Ma Anand Carla, the mastermind behind the Dalles
salad-bar poisonings? Is she Pieter van Dyke’s killer?” the reporter blurted before
Darrow could speak.

The off-kilter
smile stayed pasted on the detective’s face.

“Misty, why don’t
you come inside and question Carla yourself?” he asked, taking her by the elbow
and forcefully ushering her into the barn before she could respond.

The camera feed
continued on screens of KSNZ viewers all over Portland, with the electric banner
“Live police bust on Sauvie Island,” as the image jogged and bumped into a
hay-filled stable.

At the edge of a
stall, a man with mutton-chop sideburns and a wary-eyed, dark-haired woman with
a ferret-like face and denim coveralls looked up curiously from where they sat
on bales of hay next to a little horse and two tiny colts that bore a striking
resemblance to Jack Russell terriers.

“Detective, what
on earth?” asked Dr. Nigel Hartley, the veterinarian Nate and Harry had met on
their last visit to the island.

“Sorry for this
intrusion again, Doctor Hartley, but after the little demonstration you and
Carla just gave, I happened to run into my reporter friend and I thought she’d
want to show her viewers how you folks are teaching these clever little horses
to be service animals.”

“Oh, yes, it’s
really quite amazing what smart creatures these are,” the vet said. “Carla, why
don’t you continue the exercise?”

Ma Anand Carla
knelt in the hay, gazed into the little mare’s big brown eyes and asked,
“Rainbow, can you count to three? THREE, Rainbow?”

Carla knocked
her knuckles on the wooden floor of the barn three times, knock-knock-knock. As
if in reply, the little chestnut horse raised her own hoof and repeated the
rapping, KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

“Good girl,
Rainbow!” cried Carla, offering a handful of alfalfa to the horse, whose tiny
colts now cavorted at her heels.

Darrow spoke up,
turning his head to be sure the camera would catch his words.

“So, Doctor, I
understand that Carla suggested this training the night she spent with you and
her fellow farmhands when these colts were born – the same unfortunate night
that Pieter van Dyke died?”

“Yes, Detective,
Carla said she could sense Rainbow’s natural intelligence and urged that we
consider enrolling the horse in the service-animal field for which she
developed a passion during her unfortunate incarceration.”

“And these
little horses even get outfitted with special little tennis shoes and wear
harnesses just like a seeing-eye dog!” piped up Harry Harrington, who had
thought the whole idea ludicrous at first but was newly won over.

Misty Day, ever
the stage-wise professional, now elbowed her way back in front of the live
camera.

“And there you
have it, Thad and Marilu,” she purred to the News Break anchors watching from
the downtown studio. “A tale of misguided suspicion on the part of the police turned
to a heartwarming conclusion – a story of rehabilitation and hope. Live from
Sauvie Island, this is Misty Day.” 

In the
background, car doors slammed. Nate Darrow and Harry Harrington were already
back in the Caprice, headed for the city.