Murdermobile (Portland Bookmobile Mysteries) (17 page)

Albina Terrace was one of North
Portland’s low-income “projects,” and Hester had a love-hate relationship with
the place.

Over the years, she’d kept an eye
out for youngsters who showed an extra spark, who exhibited the first signs of
the love for reading that she remembered so fondly from her childhood,
especially the long summers at the Oregon Coast when her mother would help her
put together a personal library from which she could choose a book anytime she
liked. She loved to curl up against a favorite log on the beach and smell the
tangy breeze that ruffled her hair as she plowed through her favorite stories.

Not that these kids would get
that sort of childhood, Hester thought. She looked out the bookmobile’s window
at the rows of identical duplexes, where graffiti had been painted over so
often that the painters had long ago given up on matching the paint color.
Hester could count five different shades of brown.

But she had managed to latch on
to four or five Albina kids who’d become faithful bookmobile fanatics over the
years. Hester liked to think she played some role in their growing up right.
One of “her kids” had just won a full ride to Willamette University on a
computer science scholarship.

This morning, however, Albina was
playing its flip side for Hester. She’d spent much of the last half-hour trying
to control a crowd of overexcited 3- and 4-year-olds whose mothers seemed to
think Hester was a babysitter, not a professional with a master’s degree.

Two of the mothers, underfed
bleached blondes in their early 20s, lurked in the paperback romance section.
Hester was never sure which children belonged to which mother, and blank stares
had taught her not to ask. This morning, one mother was snapping her gum.

“Excuse me! I’m sorry, but we
don’t allow gum on the bookmobile, no matter how old you are!” Hester
announced, trying to put on what her mother called her “Hester Sunshine” voice.

The guilty mother, who wore a
striped pink maternity top, stopped chewing and looked toward Hester with her
eyebrows raised and hands outspread in a “not me” pantomime.

Hester pointed to the trash can
with a stern look, then turned to Ralph, who slouched in the driver’s seat and
had his nose buried in a Louis L’Amour paperback. “Oh, lord, I’ve become my
third-grade teacher,” she moaned. “Keep rulers away from me or I’m liable to
start smacking palms.”

Hester turned back to her post
just in time to spy Paul Kenyon climbing through the rear door. A flash of
puzzlement on her face caused Kenyon to smile as he strode forward.

“Hester,” he said with a nod.

“Hardly your neighborhood, is it?”
Hester replied when she found her voice.

“Oh, I’m on my way to St. Johns
on a consulting job, but I had to stop when I saw the bookmobile here. The
police told me you saw somebody skulking around the old bus over the weekend,
so I thought I’d take a look. You know, crime-scene management was my emphasis
at the academy. It’s phenomenal how a footprint or something can lead you right
to a killer.”

Hester could hardly believe what
she was hearing. “Nate Darrow told you? But when? I only just –”

“Oh, I just ran into him. He had
asked me to keep in touch after I helped him out with some background on the
Duffy case.”

Her mind reeled. How could Nate
trust this two-faced mama’s boy? Her throat tightened at the thought that Paul
Kenyon might make some sort of political hay out of solving Duffy’s murder.

Flustered, she dropped her eyes
and busied her hands, opening a fresh box stuffed with paperbacks.

“Well, I’ll just have a look
around,” Kenyon said, turning and picking a path around two 4-year-olds staging
a mock ray-gun battle on the floor.

Hester fumed to herself, not sure
whether to be more irritated at Paul Kenyon’s interference in her trying
morning or furious at Darrow for violating her confidence. She found herself
stamping due dates with such ferocity that the gum-chewing mother flinched and
pulled her hands away until Hester shoved her checked-out paperbacks across the
table.

Finally, the last Albina mother
was at the check-out, and only Paul Kenyon remained in the rear of the
bookmobile, thumbing through the latest issue of PC Digest, when the
Instie-Circ emitted a series of piercing beeps as Hester tried to scan the code
on a book titled “Miami Vixens.”

Ozone filled the air as the
screen flashed twice, then went dark. “Not again!” Hester groaned. She’d lost
her day’s records Saturday, too, when the machine had crashed.

“I can’t believe Dora keeps
insisting this piece of junk saves us money!” she exclaimed to Ralph. “Tomorrow
I’m going to go in and tell her just how much we’ve lost because of this
machine!”

Hester continued to fiddle with
the Instie-Circ.

Paul glanced up, an odd look on
his face. His eye caught Hester’s.

“Paul! You’re still here! Can you
reboot this thing? It’s all DOS and I can never remember all the commands. This
is the most user-unfriendly computer ever made.”

With a nod, Kenyon strode
forward. Hester stood and let him sit at the Instie-Circ. Clicking the power
switch twice in rapid succession, he watched the screen glow to life. Then he
rapidly typed in commands.

Hester jotted down the title and
library-card number for the final patron, who turned in relief and clambered
out of the bus.

The bookmobile was now silent
except for the staccato clicking of the computer keyboard. Ralph remained
absorbed in his Western.

Hester awkwardly made small talk
over her shoulder as she reshelved some books.

“I have to tell you, Paul, I
can’t believe you figured out those entry codes all on your own! You really
have computers all figured out, don’t you? I bet you can make a mint at what
you’re doing!”

Hester winced at her own fawning
tone. She’d always found it difficult to bear silence when corralled with
someone with whom she felt uncomfortable.

Paul looked over the screen at
her as if to respond, then bit his lip.

But after a moment more of
furious typing, he paused and looked up at Hester. He suddenly resembled a
kindergartner whose teacher had praised his finger painting. “Well why don’t we
get to know each other better, Hest? We could go to a movie or something.”

Hester rubbed her forehead. She
couldn’t say she hadn’t asked for that.

Clearing her throat, she found a
reserve of strength as she turned back to Paul with her most condescending
smile. Tiptoeing behind him, she reached down, lifted Paul by the shoulders and
moved him away from the computer. She patted his arm once, lightly.

“Maybe some day when you decide
books are more fun to read than to burn,” Hester cooed.

As she pushed him away, she
looked down at where her fingers touched him. Her smile froze for a moment. She
looked up at him, businesslike. “Thanks for your help, Paul. Now can I help you
find any books? We’ve got to be heading for Bonneville.”

Kenyon, at first confused,
flushed in anger and pushed roughly past Hester. “No, you’ve given me enough. I
don’t deserve this kind of treatment from a damn desk clerk!”

He stormed out of the front
entrance, slamming the door behind him.

Ralph finally looked up in alarm.
“Hey, Hester, what was with that twerp? He bother you?”

Hester sat with her hand splayed
across her face and exhaled long and loudly. “No, I’m OK. I’m not sure what’s
going on with him. I’m not sure of a lot of things these days.”

After a moment, she jumped to her
feet, glanced at her wristwatch and began to fold up the Instie-Circ.

“Anyway, we’ve got an appointment
up at Bonneville, and first we’ve got to get some lunch. I’m famished.”

“You up for the Char-Burger?”
Ralph asked. The Columbia Gorge’s most popular restaurant, just beyond
Bonneville in the quaint river-town of Cascade Locks, was actually just over
the line into the next county. But Pim and the other drivers had long ago cast
off worries about questions from curious taxpayers who might notice the
bookmobile in the Char-Burger’s parking lot. The burgers were just too tasty.

“Only if I can have a Super Bacon
Burger with chili fries,” Hester replied with a grin.

Ralph stowed his paperback in the
glove box, put a foot on the clutch and turned the ignition key. An acrid cloud
of exhaust quickly enveloped the old bus as he worked the pedal to warm up the
engine.

Hester finished stowing books,
popped her date stamp into a box, fastened all the small brass hooks to keep
drawers closed and climbed into the front seat opposite Ralph. She was just
clicking her seatbelt when she peered into the fish-eye mirror out her window
and glimpsed something that made her snap her fingers.

“Oh, drat, I forgot the back step
again. Hold on, Ralph!”

Hester scrambled out of her seat
and dashed to the rear door. She pushed the door open with her foot and reached
down to pull in the step.

A hand grabbed her wrist. Hester
gasped.

Paul Kenyon slid around the
corner from behind the bookmobile and pushed Hester back inside. He pulled the
step in behind him and shut the door.

In the dimness of the rear of the
bus, Hester couldn’t see so much as feel the barrel of the old Smith &
Wesson police special that pressed into her side.

“Let’s go quietly up forward if
you don’t want to make a big mess all over your books,” Paul said in a spooky
monotone. Ralph, oblivious, was still working the gas pedal to keep the idling
engine alive.

Paul wrapped his free hand
tightly under Hester’s rib cage and walked her forward. Gasping to catch her
breath as adrenalin set her heart crazily pounding, Hester got a noseful of
Kenyon’s cloying cologne mixed with the oily leather smell of his tan coat.

Hester suddenly whirled her head
and looked down at the coat, then up into Paul’s eyes. She tried not to react.

“Like the coat? I thought you had
recognized it. How much more did you see the other night? I just couldn’t give
you any more time to remember.”

“But why – ” They reached the
middle of the bus. Ralph finally turned in his seat to look for Hester.

“Are we going
today
,
Hester? – ” He stopped short. “Hey, you, what are you – ”

Like a snake tightening a coil,
Paul shifted the revolver so Ralph could see it pointing at Hester’s heart.

“Ralph, we’re going for a ride. I
suggest you keep your seat unless you want another dead librarian aboard this
murdermobile.” Kenyon chuckled at his own effort at cleverness.

“I believe you’re heading up into
the Gorge, which is just fine with me. I’ve got some friends up in Corbin who
can make this whole bus disappear at the bottom of the Columbia and nobody will
ever find it.”

Moments later, as the lumbering
bus bounced over a speed bump on its way out of the Albina Terrace parking lot,
a thin, balding man in a gray three-piece suit pushed his eyeglasses up on the
bridge of his nose as he stepped out the front door of the complex’s community
center.

“Drink enough coffee on any
surveillance job and eventually you’ve got to recycle some of it,” Lt. Harry Harrington
of the Portland Police Bureau muttered to himself as he dashed for the door of
his unmarked blue Caprice.

The bookmobile bounced and shook
as it hit 50 mph on Marine Drive, following the Columbia River upstream. As the
magenta bus passed the riverside edge of Portland International Airport, a
smiling Eskimo on the tail of an Alaska 737 seemed to race it for a moment
before zooming skyward over the river.

As the bookmobile skirted the
houseboat moorage edging Gresham and Troutdale, Paul forced Hester to climb
into her own seat up front “so everything looks normal.” He kept the gun’s
muzzle planted in her back.

More than fear, Hester felt anger
at letting herself get into such a plight. Her temper made her reckless.

“So, Paul, just tell us why you
killed Miss Duffy?” she spoke loudly over the engine’s growl. “Couldn’t she
shout ‘Sieg Heil’ loudly enough?”

Kenyon jabbed the gun into her
ribs hard enough to make Hester gasp. Ralph clenched his jaw. “Hester, let it
go,” the driver said.

But Kenyon wasn’t one to ignore a
captive audience. He smiled eerily, like a dental patient on too much gas.

“Well, Hester, I get the idea you
know about it anyway. And so you and Aunt Sara are going to end up having more
in common than you ever thought.”

As he stared out the window at
the rotting remains of last fall’s pumpkin crop in a soggy field along the
road, the big bus jounced over a pothole, then lurched as Ralph hit the brakes
too hard. “Watch it!” Kenyon yelled. He caught his balance before he spoke
again, in a drugged-sounding voice Hester could barely hear over the rumbling
diesel.

“She’d figured out just what a
handy little machine you have there,” he said, nodding toward the Instie-Circ,
stowed in its case behind Ralph’s seat. Hester looked confused.

Paul read her thoughts. “Well,
maybe you hadn’t put it all together.”

He smirked. “The thing is, that
handy little machine has multiple talents, despite how much you swear at it.
Not only can it check out a Dr. Seuss book to a preschooler, but when you get
back to the bookmobile barn and plug it into the data line, that little machine
is just ancient enough, with such elementary safeguards, that you can access
every record in the Portland City Library. And old Sara was so dumb about
computers, and such a penny pincher, she had everything on one ancient
mainframe. Financial records, too.”

At this last statement, Kenyon
gave another sickly smile. Pride and ego and superiority wrapped into it.
Hester wanted to gag at his gloating.

“And you know, Hest, it’s amazing
what you can do these days with electronic fund transfers. Pretty soon, we
really are going to be a cashless society. I think it’s wonderful.”

Ralph turned up the Troutdale
ramp onto Interstate 84 eastbound. Hester watched the Sandy River flash by
beneath the freeway, and thought of Pim in her jail cell. Anger rose again.

“So you thought you’d let Pim go
to prison for you? You spineless coward!”

“Shut up!” Kenyon yelled. Hester
could see a vein pulse in his forehead. His fury turned to panic as the
bookmobile suddenly lurched once more, sending him careening against the
dashboard.

Before Hester could react, Kenyon
regained his feet, wildly waving the gun in Ralph’s face. “Cut it out with the
brakes! Just– just stop it! Hear me? Don’t screw with me!” He was screaming.
Hester wondered if he was hopped up on more than adrenaline.

“It’s the damn potholes,” Ralph
said shakily, fear in his voice. “Sorry. Please.”

Paul lowered the gun and peered
through the windshield, now rain-spattered. The gorge walls towered ahead,
cloaked in evergreen and the gray skeletons of bare maples. He breathed fast and
shallowly. Hester shrank in her seat.

“OK, here’s what we’ll do, I
think. We’ll keep your appointment at Bonneville. We’ll just play it cool and
do what you normally do there. And if you try anything, I’ll maybe have some of
your customers join us on our little drive. Maybe a couple of school kids – ”

“Leave them out of this,” Hester
snapped.

Paul acted as if he didn’t hear
her. But his thoughts jumped a track.

“First I need to make a call. I
think I’d better confer with my casino friends.” Paul searched his pocket for
quarters. Turning slightly toward Ralph, Paul ordered, “Here, take this exit.
Now!”

Ralph jerked the wheel just in
time for the bookmobile to careen off the highway onto an exit ramp. “Bridal
Veil, Scenic Highway,” said a sign with an arrow angling right.

“Head for the lodge at the falls,
they’ve got pay phones,” Paul commanded Ralph as the bus braked at the top of
the ramp. A sign pointed to Multnomah Falls. With another belch of blue smoke,
the magenta bus lumbered onto the narrow old highway.

A quarter-mile behind the
bookmobile, Harry Harrington had been on his police radio to Nate Darrow, who
confirmed that the big bus should be going to Bonneville.

“I just hope they aren’t heading
for the old scenic highway with all those steep hills,” Harrington said into
the microphone. “I don’t know who the driver is on that thing, but the way he’s
riding the brakes, they’ll be lucky if they have any brake pads left by the
time they get to the falls.”

The bookmobile’s brake lights had
been flashing ever since Albina. Harrington accelerated the big Chevy and
pulled a little closer behind the bus, which was approaching the Bridal Veil
exit. He could see the tiny, one-room post office off to the right of the
interstate.

The bookmobile’s blinking brake
lights were becoming almost hypnotic, Harrington thought to himself.
Blink-blink-blink. Blink –– blink –– blink. It reminded him of reading the code
lights in the Navy. He momentarily took his eyes away to watch a semi approach
in his mirror.

Suddenly, Harrington jerked his
head away from the mirror and peered back at the taillights. Blink-blink-blink.
Blink –– blink –– blink. Blink-blink-blink. Regular and rhythmic, ever since
Albina.

“Oh, Christ, what an idiot I am!”
Harrington fumbled for the radio mike and put in another call for Darrow.

As he drummed his fingers on the
steering wheel, waiting for a response, the bookmobile suddenly rocked across a
lane and up the exit ramp. Harrington braked sharply just as Darrow’s voice
crackled over the radio. With one hand, Harrington guided his cruiser onto the
exit, using the other to press the microphone button.

“Hey Nate, didn’t you say they
were headed for Bonneville? If so, they’ve changed their minds. They just
exited at Bridal Veil, driving erratically. And get this: the driver’s been
tapping an SOS on his brake lights.”

The radio was silent for a beat. Harrington
wondered if he’d lost contact. “Nate?”

Then Darrow’s voice came through
loudly.

“Harry, stay with them! Backup’s
on the way.”