Murdermobile (Portland Bookmobile Mysteries)

by B. B. Cantwell

  Darrow held her eyes with a soft grin for a long, musing moment before speaking.

  “What an odd coincidence that my grandmother was also a Hawthorne follower,” he said. “She came from Salem, the one in Massachusetts, where Hawthorne spent much of his life. It’s why I got the old-fashioned name.”

  “True, there aren’t that many Nathaniels running around these days, not in this part of the country anyway. Do you still have any family back East?” Hester asked.

  “A few cousins I barely know, and an ancient uncle with a spread on Lake Winnipesaukee. Otherwise there’s just my brother who made this wine. But you’d be surprised about ‘Nathaniel.’ It’s made a comeback as a yuppie baby name. Before we know it, this country will be ruled by Jasons and Jeremys, and all their cabinet members will be Nathaniels or Dakotas.”

  “So how did a guy named after the great Hawthorne and the lawyer from the Scopes Monkey Trial end up being a cop in Portland, Oregon?” Hester asked, pouring more of the amber liquid into Nate’s glass.

  It was Darrow’s turn to grin.

  “Ah, yes, the Monkey Trial, that’s often the first thing people bring up when they meet me. Do you know Darrow actually lost that case? And no, Clarence wasn’t my grandfather. But I might actually be related to him, in a ragged shirttail sort of way. My mother got sucked into one of those deals once where you send $19.95 to some genealogy outfit and they sent back a phonied up family crest and a family tree that claimed I was something like Clarence’s great nephew twice removed.”

  “And the other part of my question?” Hester pressed. She was enjoying watching him speak. It had been a long time since she’d felt that little fizziness from just looking at someone. She didn’t think it was just the wine.

  Nate shifted in his chair and took a quick sip from his glass. “How’d I end up being a cop? Oh...long story.” Nate looked out the window at the rain splashing rhythmically on the pane.

  “There’s nobody else waiting for the table,” Hester said, reaching past her wine glass and running her finger across his knuckles. Nate looked up, a little startled. But he didn’t pull his hand away. Hester continued, “I have to wonder how a nice person decides to become a guy who carries a gun around and mixes every day with people who aren’t exactly the finer element of society.”

  Darrow leveled his gaze at her.

  “You mean was there any one thing?” He shifted in his chair, stretching his legs, and frowned for a moment.

  “Well, actually there was. Not to get all maudlin, but you asked. When I was still at U of O, I met up with my folks one summer to visit a great-aunt and uncle of mine on the Olympic Peninsula, up in Washington. My folks were returning from a visit with some wine researchers over in the Yakima Valley – my dad was becoming a big wine-grape expert at OSU. So we had each driven our own cars, and just as we were starting back to Oregon, on Highway 101, a drunk-as-a-skunk good ol’ boy in a jacked-up pickup truck ran them off the road, a hit-and-run thing. It was one of those stretches where the highway goes right along the edge of Hood Canal, and their car went into the water. I was driving right behind them, and just watched it happen, like a bad dream. I jumped out of my car and actually dove in, like I was going to rescue them...But that canal is like a fjord, it just drops straight down deep. Not a chance.”

  Hester furrowed her brow and formed an “o” with her lips. Darrow went on, speaking as if he was on autopilot.

  “I was a mess after that. I was still just a kid, really. It was only thanks to hard work by some really decent people that the jerk was ever caught and locked away so he couldn’t kill anybody else’s family. And at the time, that kind of changed my outlook on life. I took some time off school, and when I went back to college I changed my major. I’d been doing journalism – it was the Watergate decade and we all wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein. But I decided to do police science instead. U of O wasn’t the place for that, so I transferred to Southern Oregon State, down in Ashland.”

  Hester bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed.”

  Nate shook his head and patted her hand. “No, I don’t mind. Really, it’s like ancient history now.”

  Darrow shoved his chair away from the table, picked up his wine glass and set it on the mantel while he slid another log from the wood carrier into the fireplace. Over the mantel, a framed black-and-white photograph caught his eye. The image was of a pockmarked, leering gargoyle surrounded by roughly hewn stone. In a corner of the photo, the penciled initials “HFM.”

  “Speaking of ancient history, who’s your friend?” Nate asked.

  “Oh, that’s from a trip to Rome last year. I love gargoyles and architectural foofaraw like that. It’s what attracted me to this old place, even with the spooky acoustics in the air shaft.”

  “Ah, but you have such a lovely singing voice!”

  Hester gave him a dark, questioning look. Nate just grinned, sinking into the chintz sofa and holding out his hand to be sniffed by the cat, perched atop the sofa with his front legs tucked beneath him, in his meatloaf pose.

  Hester stepped to the stereo to put on more music. Watching Darrow scratch the old cat behind the ears, she decided to take a risk and put on one of her favorite tapes: Dean Martin crooning old favorites. Some people loved its nostalgia; others, such as Karen, had been known to run screaming from the room after three songs. She brought the wine bottle and joined Nate on the sofa. The fire had made the room warm.

  “Travel much?” Nate asked her, turning so that his knee touched her thigh, just lightly.

  “Oh, not as much as I’d like, I’ll tell you. I think I love travel more than anything else in the world. It expands your mind, your horizons, your possibilities... A couple of other librarians and I have made sojourns to Europe every two years. Rome last time, one of my favorites. This year, we’re arguing. Gail wants to do Paris and Janna is campaigning for something completely different: Cairo, to see the pyramids. Frankly, if it were just me, I’d go back to Italy.”

  As if on cue, the music swelled. Nate, smiling, lifted his wine glass to her in a toast, then joined the lilting voice of Dino:

  “When the moon hits your eye

  Like a big pizza pie

  That’s amore!”

  Hester grinned and joined in. Arms entwined, they swayed back and forth, wine glasses sloshing, their faces rocking closely.

  When the song ended, they laughed until they had to put their wine glasses down on the side table to keep from dousing each other.

  “Oh, dear, I hope that didn’t get broadcast through the air shaft!” Hester giggled. Nate slapped his hand to his mouth.

  “Where did you dig up that old chestnut?” he whispered through his fingers. Then drawing a deep breath and putting on a face of mock solemnity, he declared, “Madame, I think I’ve had enough wine.”

  At that moment, the sweet, slurred voice on the stereo launched into the next song, “Tiny Bubbles,” sending them into new chuckles that soon erupted into guffaws.

  When the fit of laughter subsided, Nate and Hester sank back into the sofa in an easy hug.

  Suddenly, Hester became very conscious of his arms holding her. She smelled his sweet and spicy smell, and she pulled back to see his hazel gray eyes turning to hers. She turned her lips to meet his.

  Their lips brushed and Hester raised her hand to touch the line of his jawbone, slightly roughened with dark stubble. Nate pressed his mouth to hers and Hester felt an electric thrill in her spine. She pulled him closer and the corny, comfortable music filled the room.

  “Tiny bubbles, in the wine

  Make you feel happy,

  Make you feel fine...”

  And something else.

  Another noise.

  A retching, a coughing. A neighbor? From the air shaft? Hester’s mind reeled. Then she jerked away from Nate.

  “Oh God, look out!”

  It was too late. Bingle T., still perched just behind Darrow on the back of the sofa, lurched with one more
tremendous retch and spewed his dinner down the back of Darrow’s shirt. One more cough racked the cat’s arched body, spewing fishy juice across the left leg of Darrow’s trousers.

  “Oh, my God, oh no, oh Bingle. Oh Nate, I’m sorry! Oh, your poor shirt!”

  Hester gingerly hoisted the still-retching cat, ran into the kitchen and deposited him with a cooing pat onto a kitchen chair, then dashed back to Nate with a handful of paper towels. Darrow stood ignominiously dripping. He alternately gasped and held his breath because of the aroma.

  “Mackerel, right? I’d recognize that reek anywhere. The fish processor my grandfather worked for used to sell off the rotten mackerel for fertilizer. Whoo, boy, does this bring back the memories!”

  Hester furiously daubed at him with the paper towels, but quickly realized the futility.

  “Come on, into the bathroom, we’ve got to get these clothes off you! Oh, he even got some in your hair! You better get into the shower. You can’t go home like this or you’ll have every cat in the building yowling as you pass their doors.”

  Holding his arms out like Frankenstein’s monster, Nate grinned as he shuffled to the bathroom. “I’ve seen clever ploys to get me out of my clothes on a first date, but Ms. McGarrigle, I think this is a bit extreme!”

  She gasped. “Anybody who smells as bad as you can’t be fresh at the same time!”

  Hester gave him a gentle kick as she shoved him in and closed the bathroom door.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Once more, Hester regarded Nate Darrow wrapped in towels. This time, he sat in her kitchen and sipped coffee, a large, striped beach towel draping his torso, and a pink bath towel wrapping his waist.

  Nate had refused Hester’s offer of her pink bathrobe with the faux fur collar.

  “Your clothes are clean now,” Hester had announced as she returned from the laundry room in the building’s basement. “The bad news is that the dryer queens are out in force. The Russian lady from the third floor is down there with her weekly 18 loads, and Mrs. Bacardi from 406 is following her usual protocol of one lingerie item per dryer. Based on my best predictions for when a dryer will be available, you could see your clothes again by approximately 3 a.m.”

  Hester sighed as she plopped down opposite Nate and poured herself a cup of coffee. “What a disaster.”

  Nate pulled his towel tighter and sipped from his cup. He looked up at Hester. Hester looked back at him. Nate held her gaze for a second. He cracked first.

  Again, the two dissolved in laughter – laughs that turned to snorts, which caused giggles, until Nate’s towel started to slip.

  “Oops,” he said, hitching it up. Hester caught her breath and took a sip of coffee, noticing the goosepimples erupting on his bare calves. Her eyes wandered to a drop of perspiration in the small hollow of bronzed skin at the center of his chest. Biting her lip, her mind cast about desperately for a conversation topic.

  “Where’d you get that tan anyway, Sherlock? It sure wasn’t around here,” she blurted, as a wintry gust rattled the kitchen window.

  Nate followed her gaze. “Oh, uh, sorry.” He pulled the towel together. “Um, Mexico. I spent Christmas on the Sea of Cortez. My uncle who used to live up in Washington is a widower now and lives on an old sailboat moored down there. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Baja when I can get there. La Paz. It’s nice. Almost Italian. The people are a lot alike, I think. Very family oriented, very friendly, very Catholic.”

  Hester reached out and held his hand.

  “Maybe you could come see it sometime,” Nate said, his voice cracking slightly.

  Hester smiled at him and squinted her eyes, blue as Bahia Magdalena, Darrow thought to himself. She spoke softly.

  “Look, Nate. I don’t know when your clothes are going to be ready, and I’m so sorry about that. But you can’t go back to your apartment like this. All the little old ladies on the peephole grapevine would short out the building’s intercom system, and old-fashioned as it might sound, I try to preserve whatever reputation I can. I’m in grave danger even laundering a man’s clothes in this building.”

  Darrow chuckled.

  “And I’d put you up for the night on the sofa, but – ” Hester held her nose and spoke in a nasally voice – “I really don’t think you’d enjoy that. And, no, I will never buy jack mackerel again!”

  Nate squeezed Hester’s hand, then reached over and lowered the shade in front of the window next to them. He leaned across the small table and gently put his lips to Hester’s. He tasted of coffee and cream, with lots of sugar.

  Pulling away, she rose and pulled Darrow to his feet.

  “Anyway, I’m afraid the options have been narrowed.” Hester continued to speak, as if nothing had happened. “You can’t go home for a while, and I can’t have you catching your death of cold out here.”

  Giving a peck to his stubbly cheek, Hester led Nate down the hall.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  By 6:30 Monday morning, Hester had learned much more about Nathaniel James Darrow. Besides running track, he had played the trumpet at Corvallis High School – home of the Spartans – but dropped out of the marching band because they had to wear togas and stupid helmets. After high school, he’d worked on a crabbing boat out of Newport one summer to buy his old Volvo.

  Hester had learned, too, that Nate Darrow could make a decent cup of coffee. That he liked his eggs over easy. And that his right buttock bore a small tattoo of an anchor, souvenir of a little-remembered, rum-soaked night in Nanaimo, B.C., the summer after his parents were killed.

  Hester felt a little bit guilty, a feeling shared by her breakfast-in-bed companion. Their reasons differed.

  “There’s something I should have told you yesterday,” Hester finally blurted as she poured Nate a second cup of coffee from the bedside tray.

  Darrow arched an eyebrow and shifted to face her, in the process disrupting the hefty Maine Coon that had draped itself over his ankles long enough for all feeling to have left his lower extremities.

  “Oh, there’s a good opening line on the morning after,” Darrow said. “Don’t tell me – You’re actually married to the heavyweight champ of Wrestlemania, who has been away on a five-week tour of Montana and Idaho logging towns but is due to arrive home any minute?”

  Hester gave him a look of disdain. “If you’re going to joke, I won’t tell you.”

  “Sorry!” Nate raised his palms in apology, then mimed zipping his mouth shut. He crossed his arms and looked at her expectantly.

  Hester told him about her scare at the Bookmobile Barn on Saturday night. Darrow’s expression took on more exasperation as the story progressed.

  “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It’s probably important, but I wasn’t sure at the time, and I didn’t want to sound like a helpless female,” she concluded.

  Darrow’s guilt that morning stemmed from his precipitously escalated romantic involvement with a witness in a high-profile murder case. He usually walked a narrow and straight path when it came to police ethics. Last night he’d let himself wander off a cliff, and he was still trying to analyze how he felt about it – exhilarated from the free fall, or worried about hitting the bottom.

  Added to that, he couldn’t deny some professional irritation that Hester had withheld this news. Complicating it all was the knowledge that the object of his pleasant dalliance could have been in danger – and still might be, if the killer thought Hester could identify him.

  “So how close a look did you actually get?” Darrow asked after a brooding silence. “Did he see you?”

  “Probably. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure whoever it was heard me, though.”

  Darrow threw back the bed sheet, rose and strode in his blue flannel boxer shorts to the hook on the door where Hester had hung his laundered clothes. He quickly pulled on his trousers, stuck one arm in his shirt and simultaneously checked the watch in his trouser pocket.

  “Almost 7. May I use your phone?”

&nb
sp; “Sure. It’s out there – you know. I’ve got to freshen up. Help yourself.”

  Darrow went to the phone table in the hall, lifted the heavy black handset and laboriously picked out a number on the ancient rotary dial. As he finished dialing, he called to Hester.

  “Where’d you get this phone, on some archaeological dig?”

  She turned off the faucet in the bathroom to call back.

  “Don’t you break my phone. It’s a classic piece of mid-20th century functionalism, which is to say it’s old, it still works and I like it!”

  Darrow heard various clicks and crackles through the handset and waited for the line to ring at the other end. He called back to Hester. “So what’s on your agenda today? Bookmobile runs as usual?”

  She again turned off the faucet. “Yes. North Portland, Albina and that area. Oh, and then it’s up the Gorge to Bonneville School. The county contracts with us to go up there once a month. That’s always a nice change of pace. It’s so pretty up there!”

  Darrow grunted, then turned his attention back to the phone. Hester heard him speaking quietly as she continued brushing her teeth. As she brushed she watched her reflection in the old wavy mirror over her sink. She tried to decide if she looked honest or not.

  One thing about Saturday night she hadn’t told Nate: her suspicions about Karen and the leather coat. Somehow, Hester thought to herself, if it was Karen, she needed to know for certain first. What kind of a friend would she be otherwise? Why, it could just as easily have been Linda Dimple. She’s getting more and more militant about censorship! Or what about Carol Willoughby, director of Friends of the Library? What if Miss Duffy planned to leave all her money to the Friends? Carol put in endless hours working to see that the library survived the constant threats to its tax base. What if she saw a sure thing and decided to expedite matters?

  Hester shook herself. This was all putting crazy notions in her head.