B B Cantwell [Portland Bookmo Murdermobile (epub)

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.” Pim’s voice squawked from the heavy handset.“Pim! I didn't mean to shout! The radio was just saying something about the library, but I didn't catch it.”“Closed.”“Really! I can't believe it! We never close.”“Have you looked outside?”Hester dragged the phone over to the window and looked again.“I'd say we have an inch here.”“More like two inches here.” Pim lived in a trailer-house out on the banks of the Sandy River, east of the city.She enjoyed a great view of drift-boating steelheaders on autumn afternoons but always seemed to get the worst of winter storms.“We'd be grounded for sure if the library opened for foot traffic.”Grounded days were the worst.Hester and Pim had to stay at the barn and do the paperwork, filing and report writing that were the bane of a librarian's life.That kind of thing made Hester want to break pencils.She had a desk drawer full of pencil halves.“You feeling okay now, Hest? You weren't looking so good yesterday.”Pim's casual remark brought Hester to a sudden stop.“Oh, Pim.I had – kind of forgotten.I never even thought.Oh, damn! There's someone at the door, I've got to go.I’ll call you right back.”The rapping at her apartment door continued.Hester undid the chain and deadbolt and opened the door wide to face Detective Darrow.“May I come in?” he said as he walked into the room.Hester waved him into the living room.With a quick glance in the hall mirror, she noted that the blue denim shirt-dress she had chosen this morning brought out the color in her eyes.Hester mentally shook herself.Detective Darrow was here for a reason that had nothing to do with her eyes.“How on earth did you make it through the ice?” Hester asked.“Can I get you some coffee?”Darrow, eyes rheumy and cheeks shaded by dark stubble, smiled a grateful yes.He peeled off a faded, mustard-colored anorak to reveal a rumpled blue sweater emblazoned with the knitted eight-inch high inscription, “POLICE.” How, uh, charming, Hester thought as she disappeared into the kitchen.Darrow stifled a yawn, shifting his weight from one weary foot to another as he glanced around the apartment.Hester's living room was as filled with books as a room could possibly be.It looked like a second-hand book shop he used to haunt, Darrow reflected as he shifted a stack of books so he could slump for a moment in an old dining chair shoved in a corner.One wall was a built-in rosewood bookcase, floor to ceiling, jammed with hundreds of volumes.Some appeared to be first editions, probably rare.Opposite the book wall was a fireplace of sooty river rock framing andirons that Darrow recognized as cast-iron silhouettes of Paul Bunyan on one side and Babe the Blue Ox on the other.The furniture, too, was just right for a bookshop.To one side of the fireplace, two overstuffed leather chairs in teal blue sat on each side of a solid mahogany table topped by a Tiffany-style lamp.A long sofa in faded chintz with huge red roses on a cream background straddled a multicolored rug, not Persian, but certainly hand-woven.A sideboard, loaded with more books, and a few scattered tables and lamps finished the decor.Darrow stood again, peering at the bookcase and scanning titles when Hester came back with a pewter tray.“The coffee’s freshly ground Kona Blend, but I’m afraid the cinnamon rolls are day-old,” she announced.“You've got some pretty valuable books here,” Darrow said, holding out a first edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's “Letters.”“Uncle Hamish's,” Hester said as she set down the tray.“He was a bibliophile and something of a nut.He left me his library in his will.Most of these were his.”Darrow replaced the volume and took a seat as Hester motioned to the overstuffed leather chair that wasn’t occupied by her sleeping roommate, a huge Maine Coon cat.“The cinnamon rolls are edible only if you dunk them,” Hester said, demonstrating the technique.His loud laugh caused a startled Hester to plop a chunk of roll into her coffee.“I've never met a female dunker before! I always thought this was a male-only foible.” Darrow dunked his roll with a practiced dip and shake, guiding the coffee-dribbling roll deftly to his mouth without a drop on Hester’s rug.After a moment of thoughtful chewing he broke the silence.“You were on the phone when I knocked.I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”Hester paused only an instant between that perilous moment when her cinnamon roll might have become over-soaked and the right time to pop the morsel into her mouth.“Pim, uh, that is, Ethel Pimala, the bookmobile driver, just called to tell me the library was closed.”Nate scribbled in a notebook Hester hadn't noticed before.Gulping down some hot coffee, Hester turned her full attention to Darrow.“Why?”“That was going to be my question,” Darrow said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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