Free B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery by B.B. Cantwell

For 15
minutes she’d been contemplating a break to dash across the street to Callahan’s
Confections for a $2 bag of dark chocolate-covered licorice.
    But for the past
five minutes she’d also been contemplating the ample nude figures in the
paintings on the wall opposite her in the McLoughlin Collection gallery.
    Peering in
concentration at the oil just opposite her, Hester raised one elbow behind her
head, pointed her chin skyward and draped a leg over the corner of her old
walnut desk in emulation of the 18th-century model’s pose.
    “My, you could
have put the ‘hip’ in hippo, my dear,” she scoffed under her breath, sitting
back into her chair. Gritting her teeth, she dug into her purse for the
wax-paper bag of celery sticks she’d brought from home.   
    The healthful
snack was cold comfort after the earlier drama of calming Dabney Pensler’s
nervous fit over the idea that the library’s pistol may have been involved in
van Dyke’s murder. Hester wished she’d at least filled the celery sticks with
peanut butter.
    Just as she was
turning back to the inventory list from which she’d been slowly ticking off
items for the past two hours, the phone on her desk jangled.
    “Hester, it’s
Holly Fontana up in the Rotunda – I’m the designated minder for the Corps of
Discovery Exhibit this afternoon,” came a frantic voice when Hester picked up. “Someone
said Dabney went home with another of his stress attacks, but we need someone
from the McLoughlin Collection up here right away .”
    Hester stopped
in the middle of reaching for another celery stick. “Well, I’m just the pinch-hitter
this week, Holly, can’t it wait?”
    “No, I don’t
think it can – Hester, I’m sorry, but we have a patron who insists we have a
blatant counterfeit in our exhibit!”
    *    
*     *
    “It’s a fake! It’s
a laughable fake, and I can’t believe the library would fall for this!”
    The hysterical
words echoed beneath the vintage leaded-glass domed skylight at the top of
Grand Central as the elevator door shuddered open and Hester stepped out.
    Dodging a small
crowd of curious onlookers that included an overexcited class of backpack-dragging
third graders from Oregon City, she tried to quash a wince as she recognized
the speaker as one of her lesser-favorite bookmobile patrons. Eldon Purdy wore
a smug sense of entitlement almost as regularly as he wore the slightly crushed
and sweat-stained Panama hat that perched now atop his stringy, black hair.
      The little man’s
face was blotchy with emotion as he leaned over a glass case that contained
part of the library’s display of Lewis and Clark artifacts, keyed to this year’s
Rose Festival theme. Holly Fontana, whose curly brown tresses ordinarily framed
a smiling and welcoming face, huddled next to him in a posture of
embarrassment, waggling her fingers to try to quiet his protests.
    “Mr. Purdy, what
seems to be the problem?” Hester cooed in her most patron-calming voice as she
strode across the marble floor.
    “Did you people
even look at this display before you opened it to the public or did you
just have trained monkeys put it together?” he blustered.
    Hester gave him
a frozen smile – a practiced expression that silently said, “Yes, I’m a public
servant, but I don’t have to respond to insults from annoying little men in
stupid hats.”
     She crossed her
arms and tapped her toe silently until he chose to elaborate.
    Finally, popeyed,
he pointed into the case at a display of first-day covers, some of the
McLoughlin Collection’s trove donated by Pieter van Dyke’s father.
    “I made a
special trip downtown just to see this – I’ve been a philatelist all my life,
and the Flying Canoe error printing of the Corps of Discovery 150 th anniversary issue of 1955 is second in rarity only to the famed Inverted
Jenny!”
    Ceasing her
tapping, Hester looked puzzled.
    “Oh, for
goodness sakes, surely any expert putting together an