B.B. Cantwell - Portland Bookmobile 02 - Corpse of Discovery by B.B. Cantwell Page A

with
finality.
    Hester, who had
been taking it all in with her chin in her hand, finally spoke up.
    “OK, I can see
that because Charbonneau is a printer he could have faked the first day cover –
but why add a third person? And how in Hades did he make the switch? I vaguely
recall Pim telling me he is a master printer and uses an art-quality technique
of some kind… But, I’ve met him. He’s not master-criminal material. It was the
third guy in the boat that tipped us off it was a fake.”
     “Lord knows, an
accomplice inside?” Darrow said. “But first tell me how much that first-day
cover was worth – the original. Was it worth stealing?”
    Hester blanched
and bit her lip.
    Darrow knitted
his brow and peered at her. “Hester?”
    “Oh, dear, this
isn’t going to play well for the library, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I suppose
it’s going to come out one way or another now.”
    Darrow waited
silently, drawing rings in the condensation on his beer bottle as he waited for
her to go on.
    Drawing a deep
breath, Hester forged on.
    “You know this
isn’t my department but it doesn’t take long to figure out that considering the
value of some of the artifacts in the McLoughlin Collection, the library has
woefully underinvested in security.”
    “That doesn’t
sound good,” Darrow said, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and
forefinger. “Come on, let’s have the bad news.”
    “Well, it’s
nothing definitive, but my Dad knows a stamp dealer out by Lloyd Center, so I
gave him a call this afternoon and he happened to have heard about a recent
auction of one of the few other ‘Flying Canoe’ covers,” Hester said.
     Gulping, she
added, “It sold for six figures. He was pretty sure it was over $250,000.”

 
    Chapter 15
     
     
    By the time he
left his job in the color-camera back shop at The Oregonian that night, Pomp
Charbonneau had solved several mini-crises that had threatened to stop the
Friday morning newspaper from going to press. 
    The sports
editor had been tearing out what little was left of his hair because a centerpiece
photo of an Oregon Ducks athlete had made the team colors appear to be brown
and orange instead of green and yellow.
     But the
full-page Meier & Frank department store ad in which the men’s briefs looked
Pepto-Bismol pink was the biggest challenge. Nobody was going to pay for that,
and it meant thousands to the newspaper.
    As usual, the
bosses had turned to their best print-shop wizard to save the day.
    On his 45-minute
drive home, Charbonneau made a quick stop at his private mailbox and was
pleased to find another order from a Portland artist for 25 giclée prints of
the oil paintings she made featuring montages of balsamroot blossoms, a
prolific wildflower that carpeted hillsides on the sunny side of the Columbia
Gorge.
    The headlights
of his old truck reflected on the silvery sides of his trailer and in the eyes
of a big raccoon as he pulled to a stop at the edge of a Willamette Valley vineyard.
Looking up, he saw the seven stars of the Pleiades pulsing in and out of focus
in the darkening sky.
    Charbonneau
stepped inside briefly, rummaged through his tiny fridge, pulled out a homemade
venison meat pie, popped it into the propane oven, and then set a plate of
yesterday’s leftovers on the front step for the raccoon before crossing his
clearing to a small barn.
    After a steamy shower
in the bathroom he’d plumbed himself, he rubbed a towel over his dark, wet hair
and pulled it back into a ponytail as he stepped into the cool sanctuary of his
winery, which occupied half the barn.
    Sniffing happily
at the heady sour-tart aroma of fermenting grapes, Charbonneau picked an old
canoe paddle off a hook on the wall, lifted a net of cheesecloth from atop a stainless
steel vat and vigorously stirred, breaking up the cap of grape skins and pulp
that had floated to the top of his newest red.
    While others
used special metal paddles purchased from wine-supply