Due for Discard Read online

  Due for Discard

  An Aimee Machado Mystery

  Sharon St. George

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  Camel Press

  PO Box 70515

  Seattle, WA 98127

  For more information go to: www.Camelpress.com

  www.sharonstgeorge.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Sabrina Sun

  Cover photo by Lowell Martinson

  Due for Discard

  Copyright © 2015 by Sharon St. George

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-223-8 (Trade Paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-224-5 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955947

  Produced in the United States of America

  * * *

  This book is dedicated with much love to John Higley, who understands full well the agony and ecstasy of writing and the irresistible call of yet another story.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my dear friend and exceptional critique partner Chloe Winston for her constructive suggestions and her steadfast belief in my characters and their world. To my brother George Souza for his scrupulous attention to police procedure and investigative details, and to his wife, Mary, for her patience with all of the phone calls. Thanks to Michael Cuming, a proofreader with an eagle eye. A special nod to Forensic Librarian Jeff Teitelbaum of the Washington State Patrol’s Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau for generously sharing his expertise. My deep appreciation goes to Jennifer McCord and Catherine Treadgold at Camel Press for their consummate editing skills and for believing in Due for Discard and The Machado Mysteries.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  I didn’t blame old Doolittle for spitting green slime in my face when I tripped over him in the dark. He was asleep at the bottom of the stairs outside my apartment, and spitting is what llamas do when they’re startled. I blamed Nick Alexander. It was his fault I was living in a llama pasture. After we broke up eight weeks ago, I moved out of his apartment and into the converted bunkhouse above my grandparents’ barn. It was the only option I could afford since I was struggling to pay off my graduate school loans.

  The llama incident happened on the first day of my new dream job and forced me to skip my good luck breakfast with Amah and Grandpa Jack in the main house. Instead, I raced back upstairs to repair the damage Doolittle had done. I took another shower, chose another outfit, redid my hair and makeup and still drove the eight miles from Coyote Creek to Timbergate by seven o’clock.

  I pulled into the Timbergate Medical Center lot with five minutes to spare and headed toward the employee entrance on foot. The Dumpster in the alley between the parking lot and the Happy Ox Café gave off a foul stench as I approached, so I held my breath and broke into a trot.

  When I reached the employee entrance, a paunchy, middle-aged security guard with thinning gray hair held his palm to my face.

  “Hold it, Missy. What’s your hurry?”

  “Had to run … smelly Dumpster.” I panted, trying to catch my breath. “Should I report it to someone?”

  “It’s not our Dumpster.” He glanced toward the alley. “Belongs to the Happy Ox.” The hot August morning already had stained the armpits of his khaki shirt. He pulled a crumpled red bandanna from his back pocket and mopped his brow.

  I reached for the door, but he side-stepped and blocked my entry. “Not so fast. What are you doing here?”

  “I work here.” I should have offered my hand, but he didn’t smell much better than the Dumpster. “I’m Aimee Machado, TMC’s new librarian. Today’s my first day.”

  The guard stuffed his kerchief into his pocket and hoisted his olive drab pants. As soon as he let go, they slid below his belly again. “Where’s your ID?”

  “It’s right here.” I reached in my purse for the name tag that Human Resources had given me on the day of my orientation tour.

  “You gotta wear it.” He tapped the badge on his shirt identifying him as Orrie Mercer.

  I pinned mine to my red silk blouse, hoping it wouldn’t snag.

  Mercer squinted at my name. “Mikado? That what you said?”

  “No. It’s pronounced Ma-SHAW-doe.”

  He studied my face with an appraising look. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  I understood the subtext of his question. You’re not exactly white, so what are you? My Portuguese/Chinese genes do cause people to wonder. With black hair and dark brown eyes that show a hint of my mother’s Asian blood, I’ve been mistaken for everything from Latino to Hawaiian. I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot before I got into the building, so I let it pass.

  “Actually, I am from around here. I’ve lived in Timbergate most of my life.” I waited a beat, and he finally pushed the door open and waved me inside.

  The encounter with the guard was disappointing, but it didn’t dampen my excitement. After college I had worked for four years at the Sawyer County Library and moonlighted as a medical transcriptionist while I saved up for graduate school. Finally, with the help of some hefty loans, I spent two years back east in New Haven, Connecticut, earning my master’s degree in Library and Information Science. It had taken another year to land this job, and I desperately needed the salary and benefits that came with it. The position of Health Sciences Librarian in a rural northern California hospital might not be a dream come true to most people, but it was tailor-made for me.

  It was my good luck that the governing board of Timbergate Medical Center had decided to add a forensic component to its library collection. I had chosen forensic resources as a special interest in library school, and that gave me an edge. I just hoped the TMC board understood the difference between a librarian and a crime scene investigator. The only crimes I was qualified to deal with involved overdue fines.

  After checking in with Human Resources, I started walking across the TMC complex to the library building where Dr. Vane Beardsley was waiting to show me around. Beardsley was the hospital’s current chief of staff and principal supporter of the library’s upgrades. Adding a component of forensic resources and sharing them with the money-strapped hospitals and law enforcement agencies in far northern California counties had been his brainchild.

  In our initial interview, he had explained that he donated the necessary start-up funding, but it would be up to me to implement the project. If I failed, he would not be inclined to throw good money after bad, but if the consortium he envisioned took off and appeared to be successful, he would continue to advocate for it and for my full-time salary and benefits.

  Beardsley knew his pet project would add something unique to Timbergate Medical Center’s image as a cutting-edge innovator in health care and community service. Rumor had it he was a major shareholder in the corporation that owned TMC, so what was good for the hospital was good for his portfolio. He had assured me that his designation as my supervisor was only a formality. Development of the forensic component was to be a priority, but he encouraged me to come up with other projects or ideas for the library and submit them for his approval.

  When I arrived at the library, Beardsley greeted me, looking every inch the successful physician. He stood close to six feet, wore a light gray suit tailored to perfection, and like many bald men, he sported facial hair. His red Van Dyke beard was salted with a hint of gray. If he caught a whiff of the Dumpster s
mell, he didn’t let on.

  “Congratulations again on your hire, Miss Machado. I hope your first day goes well.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m very glad to be here.”

  I was about to ask a few questions when he reached for his pager. He glanced at it, promised to be “back in a jiffy,” and hurried away. I assumed he was needed at his busy plastic surgery practice across town.

  Left alone, I looked around the deserted library. Housed in the medical center’s oldest building, it seemed larger than I remembered from the brief tour of the hospital on the day of my orientation. Grimy rectangular windows high on one wall shed feeble light on the scuffed floor tiles and pale green paint. Hanging fluorescent bars blinked intermittently, and rows of metal shelves held a jumble of medical texts and journals. A dozen state-of-the-art computers along the back wall seemed out of place in their bleak surroundings. The smell of book dust filled the room, and several large boxes filled with outdated books and periodicals bore the stamp: DUE FOR DISCARD.

  The dismal condition of the space made it evident that the position I was hired for had gone vacant far too long. I had a lot to do to make the library relevant and welcoming to patrons, but I looked forward to the challenge.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Beardsley still hadn’t returned, so I sat down at an aging oak desk in the middle of the room. It held a name plate reading Library Director. I figured they’d put my name on it at the end of my probationary period. Six months should pass in a flash.

  I had just used my newly assigned password to boot up the computer when a heady fragrance wafted my way followed by a wiry middle-aged woman no taller than my own five feet, four inches. She wore the peach-colored jacket of the auxiliary volunteers, and her hair color matched her jacket perfectly. Behind thick-lensed glasses, her eyes protruded in a classic presentation of overactive thyroid. Exophthalmos. Like many of the words I learned in my medical terminology course, it’s hard to spell, but fun to pronounce.

  “Hello, young lady, I’m Maybelline Black, auxiliary. You must be Miss Machado.”

  “Yes, I am.” As I offered my hand, I couldn’t help thinking of the mascara wand in my makeup case. “I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Black.”

  “Same here. Call me Maybelline.” The strength in her bony grip surprised me.

  “And you can call me Aimee. Dr. Beardsley was called away, so I thought I’d have a look through the library’s online databases while I wait for him to return.”

  “Good idea,” she said, “but I’m afraid he’s been detained.”

  “I see.” I didn’t, but I wanted to sound polite since this woman was one of my volunteers, and it’s never a good idea to get on their bad side. “How long will he be?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I shouldn’t say anything more.” Maybelline’s orbs held the gleam of an incorrigible gossip bursting with juicy news.

  “I’m sure it’s okay,” I said. “I signed a confidentiality clause when I was hired.” If there was sensitive business that involved my new boss, I wanted to know sooner rather than later.

  “Well then, I suppose I can tell you.” She leaned close and whispered, “His wife is missing. Since Friday night. He’s talking to the police.”

  His wife was missing? I’d been on the job for twenty minutes, and my supervisor was being questioned by the police? A spitting llama, a smelly Dumpster, and now this? My dream job was getting off to a rocky start.

  “That’s awful,” I said. “He must be terribly worried.”

  “I don’t know why he should be. She’s a flighty sort. His second wife, not the first. They always want someone younger when they … well, she was young. She set her cap for him right from the start. Didn’t care that he was married. Poor Lorraine—his ex—didn’t have a chance.”

  The staccato delivery made her story hard to follow, but I picked up the important thread. “You mentioned the police. Do they think she’s been abducted or something?”

  “It seems far-fetched to me, but there’s talk about foul play. Bonnie Belle didn’t show up for her tennis lesson or her acrylic nail appointment.”

  “Bonnie Belle? Not Beardsley?”

  “Bonnie Belle is her professional name.” Maybelline glanced around, looking apprehensive. “I’d best not say more.”

  She left, assuring me she’d find a stand-in for Dr. Beardsley, but who could that be when Beardsley was the reason I had been hired?

  While I waited alone again, I put my favorite family photo on a corner of my desk. It had been taken a few months earlier when my younger brother, Harry, and I visited our parents in the Azores where they had just retired. Harry had charmed the young Portuguese women with his handsome Eurasian face and a body toned to perfection from years of martial arts. He got one of the few tall genes in the family, passing me when he was twelve and finally topping out at just over six feet. He loved reminding me that his big sister had to look up to him.

  With my photo family in place, I felt more at home in my new surroundings and ready to get to work. I needed this job and wanted to prove what I could do for Timbergate Medical Center.

  I didn’t know much about Dr. Beardsley, except that his seed money had covered the cost of the library’s new computers and a first year budget for the anticipated collection of forensic resources. In return, the medical center’s governing board agreed to spring for a library director with an MLIS. Beardsley’s backing had made my plum job possible, but excitement about my first day of work couldn’t keep me from wondering what happened to his wife and hoping it was nothing serious. Maybelline had mentioned foul play, and our area did have its share of serious crime, partly due to our location on the I-5 corridor. Overcrowded jails and strained law enforcement budgets compounded the problem.

  With a population of a hundred thousand, Timbergate wasn’t a metropolis, but it was the largest city between Sacramento and the Oregon border. For decades, med school graduates had been drawn to our nearby lakes and spectacular mountains. The economy was driven by outdoor recreation and medicine, the same two subjects that drove me.

  My thoughts drifted back to Dr. Beardsley’s missing wife. Surely there was some innocent explanation. I was wondering what it might be when Maybelline returned alone.

  “I couldn’t find anyone else to meet with you just now, Miss Machado. Our administrator is out of town, and the assistant administrator is in a meeting.” Apparently, she wasn’t comfortable using my first name, so I didn’t insist.

  “Thanks for trying, Maybelline. I’m sure Dr. Beardsley will be back soon. I have enough work to keep me busy in the meantime.”

  “I’d be happy to help,” she said. “I’m assigned to work with you every Monday and Wednesday morning. When I get back from my rounds, I’ll show you the ropes.”

  Maybelline explained that her primary duty was the in-house bookmobile. Before I could raise the Bonnie Beardsley topic again, she had wrestled her book cart out the door.

  I made good progress shelving new books and journals, but there had been no sign of Dr. Beardsley by the time Maybelline returned at noon. I asked her to join me for lunch, thinking I might benefit from her perspective on the hospital and its employees.

  My self-appointed mentor led me through a maze of corridors to the cafeteria where we both chose the lasagna. We found a table to ourselves near an east-facing window with a view of the Cascade Range. In spite of our scorching August heat, random patches of snow still clung to the jutting gray slopes of Lassen Peak and Brokeoff Mountain.

  Around a mouthful of pasta, Maybelline said, “Bonnie’s run off with some man.”

  I waited a beat while a tremor of anticipation washed over me. On the curiosity scale, my grandmother Amah says I’m off the charts. She thinks it’ll get me in trouble someday. I respectfully disagree. What good is a librarian who isn’t curious? I wanted to hear more about Maybelline’s theory, and she was obviously bursting to tell me.

  “Then you d
on’t think she’s been abducted?”

  “No, more likely she’s run off.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s a bad seed. Her parents, Jed and Dora Belcher, had trouble with her right from the get-go. Menopause baby. Only child. Spoiled from all that money Jed made with his nuts.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Her daddy owned the almond orchards at the south end of the county. You’ve probably seen them from the freeway.”

  “I have.” Curious, I waited for Maybelline to continue.

  “Well, Jed and Dora were good folks. Well-to-do, but they lived a simple life. Not Bonnie. She was fast. They sent her to one of those boarding schools for troubled teens, but she ran off with a delivery truck driver. Married at eighteen, pregnant, but lost it.

  “How sad,” I said.

  “Maybe, but it didn’t slow Bonnie down. Left her husband for a traveling musician. Anyway, she was home again a year later. Her folks got her marriage annulled and put her in a drug rehab center. She was picked up on a DUI the week after she got out. That’s when Jed and Dora cut her off.”

  “And they never relented?”

  “Not another dime. They sold out, retired to Florida, and lived off the proceeds. Both of them are gone now.”

  “How did Bonnie get by?”

  “On her looks. She’s a real beauty. She did some modeling and lots of local TV commercials.” Maybelline paused for a sip of water, then went on. “After that, she got herself hired as a TV spokeswoman. That’s when she changed her name. You can’t be calling yourself Belcher on TV. I guess she thought Bonnie Belle was a good name for a celebrity.”