Jo Dereske by Bookmarked to Die

Author:Bookmarked to Die
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-04-24T21:00:00+00:00

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216

JO DERESKE

In the public area, the origami exhibit had been removed from the display case in preparation for the displays Ms. Moon had ordered for Molly Bittern and Tanja Frost. Brightly twisted paper birds, animals, stars, and clever packages made from dual-colored paper sat in a cardboard box at the end of the checkout counter.

“Glory said to put these in your office,” Cheryl, one of the pages, said when she saw Helma standing in front of the box of jumbled origami.

“You may give the box to Ms. Moon,” Helma told her. “I believe she has assumed control of the displays.”

Dutch, who had worked at the circulation desk since his retirement from the military and had risen from part-time fill-in to the desk’s full commander, surveyed Helma and Cheryl as they spoke, his thumb-shaped head erect, chin lifted as if sniffing the air for hidden devices.

Dutch shadowed the periphery of every library occurrence, his aloof—one could say disinterested—

presence a discreet distance from the action. Dutch didn’t gossip; Helma didn’t gossip.

“Do you recall anyone delivering a sheaf of poetry yesterday for the Local Authors collection?” Helma asked him now. “Poetry by Molly Bittern?”

Dutch nodded and glanced at the wall clock behind the desk. “It was eleven fifteen. A woman brought it in.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“She didn’t identify herself,” Dutch said briskly.

Helma waited. Dutch looked both ways before he said in a quieter voice, “She was older, a little . . .

worn. My sense was that she was the dead woman’s mother.”

BOOKMARKED TO DIE

217

“Thank you,” Helma told him. “That’s very helpful.”

“It’s only the situation as observed,” Dutch said stiffly, beckoning toward a page who had stopped reshelving to talk to a boy her own age. The page jumped guiltily and returned to shelving in the 100s.

Dutch turned back to Helma. “I don’t believe displays of murdered women do any service to the library.”

Helma nodded neutrally and returned to her cubicle, stopping once as she walked through the public area when her keen eyes caught that once again someone had pulled several books on women’s rights from the 300s and tucked them into the 220.5s, in the midst of the library’s various versions of the Bible. She reshelved them and continued on her way.

Back in her cubicle Helma reopened the Bellehaven telephone book, this time to the Bs. There were two Bitterns listed: M. Bittern, who she guessed was Molly, and D. Bittern, no address. Once thought to have been a way of disguising someone’s sexual identity, now listings like these screamed out, “Woman Alone!”

The number for D. Bittern rang four times before a woman’s voice briskly said, “Yes?”

“Mrs. Bittern,” Helma said, taking her cue from the briskness of the woman’s voice. “This is Miss Helma Zukas from the Bellehaven Public Library. I’m responsible for the Local Authors project and I’d like to discuss your daughter’s poems that you delivered to the library yesterday.”

D. Bittern was silent but Helma heard the woman breathing. She waited patiently.

Finally the woman said, “Stepdaughter. What’s wrong with them?”

218

JO DERESKE

“Nothing.

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