Jo Dereske by Catalogue of Death

Author:Catalogue of Death [Death, Catalogue of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-04-25T17:44:28+00:00

The lights were off and the public area deserted.

No one staffed the circulation desk and the computer screens were dark. She was surprised that the library public had believed the sign. The world was so clut-tered with signs, she thought, that people had grown numb to them.

After she untaped and realigned the sign in the center of the door, she walked through the public area to the workroom, stopping to push in a chair and pick up a wrapper from a Coffee Nip caramel: Ms. Moon’s favorite candy.

The heat was still off and the air felt colder than outside. Helma could see her own breath as she made her way through the book- and box-crowded aisles of the quiet workroom to Ms. Moon’s office.

As if someone had shouted a warning that she was on her way, Ms. Moon sat at her desk, hands folded, facing the doorway and no surprise on her face at the sight of Helma stepping into her office. The electric heater hummed and glowed in the corner.

“Ah, Helma,” Ms. Moon said. “You’ve heard about Randall, I presume?”

“Yes,” Helma told her. “I have.”

Ms. Moon gazed deep into the middle distance, then brought her eyes back to Helma. “Since we still don’t have heat, I thought it was best to close for the day. I trust your meeting with Del Harrington was successful. Did you agree on a date for new negotiations, or,”

CATALOGUE OF DEATH

167

she beamed, “when an agreement could be finalized and signed?”

“I might have been better prepared if you’d informed me I’d be meeting with the entire Harrington family.”

Ms. Moon waved her hand as if Helma were mentioning trivialities. “It was the same issue whether you only spoke to Del or the whole clan.”

“Or,” Helma added, “that Del had refused to speak to you on the subject.”

“There are seasons when energy outflows don’t align.

Del recognized that—I admire him for his awareness.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Both the children were present?”

“Frances and Jay,” Helma supplied.

Ms. Moon nodded. “Currently single, I presume?”

“Both were alone,” Helma told her, and Ms. Moon sighed and nodded as if that fact made one less complication. “And the family’s amenable to the library being built on the site?”

“There are reservations,” Helma told her. “Del and his son talked of developing that area for condos.”

Ms. Moon shuddered. “Certainly not now, not right on top of the scene of their brother’s death. It would be like Poltergeist, don’t you agree?” A heavy vehicle rumbled past the library, but since Ms. Moon kept her drapes closed, it was impossible to identify it.

“I’ve not seen the movie Poltergeist,” Helma told her.

“The explosion was actually beside the excavation, not in it.”

“Still too close for condos,” Ms. Moon said.

“But if you’re superstitious about condos occupy-168

JO DERESKE

ing the site, don’t you feel apprehensive about a library being built on the same spot?” Helma asked. “It does now have an association with death.”

Ms. Moon laughed. “Oh no, a library’s different. No one would be actually living above death. That’s what upsets spirits,

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