The Confidence Woman

by Judith Van GIeson

  Celia loved opera and her enthusiasm drew Claire in and left her feeling she’d been diverted and charmed for a few hours.

  They walked to Celia’s car, which she had parked near the theater. Celia gave Claire a ride back to the Hyatt, letting her off at the front door on Tijeras. Claire said good night and walked through the revolving door feeling she was leaving Albuquerque behind and entering another city, Phoenix, perhaps, which had its share of elegant hotels. She intended to walk across the lobby and take the elevator at the rear of the building to the underground parking lot. As she stepped from the revolving door, she saw Elizabeth and Brian walking toward the elevators that went up to the guest rooms. They were about the same height and they looked good together. Elizabeth whispered something in his ear and he laughed. The elevator door opened, then closed behind them.

  Claire went to the elevator banks and watched the buttons to see where the elevator stopped. She took the next elevator to that floor feeling like a private eye tracking a philandering spouse. A convex mirror was mounted high in the elevator. She could see her reflection in the mirror, but the convexity distorted it enough to make her wonder if she was who she pretended to be, the quiet, intellectual Claire Reynier or a snoop who was following an old friend to a hotel assignation? She reminded herself that she was doing it because she was a murder suspect, not because she was a voyeur. Still she was embarrassed by the tingle of excitement she felt when the elevator reached the floor and the door opened. It was in her power to let the door close again and push the down button, but she didn’t do it. She held the door open with her hand and, as discreetly as possible, peered into the hallway trying to think of some reasonable excuse if she was noticed.

  She saw Elizabeth and Brian enter a room with their arms around each other, whispering and laughing. The door closed softly and clicked shut behind them. Claire took the elevator back down, all too aware of its sinking motion. She had witnessed something she had never experienced herself—the excitement of an illicit encounter in a hotel room. Sex in your own bed with your own mate was bound to seem dull in comparison. She felt flushed as she walked across the Hyatt lobby hoping no one would notice her. No one did. She took the elevator at the rear of the building down to the depths of the hotel parking lot. She didn’t like underground lots, especially at night. Usually her antennae out for shadows and suspicious people, but tonight her mind was full of what she had just witnessed. She got in her truck and drove home still under the erotic spell of Elizabeth and Brian.

  ******

  It was too warm for a fire, almost warm enough to sleep with the window open. After Claire got into bed, she thought about opening it, but she didn’t feel like getting out of bed again. As she drifted into the suburb surrounding the city of sleep, she had the sensation that Brian (or was that Jess?) was in bed with her. She didn’t want either of those men. She didn’t want John in her bed, and she certainly didn’t want Evan back. Still it would be nice to have someone. For a while she had enjoyed the freedom and the room of sleeping alone, but by now her bed felt empty. It was an idle exercise, but she had no one to answer to so she indulged herself. If she could pick anyone in the world to bring to her bed, who would it be? She had been thinking so much about the years in the sorority house that her mind naturally gravitated to that time. She remembered the semester she had spent in Europe and North Africa at the beginning of her junior year. She remembered Pietro Antonelli, the Italian student she met in Spain. She left her girlfriends behind and traveled with him through Spain, Morocco, France and Italy. In many ways that had been the happiest period of her life. She loved Pietro’s company, his spirit of adventure and his sense of humor. She liked the freedom of the open road and a day with no plans. But they quarreled in Venice and parted company. She returned to the U of A and met Evan. What had become of Pietro? she wondered as she drifted into a sleep surrounded not by a suburb but by a medina in Morocco with streets as narrow as alleys and souks where craftsmen were dying yarn and tanning leather.

  In the morning she practiced tai chi, made a cup of coffee and took it into her courtyard. She needed to think and the walls of her courtyard were better for thinking than the riot of her rose garden. The green shoots of a datura plant were poking through the ground, and soon the courtyard would be putting on a performance of its own, but right now there was nothing to distract her from the sunlight, shadow and texture of her adobe wall. There wasn’t any wind this morning. Claire stared at the line of demarcation where sunlight ended and shadow began and thought about what she had witnessed at the Hyatt. Elizabeth was having an affair with Brian. Maybe it was only a pleasant diversion when she came to New Mexico, food for her hungry ego, but she wouldn’t want Jess to know about it. It was a rare person who wanted an affair to be discovered. She wondered if Brian was the good-looking man Ginny had seen Elizabeth with, not Jess. If Brian was the person Elizabeth had had dinner with, not Ginny. She was more likely to have spent several hours dining with Brian than with Ginny. She needed an alibi for that night. She might well have paid for the dinner with Brian, and she wouldn’t want Jess to know she’d had dinner with him. She got to Ginny before Amaral did and concocted an alibi for both of them. It covered her, at least for the important part of the evening, but it didn’t cover Ginny.

  While Claire pondered the alibi issue, the shadow slid across her courtyard wall. Shadows caused by sunlight were always in motion. She blinked and focused on her own emotions. Was that sinking feeling she experienced when she saw Elizabeth and Brian enter the room the elevator shaft of envy? Was envy a natural response for women who had known each other thirty years ago? Would a woman always be comparing her condition in life to that of her former friends? Elizabeth had everything a woman might desire on the worldly plain. She had looks, money, children and sex, but she didn’t have something that Claire valued—tranquility.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHEN THE OTHER SHOE DROPPED A FEW DAYS LATER and Amaral showed up in her office, tranquility went out the window. Claire wasn’t entirely surprised to see him. She knew the saying “be careful what you wish for because it might come true” could be revised to “be careful what you feared,” because that also had a way of coming true. Once she saw Amaral, she realized that on a subliminal level she had been expecting him. She was working on the computer when she felt a shadow cross her window. Thinking it was Harrison, she didn’t look up.

  “Ms. Reynier?” Amaral said in his soft voice.

  Claire spun around in her desk chair and saw him standing in the doorway. “Detective Amaral?” she asked. She considered it an invasion for him to come to her office without stopping at the information desk to announce his presence. “What are you doing here?”

  He stepped into her office and stood in front of her desk while she remained seated. It gave him the advantage of towering over her, but she was too stunned to get up. “I have received information that The Confidence-Man you claimed was stolen from your house is here in your office.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Claire said.

  “May I take a look?”

  “If you must.”

  The absurdity of this search allowed Claire to lean back in her chair while Amaral went to the bookshelves on the side wall to examine her books. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he turned toward the shelves on the wall behind Claire. His eyes looked across her shoulder and landed on one particular book.

  “Would you hand me that copy of The Scarlet Letter, please?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a copy of The Scarlet Letter.”

  “Yes, you do.” He reached over her shoulder, took a book from the shelf and showed Claire that it wore the jacket of the Modern Library edition of The Scarlet Letter.

  “That’s not my book,” Claire protested.

  Amaral ignored her while he removed the dust jacket, placed it on her desk, then displayed the spine of the book. It was bound in full brown morocco, gilt-stamped with raised bands. The golden letters read “The Conf
idence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville.”

  “Good God,” Claire said.

  “There’s no need to put on a performance for me, Ms. Reynier.”

  “I am not performing.” Her shock at having The Confidence-Man appear in her office masquerading as The Scarlet Letter was genuine.

  “My informant warned me that you were concealing your book beneath the cover of The Scarlet Letter.”

  “And who exactly is this informant?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Do you suppose that the reason you found the book exactly where your informant said it would be is because your informant put it there? It was easy enough for you to walk in here unnoticed, wasn’t it? Someone else did the same thing and put that book on my shelf when I was out.” The task would have been even easier, Claire thought, if that person knew when she would be out.

  “Don’t you lock your door when you’re not here?”

  “Not necessarily,” Claire said. People at the center were lax about security. The solidity of the massive Pueblo revival-style building made the people who worked there feel sheltered and safe. She had been robbed while at work, but the theft had been from her truck, not her office. “If that book is a first edition, it has been rebound. It wasn’t originally printed with a full morocco binding and gilt letters,” she said, trying to keep any hint of sarcasm from her voice. She didn’t want to suggest that Amaral was ignorant about rare books, even though it happened to be true. “My book was in the original binding.”

  Amaral’s eyes behind the wire-rimmed lenses were doubtful, and she realized that the only description he had of her book was the one she had given him. Unlike valuable paintings, books rarely came with a chain of title. She hadn’t mentioned the binding when she described the book to him; she didn’t think it was significant. She had mentioned Melville’s signature, however.

  “Would you open the book?” she asked him.

  Amaral obliged.

  “Go to the title page, please. That’s the page where you should find Melville’s signature, if this book has a signature.”

  Amaral turned to the page and showed it to Claire. She saw a signature that read “Herman Melville,” but she wasn’t convinced Melville had put it there. She needed to see it at closer range.

  “May I examine it?” she asked Amaral. If it was her book, it would already have her fingerprints on it, but if it wasn’t she would be a fool to put them there. “I won’t put any prints on it,” she added. “I have gloves in my desk that we use when we examine rare and valuable documents.”

  Amaral agreed. She reached into her desk, took out a pair of white gloves, inserted her fingers into them and accepted the book, balancing it in her hands for a moment, sniffing it and feeling its weight. She closed her eyes; in Claire’s experience, dulling one sense made the others more acute. Librarians often developed a sixth sense about books. Some believed they could tell where a book had been by its smell. Others could remember exactly where on a page they read something. Claire wasn’t an expert on odors, but she thought this book had a vaguely musty smell, as if it had spent time in a damper place. Her books did not have a musty smell, but her Confidence-Man had been gone long enough to have picked up that odor somewhere else. It didn’t take long, Claire knew, for a book to smell musty. She opened her eyes and studied the signature. Her first impression was that it was not Melville’s signature and, therefore, not her book. But that was also what she wanted to believe, and she had to find a way to support her conclusion with logic.

  “That’s not an authentic signature,” she said. “In fact it is a poor imitation.”

  “And why is that?” Amaral replied with amusement dancing behind his wire-rimmed lenses.

  Before she answered him, she checked the copyright page and ascertained that this was the same edition as her book, although it couldn’t be the same signature. “This book and mine were both published in 1857. This book has been rebound since then. Most likely my book was signed near the time it was published, but, if not, it was definitely signed in Melville’s lifetime. He died in 1891. This isn’t an old signature. The ink isn’t faded or cracked as it would be in a book that was signed so long ago. The age of the ink would be enough to ascertain that Melville didn’t sign it, but if you want further proof, this signature doesn’t have the peaks and valleys of Melville’s writing. It is not his M. It’s not his e.” Claire was winging this to some extent, working from memory since she didn’t have an authentic signature in front of her for comparison. “Melville was a deep and complicated man. This is the signature of a more shallow person. I know a handwriting expert in Santa Fe quite capable of proving this signature is a fraud. I’d be happy to give you his name if you’re not willing to accept my opinion.”

  “Would an expert you recommend be capable of giving an unbiased opinion, Ms. Reynier?” Amaral’s precise way of speaking had become intimidating. Instead of smoothing and polishing his words before he released them, he seemed to be dicing them with a knife, a knife that was wrapped in a velvety smooth scabbard, but still a knife.

  “Yes. Reputation is everything in his business. But if you don’t trust him, find somebody else. There are a number of experts capable of establishing that signature is a fraud.” The temperature was rising in her voice. She tried to lower the volume so as not to let Amaral know how angry she was or attract the attention of anyone passing by.

  “And if someone were to establish that signature is a fraud, what would that prove?” he asked.

  “That this book is not my Confidence-Man.”

  “Isn’t it possible the signature in your book was a fraud?”

  “I wouldn’t have a book in my house that was a fraud.”

  “Do you have any documentation to prove that?”

  All Claire had for authentication was the word of the person who sold it to her twenty years ago, a book dealer she knew then and trusted, a book dealer who was now dead. “Not really.”

  “Are you aware that your book was the only object on Evelyn Martin’s list that was not found in her house?”

  If you re implying that I went to her house and took my book back, you’re wrong. This is not my book. I never went to see Evelyn Martin. I was never in her house. Even if I took the book, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t be dumb enough to keep it in my office.”

  “It was well hidden, though, wasn’t it?”

  Amaral seemed to be enjoying this investigation, reminding Claire of a comment she once heard from a former Albuquerque policewoman that she was thrilled when she found a criminal who had given a crime more than five minutes’ thought. Whoever had perpetrated this hoax had given it considerable thought. The author of The Scarlet Letter was Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville’s neighbor near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was a fact that might be known to anyone who had taken a college-level course in American lit, but apparently not to the detective. Claire didn’t think it would serve her purpose to tell him.

  “That book was hidden from me, perhaps, but not from you,” she said. “You knew exactly where to look; but I had no idea it was on my shelf. Someone is trying to frame me. If you could find that person, you would find your murderer. Test the book for fingerprints. If it was the book that Evelyn stole, you should find her fingerprints on it. You won’t find mine on it, because I never owned that book.”

  “We would like to have your fingerprints on file for comparison, but lack of fingerprints on the book won’t prove that it is not your copy.”

  “Why not?” asked Claire.

  “You were wearing white gloves when you handled it here. You were wearing white gloves when you handled it at home.”

  Claire looked down at her hands still encased in the type of gloves debutantes wore to coming-out parties, gloves that made her appear young and foolish, gloves that she had put on voluntarily. She felt as if she had just put her fingers into quicksand. Every move she made to escape had the effect of sinking her deeper. The time she had been dreading had arrived.
The time had come to hire a lawyer.

  “I won’t talk to you any further until I have a lawyer,” she said.

  “That’s your prerogative. Please ask whoever you hire to get in touch with me.” He paused and looked over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m sure whoever that is will advise you to have no further contact with the witness, Ms. Reynier.”

  Claire considered that remark the parting slice of the knife.

  Amaral picked up the book, put the Scarlet Letter jacket back on, inserted it in a clear-plastic evidence bag and walked out of her office, nearly colliding with Harrison Hough in the hallway.

  “Excuse me,” Harrison said. “Have we met? I am Harrison Hough, the director of the center.”

  “Detective Dante Amaral with the Santa Fe Police Department,” he said, extending his hand.

  “My pleasure,” Harrison replied. He shook Amaral’s hand then continued down the hallway, acting as if he had very important matters on his mind. Claire knew she would hear from him later.

  She shut the door, closed the blinds and sat down at her desk. The books on her walls that fueled her imagination and provided insulation from the outer world no longer seemed so inspiring or comforting. In fact she had the sensation that they were closing in on her. She felt that if she stayed in her office one minute longer the books would tumble from the shelves and bury her under the pages. She got up and left the office, locking her door behind her. She walked down the hallway and through the wrought-iron door of the center without seeing anyone. All the offices she passed were empty. Usually she walked out past the information desk that faced the Anderson Reading Room and through the gallery. Today she took the other route, down the hallway past the Willard Reading Room and the murals that were considered racist. At the end of the hallway she turned right, walked down another hallway that led past restrooms and a shop where the library sold books they no longer wanted. This path led her to an exterior door. It was a path anyone could have taken to reach her office unnoticed. It would have required only seconds to place the bogus Scarlet Letter on her shelf. If the person had been noticed or caught, she could have said she was a friend leaving a gift for Claire. Although “acquaintance” would be a more accurate word. A friend would not be framing her for murder. Claire had no doubt that it was either someone she knew—someone who had also been a suspect in the death of Evelyn Martin—or that person’s representative.