The Confidence Woman

by Judith Van GIeson

  She thought about Ginny, Elizabeth, Miranda and Lynn. All had motives. All had means. Elizabeth had been in Albuquerque. Ginny lived nearby. Lynn and Miranda were quite capable of getting to Albuquerque if need be. They had all provided Amaral with alibis for the night in question. All of them could know by now that she didn’t have an alibi. Either she had told them herself or they had told each other. They all knew Evelyn had stolen her copy of The Confidence-Man. She hadn’t told Miranda to her face but she had told her husband, Erwin. It might be expensive for someone to locate a first edition, but it wasn’t impossible.

  She went out the door, circled around the building to the duck pond and sat down on the ground. The massive walls of the library kept it connected to the earth, but it had a tower that reached for the sky. It was the university’s signature building. Claire looked into the water and watched the tower’s reflection ripple and shift. All she had to do to set it in motion was disturb the surface tension by tossing something into the water. She picked up a stone, threw it in the pond and watched the tower dissolve under the impact. She believed that a signature could reflect the state of mind of the author. If that were the case, what would her state of mind—which was currently as muddled as the tower’s reflection—do to the memory of a signature? Now that she was out of her office, she wasn’t as confident about the signature as she had been in front of Amaral. She had accepted the original as Melville’s because she trusted the dealer she bought it from, but she had never examined the signature. How could she be so positive the book Amaral had wasn’t her book rebound in full brown morocco? And if it wasn’t, where was her book? Evelyn must have disposed of it in some way. If she had sold it, it should turn up sooner or later, unless it ended up in the hands of a collector who just stuck it on a shelf. She waited until the water settled down and the reflection of the tower mirrored the original, then she went back to her office and called the three dealers she knew.

  When she asked if they had heard anything about the book, the answers were no, no, and no, but they all told her that Amaral had been in touch with them and they would have to notify him if the book surfaced. No one had sold an unsigned first edition recently. No one had seen one rebound in full brown morocco. Only Brett Moon had anything new to pass on.

  “Your boss called and told me that if I ever came across a signed first edition of The Confidence-Man, he’d like to buy it no matter what the price.”

  “Harrison said that?” Claire knew she worked in a backstabbing profession, but she hadn’t anticipated this particular stab. “You know that if you do come across one, it will be my book.”

  “I told him that. He said he would discuss it with you at the time.”

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Claire said.

  “Glad to help,” Brett replied.

  Claire pondered this latest betrayal. Harrison had already told her of his interest in the book. He had no right to go around her back to Brett Moon. To be fair, all Harrison knew was that a valuable book had been stolen from her. He didn’t know Claire was the subject of a murder investigation unless someone else had told him. Claire knew she would have to confront Harrison sooner or later. She locked her door and walked down the hall to his office.

  She found him at his desk writing on a legal pad. Claire had seen enough of his handwriting to know that it was small, cramped and pinched, reflecting his permanently sour mood. On the shelf behind his desk he had a folk art sculpture of death pulling a cart. To Claire it appeared to be floating over his head like the clouds floating over the heads of characters in comic books. She saw it as a hieroglyphic expressing Harrison’s gloomy state of mind.

  Before he could say a word, she said, “Brett Moon told me you asked him to let you know if he found a signed first edition of The Confidence-Man. If that book shows up, Harrison, it will be my book.”

  “Did you own the only signed first edition in existence?” he asked.

  “Not the only one, but there are very few and mine has probably been sold recently.”

  Harrison picked up a letter opener that lay on his desk and began turning it over in his fingers. “What was that book that Detective Amaral was holding?”

  “It was a signed first edition of The Confidence-Man, but it wasn’t my book.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The binding was different. The signature was fraudulent.”

  “Where did Amaral get it?”

  “Someone hid it in my office, then told him it was there.”

  “It had a dust jacket, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. The person who put it in my office hid it behind a Scarlet Letter dust jacket.”

  “Interesting place to conceal it. Did you know that Hawthorne was Melville’s neighbor?”

  “Of course,” Claire said.

  “Let me make sure I understand.” Harrison poked the desk with the tip of his pen. “Someone took an authentic signed first edition from your house and someone else put a book with a forged signature in your office?”

  “Yes,” Claire replied, realizing how absurd it sounded.

  “I would say whoever did that had a lot of confidence but not much common sense.”

  It was his attempt at a joke, but Claire didn’t laugh. She knew she would have to tell him the whole story now. He had met Amaral; he could contact the detective directly if he chose to. “Evelyn Martin, the woman who stole the book from me, was found murdered in her house in Santa Fe. She also stole from some other friends. One of them is trying to frame me by making it appear that I went to her house and took my book back.”

  Harrison’s mind made the leap she had expected it would. He wasn’t dumb, just dull. His mind tended to get stuck in well-worn ruts. “You are the subject of a murder investigation?” he asked. His tone was incredulous, but he didn’t seem to be blaming her. To the contrary, he seemed intrigued. His eyes had that light that comes from curiosity about another human being, a light that Claire rarely saw in Harrison’s eyes.

  “I am,” Claire admitted. “But I intend to hire a lawyer. I’m sure it will all be cleared up.”

  “I never would have suspected you would be capable of murder.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Are you aware that the subject of The Confidence-Man is the existential enigma of the self?”

  “Yes,” Claire replied, “so you said.”

  “And now you have become an enigma yourself.”

  “Not to me. I know who I am.” In her mind Claire finished that phrase with and I know what I have accomplished. “On the other hand, Evelyn Martin and the other women she robbed have become enigmas to me,” she said. It was a more personal and revealing comment than she had ever made to Harrison.

  “And one of them is framing you?”

  “Most likely,” Claire said.

  “That’s rather insidiously implicative.”

  It was another one of those vaguely familiar phrases that Harrison used, but to Claire’s surprise he seemed to be supporting her. She’d been afraid that his discovering she’d been accused of murder might cost her her job.

  “Keep me informed,” Harrison said. “If the detective needs a character reference, I will be happy to provide one.”

  “Thank you,” Claire said. She walked back to her office feeling buoyed by Harrison’s support.

  ******

  Claire’s dreams were often puzzles with words for clues. Sometimes she solved the puzzles in her dreams; more often she did not. That night she had a dream in which she saw the words existential enigma in a handwriting that was cramped and pinched. She woke up with the puzzle unsolved but the words on her mind and a recollection of where she might have seen them. She went to her office, turned on the reading light and looked through the Oxford edition of The Confidence-Man with the introduction by Jeffrey Omer. She skimmed it like a stone skipping across water, hopping from paragraph to paragraph until the phrase “existential enigma of the self” leapt out at her. She continued skimming unti
l she found the phrase “insidiously implicative,” as well as numerous “to be sure’s.” Jeffrey Omer was a middle-aged critic when Harrison was a young graduate student. Had Harrison read Omer’s work so often that certain phrases got stuck in his mind? If that was the case, he’d gotten far more intimate with his source than a scholar ought to be. Harrison was turning out to be another enigma wrapped in a riddle. With her mind full of questions, Claire went back to bed and wrapped herself in sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WHEN SHE GOT TO WORK IN THE MORNING, Claire called Sally Froelich, a lawyer who had represented her on another matter.

  “How are you?” Sally asked.

  “All right,” Claire replied.

  “Are things going well at the center?”

  “Yes and no,” Claire replied. “Work is fine, but I’m the subject of a murder investigation.”

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  “How on earth did that happen?”

  Claire explained.

  “I would love to represent you,” Sally said, “but I don’t do criminal law. My specialty is wills and probate, stiffs and gifts. I can recommend someone if you like.”

  “Please,” Claire said.

  Sally gave her the name of Sid Hyland, a well-known criminal lawyer seen often on TV.

  “Do you think he would represent me?” she asked. “I’m not exactly a high-profile client.”

  “Not all of Sid’s clients make the evening news. I think he’ll be intrigued by you. You’re a better class of suspect than he usually gets. Sid’s a cowboy and he can be overbearing, but he’s one of the best criminal lawyers in town. If I were you, I’d give him a chance.”

  ******

  Sid Hyland lived up to his reputation as a cowboy by wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a bolo tie on the day Claire met him in his office. She was sure that when he left the office, he’d put on the cowboy hat lying on top of his bookcase. She noticed that the bookcase contained nothing but legal books. If he was a reader, his office gave no evidence of that fact. Sid’s office was rather spare, unlike Sally’s, which was as comfortable as a living room. He had a diploma from UNM Law School on the wall, a massive wooden desk stained dark brown, the bookshelves—also stained dark brown—and that was it. His gray hair skimmed the edge of his collar. He was a big man, long legged and broad shouldered. Claire thought that one day she would meet a big man secure enough that he felt no need to dominate, a man as large and gentle as a bear, but it wasn’t Sid Hyland, Like other big men Claire had known, he dominated the room and the conversation. Listening ought to be a useful skill for a defense attorney, but it was a skill Hyland appeared not to have developed. He seemed more interested in the sound of his own voice than he did in hers. Halfway through her comments his attention wandered, and once that happened Claire’s sentences began to droop and lose their focus. She supposed his forceful manner would be effective at intimidating the prosecution and the jury, but hoped it wasn’t the only note he knew how to play. Intimidation might not be the best strategy with Amaral. Beneath his deferential manner, the detective was a man capable of sidling away from other people’s agendas.

  “Now tell me why a classy lady like yourself would be accused of murder,” Hyland said.

  As Claire attempted to tell him, he peppered the conversation with interruptions and advice. She should have hired him sooner. She should never have talked to Amaral without a lawyer. She shouldn’t have let Amaral into her office. She should have insisted he get a warrant before she let him take the book.

  Claire supposed Hyland would bill her by the minute or a fraction thereof. She struggled to get her story out and to make herself understood.

  “I met Amaral’s witness, and—”

  “You met the witness?” he asked, leaning forward and making her want to back her chair away, the same way a prosecutor could make her feel. “How did that happen?”

  “I went to the house at the time of day I was supposed to have—”

  “What time was that?”

  “Dusk. A woman ran by. I stopped her and asked—”

  “What did she see?”

  “A woman with frosted hair who could have been any of us. But she said one woman was a size fourteen and the other a twelve.”

  “What size are you?”

  “Ten.”

  “It’s not wise to talk to a witness. The prosecution could accuse you of putting words in her mouth.”

  “It won’t happen again. I don’t think she’ll make a good witness for the prosecution.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was dusk, there were a lot of shadows, she couldn’t see that well. A defense attorney should be able to make something out of that on the witness stand.”

  “My object is not to put anyone on the witness stand. You may have seen me on the evening news, but most of the people I represent never go to trial. Here you have a badly decomposed body discovered weeks later, making it impossible for the prosecution to establish an exact time of death. Nevertheless it would be helpful if you had an alibi for the evening the runner saw the women arguing.”

  “I was home alone.”

  “Did you make any long-distance phone calls? Speak to someone who could confirm your whereabouts?”

  “I’ll check my bill. I don’t believe some of the other suspects’ alibis. Elizabeth and Ginny claim they had dinner together in Santa Fe. Elizabeth has a credit card receipt, but I doubt she had dinner with Ginny. They don’t like each other. I think Elizabeth actually had dinner with a lover in Santa Fe but doesn’t want her lover in Tucson to know. That leaves Ginny with no alibi. Miranda Kohl claims she was on location, but I don’t know how Amaral established that fact. Miranda is an actress filming a new TV series and—”

  “What about the other woman?”

  “Lynn? She says she was home with her husband.”

  “In my experience a significant other will do anything possible to protect a mate. It’s quite a complicated scheme to find another copy of The Confidence-Man, fake a signature, then hide that book in your office. It’s possible that whoever is trying to frame you had help and the help came from a husband or a lover.”

  Until now that thought had been as ephemeral as a moth outside the window, a possibility Claire had not wanted to consider. Hearing Hyland put it into words made her realize it was a possibility she had to consider.

  “If that isn’t your book, what do you suppose happened to your copy of The Confidence-Man?”

  “I assume that Evelyn sold it, and I’m hoping that sooner or later it will turn up on the rare book market.”

  “It would help if we could find it. Presumably Evelyn’s prints and your prints will be on it to establish chain of custody and ownership. Are your prints on the book that was found in your office?”

  “I wore gloves when I handled it.”

  Hyland leaned back in his chair and crossed the foot of one leg over the thigh of the other. He turned his full attention on Claire and she saw how powerful a force it could be when focused. “Is there any possibility your fingerprints will be found in the victim’s house?” he asked.

  “It’s possible I touched a wall or a window outside, but I never went inside,” Claire said. “Evelyn could have taken something else from my house. A glass, for example, or a pencil, something I wouldn’t have missed that had my fingerprints on it.”

  “I won’t allow Amaral to fingerprint you until he charges you, and my goal is to prevent him from charging you. At the moment I think his case is weak.”

  “Is there anything I can do to clear my name? Waiting for Amaral to come after me is a very uncomfortable feeling.”

  “I suggest you concentrate on your job and leave my job to me.”

  He stood up and shook Claire’s hand, making it clear that the meeting was over.

  ******

  When she got home that night she went outside and watched Venus slipping into view above the West Mesa. It was the dark of the moon, the best tim
e to see Venus. Even the lights of the city didn’t dim its power. She pondered her conversation with Sid Hyland. Considering the men in her friends’ lives as accomplices added a layer of complexity to the investigation and left her wondering whether any of them were capable of murder or fraud.

  The only suspects who had no man to aid or abet them were Claire herself and Ginny, who remained a puzzle. Was she a drunk or just pretending to be? In a sense inebriation was always a performance.

  They had gone to school in a time when young women masked their intelligence, but Claire had never thought Ginny was stupid. She had the intelligence to plan the book-in-the-office scheme, but was she devious enough to carry it out? It was a question Claire couldn’t answer without knowing whether Ginny was a real drunk or a fake.

  She remembered what Sid Hyland said about turning her defense over to him. She should be relieved to place her burdens on his broad shoulders, but doing nothing meant she had to live with the ominous threat that sooner or later Amaral would come up with something even more incriminating, something she had overlooked or someone else had inserted. It would be difficult to prove in court that the murder took place on the night in question, but most likely it had happened then.

  Claire went inside to her office, found her phone bill for the month of April and discovered that she had made no long-distance calls that night. There was nothing to prove she had been at home. Since she was already sitting at her desk in front of her computer, she decided to take a look at CultureVulture.com, the Web site Ginny wrote for. She typed in the URL. The Web site came up and a vulture appeared on her screen, cawed and flapped its wings. As Ginny had said, the site covered cultural events. Claire negotiated her way to the listings for Santa Fe, searched the Gerald Peters Gallery and found a description for the Renata Jennings show that was credited to Ginny Bogardus.