The Vanishing Point

by Judith Van GIeson

  “I’ve heard a lot of them. I don’t know that I’ve heard all of them,” Claire said.

  “It would explain the obsession,” Avery replied. “Wouldn’t it? Maybe he didn’t find the journal in the cave. Maybe he found it in a family closet or garage.”

  “Then why invent a story about finding it in Sin Nombre Canyon?”

  “Far more romantic than finding it in a garage, isn’t it?”

  “Why lure us up there?”

  “Once he told the lie, he’d have to follow through, wouldn’t he?” Avery said.

  Claire knew that in his spare time he was writing a novel. With his imagination, perhaps he should be writing fiction instead of editing fact.

  “Are you sure the death was accidental?” he asked.

  “No, but the rangers are investigating.”

  Avery picked up the glass paperweight that lay on Claire’s desk and tossed it from one hand to the other. “It could change things in terms of publishing the journal,” he said. “If Tim was Jonathan’s son and someone else was Tim’s heir, maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with Ada Vail.”

  “That’s a very remote possibility,” Claire said, feeling a duty to pull Avery back to earth.

  “Worth checking out, though, isn’t it?”

  “I have the address of Tim’s mother,” Claire said. “I plan to get in touch with her.”

  “Good!” said Avery.

  “How did Tim seem when you talked to him? Was he anxious or fearful?”

  “He seemed determined,” Avery said. “Gotta run.” He put the paperweight back on the desk and rushed out of the room.

  Claire composed a handwritten letter to Vivian Sansevera, explaining who she was and expressing her deepest sympathy. She closed by asking Vivian to give her a call.

  She dialed Jennie Dell’s number and wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that Curt Devereux had already told her about Tim’s death. “Ironic, isn’t it,” Jennie said, “that a person so devoted to Jonathan’s work should lose his life in the same place Jonathan lost his?”

  “Did Curt tell you how Tim died?” Claire asked.

  “He said that he fell from a ledge. That canyon is a very treacherous place to climb, and not a good place to be alone. Once I realized Jonathan wasn’t coming back, I got out of there as soon as I could.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “I hiked over the mesa. The canyon was flooded. When I got to the road, I hitched a ride to the ranger station. That’s when I met Curt.”

  “It’s hard to find your way across the mesa, isn’t it?” Claire asked.

  “It was easier back then. The Hopi still went into the canyon to leave offerings, and I followed one of their trails.”

  “I stopped to see Sam Ogelthorpe on my way home.”

  “Is that old coot still alive?” Jennie asked.

  “Still alive and still insisting that he saw Jonathan killing one of his cows two days before you reported him missing.”

  “He was half blind then. He’s probably totally blind now. If he saw anything it was a mountain lion. He keeps telling this story because he loves the attention. Trust me, Jonathan Vail did not get out of Sin Nombre Canyon. Jonathan died there.”

  “Curt and I went to the cave where Tim said he found the journal, but we didn’t find the duffel bag Tim had mentioned.”

  “As I said, there wasn’t any duffel bag.”

  “Since Tim wasn’t there to show us, I wasn’t sure we went to the right cave, although Jonathan’s initials were carved in the wall.”

  “Jonathan’s initials were carved in walls all over the canyons, occasionally by him, more often by other people. I know that he was more likely to go into caves that didn’t look like they’d been used by Indians. He considered the Indian caves sacred ground. Listen, Claire,” she said, changing the subject, “Lou Bastiann is coming for Veterans Day this year. He’s very devoted to Jonathan’s work, and I’m going to show him the journal and see what he thinks about publication.”

  It wasn’t what Ada would want, but since Curt had given Jennie a copy of the journal, Claire didn’t see how she could prevent it.

  “I’ll call you after he’s seen it,” Jennie said.

  “All right,” Claire replied and hung up. Now that she had done her job and worked her way through her list, she felt she could allow herself some respite, and she decided to stop by and see John Harlan after work. He was an old friend and an antiquarian bookseller. His wife had died the year before Claire got divorced. They had dinner together occasionally, and though sometimes Claire sensed that John would like to go beyond friendship, he hadn’t made any definite moves in that direction. When her husband left her for a graduate student named Melissa, she built a shell around her heart. She didn’t expect to have it forever, but she didn’t know how to get rid of it either. A shell could dissolve, flake off, or shatter. Crisis was one way to crack it open, and she had just been through one. She knew John cared enough to listen with sympathy, and he also had a good bullshit detector. There were many elements about the disappearance of Jonathan Vail and the death of Tim Sansevera that took those events out of the black-and-white realm of reality and into the shadowy world of fiction. Maybe John could make them real again.

  On her way home, she stopped at Page One, Too, the bookstore where John worked. She found him with his feet up on his desk, his computer turned off, surrounded by price guides and books. John hated the computer and he kept a messy office. His shirt was wrinkled and his hair needed cutting, but she found his rumpled appearance comforting. He dropped his feet to the floor and stood up when he saw her. John was six feet tall, but lean as a greyhound. In fact, when Claire hugged him she felt his bones.

  “I hear you just made the find of the century,” he said. “The journal of Jonathan Vail, intact after all this time!”

  It had been over a week. Claire should have known that everybody in the business would know about the journal by now. Did John know about Tim’s death, too? She wondered. If so, he gave no sign.

  “I didn’t make the find. A graduate student did.”

  “Yeah, but he brought it to you, right? You’re the archivist. Hell, you’re the one who’s going to get the credit. Have you had the manuscript authenticated yet?”

  “Harrison called August Stevenson.”

  “He’s the best,” John said. “This is going to give your career a major boost, so why the long face?”

  Tim’s death was one piece of news that hadn’t made its way to John’s office yet. “That’s awful,” he said when Claire told him. “Let’s go out to dinner. It’ll take your mind off it for a little while.”

  She agreed, and they drove down the street in their separate vehicles to Emilio’s, where John ordered a huge bowl of spaghetti and Claire got a salad. It was all she could stomach at the moment. John ate his spaghetti by wrapping it in his fork and twirling it on his spoon, splattering sauce all over the tablecloth. When he was finished, he put down the fork and the spoon and asked, “It’s the twilight zone, isn’t it? The grad student dying in the same place his hero died.”

  “I don’t know that Jonathan died there, do you?”

  “It’s what I’ve always suspected. He’s a legend. If he were alive, he’d let the world know about it.”

  “I suppose,” Claire said. “I stopped to talk to Sam Ogelthorpe, and he raised the possibility that Jonathan might have died somewhere else. Mexico, for example.”

  “I envy you, going all these places, meeting all these mythical characters. How about Jennie Dell? Have you met her yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “If Jonathan died in Slickrock Canyon, you’ve gotta believe she played a role. Does she live up to her reputation?”

  Claire had a pretty good idea of what he was talking about, but she asked anyway. “And what reputation is that?”

  “That she’s a woman who might be worth dyin’ for.”

  “Not in my opinion,” Claire said. “Maybe she’s gotten tamer as s
he’s gotten older. She calls herself a house cat now.”

  “Happens to the best of us.” John sighed.

  “Did you know that she published a novel?”

  “No. When?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “I’d like to read it.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Claire replied. The check arrived and she reached for it, but John grabbed it first.

  “It’s on me,” he said.

  He walked her to her car and gave her a hug before they parted. He’d been sympathetic. He’d helped put recent events in perspective. She just wished they hadn’t ended up talking about Jennie Dell.

  Chapter Eight

  ORDINARILY IT TOOK WEEKS TO GET AUGUST STEVENSON to authenticate a document, but for Jonathan Vail’s notebook he drove down to the center immediately. Claire always enjoyed seeing August, who seemed very comfortable in his seventy-five-year-old skin. Ten years earlier he’d moved to Santa Fe from New York City after a distinguished career in document verification. He had accomplished everything an expert could accomplish in his field. He established that a series of letters from Marilyn Monroe to John Kennedy was a fake, proved that there were far more copies of the Texas State Constitution in circulation than there were in existence, and perfected a method of pollen dating for documents. Previously pollen had been used only to date archaeological finds, but August proved that it could be used to date manuscripts as well. He claimed to be retired, but that only meant that documents found their way to him in Santa Fe rather than in New York. Claire considered the center fortunate to have him living only sixty miles away.

  She’d gone for a cup of coffee and was returning to her office when she saw August making his way down the hall. He had a broad back and a lumbering walk that made her think of a turtle. August didn’t carry his home on his back, he carried the weight of his knowledge, but that was all he needed to operate anywhere in the world. He wore dark lenses over his regular glasses to shield his eyes from the New Mexico sun. When he came inside, he flipped the dark lenses up so they stuck straight out, framing and emphasizing his eyes like an actress’s theatrical eyelashes or a turtle’s hooded lids.

  “Hello, August,” Claire called to him. She knew he admired her work, and he always treated her with the utmost respect, yet his ponderous way of moving made her feel like a schoolgirl, like she might start skipping down the hallway if she didn’t contain herself. Although August was preeminent in his field, his only degree was a B.A. in English Literature from Columbia, so he didn’t have the self-important manner of some of the scholars Claire worked with.

  “Good afternoon, Claire,” he said in a gravelly voice. He had given up smoking when he retired and developed a hoarseness in his throat that had never gone away. Claire stepped aside and let him negotiate his way into her office and lower himself into a chair. He carried a leather briefcase with brass fittings, and he placed it on the floor next to the chair. The thickness of the lenses in his clear glasses made his eyes appear enormous, oversized eyes framed by oversized lashes with an expression that could be read from the very back row.

  “What a remarkable find!” he began. “If the journal is Jonathan Vail’s. I can’t think of a document that has been more sought after in the Southwest in my lifetime.”

  “A graduate student named Tim Sansevera found it and brought it to me.”

  “Ah, yes, and now he is dead, Harrison told me, and in the very same place where Vail disappeared. Not a good omen for the document or the messenger, would you say?”

  Claire chose her words carefully. She imagined that someone who assigned so much weight to the way words looked would also be acutely aware of their meaning. “Tim’s death could be accidental. The rangers are investigating.”

  “Rangers may see death often, but murder rarely. They should call in the FBI.”

  “They intend to, if they find anything suspicious.”

  “And if I find something suspicious? A man who dies after delivering a forged document is more likely to be the victim of foul play than a man who dies after delivering an authentic document, wouldn’t you say?”

  Claire felt he was testing her. He had made the equivalent of a chess move that, if she was careless, would call out her ego or her queen. “Not necessarily. In this case, an authentic document could reveal what actually happened to Jonathan Vail, but a forgery would have to be considered fiction.”

  “If the manuscript turns out to be authentic, I will leave the contents to you to make sense of. Let’s take a look at it.”

  “I’ll bring it to you in the Anderson Reading Room.”

  August maneuvered his bulk to the edge of the chair. Claire watched while he gathered the strength to push himself up, wondering if she should offer to help. He rocked back, forward, then back again, gaining momentum. He pushed hard and was on his feet, leading with the dark lenses and toting his briefcase in his hand.

  Claire led him to the Anderson Reading Room, where Gail Benton sat at the reference desk, dressed in another forgettable little dress. Gail’s wardrobe ranged from shades of pale gray to shades of deep brown, the colors of an inconspicuous little bird, although she had the personality of a blue jay. She took her Ph.D. seriously, but her job at the moment was to check ID’s before granting access to valuable papers. She did it with a deliberateness that demonstrated she considered the work beneath her. Claire thought Gail might forgo the formality once August Stevenson was introduced, but the introduction only made her actions more annoyingly deliberate. She certainly should know who August was, but she didn’t let on, treating him like an overaged grad student and demanding that he surrender his ID, which she intended to hold as long as he was in the Anderson Reading Room. August grudgingly complied.

  “You must also leave your briefcase at the desk,” Gail said.

  “I have been hired to authenticate a document,” August replied in his raspy voice, which he dropped a couple of decibels so Gail had to lean closer to hear. “My briefcase contains the tools of my trade. Without it, I am rendered ineffective and unable to work.”

  Gail looked to Claire for confirmation. “Harrison has given him permission to examine the Jonathan Vail notebook,” Claire said.

  Gail hesitated, willing enough to challenge Claire’s authority but not so willing to take on Harrison. “What are your tools?” she asked August.

  “A camera, calipers, rulers, a pollen-collecting kit.”

  “You may take them inside,” Gail said. “But the briefcase remains here, and you must wear our white gloves.”

  August glared at Gail from beneath the dark, protruding lenses. “I brought my own gloves. Perfectly white and never washed in detergent.”

  August took his tools from his briefcase, while Claire went to get the notebook. When she returned, he was sitting at a table wearing his white gloves. She brought the notebook to him inside the thick gray briefcase, which lost a little more dust in transition. She also brought the manuscript of A Blue-Eyed Boy, which was typed but had Jonathan’s hand written notes in the margin, as well as the handwritten manuscript of the earlier journal, so August could compare Jonathan’s writing at various stages of his life.

  “Interesting hide,” he said, fingering the side of the briefcase with his white-gloved fingers.

  “Buffalo?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t think so. Buffalo is more supple.”

  “It may have been in a cave for many years and stiffened.”

  “Taking that into account, I still don’t believe it’s buffalo. I’ll take some measurements and photographs. The zipper and the style of the briefcase may give me some indication of where it came from. I’ll try to capture some pollen and do some comparisons when I get home.” With his white-gloved fingers, he slid the notebook out of the briefcase. “This type of spiral-bound notebook was used by college students in the sixties,” he said. “The color of the paper, the dryness, the brittle quality indicate age and a dry climate, but paper can be artificially aged. Was the cave
where this was found sealed? A sealed cave would help to preserve the paper.”

  “There were indications that a rock slide closed the cave and that another slide opened it again.”

  “The ink is all from a ballpoint pen, possibly a Bic. They were in use in the sixties. If the handwriting appears to be Vail’s, we’ll discuss the possibility of dating the paper and the ink. Exactly when this was written could be important to both the center and the investigation.”

  Very important, Claire thought, but she doubted Harrison or Ada Vail would allow the notebook to leave the library. “Something I found puzzling is that there are places where the handwriting gets larger and sloppier,” she told August.

  “I’ll look into it. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time with Madam Librarian”—he peered through his thick lenses at Gail—“and Mr. Vail.”

  “Take all the time you want. I’ll be waiting in my office,” Claire said.

  She left August hovering over the manuscript like a jeweler inspecting a precious gem and returned to her desk. She tried to work, but found it difficult to concentrate. In her mind her reputation was on the line, since she had stated she believed the journal to be authentic. Tim’s posthumous reputation was also on the line. If the manuscript was a forgery, it was highly unlikely that he came across it by accident in a cave. Harrison was always noncommittal enough to protect his own reputation. If the journal were proven to be a forgery, the center would have a document that was valuable only as a curiosity, Tim’s death would be even more suspicious, and the dark hole surrounding the disappearance of Jonathan Vail would grow deeper. If the journal were proven to be a forgery, it would also become a work of fiction; any clues it contained would have to be considered worthless, even if the forger turned out to be someone familiar with Vail.

  Claire spent most of the afternoon doodling on a notepad. She was prepared to stay until the Anderson Reading Room closed, but August surprised her by showing up at five, lowering himself into her chair, and placing his briefcase on the floor beside him. Had it been anyone else, Claire might have suspected him of smuggling the journal out in his briefcase in spite of the vigilance of Gail, the library’s guard dog. A thief might even have considered circumnavigating her a challenge. So might August, but Claire knew he wouldn’t act on it. Reputation was everything in his field.