Winter Tides

by James P. Blaylock

  Last night, some time past eleven, Dave had waked up a notary friend of his who lived in Santa Ana in order to ask her what she thought. “Fake quitclaim signature,” she had told him. She hadn’t even had to think about it. Edmund, she’d said, had probably been transferring some kind of property—a car or a piece of real estate—and Mayhew had acted the part of the owner of the property, because the real owner didn’t know anything about it.

  Dave got out of the car now, looking at the front of the liquor store, which was apparently barred at night with a sliding wrought iron gate. Graffiti had been sprayed through the half-closed gate onto the stucco behind it, and the writing on the wall had a sort of waffle effect to it now that the gate was fully closed. The entire strip center needed help. Someone had emptied an ashtray onto the weathered asphalt of the parking lot, and the little painted brick planters along the fronts of the three stores were choked with overgrown Bermuda grass and liquor store trash. He walked up past the Laundromat, still unable to work out anything good to say to the notary. He wouldn’t get anywhere making vague threats or allegations. There was a good possibility that the notary didn’t even realize he had been scammed. If he was involved in the scam himself, then why would Edmund bring in Mayhew to fool him? Maybe he would take Dave’s information as a favor.

  Through the plate glass window of the office, Dave could see a man hunched over a desk, working at a pile of forms with a pencil and a calculator. He was probably fifty-something, bald on top, and his short-sleeved white dress shirt had ink stains on the pocket. The aluminum door frame scraped on the linoleum floor when Dave pushed it open, and a buzzer went off briefly. The man looked up, nodded, and gestured at an empty office chair.

  “What can I do you for?” he asked.

  “Notary information,” Dave said, sitting down. There were diplomas and certificates hanging on the wall in dime-store frames, and the place smelled like old ashtrays and overcooked coffee.

  “Go ahead. First five minutes free.”

  “it’s not a complicated question. Just hypothetical.”

  “That’s the best kind. The answer doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  “Let’s say a person wants to get a quitclaim deed notarized.”

  “Let’s say he does.”

  “But the owner of the property, whatever it is, can’t sign the deed.”

  “Why can’t he sign the deed?” The man set his pencil down and leaned back in his chair.

  “He’s dead, say.”

  “What’s he doing owning property if he’s dead? Acreage in heaven?”

  “He just died yesterday. Family’s in the middle of squaring away his estate, and he dies on them before they can get all the papers signed, and now the property’s going to be hung up in probate.”

  “And they want to fake the date and the signature and have it notarized?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s fraud, hypothetically speaking.”

  “But it’s done, isn’t it?”

  “Everything’s done, if you find the right person to do it.”

  Dave stared at him for a moment, looking as dead serious as he could. What the hell … he thought, and he asked,

  “Are you the right person?”

  The man looked at him, frowning and apparently puzzled. “Am I the right person to what? To commit fraud?”

  “Hypothetically,” Dave said weakly. What a mistake …

  “That’s a hell of a question, Mr.—what was your name again?”

  “Jones,” Dave said without thinking.

  “Jones what?”

  “Jim … Jim Jones.” He knew at once what he had said. The charade was over, whatever it had been. He wouldn’t recover from that kind of stupidity.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I’m Ray Mifflin, Mr. Jones.” He broke into a smile, knocked a cigarette out of a pack of Marlboros and lit it with a throwaway lighter, then sucked down a big lungful of smoke and blew it toward the ceiling. He hunched forward now, looked around warily, and said, “I heard you were dead down in South America somewhere.”

  Dave thought about pretending that the name had been a joke, but decided to try to brass it out instead. “It’s a fairly common name,” he said.

  Mifflin stared at him, grinning faintly. “I bet it is a common name. You must get a little tired of the jokes when the Kool-Aid comes out of the cupboard.” He leaned forward again, picked up his pencil, and punched calculator buttons with the eraser.

  “Look …” Dave started to say.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you want, son?” Mifflin swiveled around in his chair and poured himself a cup of coffee, then rocked back and waited. “You can keep it as hypothetical as you want to.”

  “I believe you’ve done some business recently with a man named Edmund Dalton,” Dave said. “I’m not going to tell you how I know this, but I have reason to believe that the quit claim deed you notarized for him had a false signature on it and that the old man who claimed to be his father was not his father.”

  “Hypothetically speaking?”

  “Entirely hypothetical.”

  “And you’re offended by this hypothetical crime?”

  “Actually, I don’t see much wrong with backdating a document. I don’t have any problem with forgery, either, if the alternative’s a worse crime.”

  “That’s very philosophical of you.”

  “It’s just that in this case there are complications.”

  “What complications are those, Mr. Jones?”

  “Well … I can tell you that there’s a good chance that Mr. Dalton probably doesn’t have any legitimate claim to any property owned by his father.”

  “And how would you know? Just a hunch?”

  “His brother might have something to say about the disposition of their father’s property.”

  “He might, if he has a brother.”

  “He’s got a brother.”

  Mifflin stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray, and then sat and stared at the wall for a moment, obviously thinking things through. “Coffee, Mr. Jones?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to pry, but what the hell are you doing here? You’re not any kind of county official. You’re certainly no kind of cop. Let me make a calculated guess. You’re a disgruntled employee. You overheard somebody say something, or else you snooped around in somebody’s computer files and came up with some intriguing dirt.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But something like that. So I ask myself, again, what the hell you’re doing here. You don’t want to screw me, because you don’t know me. So you must be looking to screw this hypothetical what’s-his-name.”

  “Neither one,” Dave said, although he realized that what Mifflin said was true. What else was he intending to do?

  “Okay, then you’re going to shake this man down. I don’t suppose you want to cut me in?”

  “I’m not shaking anybody down.”

  “Well … I believe you. You don’t seem like the type. But then I don’t get it. What is this, a friendly warning?”

  “Not even that. A clarification, maybe.”

  “A clarification. Well, I appreciate it. I’ll tell you what. If, hypothetically, I was involved in the kind of thing you’re talking about, I’d surely want to know. Because it could mean serious trouble for me. I hope you understand that.”

  “it’s easy enough to understand.”

  “So I thank you for the clarification. And I’ll just say one more thing. If you’re thinking of taking it any further than this, be very careful and very sure of yourself. This sort of accusation wouldn’t be taken lightly by anybody involved, including the authorities. Given what you tell me, there’s a father out there who would have to testify against his son, which he probably wouldn’t do. There’s a brother who would have to testify against his brother. There’s an old man out there somewhere who’s forged a signature and who sure as hell didn’t know what kind of can of worms he was
opening up, either for himself or for everyone else. And there’s a hypothetical notary who would have to convince powerful people that he was duped. And if he couldn’t convince people that he was duped, then …” The man spread his hands out and shrugged. “You understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I didn’t mean to toss around allegations,” Dave said. “Obviously I didn’t have a very clear view of this whole thing.”

  “This kind of thing is often way more complicated than it would appear to be to the man on the street.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Dave said. “Just in case it gets any more complicated, take my phone number.” He wrote his home number on a Post-it pad that sat on the desk.

  “You never know,” he said.

  “That’s true.” Mifflin picked up the note, folded it in half, and slipped it into his pocket protector with his pens.

  “I thank you for coming in, actually. It’s been enlightening.” He put his hand out, and Dave shook it. “Pull the door shut when you go out, will you? it sticks on the floor.”

  Dave went out through the door and headed for his car, feeling defeated somehow. At the same time, he was absolutely certain that he had hit the nail on the head. Edmund was stealing property from the Earl, which meant he was stealing from Casey. At least Mifflin knew that now. If he was the honest man that he seemed to be, he would get out from under it. There was something about his reaction, though, that had been a little too casual, a little too light. That didn’t incriminate him, but it was curious.

  20

  THE FOG SWEPT ACROSS THE BLUFFS İN WAVES, SO THAT the highway appeared and disappeared in front of Anne’s Saturn like film going in and out of focus. At times it was so thick and gray that it threw the glare from the headlights back against the windshield, and she braked steadily, forced to creep along, watching the white line that defined the edge of the lane and the nearly invisible darkness of the undergrowth along the ocean side of the road. The message from Jane Potter on the answering machine made the trip worth-while, fog or no fog—or at least it would if she got into downtown Laguna alive. A man had bought six of her paintings late that afternoon—everything of hers that was hanging in the gallery. Jane had offered to discount them a thousand dollars because he was taking all five, but he had told her—a little haughtily, according to Jane—that he didn’t buy things on discount. And that was perfectly all right with Anne. Give the man his pride. Probably he didn’t clip coupons either.

  He had wanted to meet the artist, he’d said, and that was why Anne was driving out there at eight in the evening on a foggy night. She had four more wrapped paintings in the trunk, and Jane seemed to think that there was the ghost of a chance that he would want those, too, when he saw them. That struck Anne as a little bit excessive. Obsessive was maybe a better word for it. She must seem a little anxious, though, throwing herself and her paintings into the car that very evening. She could hardly not come, though, under the circumstances. And since she had to haul more paintings out there anyway …

  The fog cleared suddenly, and for a moment the hillside ahead of her shone with lights, and there were more lights out on the cliffs away off to her right She accelerated, driving past the off ramp to Scotchman’s Cove and into civilization. The highway was nearly empty through north Laguna, and the fog held off until she turned up Broadway. Then the night was ghostly gray again, and she drove slowly down Beach Street, across Forest, and into the public parking garage. It was damp in the concrete structure, and the night was hushed enough so that the sound of the key turning in the trunk lock was oddly loud.

  She was reminded suddenly of her foggy, late-night stroll on the pier, and was vividly aware of the sound of her shoe soles on the concrete. Despite herself, she listened for answering footsteps, and darted uneasy glances into the dark recesses of the nearly empty garage. Hastily, she got two of the smaller canvases out of the trunk and then slammed the lid, hurrying up the alley toward the corner. Potter’s Gallery lay across Oak Street on the corner of the highway. Its south and west walls were glass, and Anne saw him standing in the middle of the front room, gesturing and laughing. Jane Potter stood next to him. Both of them held flutes of champagne. Anne stopped at the curb and stood there for a moment, thinking about turning around. She could put the paintings back into the trunk, find a phone booth, and explain that it was just too foggy to make the drive….

  The man in the gallery was Edmund Dalton.

  Was he the mysterious art lover who had bought five of her paintings? Of course he was. He had to be. This afternoon he had bought her a cup of coffee, and while they were drinking it he had asked too many questions about her paintings and where he could have a look at them. He must have made a beeline for Laguna Beach. The whole thing was curious, too curious, and would probably become tiresome.

  She made a quick decision to see this through, and set out again, across the street and up the sidewalk. If he wanted to buy her paintings, let him. Clearly he already had. It was Jane’s business whom she sold paintings to. And although Anne could certainly make use of the fog excuse and simply go home, what good would it do in the long run? She would see the man face to face tomorrow anyway; she might as well get it over tonight. And besides, maybe he was innocent of anything. Maybe he actually liked her paintings. She backed in through the door, cradling the paintings in her arms. If it was a ploy, then he had spent four thousand dollars in an effort to pick her up. It was nearly funny. And, she realized, it was nearly flattering.

  He bowed graciously, waving the champagne glass. “Surprise,” he said, and widened his eyes at her.

  “This is … astonishing,” she said, handing Jane the new paintings.

  “You two know each other, then?” Jane set the paintings carefully on the floor, tilting them against the now-empty wall where Anne’s paintings had hung.

  “Yes, indeed. We’ve met,” Edmund told her. And then to Anne he said, “Champagne?”

  “What the heck.”

  “Let me.” Edmund pulled a bottle out of a stainless steel champagne bucket nearly brimming with ice and water.

  “Domaine Chandon,” he told her, wrapping the bottle in a towel and slowly filling a flute.

  “Mr. Dalton brought the champagne,” Jane said, winking at Anne.

  Edmund handed her the glass, raised his own, and said, “To art.”

  The two women raised their own glasses, and the three of them drank. Edmund held his glass to the light and looked through it. “That’s good color,” he said. Anne nodded. Probably he was right. “This champagne is very good. It’s hand-riddled, actually, in the Napa Valley.”

  “Is it?” she asked, smiling with appreciation. Actually she had no real idea what that meant, but she was abruptly determined not to ask.

  “It’s uncanny, Anne. When we had our little chat about art, there was something about your sensibilities that were so consistent with my own, that I knew, I positively knew, that I would love your paintings. I was just telling Jane how ordinary I find these.” He pointed at an impressionistic sort of landscape done in oils—a sweep of beach coastline, springtime colors, lots of palms and flowers. Anne recognized the Hotel Laguna and the curve of Main Beach with its lifeguard tower and boardwalk. Actually the painting was very nicely done.

  “I kind of like it,” she said.

  Jane blinked hard at her from where she stood, behind Edmund now, as if to tell her to be more agreeable, and Anne wondered if she would be blinking just as hard if somebody with a fat wallet was bad-mouthing a painting of her own.

  “I guess what I meant was that it was so ordinary,” Dalton said, repeating himself. “Don’t you think? This is the sort of thing you see everywhere. Your paintings, though …” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t find the words to describe them.

  “Maybe if you’d spent much time on Vancouver Island, my subjects would look fairly ordinary too.”

  “I can’t imagine finding your paintings ordinary in any sense, Anne. There’s something in th
em, in the shadows, maybe, that speaks volumes about you.”

  “Really? in the shadows?”

  “Absolutely. I wonder if sometimes you let the shadows carry you away … ?”

  “I almost never let anything carry me away.”

  “Now why don’t I believe you?” Edmund asked, smiling widely.

  Anne shrugged. Whatever he was implying was so obscure that she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Well, this is exciting,” Jane said innocently. “I’m astonished that you two know each other. It’s almost like something out of a fairy tale, isn’t it?”

  Edmund nodded enthusiastically. “More than you can guess,” he said. “What have you brought for me, Anne?”

  “Just a couple of things to hang in the blank spots.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Jane was already cutting the heavy string and tearing off the quilted paper. The paintings were similar to the five that Edmund had already bought, only smaller—coastal landscapes under a wild sky. The two that Anne had left in the trunk were twice the size, and were better, but somehow she didn’t want to bring them in at all now. Edmund’s enthusiasm was having some sort of equal and opposite reaction in her. The more he wanted to buy, the less she wanted to sell. It was the odd implication in his voice, as if she were selling herself rather than the paintings.

  And his opinion of the painting on the wall was screwy. It was really very good—technically better than her own. And when she had talked to Edmund briefly about art, she hadn’t gotten the idea that he had any sensibilities at all. He had known that van Gogh had cut his ear off, but when she mentioned Turner—one of her own personal saints—the reference was utterly lost on him. That in itself was nothing—almost nobody gave any real damn for old dead artists—but it argued that he wasn’t any kind of art enthusiast, which right now he was clearly pretending to be.