The Stolen Blue

by Judith Van GIeson

  “No one else has volunteered to take a DNA test.”

  “The other children were acknowledged from birth. They didn’t show up suddenly when they were twenty-five-years old.”

  “The will says Burke is leaving the ranch to Mariah Geraty,” Claire countered, “not his daughter Mariah Geraty, so in terms of the will I don’t know that paternity is relevant.”

  “It is if Mariah deceived Lovell and obtained her inheritance under false pretenses.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Massey finished his cake and wiped his mouth, transferring the cherry stain to his napkin. “I don’t need to remind you that there are considerable assets at stake here. A couple of million for the ranch, eight hundred thousand dollars in stocks. If we go to court, your testimony could keep that ranch from my clients.”

  “My testimony and Jed’s.”

  “He’s a ranch hand. You’re a librarian.”

  Suggesting what? Claire wondered. That her profession gave her testimony more weight than Jed’s?

  “Are you positive Burke was of sound mind?” Massey leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps if you were willing to reconsider, you would see it differently.” He left a question mark hanging over the table, a question mark that could easily be converted to a dollar sign.

  He wasn’t quite crude enough to say that librarians don’t make much money, but Claire suspected him of thinking it. Her temper flared. “There’s nothing to reconsider,” she snapped. “I knew Burke well, and I know what I saw. He was not under the influence or incompetent when he signed that will. If need be, I’m willing to sign an affidavit to that effect.”

  Massey threw up his hands. “Hey, no need to get angry. Just wanted to be sure is all.”

  “I’m sure,” Claire said.

  The bill arrived in a green folder. Massey took his credit card from his wallet, inserted it into the folder, and the meal was over.

  ******

  The genealogical library was in a Spanish Colonial-style building across the street. Claire could have happily spent the afternoon there retracing the steps of her Reynier ancestors, who arrived in New Amsterdam on a ship called The Gilded Otter in 1652. It would have been a pleasant diversion after the lunch with Walter Massey, but she had to get back to work.

  When she reached her office, she called and left a message for Sally Froelich. Then she called Kassandra Wells in Reserve, obtaining her number from information. Kass had not yet taken another nursing job, and Claire found her at home. Once she heard who was calling, her vocal chords seemed to atrophy.

  “I just had lunch with the Lovell family lawyer, who tells me you signed an affidavit stating Burke Lovell was under the influence when he signed the will,” Claire said.

  There was a pause while Kassandra cleared her throat. “That’s how I saw it.”

  “You know that’s not true, Kass. He was perfectly rational all afternoon and through dinner.”

  “He’d been drinking Jack Daniel’s and taking Valium,” Kass insisted.

  “He had a shot of Jack Daniel’s at dinner, and if he had taken any Valium at that point, he gave no sign of it.”

  “That’s not what I saw.” Kass began digging in her heels.

  Claire wondered if she was getting paid to say this, but she didn’t see any point of antagonizing Kass by accusing her of selling out. She and Jed agreed that Burke was of sound mind. That was two out of three, which ought to be enough, even if she was a librarian and he was a ranch hand. “If you change your mind, call me.” Claire gave her number.

  “I won’t be changing my mind.” Kass hung up.

  Sally got out of court early and called an hour later. When Claire told her about the lunch with Walter Massey and the conversation with Kass Wells, her response was “Pass the Rolaids, please.”

  “Do you think they paid Kass to lie?” Claire asked.

  “It’s either a carrot or a stick. I gather Massey was getting ready to offer you money, too. There’s plenty of it to go around now, but there won’t be when he gets through.”

  “I find his suggestion offensive.”

  “It’s his business to be offensive. That’s why his clients pay him the big bucks.”

  “He implied that the will could be negated if Mariah deceived Burke about being his daughter.”

  “It’s a possibility. Does she have any proof?”

  “She gave me a copy of her birth certificate with Burke listed as her father.”

  “Could you send me a copy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Have you heard from the genealogical search company yet?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s wait till we hear from them before we do anything. If they establish without a doubt that Burke is Mariah’s father, that could clip Massey’s wings.”

  ******

  Claire spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through the Porter photos, deciding which ones to exhibit. It was a tough choice as they were all beautiful, ranging from shimmering red canyons reflected in the Colorado River to violets on the floor of an Appalachian forest. Late in the day she got a call from John Harlan, an antiquarian bookseller she knew in Albuquerque. You can take the man out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the man, she thought as she listened to John’s drawl.

  He was one of Claire’s favorite book people. In midlife he sold the oil business he’d inherited in Midland, Texas, moved to Santa Fe, opened a bookstore specializing in Western Americana, blew all his oil money on books, and was happier losing money in New Mexico than he’d ever been making it in Texas. No one who loved books ever went to Santa Fe without making a pilgrimage to John’s store. He’d developed an encyclopedic knowledge of Western Americana, and was always happy to talk about it. Then his beloved wife Jane died, and he didn’t want to run the business without her. He sold the inventory and retired for a second time, but book people rarely stay retired. It’s a lifelong addiction that can lead to poverty and bankruptcy, yet the addict keeps coming back for more.

  “Well, what the hell, I’m not beatin’ anybody up or hurtin’ the environment.” John liked to say. “All I’m doin’ is blowin’ the family fortune, and I got nobody to leave that to anyway.” He spent his year in retirement rereading Zane Grey, and then he took a job at Page One, Too, a bookstore in Albuquerque that was expanding into the rare-book business.

  “Hey, Claire, John here,” he said. “How’s it going in academentia?”

  “Not too bad,” Claire replied.

  “I don’t use that damn Internet myself, but Marie, who works for me, got an offer this afternoon you ought to know about. Damn, I hate that e-mail. When I communicate with someone, I like to see ’em face-to-face, not be lookin’ at little gray letters. I don’t even like the telephone. This person only identified himself or herself by a bunch of numbers. Five of ’em to be exact. I don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman. Anyway the message said the person had a Brave Cowboy to sell and a Blessing Way and a Death Comes for the Archbishop. Now, what the hell does that sound like to you?”

  “My books.”

  “That’s what I’m thinkin’. What do you want me to do?”

  “Find out what else they have, offer to buy the books, lure the seller into the store.”

  “I’d say we’re lookin’ at six thousand dollars worth of books right here. But if we’re talking all the books, it’s gonna be quite a bit more. If they do have all the books, can you come up with the money? Much as I admire what you’re doin’, Claire, I’m not in a position to be a benefactor of the library.”

  “I might be able to get it from the library’s or Burke’s insurance, but I have a better idea. I’ve been working with a university policewoman. Maybe she would set up a sting.”

  “That would get you the thief and the books. Want me to see if I can get any more information out of this SOB?”

  “Let me.”

  “How?”

  “Ask Marie to forward me the e-mail message.” Claire gave him he
r address at the library. “I’ll compose a query asking what else they have and drop it by on my way home from work. Marie can email it to the seller in the morning. Will you be there after five?”

  “Have you ever known me to go home before five?”

  “Never.”

  “I’m not gonna disappoint you now.”

  They said their good-byes and got off the phone.

  Claire was elated that the books might have surfaced, and she wanted to run down the hallway and tell everyone. But there was still the possibility that the thefts had been an inside job. It would be better if no one but John Harlan and Rachel Dunbar knew a contact had been made. Claire called Rachel and passed on the news.

  “Glad to hear it,” Rachel said. “My investigation has been going nowhere.”

  “If the seller has our books and John can get him or her into the store, would you be willing to set up a sting?”

  “I’d love to try.”

  “That’s assuming, of course, a thief would be dumb enough to come into the store.”

  “Well, it doesn’t take a genius to break a window and steal a box of books. It’s hard to underestimate the intelligence of the average crook. When I worked for the APD, we were thrilled if we ever found a criminal who thought about the act for more than five minutes. In your average crime, some scumbag gets drunk, gets mad, fires a gun, and somebody else catches the bullet.”

  “I’ll let you know what develops.”

  “You do that,” Rachel said.

  ******

  By the time Claire got off the phone with Rachel, her computer told her she had e-mail. Marie had forwarded the query which read, “I have copies of The Brave Cowboy, A Thief of Time, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and others for sale. Are you interested?”

  “Very,” Claire said to the screen.

  She went to Netscape and ran a reverse search on Five Numbers screen name—26688@anon.net.fi—but she wasn’t optimistic. She knew anon.net.fi to be a service in Finland that provided e-mailers with an anonymous address. There were days when a computer could be as stubborn as a husband, and she waited impatiently for an answer. Eventually e-mail finder told her what she expected—there were no listings to match her search criteria. With anon.net.fi, the query could have come from anybody anywhere.

  “Damn,” Claire said to herself.

  She composed an answer, rewriting her response several times to get the wording just right. She settled on, “Very interested. We are expanding our Southwestern fiction section. If you have any more Hillermans or Abbeys or Cathers, we’d also be interested in them.” She closed with John Harlan’s name.

  After work, she drove home by way of Montgomery, stopping at Page One, Too. The store was a warren of bookshelves. John’s office was tucked away in a far corner of the building with a window looking out on the parking lot. Claire peeked in, saw he was on the phone, and grazed the Southwest section looking to see if there was anything she or the library didn’t already own.

  John called her into his office when he got off the phone. He had the lean, alert look of a greyhound retired from racing but still ready to jump at the sight of a rabbit. Although he was six feet tall, he didn’t weigh much more than Claire. When she hugged him, she felt she was pulling something ephemeral back to earth. The bookshelves in his office overflowed. Every flat surface was covered with unshelved books, catalogs, and price guides. There were several styrofoam cups with the dregs of coffee at the bottom, left there by people who had visited John during the day. He saw more people in the course of one day than anyone else Claire knew. There was a computer on his desk, but he hadn’t bothered to turn it on yet.

  “Pleasure to see you, Claire.”

  “You, too.”

  “Did you bring the message for Five Numbers?”

  “I did,” Claire replied, showing it to him.

  John scratched his head. “You didn’t have any more Cathers in that box, did you?”

  “And if this person is our thief, he or she won’t have any more, either.”

  “Not necessarily. A book dealer might.”

  “Do you think a dealer would offer the books to you? You’re awfully close to the theft.”

  “Books tend to gravitate to where they’ll get the most money.”

  “Wouldn’t a dealer have given a better description of the books? The query didn’t say that the books were in fine condition, that they were first editions, that the Hillerman was illustrated, that the Abbey had an inscription, that the Cather was the limited edition.”

  “It might be a professional trying to throw us off the trail by acting like an amateur. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Make a low-ball offer.”

  “You always make a low offer.”

  “And nobody who knows what they’re doing ever accepts. All right with you if I have Marie send that message out in the morning? She doesn’t keep the kind of hours I do.”

  “That’s fine.”

  John contemplated the dust on his computer screen. “You doin’ anything for dinner?”

  “Going home and boiling some pasta.”

  “Would you like to stop at Emilios?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Let me close up here.” Closing up meant picking up his jacket, saying good-bye to the people at the counter, and walking out the door.

  Claire met him at Emilio’s, where they got two bowls of spaghetti that were large enough to feed six people. John rolled his spaghetti on his fork and talked about people they knew and books between bites. He cleaned his plate, but Claire asked for a doggy bag, something she never did while dining out with Evan. Evan refused to eat leftovers.

  As if he’d read her mind, John brought up the subject of her ex-husband. “You and Evan got a divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It was for the best.” John and his wife Jane had a long and successful marriage. When Claire looked across the table, she could see the ghost of Jane at his side. She wondered if he could imagine what it was like to live with someone with whom you were basically incompatible.

  He looked up at her with an unexpectedly hopeful and admiring expression. Claire recognized the look from that time long ago when she dated. She hadn’t seen it for so long, she’d almost forgotten. She and John were both alone now, but she had known him too long with Jane to think of him as a single. Claire wouldn’t expect John to make a pass, but he might make a polite inquiry.

  She looked at her watch. “I’d better be getting home.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get a reply from Five Numbers,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  ******

  When Claire got home, Nemesis rubbed against her legs and meowed, making it plain he wanted to go out. However, it was the hour when the coyotes began loping down Bear Canyon and across Elena Gallegos Recreation Area, looking for a quick and easy meal. “Sorry,” she said, picking the cat up and giving him a hug. Her son Michael liked to say that if he could be reincarnated, he’d come back as a single woman’s cat; no other creature in the universe got so much attention. Claire put the cat down and prepared for bed.

  There were floor-to-ceiling shelves in her bedroom full of books, some collectible, some just books that she liked. It made the walls as thick and impermeable as adobe and far more interesting than wallpaper or bare white minimalist walls hung with Southwestern art. Claire had the luxury of two fireplaces in her house. The one in her bedroom was fueled by gas and had ceramic logs that wouldn’t splinter or turn to ash. The flame burned silently without a crackle or a hiss, and had the steady consistency of a pilot light never making the leaps and sparks of the fires she burned with wood. Gas was too predictable for Claire’s taste; she preferred a wood fire, but she didn’t have to stack the wood for her gas fireplace or take out the ashes. Best of all, the gas fire could be controlled by a remote. She could click it on from bed in the morning and off once she’d warmed up the bed.

&nbs
p; Claire got into bed, and Nemesis curled up at her feet. She clicked the remote and watched the gas flames spring into action and lick the ceramic logs. It was time to read, but there was nothing on her bedside table at the moment. She considered the books on her shelves. They resembled the old friends with whom she had late-night phone conversations and shared her deepest thoughts. Her joy in reading came from discovering there was someone out there who had the same feelings and ideas she did but could express them better than she ever could. Books never turned cold and indifferent, didn’t grow up and move away, get married to someone you didn’t like, or trade you in for a newer model. Books were there when you needed them. In Claire’s private library, the books went beyond the Southwest. She could pick One Hundred Years of Solitude off the shelf anytime, and Meme Buendía would be making love to Mauricio Babilonia, surrounded by yellow butterflies. She could continually be lost in the labyrinth of a Borges short story or suffer excruciating suspense over whom a Jane Austen heroine would marry. No matter how despicable the creepy Ripley became, Patricia Highsmith always made her want him to escape. She could turn to any page in her Raymond Chandler collection, confident that Philip Marlowe would find the perfect metaphor. She had recently added Arundhati Roy to her shelves, another master of metaphor. Claire slept better knowing her favorite characters and her favorite phrases were all in place on the shelves.

  But as she drifted into the hallucinatory suburb that surrounded the city of sleep, she had the sense that her characters weren’t staying in place on the shelves. That once she drifted off, they intended to get out of their books and wander. The query from the bookseller seemed too easy. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that she was missing something.

  Five Numbers didn’t respond to their e-mail the next day or the day after that. Claire knew that if the e-mail address had been incorrect, the message would have come back saying there was a permanent fatal error. Maybe the seller wasn’t reading e-mail, or had gone out of town, or was playing a cat-and-mouse game with them; maybe that person was trying to sell the books to someone else. Claire hoped any dealer who got an offer would contact her, but she couldn’t count on it. She checked her e-mail several times a day. In the morning she practiced the more calming tai chi exercises: cloud hands, playing the lute, white crane flaps wings, ending with the infinite ultimate stance.