The Stolen Blue

by Judith Van GIeson

  Claire took Rex at his word. He never had made much money writing, and since he’d stopped, selling books had become his only source of income. In this business, livelihood depended on reputation. If he deceived her, word would get out very quickly, and no one else in the book world would want to deal with Rex Barker. One hundred twelve thousand dollars might be enough for him to risk his way of life. Twelve thousand wasn’t. Claire didn’t quite trust Rex enough, however, to believe his story about the e-mail seller. Rex might already have the books in his possession, might have been the one who offered them to Page One, Too, might even have been the one who stole them from her truck. He might have already sold the Adams prints on the art market and discarded The History of the Blue as worthless.

  “Did you ask about Black Sun?”

  “I can’t give you that book, Rex. Because of the inscription, the police will want it as evidence. I have a signed copy of my own I could give you.”

  There was a long pause, followed by a rather loud sigh, then Rex said, “All right. Can you bring the check down here tomorrow? I want to be ready whenever the books arrive.” Socorro was eighty miles away, a town a person could live in dirt cheap. It was close enough to find women in Albuquerque if Rex wanted them, far enough away to discourage them from moving in.

  “It’s a long drive,” Claire said. “Could you meet me halfway?”

  There was a pause while Rex dodged the red flags that went up whenever he received a request from a woman. “How about the Walking Sands Rest Area?” he asked.

  It was a sixty-mile drive for Claire, twenty for Rex, not halfway but a fair exchange in his mind. “All right,” Claire agreed. “Monday at six?”

  “I’ll be there,” Rex said.

  ******

  On Monday morning Claire called Rachel to her office to discuss recent events. It had rained early in the day, leaving enough moisture in the air to turn Rachel’s hair into ringlets that made her look even younger. “Could this Rex guy be our thief?” she asked Claire.

  “It’s possible. He comes up to Albuquerque a lot. He might have been at the university for some reason and seen the books in my truck. I’m sure he could use the money, but I don’t know that he’d want it bad enough to ruin his reputation.”

  “It won’t ruin his reputation unless he gets caught. I could try to set up another sting.”

  “How? According to Rex, the seller won’t say when the books will be shipped or who will be shipping them. Do you have the time to sit around his house for days waiting for the books to show up?”

  “No. I can’t operate outside of Albuquerque, either, and I wouldn’t expect much help from the local police. How do you feel about Rex? Do you trust him?”

  “Far enough to produce the books.”

  “Will you see him again after this?”

  “Our paths will cross; we’re in the same business.”

  “If he’s driving a new truck, then we’ll know he’s our man. Everyone in your business is always on the verge of vehicular meltdown.”

  “True,” Claire said. Sometimes it seemed that all any bookseller wanted out of life was to keep a vehicle running. Their vehicles tended to be vans and trucks that could be used to transport books. Claire had seen a Chevy commercial playing over a background of zydeco music that summed up the attitude of booksellers she knew: “Wives leave you, friends forget you, bosses fire you; trucks are forever.” Those booksellers lived on the brink of financial ruin, and when a vehicle died, it sent them over the brink. Why? Because they loved books or because they loved freedom? Claire wondered sometimes whether her financial security had kept her from fully experiencing life. She didn’t think Rex enjoyed life any more than she did, but Anthony Barbour and John Harlan might.

  “Insist on getting a receipt from the shipper. We may be able to track the seller that way.”

  “All right.” Claire moved on to the next problem. “As I was leaving the Eliot Porter exhibit Friday night, I saw Gail standing beside the stairway to the Humanities Building arguing with another woman. I went upstairs and eavesdropped on them from the balcony. The other woman demanded that Gail pay her money.”

  “Did you get a good look at the other woman?”

  “Not really. She was wearing a baseball cap and basketball sneakers. She took off her hat, and I could see that her head was totally bald. She was the same height as Gail.”

  “Could be a student.”

  “Or someone pretending to be a student. They made an appointment to meet again in a week.”

  “Did they say where or when?”

  “‘Same time, same place,’ the woman said.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on the places the drug deals go down.”

  “Gail was in a car accident not long ago. I’ve seen her popping pills in the kitchen. She might have gotten addicted to a prescription painkiller.”

  “Let’s hope she’s not selling your books to support her habit. I’ve always suspected it was an inside job.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Anything else?” Rachel got out of her chair, standing straight as a soldier. Claire was struck by the contrast between her exuberant hair and her military manner, but felt relieved all over again that she had found someone with enthusiasm for her job.

  “That’s it,” Claire said.

  She had already put the cashier’s check she purchased for John Harlan back into her bank account. On her lunch hour she went to Norwest to get another. After work she drove to the Walking Sands Rest Area on I-25. There wasn’t much to see on the interstate south of Albuquerque except for faraway mountains loping to Texas. This could be a drab gray moonscape, but when the sun set, the eastern mountains turned radiant in the afterglow and the western peaks were silhouetted against the fading light. A couple of dark clouds hovered over the Magdalenas, their sinuous shapes following the curves of the peaks. Lightning flashed from one cloud to another. Behind them the sky turned the color of a brilliant peach.

  Claire wondered if the dark clouds and lightning were an omen. It seemed vaguely illicit to be meeting a man at a rest area and handing over twelve thousand dollars even if the man was Rex Barker and all she was getting for her money was rare books. Since the books were stolen property, she was supporting (possibly even encouraging) crime. Was she so different from the students who bought and sold drugs? Like other criminal acts, this one was fueled by a need bordering on an obsession: the criminal’s need for money, her need to have the books back. She ought to be repelled by what she was doing, but she wasn’t; she was excited.

  Claire pulled off at Walking Sands just as the sun dropped behind the Magdalenas. Most of the rest areas in New Mexico had the rounded adobe shape of indigenous architecture, but this one looked like it belonged at the beach. It was a series of picnic areas tucked into wooden boxes and connected by boardwalks supported by posts stuck in the sandy soil. The sand around the buildings had been raked into the fine lines of a Japanese garden. A set of footprints crisscrossed the lines and lost definition in the sand. The rest area got its name from the way the sand shifted and blew. Rex’s Silverado was alone in the parking lot. Claire got out of her truck and climbed the ramp to the boardwalk where Rex leaned against a post smoking. His long legs angled out like buttresses supporting the post. He wore a black leather jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots.

  “Did you bring it?” he asked.

  “Yes.” They were all alone in a clandestine setting full of electricity, but Claire felt no electrical charge whatsoever between her and Rex. She handed over the cashier’s check. “The university police said to insist on a receipt from the shipper.”

  “No problem,” replied Rex. He dropped his cigarette to the boardwalk and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “I’m coming up to ’burque over the weekend. If I get the books in time, I’ll bring ’em back to you then.”

  “Thanks.” Claire said.

  They walked down the ramp with Rex’s heels tapping a staccato beat and lightning flashin
g over the Magdalenas. They got in their vehicles, and Claire headed north to Albuquerque while Rex went back to Socorro.

  She spent an anxious week dodging Harrison and getting very little sleep. On Friday afternoon Rex showed up in her office with the books. They had been shipped UPS in the very same box in which they had been stolen, with Claire’s writing on the top stating they were valuable. The missing history and folio left some space in the box, which had been filled with bubble wrap.

  “I looked at them and checked the inscriptions before I handed over the money,” Rex said. “They’re very fine.”

  He knew Claire wouldn’t accept his word for it and waited while she examined each book. “You’re right,” she said. “They look as if they haven’t even been touched.”

  “Did you bring Black Sun?”

  Claire handed it over.

  “Anything else?”

  “The receipt?”

  Rex handed over the slip from UPS. The sender’s name and address had been filled in as William Bonney, Lincoln, New Mexico, although the books had been mailed from Albuquerque. “The thief has a sense of humor,” Rex said.

  “Wouldn’t you think someone at UPS would notice that the shipper was William Bonney aka Billy the Kid?”

  “Not really,” Rex said. His hand reached for a cigarette, indicating it was time to leave. “Is that it?”

  “Where did you park? In the lot by the bookstore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have to go to the bookstore. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Rex said little as they walked across the campus. Claire bid him good-bye at the parking lot’s tollbooth, but lingered until she saw him open the door of his old Silverado.

  ******

  Rachel took the receipt to UPS, but all they could tell her was that the books had been shipped COD uninsured from Albuquerque by someone who claimed to be William Bonney and asked for a cashier’s check made out to cash. Claire made a copy of the receipt and took it to the insurance company, along with the police report. The books had been appraised, the theft had been reported, Claire anticipated she would be reimbursed but expected it to take forever. Harrison issued a memo saying he “took enormous pride and delight in the return of the books to their rightful place, where they would be safeguarded in the appropriate manner.” That meant he displayed the books on a shelf near his interior window so everybody walking by could see them. Whenever Claire did pass by, her joy in seeing the books was diminished by her annoyance at Harrison’s arrogance.

  She called John Harlan to tell him she’d gotten the books back.

  “Muy bueno,” he said. “I’m happy for you.”

  “I only wish I’d gotten them all back.”

  “The Adams prints will turn up on the art market in New York or Santa Fe. You might as well forget about the history. I’ll be out of town for a few days, but would you like to go to dinner next weekend to celebrate?”

  “I can’t,” Claire replied. “I’m going back to the Blue.”

  Before she went home that night, she walked through the Eliot Porter exhibit thinking that Porter, like Mozart, sought harmony. Order had been restored in this corner of Claire’s world, but there remained the issue of Burke’s will.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHEN CLAIRE CALLED THE RANCH to say she was coming, Corinne answered the phone.

  “How are you doing, Corinne?” Claire asked.

  “All right,” she replied, but her voice had the sound of an empty house with wind blowing in through broken windows.

  “Will Jed be around? I’d like to talk to him while I’m there.”

  “He’s gone to work for the Stoners,” Corinne said. “Do you want their number?”

  “Please.”

  Claire called the Stoners and got an answering machine saying no one was available at the Black Diamond Ranch. She left a message saying she’d be there on Friday to talk to Jed.

  Spring comes early in New Mexico, and Claire saw the first signs of it as she drove to the Blue. It was late February, which in Albuquerque meant green shoots of crocuses and budding elm trees. But on the highway spring meant wind, wind that threatened to pick her up and deposit her in the fast lane, wind that turned her truck into a bucking bronco, forcing her to hold tight to the steering wheel. Winter was mild at the I-40 latitude; but spring could be a cruel season. That was when New Mexico became known as the place Arizona blew through on its way to Texas.

  Since Sheriff Henner could be out anywhere on the thousands of miles of highways he patrolled, Claire had made an appointment to see him. She arrived in Reserve right on time at 2:30. In the half a minute it took to walk from her truck to his office, the wind whipped her hair into a frenzy.

  “Pleasure to see you, Ms. Reynier,” the sheriff said, smiling with his eyes while his face fell into reptilian wrinkles. Claire smoothed her hair into place. “Windy out there.”

  “It is,” she replied.

  “Long drive?”

  “Four hours.”

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Mind if I have one?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The sheriff filled a mug from a pot that seemed to be perpetually brewing and led Claire into his office, where he sat down and motioned her to do the same. He leaned back in his chair. “I suppose you want to know how the investigation is going.”

  “That’s why I am here.”

  “Well, we got the report back from the OMI. The drug screen showed alcohol and a benzodiazepine in Burke’s bloodstream, but not enough to kill him.”

  “Enough to impair his judgment?”

  Henner took a sip of his coffee. “Now, that would be a hard thing to establish, wouldn’t it? It might depend on how much judgment a person had to begin with. I saw Burke not long before he died, and in my opinion his judgment was fine. I’d say he knew what he was doing, but you could find a lawyer who’d take a look at the same facts and interpret them differently.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “Exposure. So the DA had to consider what caused Burke to die of exposure. It happens often enough in Catron County that a man chooses to die when he sees his health and his power slipping away, but when a man gets to that point, usually he puts a bullet through his head. It’s messy, but it’s quick.”

  He looked at Claire as if he was expecting a reaction, but she kept her expression purposely blank.

  “When someone freezes to death, it’s an Indian who’s drunk and twenty miles from nowhere. In all my years in law enforcement, I have never seen anyone deliberately die that way, but the Eskimos do it, so I guess it can’t be too bad. Sooner or later, I hear, you just go to sleep. The DA had to decide whether his death was Burke’s choice or Mariah’s. The family was madder than a nest of hornets, but that didn’t help them any because the DA can get ornery if he thinks someone is telling him how to do his job. The question was if Burke didn’t want to go, how did Mariah get him out under that tree? There was nothing to indicate a struggle—no bruises, no torn clothes. Mariah’s strong, Burke was weak, but was she strong enough to carry him or drag him? There is nothing to indicate that she did. He wasn’t injected with drugs. He was perfectly capable of taking the Valium on his own. The DA concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute Mariah Geraty for murder or assisted suicide, and get a conviction here. Now, whether what she did was right or not, everybody’ll have to make their own decision.” It was a long speech for Henner, and he leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “You comfortable with that?”

  “No, but more comfortable than I would be with a prosecution.”

  “Burke gave you a tough job.”

  “True.”

  “He must have felt you were up to it.”

  “I hope so,” Claire replied. “I need to look up something at the county clerk’s office. Can you tell me where it is?”

  “Right around the corner,” Sheriff Henner said.

&n
bsp; “Thanks for your help.”

  “Glad to do it.” He put down his mug and walked her to the door.

  ******

  Claire found the office in the basement of the courthouse. The clerk, Janet Randall, dressed like the coal miner’s daughter. Her dyed brown hair tumbled in curls to her shoulders. Her white blouse was trimmed with eyelet, and her denim skirt had broomstick pleats. Her silver concho belt looked as if it weighed five pounds. Her cowboy boots had pointed toes and high heels. Claire was startled to find someone so decked out in Catron County, home of the casual cowboy.

  “No problem,” Janet said when Claire told her who she was and that she wanted to see the deed to the Lovell ranch. She flounced her skirt as she stepped into the back room, but came back shortly with the deed.

  “That was quick,” Claire said.

  “Honey, I’ve been doin’ this for thirty years. I know where every deed is recorded and every skeleton lies buried in Catron County.”

  And did her job well enough to dress as she pleased. It took courage for a working woman to wear ruffles in the 1990s. Claire inspected the deed and everything seemed to be in order. She could attach no significance to the fact that the original had not been in Burke’s desk. The ranch was transferred from Benjamin deWitt to Burke P. Lovell in 1972. There were a number of liens on the property that were paid off in the year before the transfer. Claire totaled them in her head, and came up with over one hundred thousand dollars. “Benjamin deWitt owed a lot of money,” she said.

  “He was a gambler.” Janet replied. “When he got sick, Burke paid off the debts so Ben could live out his last year in peace. In return, Ben left him the ranch.” She looked up through lashes that were thick with mascara. “And now it will be going to someone else?”

  Claire suspected that a woman who knew where all the skeletons were buried in Catron County also knew who was getting the ranch. “Burke left the property to Mariah Geraty,” she said.

  “Ah,” replied Janet.

  “Can you make me a copy of this?” She handed over the deed.