The Stolen Blue

by Judith Van GIeson

  Chapter Fifteen

  ANTHONY PICKED UP THE BOOK he had purchased from Joan, then he and Claire went outside to his VW van, which he’d parked in the lot behind the store. There was a cracked and faded peace sign decal in the window, a faint signal from the tumultuous past. To his regret, Anthony had been born too late to be a hippie—he spent the sixties in diapers and in grammar school—but it was a time he felt connected to, and fantasized about. Fantasy was always a factor in Anthony’s life. There were pockets in the Southwest where the sixties never died, and Anthony sought them out asking his elders to tell him about love beads and drugs. He pulled the handle on the van’s side door, and it rumbled open with a sound that took Claire back to 1968, Morocco and Pietro. They had traveled through southern Europe and northern Africa in a van that looked just like this one and broke down in every country they visited. Claire still had a vivid recollection of the gang of dirty boys in Bershid, Morocco, who carried the engine from the van to the garage. She wondered how many hundreds of thousands of miles were on Anthony’s van, how many new engines had been installed. She and Pietro had lived in the back of his van, but every square inch of this one was taken up with boxes of books. Tufts of gold shag carpeting sprouted in the spaces between the boxes. Claire despaired of ever finding any particular book in this mess. How could Anthony even know what he had, much less where it was? He lifted out three boxes and placed them carefully on the ground. He opened the fourth, and there, at the top, was a copy of Benjamin deWitt’s The History of the Blue.

  “Now are you going to tell me what is so important about this book?” Anthony asked. “I’d be lucky if I could sell it for ten dollars.”

  “I need to look at it first.” Claire picked up the history, balancing it in her hands with the reverence she showed any book. The binding on Benjamin deWitt’s History of the Blue was loose, the cover was a faded and scuffed green, the endpapers were dirty. The poor condition could be expected to reduce the price of any book, but this one defied expectations. Claire looked for the library stamp that would decrease the value even further, but she didn’t find one. She wondered how something that appeared so drab and ordinary could have caused so much trouble. Could this beat-up volume possibly be the solution to a disturbing mystery? Could someone really have been murdered over this brown bird of a book? She began turning the pages.

  “Are you going to read it right here now?” Anthony asked.

  “If I have to.”

  “Be my guest.” He opened the door on the passenger’s side of the cab, made a bow, and motioned Claire in. “I’ve got all day.”

  There was a boxful of yellow wrappers from McDonald’s and a Santa Fe Reporter lying on the passenger’s seat. Anthony picked them up, brushed the crumbs from the upholstery, and Claire sat down. The smell of moldy carpet, dusty books, and time warp made her sneeze. As Anthony walked around the van, she flipped through deWitt’s History of the Blue to see if any phrase or name caught her eye. The Stoner name was mentioned frequently, which didn’t surprise her—she already knew the Stoners had been in the Blue for generations—but nothing else captured her attention.

  Anthony swung the tail of his coat out of his way and sat down in the driver’s seat, which had a cover made out of wooden beads.

  Claire skimmed through the book, discovering little except that Ben deWitt was a plodding writer. She returned to the beginning and examined the title page and the copyright page. There was no inscription on the title page. Since the book had been printed after the death of the author, discovering anything in Ben’s writing could be considered a message from the grave. It wasn’t what Claire expected to find, and it wasn’t in Ben’s writing, but the message was there in the dedication. She read it once to herself and once again out loud to Anthony.

  “ ‘This book is dedicated to my amanuensis Kathleen Geraty; to the light of my life, our daughter Mariah, and to my friend in time of need, Burke P. Lovell.’ That explains it,” Claire said.

  Anthony swiveled the steering wheel, which was wrapped in strips of leather that were coming unsewn. “Explains what?”

  “Mariah Geraty is the daughter of Benjamin deWitt, not Burke Lovell. Burke had this book printed after Ben died, so he must have read this.”

  “So?”

  “Burke left the ranch to Mariah. The family is trying to have his will overturned on the grounds that Mariah deceived him by pretending to be his daughter. The dedication proves he knew what he was doing, and he knew Mariah wasn’t his daughter. The book will make it a lot harder—if not impossible—for the family to gain control of the ranch.”

  “He told everybody she was his daughter.”

  “But he didn’t say so in his will, only that he was leaving the property to Mariah Geraty. Unless the family can prove deception on Mariah’s part or incapacity on Burke’s, Mariah gets the property.”

  “Does Mariah believe she is his daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never understood the guy,” Anthony said. “Why did he pretend he was Mariah’s father? He was a Ph.D. and a university administrator. Why did he live on that redneck river with all those ranchers on the BLM dole?”

  “It’s a beautiful area.”

  Anthony shrugged. “I drive through beautiful areas all the time. It doesn’t mean I’d want to live in one,” he said in his soft voice that had a tendency to get lost in his beard. Claire had to lean forward to hear him answer his own question. “Maybe Burke let Mariah think she was his daughter because he wanted her to stick around. He’d be selfish enough to do something like that. I went out there one weekend to sell him some books, and I met her. She’s young. She’s beautiful. She can ride. She’s got a kid. If you were Burke, wouldn’t you rather have her for support than Corinne, who’s too screwed up to leave the house? Mariah helped Burke die, right?”

  “Right.”

  “If you were Mariah, wouldn’t you rather believe Burke was your father than that ne’er-do-well Ben deWitt?”

  “Apparently Mariah showed up at the ranch with a birth certificate that had been doctored to say Burke was her father.”

  “Doctored by who?”

  “Possibly the mother, who would have wanted Mariah to have the ranch and apparently had no love left for Ben deWitt. Maybe the birth certificate was her message from the grave.”

  “Well, if Mariah is Ben deWitt’s daughter, she’s entitled to the place. Ranches are supposed to stay in families forever in the Blue, aren’t they? Ben probably just considered Burke a caretaker until his own heir grew up.”

  “Burke left his stamp on it by insisting that it be a nature preserve.”

  “If Burke’s children got it, they’d sell it in a minute and blow the money. Do they know Mariah’s not his daughter?”

  “If they have a copy of this book, they have evidence. But for them, it’s a two-edged sword—proof that Mariah wasn’t Burke’s daughter, but also proof that he knew it.” She held up the history for Anthony to see. “Someone—quite possibly a family member—will do anything to get this book. That’s why I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “Sorry,” Anthony said, giving the steering wheel a spin and mumbling into his beard. “I meant to call you.”

  “Burke’s copy was stolen from my truck, and copies are missing from libraries all over the Southwest and from Page One, Too.”

  “It had to have a very small print run.”

  “Thirty copies, Lola Falter told me.”

  “It wouldn’t be hard to steal them all. You should be grateful that I’m so difficult to locate, or else mine might be gone, too.”

  “I was worried about you, Anthony. Ben deWitt’s sister was killed in a robbery of her house in Globe last month, and her copy is also missing.”

  “Now that you have it, how do you intend to protect yourself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who do you think is the thief?”

  “Until I knew what the book said, I thought Mariah was a possibility.�
�

  “I never would have suspected her; she’s too beautiful.” Anthony tugged wistfully at his beard and stared out the window, a scruffy man fantasizing about a beautiful woman. “Did Burke leave that book on the shelf for everybody to see?”

  “It was there, but it was mis-shelved. Hidden by Burke, possibly, or by someone else. Anyone who knew Burke would have expected it to be in place, and might have assumed it was missing.”

  “Who knew you had one to steal?”

  “James was in the room when I packed it.”

  “He’s a possibility. He has a history of mental problems, and he’s got a shark for a wife. They were there the weekend I was. Charming couple. Corinne? She’s weird enough, and she’d hate to give up the house. It could have been any of them, or it could have been all of them.”

  “The Stoners told me that Samantha and James agreed to sell the ranch to them if they got control of it.”

  “The Stoners are the neighboring ranchers?”

  “Right.”

  “How was deWitt’s sister killed?”

  “She was shot.”

  “There you go. That’s the way ranchers like to settle disagreements, with a bullet through the head.” The sun, beating in the window, began warming up the van. Claire rolled down her window.

  “She was shot with a thirty-eight. I only saw rifles when I was at their ranch.”

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t have a thirty-eight. You know, solving this crime could be more fun than scouting books.” Anthony had the bright-eyed expression of a coyote on the trail of a rabbit or a book scout on the trail of a sought-after book. Claire didn’t expect his enthusiasm to last forever—Anthony had a short attention span—but she intended to take advantage of it while it did.

  “The Austin/Adams folio was also stolen from my truck.”

  “Was it in good condition?”

  “Excellent.”

  “Those are harder than hell to find. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one that wasn’t under lock and key in a university’s rare-book room.”

  “I came across some of the prints today in the Reginald Arnold Gallery. The woman who works there claims she doesn’t know Samantha Lovell or her boyfriend, Rusty Siler, but I’m not sure I believe her.”

  “You don’t think Samantha was involved,” Anthony scoffed, getting a wistful look again.

  “Why not? Because she’s good-looking?” Claire knew all too well that pretty women were capable of vicious acts, but Anthony didn’t want to admit it.

  “Samantha buys books from me now and then. She drives a hard bargain, but she wouldn’t kill anybody.”

  “Why does she buy from you? She’s not a collector, is she?”

  “No, but she knows some wealthy collectors here. I sell to her at a dealer’s discount. She sells to the collectors at market value and makes herself some money.”

  “So she knows something about the rare-book trade,” Claire said, thinking of the trouble that could have been avoided if only Anthony had answered his phone. “I suppose she knows how to buy and sell on the Internet.”

  “Why not? Everybody else does. I’ve even gotten an e-mail address myself. Maybe someday I’ll give up my van and get a Web site, only then I’d have to stay home more.” Anthony squirmed on his beaded seat cover and spun the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

  “I found what I believe to be the stolen prints on Canyon Road. Rusty’s an artist. Rusty and Samantha both live here.”

  “Stolen objects go to the market, and this is where the market is,” Anthony insisted.

  “If you think I’m wrong, you could prove it by helping me catch the thief. Are you interested?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you come to Albuquerque for a couple of days? I’ll put you up in my guest room.”

  “Okay,” Anthony said. “I’ll follow you.”

  “All right.” Claire would have preferred to follow Anthony to make sure he didn’t pull off the interstate somewhere and disappear, but it made more sense for her to lead, since she knew exactly where they were going.

  They got in their respective vehicles and drove down Canyon Road, taking Paseo de Peralta to St. Francis to the interstate, with Anthony sticking close in the traffic. But once they got on I-25, he began to drift. Claire watched the VW van in her rearview mirror lumbering along behind her like a truncated elephant. She felt as if she were tethered to the van, but the rope had a reverse pull, which let Anthony set the pace. He drove the interstate the way a trucker does, creeping up the hills, speeding going down. When he slowed down, Claire slowed down. When he speeded up, she did, too. By the time they reached Albuquerque an hour later, she had a crick in her neck from looking backward. She got off the interstate at Central and led Anthony to the visitor’s lot at the university.

  She parked her truck there, too, and walked him to her office, where she dialed Rachel’s number. While she was on the phone, Harrison walked by her window, stared at Anthony, and scowled. Rachel arrived in a few minutes, and when she entered the office, Anthony stood up and straightened his beard, getting wistful over another pretty woman. For a moment Claire thought they might be attracted to each other, but she dismissed the thought. Although they weren’t that far apart in age, they lived in different generations. Rachel looked ahead. Anthony looked back. Rachel was a realist. Anthony was a dreamer. Rachel was neat. Anthony was sloppy. Rachel was courteous when she spoke to him, but she seemed to be looking at a point to the side of his face and above his shoulder rather than into his eyes. Claire suspected she considered Anthony too scruffy to be credible.

  She told Rachel what she had discovered in Santa Fe, and showed her The History of the Blue. Rachel stared at the book. “This is what all the fuss is about?”

  “That’s it,” Claire replied.

  “Not very impressive, is it?”

  “Not very.”

  “Do you think the gallery owner will admit he bought stolen prints? Most likely those prints will be gone long before law enforcement gets there. I can’t arrest anybody based on the evidence we have.”

  “Would you be willing to set up another sting?” Claire asked.

  “I might.”

  Claire laid out the plan she had developed on the drive from Santa Fe, which involved Anthony finding a computer that would let him access his e-mail account, then e-mailing Five Numbers at anon.net.fi and offering to sell The History of the Blue.

  “Won’t Five Numbers wonder how Anthony got the e-mail address?” Rachel asked.

  “Whoever it is will figure it came from me or John Harlan or Rex Barker or some other dealer Five Numbers tried to sell the books to. She—or he—is likely to go ahead anyway, being in too deep to get out now. In my opinion that book represents the ranch to the thief. You’d have to arrange to meet in some remote place,” Claire said to Anthony.

  “I’m game,” Anthony said.

  “Whoever it is has robbed a couple of times and killed once that we know of,” Rachel said. This time she did look at Anthony. Their eyes met, and Claire saw that, whatever their differences, they shared a taste for adventure and for bringing this adventure to a successful conclusion. The three of them were an unlikely trio, but she felt they could pull it off. “You’ll have to find a spot in Albuquerque for the university police to get involved.”

  Claire had thought that through, too. “What about the West Mesa?” she asked. It was Albuquerque’s open-air shooting gallery, the land of tumbleweed and rabbits, where fathers taught their sons to shoot, drug deals went down, and stolen cars and dead bodies turned up. Parts of it were within the city limits, and Rachel could operate there without a jurisdictional conflict.

  “I know the spot,” Rachel said. “I caught some students dealing Rohypnol there last year. Who’s your e-mail server?” she asked Anthony.

  “AOL,” he mumbled into his beard, suggesting he was embarrassed to admit he had the crass and commercial server. “It makes it easy to check my messages while I’m tra
veling.”

  “Is that who you use?” Rachel asked Claire.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. You two get together, send Five Numbers a message, and we’ll take it from there.” She stood up, brushed an imaginary wrinkle from her uniform, and shook Anthony’s outstretched hand.

  ******

  He spent the afternoon visiting rare-book dealers in town while Claire worked at the library. Harrison passed by her office again, stuck his head in the door, and asked if she intended to buy any books from Anthony Barbour.

  “He has a copy of deWitt’s History of the Blue,” Claire replied.

  “Do we need that book?”

  “It would round out Burke’s collection.” So would the Adams prints, but Claire wasn’t ready to mention them yet. She wasn’t ready to mention the sting yet, either, hoping that in a few days she’d have better news.

  “Is there money in the budget for another purchase?” Harrison asked.

  “There’s enough for this one,” Claire replied.

  ******

  When she got home that night, she let out the cat, watched him run around the yard, and calculated when she ought to start worrying about Anthony Barbour showing up. She had invited him for dinner, and he said he would come. He hadn’t asked what time. She hadn’t wanted to appear uptight by suggesting one. Anthony was a vegetarian, and she intended to cook a frozen pasta dinner, since she wouldn’t need to start it until he walked in the door. She considered dinner time to be six o’clock, but this was New Mexico. Calculations made elsewhere didn’t apply here, and she had tired of being the first person at every party, so she automatically added an hour to most plans. Anthony being Anthony, she added another hour and decided dinner would be at eight. By seven she had fed the cat and watched the news, which featured a terrible crime that had taken place on the Rio Grande Bridge in Taos.

  Claire began to pace back and forth across the gray Berber carpet that ran from one end of her house to the other, imagining the Rio Grande Bridge as a metaphor for life. Six hundred feet below it, the river curved through the gorge like a ribbon thrown down by a cavalier god. The Rio Grande could be gray and brooding, blue and sparkling, muddy and turbulent, but when the light hit just right, it turned into a ribbon of gold. The river’s banks were littered with the detritus of dumb mistakes: the air force jet that, on a dare, a pilot had flown successfully under the bridge only to hit a power line on the way back up; the RV that had been left in neutral with the emergency brake off; the canoes that had attempted to run the rapids. On the news she’d learned that a teenage boy had been thrown off the bridge by two other teenagers who wanted his car. Even in New Mexico, where people got killed over cars often enough, it was a horrific crime. While she paced, Claire wondered what it was that gave this particular crime such impact. The depth of the plunge and the length of time it would take for the victim to reach the bottom while fully aware of what was coming next? Or did the gorge represent some fear residing deep in the collective subconscious?