The Confidence Woman (14 page)

“We would like to have your fingerprints on file for comparison, but lack of fingerprints on the book won't prove that it is not your copy.”

“Why not?” asked Claire.

“You were wearing white gloves when you handled it here. You were wearing white gloves when you handled it at home.”

Claire looked down at her hands still encased in the type of gloves debutantes wore to coming-out parties, gloves that made her appear young and foolish, gloves that she had put on voluntarily. She felt as if she had just put her fingers into quicksand. Every move she made to escape had the effect of sinking her deeper. The time she had been dreading had arrived. The time had come to hire a lawyer.

“I won't talk to you any further until I have a lawyer,” she said.

“That's your prerogative. Please ask whoever you hire to get in touch with me.” He paused and looked over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “I'm sure whoever that is will advise you to have no further contact with the witness, Ms. Reynier.”

Claire considered that remark the parting slice of the knife.

Amaral picked up the book, put the
Scarlet Letter
jacket back on, inserted it in a clear-plastic
evidence
bag and walked out of her office, nearly colliding with Harrison Hough in the hallway.

“Excuse me,” Harrison said. “Have we met? I am Harrison Hough, the director of the center.”

“Detective Dante Amaral with the Santa Fe Police Department,” he said, extending his hand.

“My pleasure,” Harrison replied. He shook Amaral's hand then continued down the hallway, acting as if he had very important matters on his mind. Claire knew she would hear from him later.

She shut the door, closed the blinds and sat down at her desk. The books on her walls that fueled her imagination and provided insulation from the outer world no longer seemed so inspiring or comforting. In fact she had the sensation that they were closing in on her. She felt that if she stayed in her office one minute longer the books would tumble from the shelves and bury her under the pages. She got up and left the office, locking her door behind her. She walked down the hallway and through the wrought-iron door of the center without seeing anyone. All the offices she passed were empty. Usually she walked out past the information desk that faced the Anderson Reading Room and through the gallery. Today she took the other route, down the hallway past the Willard Reading Room and the murals that were considered racist. At the end of the hallway she turned right, walked down another hallway that led past restrooms and a shop where the library sold books they no longer wanted. This path led her to an exterior door. It was a path anyone could have taken to reach her office unnoticed. It would have required only seconds to place the bogus
Scarlet Letter
on her shelf. If the person had been noticed or caught, she could have said she was a friend leaving a gift for Claire. Although “acquaintance” would be a more accurate word. A friend would not be framing her for murder. Claire had no doubt that it was either someone she knew—someone who had also been a suspect in the death of Evelyn Martin—or that person's representative.

She thought about Ginny, Elizabeth, Miranda and Lynn. All had motives. All had means. Elizabeth had been in Albuquerque. Ginny lived nearby. Lynn and Miranda were quite capable of getting to Albuquerque if need be. They had all provided Amaral with alibis for the night in question. All of them could know by now that she didn't have an alibi. Either she had told them herself or they had told each other. They all knew Evelyn had stolen her copy of
The Confidence-Man.
She hadn't told Miranda to her face but she had told her husband, Erwin. It might be expensive for someone to locate a first edition, but it wasn't impossible.

She went out the door, circled around the building to the duck pond and sat down on the ground. The massive walls of the library kept it connected to the earth, but it had a tower that reached for the sky. It was the university's signature building. Claire looked into the water and watched the tower's reflection ripple and shift. All she had to do to set it in motion was disturb the surface tension by tossing something into the water. She picked up a stone, threw it in the pond and watched the tower dissolve under the impact. She believed that a signature could reflect the state of mind of the author. If that were the case,
what
would her state of mind—which was currently as muddled as the tower's reflection—do to the memory of a signature? Now that she was out of her office, she wasn't as confident about the signature as she had been in front of Amaral. She had accepted the original as Melville's because she trusted the dealer she bought it from, but she had never examined the signature. How could she be so positive the book Amaral had wasn't her book rebound in full brown morocco? And if it wasn't, where was her book? Evelyn must have disposed of it in some way. If she had sold it, it should turn up sooner or later, unless it ended up in the hands of a collector who just stuck it on a shelf. She waited until the water settled down and the reflection of the tower mirrored the original, then she went back to her office and called the three dealers she knew.

When she asked if they had heard anything about the book, the answers were no, no, and no, but they all told her that Amaral had been in touch with them and they would have to notify him if the book surfaced. No one had sold an unsigned first edition recently. No one had seen one rebound in full brown morocco. Only Brett Moon had anything new to pass on.

“Your boss called and told me that if I ever came across a signed first edition of
The Confidence-Man,
he'd like to buy it no matter what the price.”

“Harrison said that?” Claire knew she worked in a backstabbing profession, but she hadn't anticipated this particular stab. “You know that if you do come across one, it will be my book.”

“I told him that. He said he would discuss it with you at the time.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Claire said.

“Glad to help,” Brett replied.

Claire pondered this latest betrayal. Harrison had already told her of his interest in the book. He had no right to go around her back to Brett Moon. To be fair, all Harrison knew was that a valuable book had been stolen from her. He didn't know Claire was the subject of a murder investigation unless someone else had told him. Claire knew she would have to confront Harrison sooner or later. She locked her door and walked down the hall to his office.

She found him at his desk writing on a legal pad. Claire had seen enough of his handwriting to know that it was small, cramped and pinched, reflecting his permanently sour mood. On the shelf behind his desk he had a folk art sculpture of death pulling a cart. To Claire it appeared to be floating over his head like the clouds floating over the heads of characters in comic books. She saw it as a hieroglyphic expressing Harrison's gloomy state of mind.

Before he could say a word, she said, “Brett Moon told me you asked him to let you know if he found a signed first edition of
The Confidence-Man.
If that book shows up, Harrison, it will be
my
book.”

“Did you own the only signed first edition in existence?” he asked.

“Not the only one, but there are very few and mine has probably been sold recently.”

Harrison
picked up a letter opener that lay on his desk and began turning it over in his fingers. “What was that book that Detective Amaral was holding?”

“It was a signed first edition of
The Confidence-Man,
but it wasn't my book.”

“How do you know?”

“The binding was different. The signature was fraudulent.”

“Where did Amaral get it?”

“Someone hid it in my office, then told him it was there.”

“It had a dust jacket, didn't it?”

“Yes. The person who put it in my office hid it behind a
Scarlet Letter
dust jacket.”

“Interesting place to conceal it. Did you know that Hawthorne was Melville's neighbor?”

“Of course,” Claire said.

“Let me make sure I understand.” Harrison poked the desk with the tip of his pen. “Someone took an authentic signed first edition from your house and someone else put a book with a forged signature in your office?”

“Yes,” Claire replied, realizing how absurd it sounded.

“I would say whoever did that had a lot of confidence but not much common sense.”

It was his attempt at a joke, but Claire didn't laugh. She knew she would have to tell him the whole story now. He had met Amaral; he could contact the detective directly if he chose to. “Evelyn Martin, the woman who stole the book from me, was found murdered in her house in Santa Fe. She also stole from some other friends. One of them is trying to frame me by making it appear that I went to her house and took my book back.”

Harrison's mind made the leap she had expected it would. He wasn't dumb, just dull. His mind tended to get stuck in well-worn ruts. “You are the subject of a murder investigation?” he asked. His tone was incredulous, but he didn't seem to be blaming her. To the contrary, he seemed intrigued. His eyes had that light that comes from curiosity about another human being, a light that Claire rarely saw in Harrison's eyes.

“I am,” Claire admitted. “But I intend to hire a lawyer. I'm sure it will all be cleared up.”

“I never would have suspected you would be capable of murder.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Are you aware that the subject of
The Confidence-Man
is the existential enigma of the self?”

“Yes,” Claire replied, “so you said.”

“And now you have become an enigma yourself.”

“Not to me. I know who I am.” In her mind Claire finished that phrase with
and I know what I have accomplished. “On
the other hand, Evelyn Martin and the other women she robbed have become
enigmas
to me,” she said. It was a more personal and revealing comment than she had ever made to Harrison.

“And one of them is framing you?”

“Most likely,” Claire said.

“That's rather insidiously implicative.”

It was another one of those vaguely familiar phrases that Harrison used, but to Claire's surprise he seemed to be supporting her. She'd been afraid that his discovering she'd been accused of murder might cost her her job.

“Keep me informed,” Harrison said. “If the detective needs a character reference, I will be happy to provide one.”

“Thank you,” Claire said. She walked back to her office feeling buoyed by Harrison's support.

******

Claire's dreams were often puzzles with words for clues. Sometimes she solved the puzzles in her dreams; more often she did not. That night she had a dream in which she saw the words
existential enigma
in a handwriting that was cramped and pinched. She woke up with the puzzle unsolved but the words on her mind and a recollection of where she might have seen them. She went to her office, turned on the reading light and looked through the Oxford edition of
The Confidence-Man
with the introduction by Jeffrey Omer. She skimmed it like a stone skipping across water, hopping from paragraph to paragraph until the phrase “existential enigma of the self” leapt out at her. She continued skimming until she found the phrase “insidiously implicative,” as well as numerous “to be sure's.” Jeffrey Omer was a middle-aged critic when Harrison was a young graduate student. Had Harrison read Omer's work so often that certain phrases got stuck in his mind? If that was the case, he'd gotten far more intimate with his source than a scholar ought to be. Harrison was turning out to be another enigma wrapped in a riddle. With her mind full of questions, Claire went back to bed and wrapped herself in sleep.

Chapter
Thirteen

W
HEN SHE GOT TO WORK IN THE MORNING
, Claire called Sally Froelich, a lawyer who had represented her on another matter.

“How are you?” Sally asked.

“All right,” Claire replied.

“Are things going well at the center?”

“Yes and no,” Claire replied. “Work is fine, but I'm the subject of a murder investigation.”

“You?”

“Me.”

“How on earth did that happen?”

Claire explained.

“I would love to represent you,” Sally said, “but I don't do criminal law. My specialty is wills and probate, stiffs and gifts. I can recommend someone if you like.”

“Please,” Claire said.

Sally gave her the name of Sid Hyland, a well-known criminal lawyer seen often on TV.

“Do you think he would represent me?” she asked. “I'm not exactly a high-profile client.”

“Not all of Sid's clients make the evening news. I think he'll be intrigued by you. You're a better class of suspect than he usually gets. Sid's a cowboy and he can be overbearing, but he's one of the best criminal lawyers in town. If I were you, I'd give him a chance.”

******

Sid Hyland lived up to his reputation as a cowboy by wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a bolo tie on the day Claire met him in his office. She was sure that when he left the office, he'd put on the cowboy hat lying on top of his bookcase. She noticed that the bookcase contained nothing but legal books. If he was a reader, his office gave no evidence of that fact. Sid's office was rather spare, unlike Sally's, which was as comfortable as a living room. He had a diploma from UNM Law School on the wall, a massive wooden desk stained dark brown, the bookshelves—also stained dark brown—and that was it. His gray hair skimmed the edge of his collar. He was a big man, long legged and broad shouldered. Claire thought that one day she would meet a big man secure enough that he felt no need to dominate, a man as large and gentle as a bear, but it wasn't Sid Hyland, Like other big men Claire had known, he dominated the room
and
the conversation. Listening ought to be a useful skill for a defense attorney, but it was a skill Hyland appeared not to have developed. He seemed more interested in the sound of his own voice than he did in hers. Halfway through her comments his attention wandered, and once that happened Claire's sentences began to droop and lose their focus. She supposed his forceful manner would be effective at intimidating the prosecution and the jury, but hoped it wasn't the only note he knew how to play. Intimidation might not be the best strategy with Amaral. Beneath his deferential manner, the detective was a man capable of sidling away from other people's agendas.