The Confidence Woman Read online

  “What can you say about abstractions?” it read.

  They’re red, they’re black, they’re a circle, they’re a square, they’re the very absence of pictureness. Forget about Renata Jennings’s black phase. The black paintings in this show are stuck in the box. By now haven’t we learned all there is to learn from black? Black is punctuation—the comma, the period, the semicolon, the pause in the flow. Red is the now. Red is the flow. Red is the fiery breath of the dragon. The paintings in Jennings’s red series swirl and whirl and dissolve the boundary of the box. They suck the strength from the viewer and leave you gasping on some subtly reptilian level of consciousness. Skip the black. Red is the reason for this show, the only reason for this show.

  It had a certain bravura style that Claire found amusing, but it was an exaggeration of the show she had seen, reminding her that the written word had always been the perfect forum for a literary con artist.

  Before she went to bed she went outside and lured Nemesis in with a dish of tuna. Venus, no longer alone in the sky, had been surrounded and diminished by a multitude of pinholes in the darkness.

  ******

  When Claire got to work in the morning, she took a step down one of the paths that began when Evelyn Martin left Jeffrey Omer’s critical analysis of Melville on her shelf. She supposed that leaving that book was Evelyn’s idea of a joke. Presumably she had found it in a used bookstore somewhere; it had the beaten and battered look of a book that had been around. It was cheap, it was available, it was on the subject of the book she was stealing. The fact that it was that particular book could be considered serendipity or more bad luck. It was leading Claire to question the credibility of her boss, but then she was in a mood to question the credibility of everyone she knew.

  She logged on to her computer, went to Dissertations Abstracts, located Harrison Hough’s dissertation on Herman Melville and ordered a copy to be sent to her home address. It was something any scholar could do, but rarely would do without ulterior motive. If Harrison had gotten his Ph.D. from UNM, his dissertation would be in the library, but his doctorate was from UTEP. Fortunately Harrison was out that day so she didn’t have to feel guilty every time she ran into him.

  ******

  When she got home on Friday, she found a package lying on the brick floor of her courtyard. She went to her office, took the critical edition of The Confidence-Man from the shelf and brought it back outside. By now the days were long enough for her to sit on the banco in the evening and read. She opened the package and began the process of comparing the critical introduction to the dissertation. Normally, comparing a dissertation to anything went beyond boring, but this task had the thrill of the hunt, giving her the heightened alertness of a predator closing in on a prey, which might be exactly the way someone else was feeling about her. A transference took place between the hunter and the hunted, and she soon saw one between the doctoral candidate and the critic. The repetition in the phraseology was more than coincidental. In addition to “existential enigma of the self” and “insidiously implicative,” she found “ontologically amorphous” and other phrases she had heard Harrison use. Harrison and Jeffrey Omer had reached similar conclusions, but well-meaning students of Melville might logically reach similar conclusions. Using the exact same language, however, would be considered plagiarism. While paraphrasing was acceptable, copying was not. Claire wondered whether Harrison had studied Omer so intently that the critic’s phrases wore a channel in his brain and became his phrases. It was hard to imagine Harrison being dumb enough to steal deliberately from Jeffrey Omer, but it might happen unconsciously to someone who lacked an inventive mind. The committee at UTEP had been lax when they accepted the dissertation. Harrison’s adviser should have been familiar with Omer’s work.

  While Claire had been reading, the shadows took over her courtyard. She put the dissertation and the book down on the banco and watched the shadows come to life on the summer wind. Nemesis climbed to the top of the wall and stood still, silhouetted against the fading light. Something rustled in the courtyard and he leapt for it, disappearing among the shadows. It was the hour when the coyotes came out of the Sandias into the foothills and began to hunt. There was the moment when a predator killed a prey and there was an instant right before the kill when the prey was there for the taking. Claire wondered which moment the predator found most gratifying. Harrison had stepped into her line of fire. She had enough evidence in these documents to ruin his career. Was she capable of doing it? What kind of a burden would it be to know it and not do it? Would she have to think “plagiarist” every time she looked at Harrison? The civilized action when in doubt was to discuss it. She picked up the documents, coaxed Nemesis inside and shut the door behind her.

  Usually when she was troubled by something to do with books she ran it by John Harlan. She called him at home and was pleased to get the man and not the machine.

  “Claire,” he said, “how have you been?”

  “I just discovered something I’d like to talk to you about. I found evidence that Harrison plagiarized some of his dissertation on Melville.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. That pompous pooh-bah never had an original thought,” John replied. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  Claire looked at her watch, which read eight o’clock. She thought about what was in her refrigerator—very little. “Not yet,” she admitted.

  “I’m fixing myself some gruel. Would you like to come over and share it? There’s more than enough for two.”

  “It’s getting late.”

  “What the hell, it’s Friday night, isn’t it? You don’t have to work tomorrow.”

  Claire had forgotten that it was Friday. It had been one of those weeks when she was too preoccupied to remember the weekend was approaching. She had made no plans and faced the wasteland of no one to see and nowhere to go. The feeling hung over from high school that it was okay to stay home alone with your cat during the week, but to stay home on the weekend was pathetic. She accepted John’s invitation.

  She knew he lived in a townhouse complex near the store, but she had never actually been there. It was only an eight-minute drive from Claire’s house, but much farther away in feeling. Albuquerque comprised fifteen hundred feet in elevation and several life zones beginning with the Rio Grande, which nourished a bosque of magnificent cottonwood trees. Claire lived at the high end of the city near where private land ended and national forest began. The natural vegetation here—prickly pear and cholla—was full of thorns, but a few hundred feet higher it turned to piñon and juniper. In her development people were changing the vegetation by planting lilacs and cottonwoods, and she herself had a wall of roses. The Heights and the Valley both had natural beauty and spectacular views, and that was where people with money tended to live. There was some fine architecture around the university and the downtown area, but in much of Albuquerque scrubby desert had been replaced by undistinguished buildings and unnatural vegetation.

  The complex where John lived fell into the undistinguished category. It was a row of attached townhouses stuccoed in a forgettable color and had no landscaping or views. Claire knew why John had chosen to live here—he could afford it, it was convenient to work, he didn’t have to think about it. John didn’t care where he lived as long as he had his books. When he opened the door, Claire saw that his townhouse had the same careless clutter as his office. The walls were lined with bookcases. Papers were piled everywhere. The sofa was upholstered in gray, as was the armchair. His artwork consisted of black-and-white drawings, carelessly framed, haphazardly hung. The lighting came from overhead fixtures that made Claire feel as if she was being examined. Someone needed to tell John about plush furniture, pink bulbs, the welcoming puddle of light that seeped out from under a table lamp. Claire had to ask herself why she should expect plush furniture and pink bulbs from John when she didn’t have them in her own house.

  He had a warm glow when he met her at the door, and so did the amber liquid in
the glass in his hand.

  “What are you drinking?” Claire asked after they had exchanged their hellos.

  “Jack Daniel’s. Would you like a shot?”

  “A small one, on ice.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, separated from the living room by a counter and a dining room table. Like many other surfaces in the house, the table was piled high with reading material. John had cleared space enough for two and put down place mats with knives and forks. He dropped some ice in a glass and poured the Jack Daniel’s over it. Claire leaned against the counter and took a sip, enjoying the warm, mellow taste. The only time she had gotten drunk in recent memory was on Jack Daniel’s.

  “Well, now that you know your boss is a plagiarist, what are you going to do about it?” John asked.

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “You never liked the guy, did you?”

  “Not much. You know him. You know how difficult he can be. How parsimonious he is with money and praise.”

  “You could get him fired, couldn’t you? It would make your life easier.”

  “It’s not that easy to get someone fired. Harrison has tenure.”

  “They could move him sideways, let him keep his salary but give him an office in the basement with nothing to do. It would get him out of your hair.”

  “True.”

  “Dinner’s almost ready, why don’t we eat now, talk later?”

  “All right,” Claire said.

  John concentrated on putting the chicken breasts in the microwave and the broccoli in the steamer. In a few minutes dinner was ready. He placed it on two plates with white rice he had already cooked and they carried it to the table. Like many men who found themselves single after having been married for a long time, John had a limited knowledge of cooking. The meal was edible but uninspired. Claire sipped at her Jack Daniel’s through dinner and imagined that she was eating chicken the way she prepared it, the way John didn’t like it, roasted slowly in a clay pot with curry powder and onions and yams.

  When the meal was over, John cleared the table and suggested they move to the living room, where they sat down at opposite ends of the sofa. John put his feet on the coffee table, stretched his arm across the back of the sofa and studied Claire, who kept wishing that he would turn the overhead lights off but feared he would misunderstand if she made the suggestion.

  “Now tell me why you’re so reluctant to nail your boss’s ass to the wall,” he said.

  “Kindness?”

  “Why don’t I believe that’s all there is to it? Not to say you’re not a kind person, but you’re not a simple person either.”

  “There are a number of things. I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the vindictive librarian who destroyed Harrison Hough’s career.”

  “Could you do it anonymously?”

  “I could, but it seems like a cheap shot.”

  “Won’t it be awkward to be working with the guy, seeing him every day, knowing what he did and not saying anything about it?”

  “Yes,” Claire replied. “Which is one reason I don’t know what to do.” She took a deep sip of her Jack Daniel’s, leaving a thimbleful of amber in the glass.

  “Care for another?” John asked.

  “No, thanks. I’m learning what it’s like to be a rabbit with a hawk circling overhead myself, to have someone out to destroy my reputation and my life. Someone I know is trying to frame me for Evelyn Martin’s murder.”

  “She’s the woman who stole your Confidence-Man?”

  “Right. Somebody hid another one in my office disguised under the jacket of The Scarlet Letter, then told the detective who is investigating me exactly where it was. It was a first edition and a signed copy, but it wasn’t my book.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The signature looked bogus.”

  “Couldn’t the detective have it authenticated?”

  “He could and he might, but he says that wouldn’t prove anything. According to him my edition could have had a fraudulent signature. Apparently he believes I hit Evelyn Martin over the head, killed her, took my book back and hid it in my office.”

  “If you’d done that, you wouldn’t be dumb enough to tell someone like me who could rat on you.”

  “Amaral doesn’t have such a high opinion of my intelligence. I told him I wouldn’t be dumb enough to own a book with a fraudulent signature either. On the night Evelyn Martin was presumed murdered, a runner saw a woman who fits my description arguing with her. I don’t have an alibi for that night, so I’ve hired a lawyer. If this goes to court maybe I’ll use you as a character witness.”

  John sipped at his drink. “Use me as your alibi. We’re two people who are often home alone at night. Who’s to say we weren’t together?”

  “Thanks, John. If s kind of you to offer, but neither one of us are practiced liars and we’re liable to get ourselves into more trouble.”

  “I doubt it will ever go to court, but if it does, what jury in its right mind will believe you’re capable of murder?”

  “Isn’t everyone capable of murder under the right circumstances?” Claire asked. “Suppose one of my former friends found out Evelyn had ripped her off and went to her house. There was an argument. Evelyn attacked the woman, who found a blunt object near her hand and hit Evelyn over the head with it. She didn’t intend to kill anyone, just to protect herself.”

  “If someone did that she ought to come forward and say so.”

  John put his glass down on the end table and inched closer on the sofa, leading Claire to think that not only were most people capable of murder under the right circumstances, they were also capable of sex.

  “Would you say so if you were guilty?” she asked him.

  “I’d like to think I would. Self-defense isn’t a crime.”

  “There would only be the perpetrator’s word for it. Some of my former friends are not as civilized as you are. One of them is finding it easier to fake an alibi and implicate the person who doesn’t have one—me.”

  He extended his arm along the back of the couch. Claire thought this might be the signal for her to move closer, too, and snuggle into his extended arm, but she remained committed to her end of the sofa. Dating had been awkward as a teenager. Dating in middle age was even worse. She had the same anxiety about how she would perform, but it wasn’t fueled by the same wild animal desire. Desire at this age was more like a house pet that got to run wild only when permitted.

  She glanced at her watch and said, “It’s getting late,” which was roughly the equivalent of declaring she had AIDS or wore a chastity belt.

  She expected John to protest, but he surprised her by agreeing. He stood up. So did she. He walked her to the door, gave her a peck on the cheek and said good-bye.

  “Thanks for the dinner,” she said, pecking him back.

  “My pleasure,” he replied.

  ******

  Later that night she woke up, well aware that she still had desire, although the man who’d been in her dreams was not John Harlan, as he appeared now, but Pietro Antonelli, as he was thirty years ago.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IN THE MORNING SHE TOOK OUT A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER, sat down at the table in her dining area, imagined herself to be a police artist and attempted to reconstruct Pietro’s face as it might appear now. There was likely to be less hair on top of his head. When she knew him he had thick, reddish brown hair worn long. It was one of many things she admired about him. Pietro had been so skinny then that she felt his bones when they hugged. Reminding herself that Pietro would be in his fifties now, she added pounds to her mental image and began mentally manipulating the hair, moving the hairline back, changing the color from dark red to pale red to gray to white. Often as a man lost the hair from his head, he added it to his face. If the middle-aged Pietro had a beard, would it be short? Long? Gray? Red? White? His eyes at least were likely to remain the same: shrewd, warm, sparkling. After she rearranged the features, it was no longer the Pietro wh
o inhabited her dreams. But she wouldn’t be the Claire who inhabited his dreams either—if she even entered his dreams.

  Feeling discouraged, she crumpled up that piece of paper and threw it away. She got up, made herself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table again and tried to imagine the last face Evelyn Martin ever saw. Elizabeth Best’s came out red and twisted in anger. Ginny’s was also red, swollen and befuddled by alcohol. Claire didn’t want to imagine Lynn’s face here at all, but she made herself do it and came up with a sad, perplexed expression. As for Miranda, she saw her as the young woman, the old woman, the businesswoman, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get rid of the vague hippie expression she remembered from the U of A.

  Considering what Sid Hyland had said, she moved on to the men in these women’s lives. Brian and Jess were not so different from each other in their eagerness to please Elizabeth. She saw Steve Granger as thin, pale and hungry, and Erwin Bush as a card player with an amused glint in his eye.

  Mentally she erased all of them, then took a blank piece of paper and drew the outline of another face, one with no hair, no eyes, no expression, merely a line around a blank, white space.

  She set that piece of paper aside and thought about Harrison. Knowing all too well how he looked today, she tried to imagine how he looked in his late twenties or so, the age when he would have written his dissertation. Harrison remained Harrison, sour, mean-spirited, but suddenly vulnerable.

  She thought about the phrase “the existential enigma of the self” and wrote it down. Technically the phrase wasn’t Harrison’s, but he had expropriated it.

  Since words were the tools of her trade, Claire thought that she might learn more about the people she knew if she considered their words rather than their appearances. She began making a list of their more revealing phrases beginning with Evelyn’s envious “look at you, aren’t you doing well.” She added Elizabeth’s “one of the things I hate about this country,” which expressed her out-of-touch selfcenteredness. There was the naïve devotion expressed in Jess’s “of course you were,” the equally naive admiration in Brian’s “one of the foremost environmentalists in the Southwest.” There were all the nicknames Ginny used in speech—Clairier, Lizzie, Evie—and the artbabble in her writing. Words were a smokescreen for Ginny, but she could wield them like a sword when she chose to. When she came to Lynn, Claire wrote down “I know you wouldn’t do anything wrong,” which expressed the concern she had for others. She remembered Steve saying Evelyn should move to Santa Fe, which expressed the acuteness of his observation. There hadn’t actually been any dialogue with Miranda, only the written words in the e-mail. She remembered two phrases in that e-mail—“time wounds all heels” and “living well is the best revenge.” She compared the latter phrase to Erwin’s “revenge is a dish best served cold.” Was this a case of two people who knew each other well falling into the same phraseology? Would the Miranda she knew have thought about revenge? But, of course, she had to consider that the Miranda who wrote this e-mail was no longer the person she had known, just as she was no longer the person Miranda had known.