The Confidence Woman Page 16

  “No. Miranda wasn’t a confrontational person. I think she was more puzzled and hurt than angry.”

  They went inside to get away from the sun, and Claire asked if she could use their computer to check her e-mail. Although Steve was the cook in this house, in other ways the Grangers followed traditional roles. He was the brain, Lynn was the heart. She took care of the quail, he took care of the computer. Steve led her into his office, logged on to the Internet, and left Claire alone. Taking her first step on the road toward answering her questions, she went to AOL’s web site, the one with which she was familiar. She did a people search of the white pages and found a J. Bartlett listed in New River. Jerry, presumably. An initial in the phone book usually meant a woman trying to conceal the fact. It wouldn’t fool many people, but it was better that people didn’t know your name if they wanted to cause you trouble. Claire printed out a map from I-17 to Jerry’s residence, then searched the yellow pages. If she were searching Phoenix her task would have been impossible, but in New River there was only one entry in the category she searched. Then, if only because she’d said she intended to, she checked her e-mail to find the usual collection of unsolicited credit card offers and porn.

  After lunch Claire said she needed to get going so she wouldn’t have to spend much time driving home after dark. Lynn protested, but not very hard. Steve didn’t protest at all. Claire got in her truck and found her way to I-17, but instead of turning north toward home, she turned south toward Phoenix. She got off near downtown, found herself an anonymous motel and checked in. She spent the rest of the afternoon at the Heard Museum, had dinner at a restaurant she liked, went back to the motel and went to bed early. In the morning she called CSWR and left a message that she wouldn’t be in. She dressed and combed her hair but put on no makeup, which left her looking appropriately wan. She had a bagel and a cup of coffee, then got in her truck and negotiated the rush-hour traffic through Phoenix to New River.

  The address she had wasn’t far from the interstate. It was the office of a dentist named Charles Rule. Dr. Rule might be able to answer her question, but to get to see a busy dentist could require a performance equal to any of Miranda’s. Claire had once had a toothache and had a vivid memory of the intense pain. She would have to call on memory since she had little experience as an actress. She parked her truck and went into the office, where she encountered a receptionist wearing a pink smock and a name tag that read Silvia.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  Claire took a deep breath then said, “I have a terrible toothache. I think the root may be dying. I don’t have an appointment, but I was wondering if the dentist could see me. I’m visiting a friend here in town and I can’t get myself back home in this kind of pain.”

  “We should be able to fit you in,” Silvia said, handing her a form to fill out.

  “Thanks,” Claire said. “This is a small town. You might know my friend here, Miranda Kohl.”

  “Oh, yes,” Silvia said. “She’s a patient of ours and so is her husband. Have a seat. Dr. Rule will be with you as soon as possible.”

  Claire sat down in the reception area and flipped through a magazine, sucking on her cheek and trying to keep up the appearance of being in physical pain. The mental and emotional discomfort she felt was real enough. She didn’t like being an impostor, but she only needed to be one long enough to get herself into the dentist’s office. She waited an hour before Dr. Rule was able to see her. Silvia led Claire down the hall to the examining room.

  Claire lay back in the reclining seat, stared at photographs of clouds on the ceiling and listened to New Age music while she waited for Dr. Rule.

  “Howdy,” he said when he entered the room.

  “Hello,” replied Claire, sitting up in the chair.

  Dr. Rule was a tall, middle-aged man with a bald head and intelligent green eyes that expressed a keen interest in her. Perhaps because she was a new patient. She doubted he could be very interested in another root canal or toothache.

  “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

  Claire straightened her back, squared her shoulders and said, “I have a confession to make. I don’t have a toothache.”

  “Oh?” asked Dr. Rule, raising an eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”

  “I’m an old friend of Miranda Kohl’s. Your receptionist told me you’re her dentist.”

  “I am, but if you’re a friend of Miranda’s, shouldn’t she have told you that herself?” He stepped away from Claire, leading her to think there was a patient/dentist confidentiality he didn’t want to violate.

  “She should, but I can’t find Miranda and I’m concerned about her.”

  “She travels a lot.”

  “I know, but this is different.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be able to find her? We see Miranda twice a year for cleaning. She rarely needs any dental work.”

  “I’m not expecting you to find her. I want you to see if you have her x-rays.”

  Dr. Rule cocked his head. “Of course I have her x-rays. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “A woman that Miranda and I went to college with was found dead several weeks ago in her house in Santa Fe. The woman lived alone, the body was badly decomposed and was identified through dental records. Evidence has come out that years ago this woman robbed her friends and framed Miranda. I’m beginning to think Miranda went to her house intending to confront her and ended up dead. If the body found in that house is Miranda’s, one way to prove it would be through your dental records.”

  “Are you saying you think Miranda was murdered?”

  “I am afraid that’s what happened.”

  “That would be horrible.” Dr. Rule put his hand to his cheek and stepped back. “I didn’t see Miranda that often, but I always looked forward to it. She was such a bright spirit. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill her.”

  “I think the woman who killed her was in a very bad state emotionally and that discovering she’d been found out sent her over the edge. You could help to prove or disprove my theory. I would be very grateful to you.”

  “Usually this sort of request comes from the police,” he said. His words were doubtful, but his eyes were sympathetic. “Why haven’t you gone to them?”

  “Because I’m a suspect myself,” Claire admitted. “And I don’t believe they’ll listen to me. Would it be too much trouble to check and see if the x-rays are in the file? If they are here, I’m wrong and I’ll forget about it.”

  “I’ll look,” Dr. Rule agreed.

  Claire waited impatiently while he was gone, staring at the clouds, listening to the tepid music. It was much harder than waiting to discover if she needed a filling. The longer he was gone, the more her doubt expanded until it became a balloon filling the room and pressing against her chest.

  When Dr. Rule returned he held an empty black plastic frame. The light shining through the holes reminded Claire of light coming through a cow vertebra in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Dr. Rule showed her that the name written on the black frame was Miranda Kohl.

  “I’m sorry it took so long,” he said. “I had to calm an anxious child on my way back. I’m afraid you are right about the x-rays. This mount should be full.”

  It was what Claire had expected, but seeing the emptiness in the mount didn’t make her feel any better. “How could someone steal x-rays from your office?” she asked.

  Dr. Rule gave her an embarrassed smile. “It wouldn’t be that hard. New River is still a small town. We don’t expect people to come in here and steal x-rays. We leave the door unlocked when we go to lunch so if our one-o’clock appointments arrive early our patients don’t have to wait outside.”

  “Do you have another set anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “How long would it take for you to notice the x-rays were gone?”

  “We might never notice if Miranda didn’t come back, unless we got a request from another dentist or the police.”

  “Could you
tell by looking at the corpse’s mouth whether or not she was Miranda even without the x-rays?”

  “I believe I could. Miranda was an actress and you know how they are about teeth in Hollywood. She took excellent care of hers. Her fillings were all porcelain inlays. She didn’t have a single silver amalgam filling. She did have one rather sloppy crown that another dentist put in.”

  “Do you have a record of who that dentist is?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Would you like me to get in touch with the police?”

  “I don’t know what to do. I probably should discuss it with my lawyer.”

  “I’d feel awful if that body were Miranda’s.”

  “Do you know her husband, Erwin?”

  “Yes, but not well. I see him occasionally at social functions. I’d like to think that if his wife was missing he’d go looking for her, but maybe not. It’s rumored that he’s in it for the money and he plays around when she’s gone.”

  It was Claire’s nature to be honest but reserved. Dr. Rule’s understanding manner overcame her reserve and tapped into her honesty. “I didn’t know Miranda that well,” she admitted. “But I hate to think of her being married to a man who played around and used her money. He’s been telling people in town that she left him.”

  “It’s possible. The house has been rather quietly on the market. It’s not listed with brokers, but a doctor friend of mine looked at it.” His expression turned serious. “Do you think Erwin might have had something to do with her death?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what,” Claire replied.

  “You will let me know what happens, won’t you?” The possibility of playing detective appeared to intrigue him.

  “Yes,” Claire said. “I’m hoping that the Santa Fe police will contact you, but in the meantime it would be better if you didn’t mention this to anyone. I don’t want Erwin to know that I have suspicions.”

  Dr. Rule put his finger to his mouth. “My lips are sealed,” he said.

  ******

  Claire left his office feeling that she had an ally, at least for a while. She suspected that if he didn’t hear from her soon Dr. Rule would go to the Santa Fe police, which might not be a bad thing, depending on the timing. Life was often a matter of timing. Claire was curious about the manner in which Jerry Bartlett lived. She didn’t know whether the timing was right to drive by Jerry Bartlett’ s residence—it was morning and she could easily be spotted—but unless she stayed another night, daylight was the only time she had. She followed her computer map to the Bartlett residence and found a trailer surrounded by a corral. It was a beautiful setting and the corral had several horses in it, but it was still a trailer. The contrast between this residence and Miranda’s was extreme. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Jerry might want to move from the trailer to the big house and see Erwin as the means to do it.

  Dr. Rule had been a comforting presence. If Claire had really had a toothache, she knew she would have left his office feeling that problem was solved, but as it stood, the disturbance in her soul had intensified. She saw the long drive home as an opportunity to work out her feelings and looked forward to it. Before she left New River, however, she decided to go by Miranda’s house to see if there were any more secrets to be revealed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SHE WORKED THROUGH THE POSSIBILITIES as she drove to Miranda’s. Whoever had stolen her x-rays must have inserted them in Evelyn’s mount in her dentist’s office. The dentist passed them on to the police without noticing they were the wrong x-rays. Evelyn was a new patient and the dentist didn’t know her well, or maybe he didn’t take the time to know her well because she wasn’t successful or interesting or attractive. If Miranda was dead, then Evelyn was likely to be alive. It would have been far easier for her to have switched the x-rays than it would have been for anyone else. Patients were often left alone with their records in a dentist’s office. If Evelyn had killed Miranda, it would have only taken a day to steal the x-rays from Dr. Rule and another day to place them in her own dentist’s office. She could have gotten an appointment with her dentist the same way Claire did with Dr. Rule, by feigning a toothache. Considering Evelyn’s isolation she could easily have assumed it would be some time before the body in her house was discovered.

  Claire thought about the body on the floor, the bleached hair and the turquoise dress, which would have looked terrible on the plain Evelyn. Miranda’s hair color changed frequently. It might have been blond on the day she went to Evelyn’s house. Claire tried to replay the scene in her mind and put all the pieces together. The argument began outside. The runner went by, saw them and heard Evelyn call Miranda a bitch. They went into the house and ended up in the kitchen. Evelyn blew up in anger and hit Miranda with the frying pan. Prints on the frying pan matched those of the victim. Either Miranda tried to defend herself, or Evelyn put the prints there after Miranda was dead. The prints on Amaral’s Confidence-Man also matched those on the victim, which would indicate that the book had once belonged to Miranda. Evelyn wouldn’t want to linger in the house with a dead body so she tossed the frying pan and towel in a garbage bag, grabbed what was handy, including Miranda’s ID, and fled in Miranda’s vehicle. She threw the garbage bag out the window on her way south on I-25. Somewhere on the road she came up with the plan to switch the x-rays. Claire hoped that Evelyn hadn’t sold her Confidence-Man before the encounter with Miranda. That Evelyn had recognized the value of the book and taken it with her as something portable and saleable. That one day, when she needed the money or thought enough time had elapsed that she wouldn’t be caught, she would try to sell it. It was one way Claire could think of to catch her.

  She drove down the narrow driveway just beyond the reach of the cactus, parked her truck, got out and stood in front of Miranda’s silent house. Noticing that the day had turned cloudy and the wind had picked up, she took her windbreaker from the cab and put it on, feeling the weight of the tape recorder she’d left in the pocket. The only change she saw here was that Jerry’s horse had left droppings in the driveway. Claire followed the path around the house. As she peered in the windows, she saw that the half-full bottle of Corona was still on the kitchen counter next to the phone and a notepad, and the Topsiders and khakis remained on the floor in the bedroom. There was no sign that either Erwin or Miranda had returned. Jerry apparently hadn’t taken it upon herself to enter the house and clean it up. When Claire reached the library window, she lingered, staring at the books on the shelves, wishing she could get close enough to discern the titles and the quality of the bindings. The books might be decoration, but her impression was that someone in this house loved books. There were more books in this library than there were in her bedroom. In her case she had read most of them. Erwin was now the most likely suspect to have put The Confidence-Man in her office. If he had, his fingerprints could be on it. Claire wondered whether she or Sid Hyland could persuade Amaral to check the book for Erwin’s fingerprints. He might consider this turn of events far-fetched. She hoped Dr. Rule would remain an ally. Without the x-rays it would only be his word that the body was Miranda’s, but if he could describe her teeth accurately and in detail his word would be convincing. A DNA test would establish definitively whether or not the body was Miranda’s—if Amaral could be persuaded to do one. He hadn’t gone to the trouble and expense earlier when the dental evidence indicated the corpse was Evelyn Martin.

  Claire stared at the tinted bronze glass in the window, shifting her focus back and forth between the books on the shelf and her own reflection, wondering what part Erwin had played in all of this. Had he planned a murder or merely taken advantage of it? How had he convinced Amaral that Miranda was on location if she was really dead? Fraudulent documents? Impersonation? He had an actor’s skills, but he’d struck a false note by pretending to be Miranda in the e-mails. The language used was his, not Miranda’s. Claire hadn’t remembered Miranda expressing anger to Elizabeth, and Lynn had confirmed that memory. She wondered how long Erwin could
keep up the pretense of Miranda being alive. Long enough to sell the house and take the money to Mexico? If he had joint ownership, he might find a way to forge Miranda’s name on the documents and transfer the title without her.

  Claire stood at the window shifting her focus and feeling the wind at her back. Somewhere between her own reflection and the books on the shelf, she detected motion in the glass. Either a cactus had taken a step forward or someone was behind her.

  She spun around and saw Erwin Bush. Jerry must have told him she’d been here.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for Miranda,” Claire replied.

  “Didn’t I tell you she was in Mexico?” He came a step closer, leading with his taut drum of a stomach. Claire was reminded that he wasn’t any taller than she was, but he was broader and quite possibly stronger. No doubt he was more cunning, but was he more ruthless? The moment was approaching when she could have the chance to find out. The fact that this meeting was taking place on Erwin’s turf worked to his advantage. But it was also taking place in the desert, which could work to Claire’s advantage. She knew the desert and never made the mistake of thinking that it was a benevolent place. She had a heightened sense of awareness and danger here. Her adrenaline level was rising and she hoped she’d have enough of it to stand her ground. She saw power in facing Erwin, capitulation and weakness in walking away.

  “You did tell me Miranda was in Mexico,” Claire replied, trying to keep her voice level and calm. “I was visiting Lynn and Steve. I thought possibly she’d be home by now and if so, it would be good to visit with her.”

  “She told me you’d been e-mailing each other,” Erwin said.

  “We have,” Claire replied. She turned toward the building. “You have a beautiful house.”

  “We like it.”

  Claire glanced through the window. “I’ve been admiring your book collection. Did you know that I’m a librarian and my job involves buying rare books for the Center for Southwest Research at UNM?”