The Confidence Woman Read online

  “Not now,” Claire said, skirting the cat and heading for her bedroom, where the walls were lined from ceiling to floor with books. Bookshelves formed a mantel across the doorway and circled the windows. Books were a form of insulation that kept the outer world from disturbing her inner world.

  From the doorway she could see that there were no empty places on her shelves. If The Confidence-Man had been stolen, it had been replaced by another book. She went to the M’s in her Americana section. The Confidence-Man was exactly where it belonged, but as she reached for the shelf, she saw that it was not her copy. This book was the Oxford World’s Classics edition with a critical introduction and explanatory notes, twenty-five years old and worthless.

  “Goddamn it,” Claire said.

  It could be an expensive loss, but she insured her valuable books and expected the insurance company to cover it. It wasn’t the value of the book or the loss of it that bothered her most. What disturbed Claire deeply was that Evelyn Martin had violated her sanctuary. She could get over someone wantonly using her credit cards. It was harder to get over a classmate and houseguest entering her bedroom and stealing from her.

  Claire was becoming ever more convinced that Evelyn’s motive went beyond financial need. There were other valuable items in her house and in Ginny’s. Evelyn had gone to the trouble to replace her book and Ginny’s jewelry, but she did it with poor imitations that would be obvious as soon as the victims went to the trouble to look for them. She seemed to be taunting her old friends, and there was a level of chicanery going on that might have amused her. The Confidence-Man was the story of a con artist with a constantly shifting identity who traveled the Mississippi on a riverboat ripping off the other passengers. Evelyn had been acting as a confidence woman herself by conning Claire while she robbed her house. But Claire had never seen much humor in Evelyn Martin, and she hadn’t seen much confidence either.

  She might well have been motivated by envy and anger, feelings fueled by despair and an empty life. “Look at you,” she had said to Claire. “You’re doing so well.” In a financial sense Claire was doing well. Her salary at CSWR was modest, but she had an inheritance and she had investments. She didn’t have a devoted man in her life, but she no longer had the drain of an unfaithful one either. Her work, her friends and her children gave her satisfaction and joy, but she had created that situation herself by taking careful steps moment by moment, day by day. To quote one of her favorite poems, “acting in the little ways that encourage good fortune.” Claire liked to believe that people were handed a piece of clay at birth, although not the same piece of clay. Some got a piece that was more malleable. Some got more clay than others. But everyone’s task was to make the best sculpture she possibly could out of her piece.

  At that task Evelyn had failed miserably. Not only had she died unmissed and unmourned, but she had left a mess of deceit behind. All that she had created from her clay was bitterness and envy. Claire supposed that sooner or later the other victims would reach the same conclusion she had—Evelyn robbed them because on one level she envied them and on another level she hated them.

  She sank into an armchair with The Confidence-Man on her lap. It wasn’t one of her favorite Melville books. She bought it years ago because signed editions were rare, and she knew it to be a good value. Over the years it had been appreciating on her shelves. If she was going to actually read Melville, she preferred Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby the Scrivener. The Confidence-Man was too metaphysical to be popular and it turned out to be the last book Melville published in his lifetime. Billy Budd was published posthumously. Eventually Melville went to work in the customs house and all of his books were out of print when he died. Recognition and success came after his death, a story that could give a writer nightmares.

  Claire glanced at the book, which had fallen open to an introduction by a critic named Jeffrey Omer that was full of pompous phrases. At first glance the phrases appeared to be loaded with meaning, but on closer examination they turned out to be critical double-talk that resembled Ginny’s artbabble. She saw Omer as another con artist creating a smokescreen with empty phrases.

  It made Claire long for simplicity, clarity and sleep. She knew she would have bad dreams if she went to bed with that book on her shelf and the feeling that her bedroom was full of tricksters. She took it down the hall and left it in her office.

  It was customary in New Mexico to burn a smudge stick made of dried sage to drive bad thoughts from a house. Claire lit one and walked through the house, inhaling the fragrant smell. She left the sage burning in a dish in the bedroom while she fed Nemesis and prepared dinner for herself. When it was time to go to bed, the bedroom was thick with smoke. Claire opened the windows to clear the room. Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed she saw a ghostly figure in a turquoise dress pulling books from her shelves then throwing them to the floor in an angry fit. She woke up knowing it would take more than smudge sticks to rid herself of the nightmare of Evelyn Martin.

  ******

  In the morning she learned of another death when her daughter, Robin, called to tell her “Nana died.”

  Nana was Claire’s former mother-in-law and Robin’s grandmother. “I’m sorry,” Claire replied. She had never been close to the mother-in-law, who had kept her son’s affections on a short leash, but Nana had been a devoted grandmother to Claire’s children.

  “She died in her sleep,” Robin said. “They think it was a heart attack. Dad is so upset.”

  “I’m sure he is, dear.”

  “The funeral is Saturday. Dad wants me to come, but I have a paper due Monday.”

  Robin lived in Boston and was getting a master’s degree at Harvard.

  “Would you go for me, Mom?”

  “I don’t know, Robin. I’m not a part of the family anymore. Your father has a new wife.”

  “Oh, Melissa,” Robin sighed.

  Listening to Robin complain about Melissa was a guilty pleasure, but one Claire was ashamed to indulge in.

  “Eric can’t go either. He’s got a conference coming up,” Robin said.

  Eric was Claire’s son, who worked in the computer business in Silicon Valley.

  “Someone who knew Nana when we were growing up should go. She was a good grandmother to us. You know she was, Mom. Please go.”

  “All right,” Claire said.

  “Would you take care of the flowers for Eric and me?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Thank you so much, Mom. You’re the best.”

  Claire got off the phone wondering if she’d been conned by her own daughter and trying to remember how old Nana had been. Eighty-five? To die in one’s sleep of a heart attack at that age was not a bad death. It was sad, but it was inevitable. The death of people her own age or younger was not inevitable. Angry as she was at Evelyn, she still felt sadness at the circumstances of her death. She would do her duty and go to Nana’s funeral, staying as distant from Evan and his new wife, Melissa, as she possibly could. Once that chore was over she intended to visit Elizabeth Best in Tucson and Lynn Granger in Cave Creek.

  ******

  She did her tai chi practice and then she called Lynn, who had been divorced twice and might be able to advise her on the etiquette of dealing with the funeral of a former mother-in-law.

  “Let me think,” Lynn said. “One of my mothers-in-law died before I married her son. I don’t know what happened to the other one. We lost touch. I guess she’s still around somewhere. Do you think it’s possible to go on caring about the mother of someone you divorced?”

  “Possible,” Claire said. “But the reason I’m going is because my daughter asked me to.”

  “It should be fun to see Evan and Melissa again,” was Lynn’s sarcastic reply.

  “Um,” said Claire, “has Detective Amaral been in touch with you about Evelyn Martin’s death?”

  “He has and he told me about the credit card fraud. According to him she stole all of our identities. Apparently she didn’t
feel she had one of her own.”

  “Did she send you a nightgown, too?”

  “Yup. It was lavender, size sixteen. It fit, I’m sorry to say, but can you see me in a lavender nightgown from Victoria’s Secret? It would give Steve another heart attack.”

  “Did you connect the credit card fraud with Evelyn before Amaral called?”

  “No. It happened so long after her visit, and she was our sorority sister, after all. Steve always suspected her, though. He didn’t much like Evelyn. He thinks her motive was envy.”

  “That’s what I came up with.”

  “Okay, she envied you because you have two wonderful children, an interesting job and you’re independent. Why me? Because I have Steve?”

  Lynn did have an enviable marriage, Claire knew. On her third try she had gotten it right. “You also live in a beautiful place.”

  “True. But what did she envy about Ginny? From what I hear she’s drunk most of the time.”

  “Well, she came out of her divorce with enough money to live in Santa Fe. She has a job, but she doesn’t have to work. Why Elizabeth?”

  “That’s easy. She has a young lover. Stop by and meet him when you are in Tucson. It’ll be worth the trip. You’re going to visit us while you’re in Arizona, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “See you soon,” Lynn said.

  ******

  When Claire got to her office at CSWR, she contacted the appropriate rare book dealers to tell them that her Confidence-Man had been stolen. There weren’t many dealers in the country who dealt in books of that caliber, and Confidence-Man was likely to make its way to one of them, although it might pass through the hands of several other dealers first. A thief who didn’t know its value might well sell it cheap, but Evelyn had been calculating enough that Claire believed she would have gone to the trouble to find out what the objects she stole were worth before selling them. She spoke to three of her favorite dealers: Tom Butterworth in Denver, Simon Collins in New York and Brett Moon in Los Angeles. None of them had heard anything about the book, which rather surprised Claire. Since Confidence-Man had not been found in Evelyn’s house, she assumed Evelyn had sold it and spent the money.

  All of the dealers promised to call Claire if the book turned up, and she trusted them enough to believe they would. Brett Moon was in a talkative mood. Claire had known him for years and she visualized him as they talked. As time went by and his head became pale and bald as a full moon, he grew into his surname.

  “I didn’t know you had a Confidence-Man,” he said.

  “I’ve owned it for years. I bought it when I was still at the U of A.”

  “Did your boss know about it?”

  “Unlikely. I can’t think of any reason I would tell him about it.” Claire spoke to her pompous and prickly boss, Harrison Hough, as little as possible. She had to talk to him about library books. She didn’t have to talk to him about her personal collection.

  “He collects Melville. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “He did his doctoral dissertation on Melville. He’s always asking me to find signed first editions for him. He would have wanted to buy yours if he’d known you had one.”

  Claire was glad she hadn’t mentioned it. The last person she would have wanted to sell her book to was Harrison Hough.

  “I’ll call you immediately if it turns up here,” Brett said.

  “Thanks,” Claire replied.

  A book Harrison coveted had been stolen from her bedroom. Evelyn was the obvious culprit, but even if she were not, Claire would never have suspected Harrison. If he was capable of stealing anything it was his employees’ joy and spirit, not their books. As if to prove her point—or make her feel guilty for the thoughts she’d had—he walked by her office wearing a sour expression. She turned her back to the window that faced the hallway and dialed Detective Amaral’s number.

  “I checked when I got home and found The Confidence-Man was gone,” she told him. “Evelyn replaced it with a worthless critical edition. I called the places where the book is likely to turn up, but none of the dealers have seen it yet. They all promised to call me if they do see it.”

  “Do you trust them?” Amaral asked in his soft, precise voice.

  “I do. There aren’t very many people who deal in books of this caliber, and they all know each other. Reputation is everything. It seems strange to me that the book hasn’t shown up yet, if Evelyn stole it when she was in my house.”

  “Do you know that she took it then?” Amaral answered. “If she copied your key, she could have come back for it at any time.”

  “Have you found out yet what caused her death?” Claire asked to fill the depression caused by the detective’s remark.

  “Yes,” he said. “There was a single blunt force trauma to the skull.”

  “Oh, no,” Claire replied. “What kind of a blunt instrument was used?”

  “That hasn’t been established yet. I may wish to talk to you further.”

  “Of course,” she said. When she got off the phone she had the sense that a storm that had been building in the distance was moving closer to her narrow canyon.

  ******

  On Friday afternoon Claire left for Tucson. It was a drive she enjoyed, full of wide-open spaces and light that shifted from moment to moment. In full daylight the mountains south of Albuquerque appeared to be gray wolves loping toward Mexico. Clouds crossing the sun dappled their backs with shadow. At sunset these mountains turned a radiant rose. Interstate 25 passed by Elephant Butte, where the Rio Grande had been dammed to form a lake. The water reflected the pale sky as it drifted in and out of view between the mesas.

  She turned southwest onto State Highway 26 at Hatch, the town that billed itself as the chile capital of the world. At this time of year farmers were plowing the fields and stirring up clouds of dust. Claire was glad to escape from the dust as she continued southwest on the emptiness of Highway 26. At Deming she turned onto I-10, the southern route to California. It was not as popular with truckers as I-40, the middle route, which made for easier driving. It was also an airplane route and the sky was crisscrossed with white contrails.

  As she approached the Arizona border, Claire drove through some of her favorite open spaces in the Southwest. The vastness here left room for wandering thoughts, and hers turned to the death of Evelyn Martin and to her old friends Ginny, Lynn and Elizabeth. Was it possible one of them had murdered Evelyn? She didn’t think any of them were capable of cold-blooded murder, but one of them might have discovered that Evelyn had robbed her and stolen her identity. Suppose she went to the house on Tano Road to confront the thief? Evelyn attacked, the woman picked up the blunt object—there was sure to be one in a kitchen—to defend herself. Claire hadn’t spoken to Elizabeth yet. Ginny and Lynn hadn’t admitted to connecting Evelyn with the theft before Amaral called, but it was possible one of them was lying.

  Other than some hard summer rains and an occasional lightning strike, there wasn’t much weather in this part of the country. Tornadoes, snowstorms or floods were all possible but very rare. Usually the sky was so clear that Claire had an unobstructed view of the mountains and the plains, but today the wind raised dust devils in the distance. Even if she couldn’t see the effect of the wind, she could feel it in the rebellious behavior of her truck.

  She entered Arizona feeling a sadness that this state was no longer home. She loved New Mexico, but there was a time when she had loved Arizona as much or more. She had spent twenty-eight years in Arizona with Evan Burch. She knew his every mood, and she knew that he would feel abandoned by his mother’s death. Evan was an only child, and no one would ever love him the way his mother had. He would be reaching out for comfort. Well, that was Melissa’s job now. All Claire had to do was show up and try to be civil.

  She had entered farming country again. The wind lifted dust devils from newly plowed fields and marched them toward I-10 like an advancing army. Wind was the one natural disa
ster capable of turning I-10 treacherous. Claire had been so preoccupied with her thoughts about family and friends that she had forgotten about the danger of driving through this part of the country in the spring when the fields were freshly plowed and the winds were high. An army of dust swept across the highway and enveloped her truck. She clutched the steering wheel, stepped on the brake, turned on her headlights and her emergency lights, but it was too little, too late.

  She could see nothing but brown dust. She knew there was a semi behind her and a compact car in front of her, but they had disappeared from view. Sound gave her no guidance; all she could hear was the howl of the wind. The cloud was so thick she might not see vehicles until the instant before she crashed into them, even if their headlights and brake lights were on. It was tempting to pull over, but that would make her a sitting target. If she kept moving, however slowly, she would eventually get through this. Claire knew that this kind of windstorm could cause pileups involving dozens of cars. She turned off the tape deck to give her full attention to the road, but she couldn’t turn off the tape that played in her mind. How close was the semi behind her? Should she pull over? Should she stop? She began to feel that the dust had entered her brain, and that if she didn’t lose her life in this dust storm, she would surely lose her mind.

  She came up suddenly on the flashing lights of the car ahead of her and pressed down hard on her brakes, hoping the semi wasn’t still on her tail. The car’s lights became a beacon that guided her through the storm. She stayed a respectful distance, not too close to stop in time, not far enough away to lose sight of the lights. The car was her guide, but if it drove off the road into a ditch she would too. Sometimes dust gusted between the cars and she lost sight of it, but then the lights blinked on again.

  Slowly the dust began to lift. She was able to ascertain the color of the car—yellow. There was a last gust of wind and they had driven through the storm. The driver stepped on the gas and sped ahead. Claire looked in her rearview mirror and saw the semi breathing down her neck. She was glad she hadn’t known how close it was as they passed through the storm. The driver swung into the fast lane, flashed his lights, honked his horn and waved as he passed, letting her know that she had been the beacon for him.