The Confidence Woman (25 page)

“Thanks,” she said. “Did he agree?”

“Reluctantly,” Brett said.

******

Claire knew Harrison would let her take the time off once she told him the purpose of the trip. Getting a flight to LA on such short notice was more difficult.

When she got to
LAX
she took a cab to Half Moon Books. On the ground
LA
was too many lanes of fast-moving traffic, but the store in Westwood Village was a serene place, a stone house that reminded her of an illustration in a children's book. A bell tinkled as Claire opened the door. Silence followed when she closed it, giving her the sense that she had stepped from the rush of the present to a stillness that was out of time. In her opinion the covers of books stopped time and held it in place.
LA
had a reputation for being a good book town, but it always surprised her that people who lived in a place so focused on the now would be interested in old books. Of course, there was liable to be more money in one square mile of Beverly Hills than there was in the entire state of New Mexico. People here loved entertainment and make-believe and could indulge in whatever whim they wanted to. It was well known that a book would bring more in LA or New York City than it would anywhere else. That's where a smart buyer would bring it to sell. Evelyn had proven that she had cunning if not a high level of intelligence. Claire didn't consider
it
intelligent to steal from one's friends, particularly when one had so few of them.

She stood still for a moment soaking up the ambiance of Half Moon Books. The carpet was thick and plush. The bookshelves had lattice doors that displayed the covers of the books but were locked tight. You can look, the doors said, but you mustn't touch. Illustrated books were open and on display in a glass case. The books in this room exuded value, but the really pricey books were in a back room locked tight in Brett Moon's safe.

No one came out to greet her. It appeared she was being left alone to browse, but she knew she was watched by a one-eyed camera mounted on the wall and that Brett himself, or one of his staff, was observing her every move and analyzing her potential as a buyer or a seller. If someone decided she was merely a browser, no one would come out. She might just be watched on the monitor until she gave up and went away. Claire wondered if that was how Evelyn Martin would have been treated, if she hadn't called first. Evelyn was a plain brown bird and in Los Angeles even book people tended to be macaws.

While she waited for someone in the back room to recognize her, Claire went to the glass case and admired the Maxfield Parrish illustrations in a Frank Baum book. There was no price beside the book, which meant she couldn't afford to buy it. Although she had plenty of books she could trade for it, if she ever became willing to part with one of her own books. She knew eventually Brett Moon would come out with his bald head glimmering like the full moon beneath the lights in the ceiling. His hand would be extended and he would say, “Claire. Ever so delighted to see you.” But the fact that it was taking him so long to do so indicated someone somewhere considered her a browser and uninteresting. It was an assumption made about middle-aged women, an assumption it would please Claire to defy.

A bookshelf swung away from the wall and into the room and Brett swept out from behind it dressed in khakis and a white shirt but wrapped in an atmosphere of black-velvet intrigue and red-satin drama. He extended his hand and spoke the very words Claire had expected with the exact inflection she had expected.

“Claire. Ever so delighted to see you.”

She took the cool white hand. “Hello, Brett,” she said. “Nice to see you, too.”

“I trust you had a good trip.”

“I did.”

He looked at his watch. “You're early.”

“I'm always early. It's a character flaw.”

“Being early can be a feat in
LA
traffic. Would you like to go out for coffee while we're waiting for the detective to show up?”

“If you don't mind, I'd just like to wait in the back room. I wouldn't want Evelyn to see me somewhere and get scared off.”

“Of
course,” Brett said.

He led her through the bookcase-door into his study, which was the
MGM
version of a library. Miranda Kohl's decorator was outclassed in this room. The fine Oriental carpet on the floor was gently worn, as was the brown leather sofa and armchairs. The walls were covered with books, but books that were chosen for their content and their condition, not the color of their bindings, although some of the bindings happened to be magnificent.

Brett sat down behind his desk and clicked the bookcase-door shut with a remote control. Claire sat on the sofa. His eyes had a greedy gleam as he asked, “What do you plan to do with your
Confidence-Man
once we get it back? I have a buyer if you choose to sell.”

“Harrison Hough?”

“He has expressed an interest, but now that this book has a story the town will be full of buyers. The
LAPD
Art Fraud Unit has assigned Detective Jorge Serafìn to the case. Jorge has investigated thefts from some of the biggest names in the business. Any stolen object that he recovers automatically goes up in value. There is a movie in development right now about Jorge. Harrison Hough can't afford your book anymore.”

“The
LAPD
has an Art Fraud Unit?” Claire asked.

“They do. Technically, books aren't art fraud, but they're close enough for the
LAPD.
I'll be happy to take the book on consignment for you.”

“Actually, Brett, I'm planning to put it back on my shelf.”

“It doesn't hold bad vibrations that will disturb the harmony of your collection?”

“A few,” Claire admitted.

The bell that tinkled in the outer room clanged in the inner room. Brett looked at his monitor and said, “Jorge.” He clicked the remote and the bookshelf swung open. “Come on in,” he called.

The detective knew the drill and walked into the back room. He was tall, slender, silver haired and wore a well-fitted suit. If she hadn't known better, Claire would have pegged him as an actor rather than a detective. He'd be capable of playing himself in the movie, if the story of Jorge Serafin ever became a movie.

Brett introduced him to Claire and they exchanged pleasantries. They sat down on the leather furniture and Serafin queried Claire about what to expect from Evelyn Martin.

“She's a depressed person. I wouldn't have thought her capable of murder, but it's possible her depression comes from repressed anger. Evelyn envied her old friends who had done something with their lives. The anger might have burst out of her when she was found out by Miranda Kohl. It was either that or the fear of discovery.”

“What can you tell me about her body language?” Detective Serafin asked.

An
actor's question, Claire thought. “When I last saw her she had the posture of a depressed person. Her shoulders were hunched. Her spine seemed compressed.” Claire considered whether Serafin had noticed her own straight-backed posture and suspected that he had.

“Tell me about her hair.”

“It was bleached.”

“And her teeth?”

“They're dingy,” Claire said.

“Does she have any distinguishing facial characteristics or expressions?” he asked.

“She has the stiff upper lip of a person who has been hurt or has had a collagen implant.”

While they talked Claire watched the monitor for some sign of the person she had described. As the hour set for the meeting approached, Brett went to the front room and sat at the counter pretending to be studying a price guide while the ceiling light beamed down on his bald head. The detective and Claire fell silent. The seller was late and Claire became anxious she wouldn't show up at all. Finally the doorbell tinkled gently in the outer room and sounded an alarm in the inner room. Serafin went into alert mode, got off the sofa and stood behind Claire at the monitor. The door to Half Moon Books opened and a woman entered.

“Is that her?” Serafin asked.

“I don't know,” Claire admitted. The face on the monitor filled her with a sickening sense of doubt. This was not the woman she had just described to the detective. This woman's blond hair was worn in an expensive layered cut. Her face was professionally made-up and her chin was firm. She carried herself well and wore the type of fitted black pantsuit favored by professional women, a suit designed to make a woman look thinner, but even so this woman had to be twenty pounds lighter than Evelyn Martin was the last time Claire saw her. How long had that been? Claire wondered. Almost a year and a half. Could Evelyn have lost that much weight in that amount of time? The front room was not wired for sound so they couldn't hear what the woman and Brett Moon said.

“She looks like a
TV
actress,” Detective Serafin said, wrapping the word
TV
in the quotation marks of disdain.

Could there possibly have been an error in the
DNA
test? Claire wondered. In the samples given or in the process itself? Was there a layer of fraud that she hadn't discovered yet? The woman in the outer room smiled at Brett with expensive white teeth. Claire felt as if a trap door had opened beneath her and she was tumbling through a vacuum. “I don't recognize her,” she said from her downward spiral.

The woman had a shopping bag. As she reached into it, Serafín's hand moved toward the weapon concealed beneath his suit jacket. He exhaled when the hand came out holding a book. Claire exhaled herself when she saw that the book had the cover of her
Confidence-Man.

“Is
that your book?” Amaral asked.

“I believe it is.”

Claire wished it had been possible for Brett to wear white gloves when he handled the book, but it would have made him look very suspicious. He held it in his bare hands and examined it with agonizing slowness. He turned to the copyright page. He turned to the title page. He took out a magnifying glass and examined the signature. He looked at the woman, appearing to make her an offer. The woman hesitated. Claire knew Brett well enough that he wouldn't offer anyone a penny more than a book was worth. He spoke again. They agreed and shook hands. Brett's knee pushed a button beneath the counter and the bookshelf-door swung open. The detective drew his weapon and pounced through the opening.

“What is this?” The woman turned and her lips twisted in anger.

Claire followed the detective through the door and faced the woman still full of doubt. How could the elegant person in the sleek black pantsuit be the drab Evelyn Martin?

It might have been smarter for her to have pretended she didn't know Claire, but she was so stunned by her appearance that she said, “Well, look at
you.”
Her upper lip was stiff but full of fissures, and the red lipstick bled into the cracks.

“Hello, Evelyn,” Claire said. It was the moment of vindication. Evelyn had stolen valuable objects from her former friends. She had murdered Miranda Kohl and used stolen money to alter her appearance. She deserved whatever punishment she got. Yet as she watched the woman's chin droop and her posture sag while she reverted from the part of a woman full of confidence to the reality of the desperate Evelyn Martin, Claire felt no sense of triumph.

Chapter
Twenty-one

S
HE FLEW BACK TO
A
LBUQUERQUE THAT EVENING
. After she got to work in the morning she went to Harrison's office and found him sitting at his desk with the papier-mâché folk art figure of death pulling a cart across the shelf behind him. Harrison rarely showed reverence for anything, but he was in awe when he heard the signed first edition of
The Confidence-Man
had been recovered and would be returned to Claire as soon as it was no longer needed as evidence.

“This is one signed first edition of Herman Melville's that I don't have,” he said in the hushed tone he reserved for dead white male writers. That they were the only writers worth studying was a view that had finally fallen out of favor elsewhere, but not in Harrison Hough's office.

“I'm aware of that,” Claire said.

“Tell me the story of how the book was recovered.”

She told him about Evelyn Martin's arrest, adding, “Brett Moon says the value of anything recovered by Detective Serafin goes way up in Los Angeles.”

“You didn't make an agreement with Brett Moon, did you, after I told you how interested I was?”

“I haven't made an agreement with anyone,” Claire replied.

Harrison's fingers tapped the desk. “How much would you like for it?” he asked.

Claire had the impression he'd be willing to raid his children's college fund and refinance his house if necessary. “It's not for sale,” she said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“I said the book is not for sale. If you want to complete your Melville collection, you will have to find a signed first edition somewhere else.”

He glared at her. She stared back thinking how unprofessional and inappropriate it was for Harrison to try to pressure her into selling him the book. The evidence she had of his plagiarism gave her confidence. She didn't want to get involved in the turmoil that revealing it would bring, but the fact that she knew about it and could prove it gave her a determination he might not have seen in her before. She raised her chin and straightened her back, signaling she was ready to go to the edge if need be.

Taking subservience for granted, Harrison didn't notice her determination. “How much would you like?” he asked again.

“The book is not for sale.” She paused for emphasis between her words as if she were establishing authority over a naughty child.

Harrison's
hand dropped into his lap. The room became silent while he took her measure. She hoped he would see that her determination was absolute and that she had something to back it up. He had expected her to be a pushover. He might even have thought he would get the book cheap, but now she saw doubt drifting across his eyes.