Confidence Tricks by Hamilton Waymire

Confidence Tricks
    By Hamilton Waymire
    The rap on my office door was so soft I first mistook it for the summer breeze tugging at the blinds. After the third timid knock I realized someone might desire the services of Benson Keirstad Investigations .
    “Door’s open,” I called.
    When nobody entered, I figured it was either a prank or an exceedingly shy visitor. I sighed and went to open the door myself. A short, plain, middle-aged woman, wearing a simple black dress that failed to conceal her considerable girth, stood before me and bit her lip.
    I bade her good morning and suggested she enter the office. The woman gave me a brief nod and a grimace that conveyed a mixture of gratitude and anxiety, and trod past me into the room.
    “I’m Fran Drummond,” the visitor said after I’d introduced myself.
    I waited a moment, expecting to hear about the reason for her call. When the silence threatened to turn from expectant to awkward, I said, “Ms. Drummond—”
    “Mrs.”
    “What?”
    “It’s Mrs. Drummond.”
    Okay . “Well, Mrs. Drummond, what brings you here?”
    She folded her hands in her lap and sat up straight, as if teacher had called upon her to recite a poem. “I understand you can…find out about people.” She looked at me as if it were my turn to speak.
    “Depends on what you mean by ‘find out,’ but in principle, yes, that’s what I do.”
    “I’d like you to find out about a woman named Cybil.”
    I wrote that down. “Anything else you can tell me about this person? Last name, social security, address?”
    Mrs. Drummond shook her head. “No, that’s what I need you for. But you can find her at the Moonstone Café in Downtown Disney around eleven a.m. on Thursdays.”
    I made a note of that, too. “What does Cybil look like?”
    Mrs. Drummond wrinkled her brow. “She’s between you and me in height. Blonde hair, worn long. Very shapely. Late twenties, I think.” She pressed her lips together. “Her style of dress is rather, um, casual.”
    I dropped my pencil on the yellow pad and leaned back in my swivel chair. “What exactly would you like me to do, then?”
    Mrs. Drummond turned her head to look out the window. She wrung her hands for a minute, then she said, “Let me tell you a story, Mr. Keirstad. When I’m done, maybe you’ll tell me what you can do for me, all right?”
    “Please go ahead,” I said. “Mind if I smoke?”
    “Smoke all you like. My late husband was a smoker. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
    She waited until I’d lit my cigarette. At length she placed her hands on my desk, one on top of the other, and began.
    “I was eighteen years old, a college freshman. I went to Heath Cliff.” She lifted her gaze from the ground. “That’s in Iowa.”
    “I’ve heard of Heath Cliff,” I said. “It’s a Catholic school, right?”
    “Very Catholic. Like my parents and the entire family.” Her gaze wandered back to the window, and her eyes acquired a melancholy look.
    “I met a young man there. I thought he was the love of my life. Well, I was mistaken. Suddenly, there I was, pregnant, disgraced, and the child’s father refusing to marry me.”
    Couldn’t have happened all that suddenly , I thought.
    “Abortion was out of the question, and so was single motherhood. My parents shipped me off to an aunt in Maine before I started to show. I gave birth to a little girl.”
    Mrs. Drummond swallowed and took a moment before she continued. “It was arranged that my daughter should be passed off as another woman’s child. She was taken from me right after birth, and I never saw her again.”
    “Are there any official records? A birth certificate with your name on it? Adoption papers?”
    Mrs. Drummond shook her head. “I don’t think so. As I said, it was all hushed up. The only thing I know is the name her new family gave my child. The priest who helped arrange the deal told me.”
    “Let me guess.”
    She nodded. “Cybil, yes.”
    “Not a run-of-the-mill