"Vera, if I laugh now, I'll end up peeing in my pants." I gave her a quick pat and headed straight to the nearest stall, relieving myself while I talked to her across the top of the cubicle. "What happened to the maid? She must have been mortified," I said. "Her own doctor with his bum hanging out of his pants? My God."
"She was out of there like a shot and that's when he proposed. He started screaming it was my fault. He said if I'd marry him we could grapple on our own floor without all the interruptions –"
"The man's got a point."
"You really think so?"
I flushed the toilet and emerged. "Vera, do me a favor. Just marry the guy. He's a doll. You'll be deliriously happy for eternity. I promise." I washed my hands and dried them, grabbing up my shoulder bag. "Dietz is waiting for me. I gotta go or he'll think I've been kidnapped. I get dibs on maid of honor, but I won't wear dusty rose. Let me know when you set the date." When I left, she was staring after me with a dazed look on her face.
As I passed California Fidelity, I caught sight of Darcy at the file cabinet behind the receptionist's desk. She was barely moving, apparently intent on cooling her fevered brow against the cold metal of the cabinet top where she'd laid her head. I detoured into the office. She managed to raise her eyes without moving her head. "Vera chew your ass out?"
"We're fine. She's getting married. You can be the flower girl," I said. "I need to know what you were talking about when I mentioned that Agnes died. You said it was weird. What was weird?"
"Oh, I wasn't referring to her death," Darcy said. "That's the name of a book."
"A book?"
"Agnes Grey. It's a novel by Anne Bronte, written in eighteen forty-seven. I know because it was the subject of my senior thesis at UNLV."
"You went to college in Las Vegas?"
"What's wrong with that? I grew up there. Anyway, I was a lit major and it was the only paper I ever wrote that netted me an A-plus."
"I thought the name was Charlotte Bronte."
"This is a sister. The youngest. Most people only know about the two older ones, Charlotte and Emily."
A chill tiptoed over me like a daddy longlegs. "Emily..."
"She wrote Wuthering Heights."
"Right," I said faintly. Darcy went on talking, waxing eloquent about the Brontes. I was sifting back through Agnes's account of Emily's death, the hapless "Lottie" who was simpleminded and couldn't remember how to get in and out the back door. Was her real name Charlotte? Could Agnes Grey's real name be Anne something, or was that strictly a coincidence? I moved back toward the corridor.
"Kinsey?" Darcy was startled, but I didn't want to stop and explain what was going on. I didn't get it myself.
When I got to my office, Dietz was just hanging up the phone. "Did you talk to Rochelle?" I asked, distracted.
"It's all taken care of. She's hopping in her car and heading straight up. She has a friend who runs a motel on Cabana called the Ocean View. I said we'd meet her there at four. You know the place?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," I said. The Ocean View had been the setting of my last and most enlightening encounter with an ex-husband named Daniel Wade. Not my best day, but liberating after a fashion. What had Agnes told me about Emily? She was killed in an earthquake. Down in Brawley or somewhere else? Lottie was the first to go. Then the chimney fell on Emily. There was more, but I couldn't remember what it was.
Dietz glanced at his watch. "What shall we do till she gets here? You want to pop by your place?"
"Give me a minute to think." I sat down in my client chair and ran my hand through my hair. Dietz had the good sense to hold his tongue and let me ruminate. At this point, I didn't even want to have to stop and bring him up to speed. Could Emily's death have been the event that precipitated Agnes Grey's departure from Santa Teresa? Had she actually been here? If the name Agnes Grey was a phony, then what was her real name? And why the subterfuge?
"Let me try this on you," I said to Dietz. I took a few minutes then to fill him in on Darcy's remark. "Suppose her name really wasn't Agnes Grey. Suppose she used that as a cover name... a kind of code..."
"To what end?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I think she wanted to tell the truth. I think she wanted someone to know, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. She was terrified about coming up to Santa Teresa, I do know that. At the tune, I figured she was nervous about the trip – unhappy about the nursing home. I just assumed her anxiety was related to the present, but maybe not. She might have lived here once upon a time. I gather she and Emily were sisters and there was a third one named Lottie. She might have known some critical feet about the way Emily died..."
"But now what? At this point, we don't even know what her real name was."
I held a finger up. "But we do know about the earthquake."
"Kinsey, in California, you're talking eight or ten a year."
"I know, but most of those are minor. This one was big enough that someone died."
"So?"
"So let's go to the public library and look up the Santa Teresa earthquakes and see if we can find out who she was."
"You're going to research every local earthquake with fatalities," he said, his voice flat with disbelief.
"Not quite. I'm going to start with January six or seven, nineteen forty... the day before that box was packed."
Dietz laughed. "I love it."
Chapter 23
* * *
The periodicals room at the Santa Teresa Public Library is down a flight of stairs, a spacious expanse of burnt-orange carpeting and royal blue upholstered chairs, with slanted shelves holding row after row of magazines and newspapers. A border of windows admits ample sunshine and recessed lighting heightens the overall illumination. We traversed the length of the room, approaching an L-shaped desk on the left.
The librarian was a man in his fifties in a dress shirt and tie, no coat. His gray hair was curly and he wore glasses with tortoiseshell frames, a little half-moon of bifocal in the lower portion of each tens. "May I help you?"
"We're trying to track down the identity of a woman who might have died in one of the Santa Teresa earthquakes. Do you have any suggestions about where we might start to look?"
"Just a moment," he said. He consulted with another of the staff, an older woman, and then crossed to his desk and sorted through a pile of pamphlets, selecting one. When he returned he had a local publication called A Field Guide to the Earthquake History of Santa Teresa. "Let's see. I can give you the dates for earthquakes that occurred in nineteen sixty-eight, nineteen fifty-two, nineteen forty-one –"
"That's a possibility," I said to Dietz.
He shook his head. "Too late. It would have been before nineteen forty if that newspaper has any bearing. What other dates do you show?"
The librarian flipped the booklet open to a chart that listed the important quakes offshore in the Santa Teresa channel. "November four, nineteen twenty-seven, there was a seven point five quake, but that was west of Point Arguello and the damage here was slight."
"No casualties?" Dietz asked.
"Evidently not. There was an earthquake in eighteen twelve that destroyed the mission at La Purisima. Several more from July to December nineteen oh-two..."
"I think we want something after that," I said.
"Well then, your best bet would probably be to start with the big quake in nineteen twenty-five."
"All right. Let's try that."
The man nodded and moved to a row of wide gray file cabinets, returning moments later with a box of microfilm. "This is April first through June thirtieth. The quake actually occurred on the twenty-ninth of June, but I don't believe you'll find a newspaper reference until the day after." He pointed to the left. "The machines are over there. Use the schematic diagram to thread the film."
"If I find something I need, can I get a copy?"
"Certainly. Simply position that portion of the page between the two red dots on the screen and press the white but
ton in the front."
We sat down at one of four machines, placing the spool on the spindle to the left, slipping the film across the viewer and attaching it so that it would wind onto the spool on the right side of the machine. I turned the automatic-forward knob from off to me slow speed position. The first page of the paper came into view against a background of black. The edges of the pages were ragged in places, but for the most part the picture was clear. Dietz stood behind me, looking over my shoulder as I turned the knob to fast forward.
Days whipped across the screen in a blur, like a cinematic device. Now and men, I'd halt the process, checking to see how far we'd gone. April 22. May 14. June 3. I slowed the machine. Finally, June 30 crept into view. The big earthquake had occurred at 6:42 a.m. on June 29. According to the paper, the severity of the quake was such that the concrete pavement buckled and street signs were snapped as if they were threads. The reservoir broke and sent a flood of mud and water into Montebello. Gas and electric power were shut off immediately and in consequence, there was only one fire, easily contained. Many buildings downtown were badly damaged, the streetcar track was snapped, the asphalt pavement sank six inches in places. Residents slept outside that night and many cars were reported on the highway heading south. In all, there were thirteen fatalities. Both the dead and injured were listed. Sometimes ages and occupations were specified, along with home addresses if they were known. None among the dead seemed remotely related to the tale Agnes Grey had told me.
I was hand-cranking the machine by then, stopping the film at intervals so that we could scan each column. A prominent widow had been crushed to death when the walls of a hotel toppled in on her. The body of a dentist was removed from the ruins of his office building. There was no mention of anyone named Emily. "What do you think?" I said to Dietz.
He made a thumbs-down gesture. I rewound the microfilm and took it off the spindle. We returned the box of film to the main counter, consulting in low tones, trying to figure out what to try next, if anything. Dietz said, "What year was Agnes born?"
"Nineteen hundred, as nearly as we can tell... though there's some question. It might have been nineteen thirteen."
"So she would have been somewhere between twelve and twenty-five in nineteen twenty-five. If you figure her sister was in a five – or six – year age range of her, she could have been any age from six to thirty."
"We didn't see a female earthquake victim even close to that," I said.
Dietz lifted his brow. "For all we know, Emily was the family dog."
The librarian approached, smiling politely. "Find what you were looking for?"
"Not really," I said. "Would you have anything else?"
He took up his field guide with patient interest in our plight. "Let's see here. Well... it looks like there was an aftershock to that nineteen twenty-five earthquake. Here... June twenty-nine, nineteen twenty-six... exactly one year later to the day. One fatality. The only other earthquake of note would have been November four, nineteen twenty-seven, but there were no fatalities recorded in that one. Would you like to take a look at the one in 'twenty-six?"
"Sure."
We went back to the same machine, repeating the process of threading the film. Again, we flew through the calendar, time flashing by in a whir of gray. As we reached the end of the reel, I slowed the machine, hand-cranking my way from day to day, scanning one column at a time. Dietz was leaning over my shoulder, making sure I didn't miss anything. I was losing hope. I thought it was a good theory – hell, it was my only theory. If this didn't pay off, we were out of luck.
I read about Babe Ruth, who'd just hit his twenty-sixth homer of the season back in Philadelphia. I read about some woman whose six-year marriage was annulled when she found out her former spouse was still alive. I read about Aimee Semple McPherson's stout defense of her alleged kidnapping at the hands of strangers...
"There it is," Dietz said. He put a finger on the screen.
I let out a yelp and laughed. Six library patrons turned around and looked at me. I put a hand across my mouth sheepishly. I peered at the machine. It was like a gift – such an unexpected pleasure – lines leaping off the page. The article was brief and the style faintly antique, but the facts were clear and it all seemed to fit.
WOMAN KILLED AS BRICKS FALL
Chimney Crushes Out the Life of Local Resident
Emily Bronfen, 29-year-old bookkeeper employed by Brookfield, McClintock and Gaskell, met death yesterday afternoon when bricks fell from a chimney at the family home, 1107 Sumner Street, and crushed her during an earth tremor at 3:20 p.m. The body was taken to the Donovan Brothers funeral parlor and will be cremated today at 4:00.
The Associated Press reported that the shock, which swung doors at Pasadena and swayed hanging electric light drops at Santa Monica, was also felt in Los Angeles, where occupants of office buildings noticed their swivel chairs doing a wild shimmy along the floor.
Venture reported two separate shocks lasting about four or five seconds each. Santa Monica reported a second shock shortly after 7:00 last night.
L. L. Pope, Santa Teresa City Building Inspector, made the rounds of the city yesterday afternoon and reported that he found no damage to any building erected under provisions of the new building code. "There was very little structural damage of any kind," he declared. "It was virtually all confined to old fire walls, some of which were fractured in the earthquake of one year ago..."
I turned and looked up at Dietz. We locked eyes for a moment and his mouth came down on mine. I'd reached a hand up, closing my fist in his hair. He reached a hand down my shirt and rubbed his fingertips across my left breast.
"Print it," he said hoarsely.
"Oh God," I breathed.
At the counter, the librarian pulled his glasses down and peered at us over the rims.
Blushing, I straightened my collar and adjusted my shirt. I pressed the button. We picked up an invoice for the photocopy at the desk when we turned in the microfilm. We left the periodicals room without further reference to the two librarians, who seemed to be conversing together about some terribly amusing subject.
"Bronfen. I like that. It's close enough to Bronte," I said as I followed him up the stairs. "The parents must have been big on Victorian literature."
"Possibly," Dietz said. "I don't know what it proves at this point."
On the main floor, we checked back through various city directories. The 1926 edition showed a Maude Bronfen (occupation, widow) at the address listed in the paper. "Shoot," I said. "I was hoping we'd find Anne."
Dietz said, "Maude was probably their mother. What now?"
"Let's try the Hall of Records. It's just across the street. Maybe we can track down Irene's birth certificate."
We paid for the photocopy, left the library, and headed over to the courthouse, crossing the one-way street. Dietz had taken me by the elbow, his gaze divided equally among cars approaching from the left, pedestrians in the general vicinity, and possible vantage points in the event Mark Messinger had chosen this location to pick me off. "So what's the operating theory here?" I asked.
He considered that for a moment. "Well, if I were altering a document like that, I'd try to keep the changes to a minimum. There's less chance of screwing up."
"You think Irene's first name is real then?"
"Probably. I'd guess the attending physician, date, and time of birth are okay, too, along with the filing date and the name of the registrar or deputy."
"Why would Agnes change her age? That seems peculiar."
"Who knows? Maybe she was older than the guy and too vain to have it part of the public record. As long as you're altering reality, you might as well eliminate anything that doesn't suit."
The recorder division of the county clerk's office is in an annex to the Santa Teresa Courthouse, a ground-floor office in the northwest corner of the building. We cut across the big square of side lawn to the entrance, pushing through the fifteen-foot wood-and-glass door. The ulter
ior was comprised of an outer office with a counter running along our left, a glossy red tile floor, a table and chairs available for those filling out forms, and on the right, glass display cases mounted on the wall, filled with samples of foreign currency. Behind the counter was a large, open office space broken up by the ubiquitous "action stations" that seem to characterize every other office I've seen of late.
There was one couple at the counter ahead of us, apparently picking up a marriage license. The husband-to-be was one of those skinny guys with a narrow butt and tattoos all up and down his arms. The bride was twice his size and so pregnant she was already into her Lamaze. She clung to the counter, her face damp with perspiration, panting heavily while the clerk completed all the papers in haste.
"You sure you're okay? We can probably get a wheel-chair from someplace," she said. The clerk was in her sixties and didn't seem anxious so much as intent on efficiency. Visions of lawsuits were probably dancing in her head. Also, she might not have been certified in midwifery. I wondered if Dietz had any experience in delivery.
The bride, at the pinnacle of a contraction, shook her head mutely. "I'm... fine... unh... I'm fine..." She had a gardenia pinned in her hair. I tried to picture the wedding announcement in the papers. "The bride, in a peau-de-soie maternity smock, was accompanied by her obstetrician..."
"Judge Hopper's waiting for us upstairs," the husband said. He smelled of Brylcreem and cigarettes, his blue jeans pleated up around his waist with a length of rope.
The clerk handed over the certificate. "Why don't I have June get the judge on the phone and have him come down here?"
A second clerk, her eyes rolling, picked up the telephone and made a quick call while the bride crept haltingly toward the door. She seemed to be singing to herself. "Uh... uh... unh..."