G Is For Gumshoe

22

I asked him to pull around the corner and park in an alleyway. We sat there in the dappled shade of an overhanging oak while I sorted through the contents of the Gershes' "Vital Documents" file. Nothing looked that vital to me. There was a copy of the will, which I handed to Dietz. "See if this tells us anything astonishing."

He took the stapled pages, reaching automatically toward his shirt pocket. I thought he was looking for a cigarette, but it turned out to be a pair of reading glasses with half-rims that he'd tucked there instead. He put them on and then looked over at me.

"What?" he said.

I nodded judiciously. "The glasses are good. Make you look like a serious adult."

"You think so?" He craned so he could see himself in the rearview mirror. He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out, just to show how adult he could look.

He began leafing through the will while I glanced at insurance policies, the title to the house, a copy of the emission inspection information for a vehicle they owned, an American Express flight insurance policy. "God, this is boring," I said.

"So's this."

I looked over at him. I could see his gaze skimming down the lines of print. I returned to my pile of papers. I picked up Irene's birth certificate and squinted at it in the light.

"What's that?"

"Irene's birth certificate." I told him the story she'd told me about the autobiography for her senior English class. "Something about it bothers me, but I can't figure out what it is."

"It's a photocopy," he said.

"Yeah, but what's the big whoopee-do about that?"

"Let me take a look." He placed it up against the windshield, letting the light shine through. The heading read: state of california department of health VITAL STATISTICS, STANDARD CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH. The form thereafter was comprised of a series of two-line boxes into which the data had been typed. He held it close to his face, like a man whose eyesight is failing rapidly. "Lot of these lines are broken and the type itself isn't very crisp. We ought to check with Sacramento and track down the original."

"You think it's been tampered with?"

"It's possible. Dab some kind of correction fluid on the original. Type over the blanks and then make a copy. It couldn't be used for much, but it'd be sufficient for a school project. Maybe that's why it took Agnes a day to produce the damn thing. The point of certified copies is that they're certified, right?" He gave me that crooked smile, gray eyes clear.

"Wow, what a concept," I said. "Wonder what she had to hide?"

Dietz shrugged. "Maybe Irene was illegitimate."

"Right," I said. "Can you think of anyone we can contact in Sacramento?"

"Department of Health? Not right offhand. Why not check with the county recorder here and have them call?"

"You think they'd do that?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Well, it's worth a try," I said. "Besides, if we do the research now, Irene will pay for it. Wait two weeks and she'll forget she ever gave a damn."

"Let's give it a shot, then," he said. "You want me to look at any other documents?"

"Nope. That's it."

"Great." He handed me the will and the birth certificate, both of which I tucked back into the file. He started the car and headed out to the street.

"Where to?" I asked.

"Let's hit the office first and call Rochelle Messinger."

We parked in the back lot and went up the exterior stairs. Dietz was, as usual, paranoid about everyone within range. He kept a hand on my elbow, his gaze scanning the area, until we were safely in the building. The second-floor corridor was empty. As we passed the rest rooms, I said, "I need to pop into the ladies' room. You want the office keys?"

"Sure. I'll see you in a few minutes." Dietz started to check out the ladies' room and was greeted by a shriek of outrage. He moved on down the corridor while I went into the John.

Darcy was standing at one of the sinks, splashing water on her face. From her pasty complexion and the eyes pinched with pain, I gathered she was still hung over from the banquet the night before. She stared at herself in the mirror, hair mashed flat in two places. "You know you're really in trouble when your hair goes out on you," she remarked, more to herself than to me.

"What time did you get in?" I asked.

"It wasn't that late, but I'd been drinking anisette and I was wrecked. I started upchucking about midnight and haven't stopped yet," she said. She rubbed her face and then pulled her lower lids down so she could inspect the conjunctivas. "Nothing like a hangover to make you long for death…"

A toilet flushed and Vera emerged from one of the four stalls. She was buttoning up an olive and khaki camouflage outfit, a jumpsuit with big shoulder pads and epaulettes, looking like she was moments away from a landing on Anzio Beach. The glance she gave me was not friendly. "What happened to you last night?" she said waspishly. I was exhausted and my nerves were on edge, so her tone didn't sit well and neither did her attitude.

I said, "Well, jump right in, Vera. Agnes Grey died, among other things. I didn't get to bed till after three a.m. How about you?"

Vera crossed to the sinks, her high heels snapping against the ceramic tiles. She turned the water on way too hard and splashed herself. She jumped back. "Shit!" she said.

"Agnes Grey?" Darcy said. She was watching our reflections in the mirror, her expression wary.

"My client's mother," I said. "She dropped dead of a heart attack."

Darcy frowned. "That's weird."

"Actually it was weird, but how did you know?"

"Do you mind?" Vera said to Darcy pointedly. Apparently, she wanted to talk to me alone. It occurred to me belatedly that she and Vera had been discussing me just before I came in. Oh boy.

Darcy shot me an apologetic look. She dried her hands hastily under the wall-mounted blower, blotting the residual water on the back of her skirt. "See you later, gang," she said. She took her purse and departed with a decided air of relief.

The door hadn't closed behind her when Vera turned and looked at me. "I don't appreciate the crap you told Neil last night," she said. Her face was tense, her gaze fiery.

I felt a rush of heat go through me. I needed to pee, but it seemed inappropriate. "Really," I said. "Like what?"

"I am not smitten with him. We're strictly friends and that's all it is. Get it?"

"What are you in such a snit about?"

She leaned against the sink, a hand on her hip. "I introduced you to the man because I thought you'd get along with him, not to have you turn around and… manipulate the circumstances."

"How did I do that?"

"You know how! You told him I had a crush on him and now he's behaving like an idiot."

"What'd he do, break it off?"

"Of course he didn't break it off! He proposed to me last night!"

"He did? Well, that's great! Congratulations. I hope you said yes."

Vera's mouth turned down at the corners and she burst into tears. I was taken aback. For a sophisticated woman, she was bawling like a little kid. I found myself with my arms around her, patting her awkwardly. It's not easy to comfort someone twice your size. She had to hunch down slightly while I raised up on tiptoe. It was not the full California body hug of longtime friends. Contact was limited to the upper portions of our torsos where we were linked like the two bowed wings of a wishbone.

"What am I gonna doooo?" she wailed into my right ear.

"You might think about getting married," I suggested helpfully.

"I caaaan't."

"Of course you can, Vera. People do it every day."

"I'm too old and too tall and he says he wants kids."

I could feel a laugh bubble up, but I resisted the urge to make a flip remark. I said mothering-type things, "There, there" and "It's all right." Remarkably, it seemed to work. Within a minute, she calmed down to a series of hiccups and sniffs. She let out a big sigh and then blew her nose noisily on a piece of shriveled Kleenex she found in her jumpsuit. She pressed the tissue to her eyes and then she did a quick burbling laugh while she checked her makeup. "When I saw you and Neil with your heads bent together last night I wanted to kill you."

"Yeah, I caught the look. I just wasn't sure what it meant," I said.

"And right about then, Mac started making his speech and next thing I knew you were gone. What was that about?"

I filled her in on (some, but not all of) my night's activities and then quizzed her on hers.

She spent the next few minutes detailing the portion of the banquet I'd missed. Neil had slipped over into Dietz's chair while Mac finished his speech. After-dinner drinks arrived. She was so upset with Neil because of his apparent interest in me, she started tossing down brandies and the next thing she knew, the two of them were back in her room making love. She started laughing again. "We didn't even make it to the bed. The maid came in to turn the sheets down and there we were grappling on the floor. We never even heard her knock. It turned out she was a patient of his at the clinic where he works. You know how you do when the phone rings and you're on the pot? He sort of scrambled to his feet and hobbled off to the bathroom with his trousers down around his knees."

"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."