G Is for Gumshoe

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