G Is for Gumshoe

which Dietz studied with interest, looking over my shoulder. He gave me a bland look. I said, "The adoption agency mentions someone named Anne Bronfen. Would that be your sister? The files weren't clear about the connection. I gathered she was listed as next-of-kin when the adoption forms were filled out."
    "Well now, I did have a sister named Anne, but she died in nineteen forty… three or four months after Sheila left."
    I stared at him. "Are you sure of that?"
    "She's buried out at Mt. Calvary. Big family plot on the hillside just as you go in the gate. She was only forty years old, a terrible thing."
    "What happened to her?"
    "Died of childbed fever. You don't see much of that anymore, but it sometimes took women in those days. She married late in life. Some fellow named Chapman from over near Tucson. Had three little boys one right after the other, and died shortly after she was delivered of her third. I paid to bring her back. I couldn't believe she'd want to be buried out in that godforsaken Arizona countryside. It's too ugly and too dry."
    "Is there any possibility she might have heard from Sheila in those few months?"
    He shook his head. "Not that she ever told me. She was living in Tucson at the time Sheila ran off. I suppose Sheila might have gone to her, but I never heard of it. Now, how about you answer me one. What happened with that old woman who wandered off from the nursing home? You never said if she turned up or not."
    "Actually she did, about eleven o'clock last night. The police picked her up right out here in the street. She died in the emergency room shortly afterward."
    "Died? Well, I'm sorry to hear that."
    We went through our good-bye exercises, making appropriate noises.
    Walking back to the car, Dietz and I didn't say a word. He unlocked the door and let me in. Once he eased in on his side, we sat in silence. He looked over at me. "What do you think?"
    I stared back at the house. "I don't believe he was telling the truth."
    He started the car. "Me neither. Why don't we check out the gravesite he was talking about?"

25
    They were all there. It was eerie to see them- Charlotte, Emily, and Anne-their gravestones lined up in date order, first to last. The markers were plain; information limited to the bare bones, as it were. Their parents, the elder Bronfens, were buried side by side: Maude and Herbert, bracketed on the left by two daughters who had apparently died young. Adjoining those plots, there was an empty space I assumed was meant for Patrick when the time came. On the other side were the three I knew of: Charlotte, born 1894, died in 1917; Emily, born 1897, died in 1926; and Anne, who was born in 1900 and died in 1940.
    I stared off down the hill. Mt. Calvary was a series of rolling green pastures, bordered by a forest of evergreens and eucalyptus trees. Most of the gravestones were laid flat in the ground, but I could see other sections like this one, where the monuments were upright, most dating back to the late nineteenth century. The heat of the afternoon sun was beginning to wane. It wouldn't be dark for hours yet, but a chill would settle in as it did every day. A bird sang a flat note to me from somewhere in the trees.
    I shook my head, trying to make the information compute.
    Dietz had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, but his look said "What?" as clearly as if he'd spoken.
    "It just makes no sense. If Sheila Bronfen and Agnes Grey are the same person, then why don't their ages line up right? Agnes couldn't have been seventy when she died. She was eighty-plus. I know she was."
    "So the two aren't the same. So what? You came up with a theory and it didn't prove out."
    "Maybe," I said.
    "Maybe, my ass. Give it up, Millhone. You can't manipulate the facts to fit your hypothesis. Start with what you know and give the truth a chance to emerge. Don't force a conclusion just to satisfy your own ego."
    "I'm not forcing anything."
    "Yes, you are. You hate to be wrong-"
    "I do not!"
    "Yes, you do. Don't bullshit me-"
    "That has nothing to do with it! If the two aren't the same, so be it. But then, who was Agnes Grey and how'd she end up with Irene Bronfen?"
    "Agnes might have been a cousin or a family friend. She might have been the maid…"
    "All right, great. Let's say it was the maid who ran off with the little girl. How come he didn't tell us that? Why pretend it was his wife. He's convinced Sheila took the child, or else he's lying through his teeth, right?"
    "Come on.