Fault Line (Em Hansen Mysteries)

by Sarah Andrews

  Now Ray stepped toward me.

  Jack faded back, taking up a position on the front fender of a car a polite distance away.

  Ray said, “You’re wrong, Em. Katie really liked you. Family’s everything to her, and she wanted you in it.”

  I brought one finger up and poked at my ear to test my hearing. At length, I said, “Ray, that just doesn’t make sense.” Then I took the little velvet box out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Here. This doesn’t fit me, Ray. It never will. Find a woman the right size, okay?”

  “Maybe you could see a therapist. You need family,” he said in a small voice. “Everybody needs family. It’s more important than …”

  I looked on him with infinite sadness, wishing our friendship could have ended any other way, yet relieved that it had indeed ended. Finishing his sentence, I said, “Than life itself?”

  32

  A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid;—one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced.

  —Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, from his journal entry made after experiencing the devastating February 20, 1835, earthquake that reduced Concepción, Chile, to rubble

  “HOW’D YOU KNOW TO USE THE CLOCK TOWER?” FAYE ASKED as we settled ourselves into the cockpit of her twin-engine Piper the next morning.

  I turned around and smiled at Tom and Jack, who were already breaking into the supply of single-malt scotch Faye stocked for those who needed Highland courage to fly in light planes, or who, like these mongrels, just liked it better than water. I said, “Pet told me that Enos had a set of keys from back when he was a building guard. Apparently, he liked to take the ladies there. So I guessed that Katie would know about them, too.”

  Faye laughed. “A good Mormon girl like Katie?”

  “Katie’s one of those people who make their own interpretation of the rules, Faye. And I figured the setting would appeal to her flair for the dramatic.”

  Faye was still laughing. “So you thought it was her all along?”

  “No, I suspected Enos. Except that it seemed too pat. So I started looking around for someone a little crazier, and what can I say?”

  “I have to hand it to you. You took Ray right to the manure pile and rubbed his nose in it.”

  “Damn it, Faye, he took himself there!”

  Faye noted that I wasn’t yet ready to see humor in this topic, so she busied herself, putting on her headphones and adjusting the microphone, covering a smile.

  I put on mine, too. I said, “He kept acting like I was the one who didn’t get it. It was making me crazy. I tell you, it’s a curse seeing things the way I do. People don’t like knowing what I see in this crazy world.”

  Faye’s voice now arose inside my ears with the oddly crystalline intimacy that headphones create. Her tone was quite sober. “Most people go along to get along, Em. It’s so much easier.” She began going through her pilot’s checklist, tapping gauges and throwing switches.

  “Are you suggesting I do that?”

  “Not for a minute. What would I do for company?”

  “Check.”

  “I’m impressed that you’re not any madder at Ray.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Oh, I’m mad all right. I’m furious. But not at Ray. At myself. The problem started when I got what Ray was offering mixed up with what I thought he really wanted.”

  “And what was that?”

  This was what I liked most about talking with Faye. She asked all the right questions, and they always pushed me to that next level, where my wandering thoughts came together into little rungs on some cosmic ladder. “I know that I wanted something larger and more flexible. I still do. And Ray wanted me. I don’t care what you say, there must be a part of him that wanted what I want. He just couldn’t imagine going there.”

  “And what is that thing that’s larger and more flexible?” Faye asked. There was a longing to her voice now.

  “We’re talking about family, right? He comes from a tight one that offers tremendous security if you’ll just toe the line. I came from a small one that’s been disintegrating and getting smaller all my life. Which is better? And how do you measure that?”

  “I’d say that if I had to compare you to Katie, you’d win hands down,” she said. Out her side window she yelled, “Clear prop!” and fired the first engine.

  “But that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  Again, I had to think. “I guess it’s got something to do with the difference between the family and the individual. If the family has no place for individuals, then it’s a monster that forces the individual to be less than she is.” I thought about Ray. “Or want something other than what he wants. If you can’t be who you are, you can’t grow. The family tacitly says, How dare you grow beyond us? Submit to our rigid, limiting behavior so we don’t have to deal with all the questions you are raising.”

  “And if the individual can’t tolerate the constraints of the family?” Faye asked.

  “If the family is abusive, then the choice is easier. Then you have to leave, because if you stay, you become part of the abuse.”

  “But what of more normal, well-intentioned families? Families like Ray’s, that hold back his growth, or his freedom to make his own decisions?”

  “They offer the golden handcuffs of importance, or belonging, or … .” I avoided looking at her. “Or money. But tell the truth: if anything is wrong, it just festers.”

  Fay sighed. “Like Katie’s jealousy. I still can’t see how you tolerated Ray’s family as long as you did.”

  “They’re nice people, Faye. Most of them. And they kept saying, Come on in; we’ll give you everything you truly need. I kept thinking that I had to adjust to them. There’s always a Them.”

  Faye sat quietly with me for a moment, a friend comforting a friend. Then, deciding that we had taken that topic as far as we could for the moment, she said. “You were telling me how you knew it was Katie.”

  “She always seemed to be looking for someone to pass her bitterness to. Imagine how lonely that makes her, what pressures that must build up inside her. Nobody can get near her, not really, not even her children. It’s kind of sad, when you think about it.”

  Faye started the second engine. Then whistled softly into her microphone. “Em, you knock me out. The bitch tries to kill you and you talk like she gave you a flu bug.”

  Just then, Tom leaned forward from the first seat behind Faye and kissed her neck. “Are we going flying, or are we going to sit here all day while you ladies chat?” he inquired, raising his voice to be heard over the engines.

  I turned and smiled at him. And at Jack. Jack gave me the kind of smile you might see on a very well-fed lion who was preparing for a nap in the sun.

  Faye covered her microphone and shouted to Tom, “Hold your horses, hotshot.” Then, back into the microphone, she told me, “Well, at least Tom and I finally got it figured out. Thanks for the assists, Em.”

  “My pleasure.”

  A cloud of worry crossed Faye’s face. Then she put her hands on her abdomen, and her expression softened into amazement, then wonder. “I just hope we can have the kind of family that can be elastic in all the right ways. A group of individuals sharing a life and love, that’s what I want.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  Tom reached over and tousled my hair. He shouted, “Em, it’s going to take at least another ten lifetimes for you to get it all figured out, and a certain baby’s not going to wait that long. Let’s get going!”

  I yelled back, “Tom, you look happier than I’ve ever seen you.”

  “He should,” Faye said. “Because I’m gonna marry him today!” Smiling happily, she began switching the radios so she could ask for her clearances.

  I said, “Now you’ll be counting pen
nies, just like me. I hope you don’t hate me tomorrow.”

  “Comparative poverty—a brand-new adventure. You’re right, Em, money can be a box, just like a bad family.” Then she gave me a wink. “Besides, I’ve managed to get a few things in my name.”

  “The house?”

  “No, that belongs to the trust, and it’s no loss. Tom is right: We should live closer to the earth, and not just strip it.”

  “The airplane?”

  “You think I’m stupid? This has always mattered more to me than the house. Unfortunately, it’s not altogether paid for yet, but where there’s a will …”

  “And you do have a strong will.” I laughed. “It’s not going to be easy, I expect. You two. Married.”

  “Nah. Wouldn’t be any fun if it were. But like you say, love isn’t just a feeling. It’s the actions you take.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “And that goes for friends, too.”

  I covered sudden tears by pretending I had something in my eye.

  Faye asked for a clearance to taxi for takeoff. It was granted. “Want to taxi us over to the runway?” she asked.

  Grinning through my tears, I released the brake and took us down the taxiway, gliding along past Hudson Aviation and the Air National Guard ramp. I pulled the plane to a stop in the take-off queue the end of the runway, tucking us in between a KC-135 Stratotanker and a Beechcraft Baron. There, Faye began to go through her final checklist. Before switching over to the tower frequency to ask for takeoff clearance, she said, “You know, as screwy as things were between you and Ray, you had something real together. Too bad he had to play it safe.”

  Now I sighed. “Safe doesn’t get you to the top of your soul’s mountain.” I thought about the tender life that beat inside of Faye, and the tender love that surrounded it. I said, “I just hope there’s an adult male waiting for me if I ever get to the top of mine.”

  “Chances are,” Faye said. “But there’s no way to find out unless you give it a try. A lot cracked loose that morning the earth shook underneath that fancy house I was hiding in. It’s time to give up on the guarantees of family and risk making one of my own.” She toggled her radio microphone switch and contacted the tower. She asked permission to take off. It was granted. She smiled at me. “Let’s go see what’s out there for us,” she said.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Let’s fly.”

  She taxied into position, ran up the throttles, and began her takeoff roll. Halfway down the runway, the little plane lifted, taking us high up into the air, where we could see much farther, and more clearly. And, as we banked and turned away from Salt Lake City, I looked back on that lively crust of civilization and saw for the first time what a thin veneer it was. I saw it now as the ephemeral gathering it was, just like a family, trying its best to stand on changing ground, and it occurred to me that, just like the face of this restless Earth, families change. They grow, and break apart, or collide, or grind past themselves. And, like the earth, these changes are driven by forces much larger, deeper, and more mysterious than I can ever fully know or understand. And all of this at last seemed right, and good, and at the correct scale with the cycle and majesty of life and death and love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again I heartily thank M. Lee Allison for providing the central inspiration for my story (sorry you had to do it the hard way this time, bubba, and I’m glad you’re in Kansas anymore).

  My thanks to the many people who contributed their special earthquake stories, which appear as epigraphs in this book.

  I wish to thank the legion of geoscientists who helped me approach technical accuracy. They include Walter Arabazs, director, and Sue Nava of the University of Utah Seismic Station; Marjorie Chan, professor, Department of Geology, University of Utah; Sarah George, director, Utah Museum of Natural History; John Middleton, geographer; Edward A. Hard, Timothy A. Cohn, and Kathleen K. Gohn, U.S. Geological Survey; Vicki Cowart, director, Colorado Geological Survey; John Nichols, Mid-America Earthquake Center, UCIC; and Michael Malone, consulting geologist, Sebastopol, California (a man of sterling professional character, not to be confused with the shlub named Malone in this book). I am also indebted to the authors of a great many geoscience publications, particularly Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature, edited by Daniel Sarewitz, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., and Radford Byerly, Jr., Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, by Peter A. Levine, and Paleoseismic Investigation of the Salt Lake Segment of the Wasatch Fault Zone at the South Fork, Dry Creek and Dry Gulch Sites, Salt Lake County, Utah, by Bill D. Black, William R. Lund, David P. Schwartz, Harold E. Gill, and Bea H. Mayes. I wish to acknowledge the expert assistance of Robin Wendler, structural engineer, ZFA Santa Rosa, and Lee Siegel, freelance science journalist, Salt Lake City. I thank Salt Lake City’s mayor, Ross C. (“Rocky”) Anderson, and his building guards for their kindness in providing tours of the Salt Lake City and County Building.

  I thank Kelley Ragland for her superb editorial advice, and I am indebted, as always, to the Golden Machetes critique group, in the persons of Mary Madsen Hallock, Thea Castleman, Ken Dalton, and Jon Gunnar Howe. Special thanks to Jon for several extraordinary assists when I painted myself into corners.

  My thanks to Andrew Hanson and his Grace Connection Seventh Day Adventist congregation in Chico, California, for inviting me to address their gathering, thereby inspiring me to cogitate more coherently about certain issues that are central to this book.

  My special thanks to one of the finest geologists I know (lucky me, he is also my husband), Damon Brown, principal geologist, EBA Engineering, Santa Rosa, California, for vastly improving my understanding of the fields of earthquake prediction and engineering geology, and for staying up late many nights to talk through the ethical issues spawned in the oftentimes cramped meeting place between geology and public policy. And I thank my young son, Duncan, for charming Salt Lake City’s mayor into that tour by telling extra-good cow jokes, and for his enthusiasm while accompanying me to the top of the clock tower. He was a sport then and continues to be so as I spend too much time writing these books.

  ST. MARTIN’S / MINOTAUR TITLES BY SARAH ANDREWS

  Earth. Colors

  Killer Dust

  Fault Line

  An Eye for gold

  Bone Hunter

  Only flesh and Bones

  Mother Nature

  Dead Dry

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF

  SARAH ANDREWS

  FAULT LINE

  “The most intriguing complexities in Fault Line lie with Em’s own character.”

  —washington Post

  “Em Hansen’s seventh well-paced outing … Em Hansen is rapidly carving out a niche for herself as a forensic geologist … and may eventually make her field as popular as that of forensic anthropology or medicine.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The resourceful and intelligent Hansen makes a terrific series heroine … What has made the series shine has been the amount of ‘hard science’ that Andrews, a professional geologist herself, was able to work into the stories.”

  —Booklist

  “A fine series.”

  —Library Journal

  “Compulsively readable.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “An entertaining story … [Andrews] has a winning detective in Em Hansen.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  AN EYE FOR GOLD

  “Suspense every step of the way … [with] twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages.”

  —The Press Democrat

  “Em Hansen is plucky and smart … the mystery is complicated and absorbing.”

  —Booklist

  BONE SHUNTER

  “[Em Hansen] is a clear-thinking, straight-talking heroine whose unabashed naivete is endearing.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Andrews … has become a leading tight … Her novel is a suspenseful mystery spiked with dinosaurs, science, and religion: what more could a re
ader ask for?”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “The latest Em Hansen is by far the best … Andrews makes the most of her paleontological background. She clearly knows her subject and, unlike many crime writers, she does not use the surroundings merely as window dressing. The novel is, in addition to a fine mystery, a lively exploration of the high-stakes world of dinosaur research and perceptive rumination on the debate between science and creationism.”

  —Booklist

  “Geologist Em Hansen’s adventures become more and more intriguing with each new book … A most fascinating tale.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Appealing characters and fluent prose.”

  —Library Journal

  “The fifth Em Hansen novel is a fabulous blending of science and sleuthing that readers will fully relish … Sarah Andrews may be writing the best scientific mysteries this side of the medical thriller.”

  —Harriet Klausner, Painted Rock Reviews

  “Memorable … Bone Hunter knows its stuff when it comes to weaving the geology of [this] state into a crime as plausible as today’s headlines.”

  —Salt Lake Tribune

  ONLY FLESH AND BONES

  “Her tale contains a canny, entertaining mixture of elements … The intersections of new money and old ways of living in the West find a convincing chronicler in Andrews.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Andrews handles [the] possibilities with a sure hand as she introduces an endless supply of secondary characters whose company is a delight. Thoughtful and uncertain, Em is especially appealing as she makes the quiet point that murder involves more than flesh and bones … After a few more cases, geologist Em Hansen may be as tough as the best of her sleuthing peers, but her vulnerability offers singular pleasures to current readers.”