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 ulterior 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…"

The groom didn't seem that distressed. He simply matched his pace to hers, his gaze pinned on her shuffling feet. "You're not breathing right," he said crossly.

The clerk turned to us. "What can I do for you folks?"

Dietz was still staring off at the departing couple with a look of uneasiness.

I held out the copy of the birth certificate. "I wonder if you can help us," I said. "We suspect maybe this birth certificate's been tampered with and we'd like to check for the original in Sacramento. Is there any way you can do that? I notice there are some file numbers."

The clerk held the paper at arm's length, her thumbnail moving from point to point across the document. "Well, here's your first problem right here. You see that district number? That's incorrect. This says Brawley on the face of it, but the district number's off. Imperial County would be thirteen something. This fifty-nine fifty indicates Santa Teresa County."

"It does? That's great," I said. "You mean you'll have a copy of it here?"

"Oh sure. That little two in the margin tells you the book number and this number here is the page. Just a minute and I'll have someone pull the microfilm. Machines are right through there. You just have a seat and someone will be with you directly."

We waited maybe five minutes and then the second clerk, June, appeared with a microfilm cartridge, which she loaded into the machine.

Once we located the page, it didn't take us long to find Irene's name. Dietz was right. The date and time of birth and the physician's name were the same on both documents. Irene's name, the ages of both parents, and her mother's occupation were also the same. Everything else had been altered.

Her father's name was Patrick Bronfen, his occupation car salesman. Her mother's first name was Sheila, maiden name Farfell.