Free Fault Line by Sarah Andrews

like it was right near
Faye’s house. That got me looking even harder at the map. “Whoa,” I said softly. “Jack-o, check it out.”
    Agent Jack craned his neck to read it. Then he looked at me, his eyes sharpening as he read me for clues while his facial muscles continued to play pudding brain. “Wutzit mean?”
    â€œWell, here’s this big, long report with all this crap about this proposed development—all the nuts and bolts about lighting and sewer and paving and so on—just like they designed it around existing knowledge of everything any reasonable person would want to know about the area, geologically speaking. Brief reference to managing the soil type for foundation design. Not a breath on the subject of whether that soil might occasionally have some rather enormous shock waves running through it. Look at this change in topography. Any geologist can tell you that a steep slope means risk of landslides, and a change in slope can be a fault scarp. Movement along a fault can also cause a landslide, or it can mess up your foundations on the way to racking the whole house. Now, based on this morning’s experience, does it sound smart or reasonable to talk about the soils engineering but not the geological picture that put that soil there, or the slope it’s lying at?”
    â€œNice work,” Agent Jack said, closing the report on his thumb to keep the place. “Now read this one.” He slapped another one down, turned, and shuffled slothlike off toward the photocopying machine.
    I stared at the cover of the second report. Another development, this time a shopping center, also past history. Same developer, Hayes Associates, Eagle Gate Tower, Salt Lake City. I dug straight to the back of the report but found only the same weaseling paragraph about foundations that the first one had sported. Instead of racked houses, this one brought to mind an image of panicked shoppers trying to find their ways out of collapsed department stores and parking structures. There has to be a building
code that addresses all this, I assured myself. A city built against a fault showing this much displacement can’t get by without one.
    I straightened up and looked around the room, ready for the next report, now not the least bit interested in doughnuts. I wanted to discuss each new bit of evidence, to think out loud. Bubba Jack was still waiting in line at the photocopying machine, so I filled time studying the room, tapping my thumb on the table. I had not been to the Salt Lake City Planning Department before, or even to the City and County Building. I had driven past once or twice, marginally noticing the behemoth structure as I navigated through traffic on State Street. But on entering it today, I had been happily surprised—impressed, in fact. It was a big old sandstone job with elegant carvings. It was five or six stories tall, with a steeply sloping slate roof and an imposing central clock tower that reached another four or five stories above the rest, surmounted by a big green statue of a woman with her arm raised. “Columbia,” Agent Jack had said as we strolled up the long walkway from the curb. “I hear she’s fond of pumpkins.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” I had asked.
    Jack had not answered. Now I wondered if he was the pumpkin.
    Inside, we had found a splendidly restored and maintained central staircase and hallways, spectacular limestone wainscoting, tiled floors, and gleaming period chandeliers. As I now studied the inside of the Planning Department’s office, I noted that it was a degree less opulent, but as lovingly restored.
    â€œFinding what you need?” a man’s voice inquired.
    â€œOh, yes … ah, sure,” I answered. I turned to look, ready to match a face with the voice. It was a friendly-looking fellow with a black beard. “Nice building you got here.” I gestured at the high ceilings, the