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“Oh, yeah.”
“Punch in the navigation to the Gibbses’ house on my GPS, then start digging into Morgan Investments and OH Industries.”
“Waaaay ahead of you, partner,” he said. “I’ve already got Camp working on it.”
Mina Camp, the tech wizard of the department.
“She’ll be able to access more information, more quickly,” he added as he put the address into Dani’s GPS. “By the time we’re finished with Gibbs, she’ll have everything there is to know about OH Industries and Morgan Investments uncovered, organized, tied with a red bow, and attached to an e-mail. You watch.”
“I believe you.” She passed a large truck piled high with baled Christmas trees. When she reached the exit for Walnut Creek, she peeled off the freeway. Fifteen minutes later, they were on the street where the cottage belonging to Milo and Vera Gibbs stood, and as she pulled into an empty space, Martinez’s iPad dinged.
He looked at the screen. “What did I tell you? Preliminary information from Mina the Marvelous.” He opened the attachment and scanned it as Settler cut the engine. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath.
“What?”
“OH Industries?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s owned by Oliver Hedges, which we knew. But the man has an interesting history.”
“Tell me.”
“He has—no, wait—had two sons. Oliver Hedges Jr., or the second, called himself OH2, and a younger son, Brett, who is fifty-five now. But the second Oliver Hedges, the son who called himself OH2? He took over as head of the company when the old man had some kind of accident, doesn’t say what. The old man survived, but that son, OH2, died at age thirty-seven.”
“From what?”
“Let’s see.” He was scanning the information. “Doesn’t say. But the upshot is that the old man, Hedges Senior, improved somehow and took back the reins of the company. And here’s the kicker. Both father and son were married to the same woman.”
“What? Not at the same time?”
“Nope. OH2 married his much-younger-than-daddy stepmother, Marilee McIver, not too long after the older Hedges was placed in a care facility and—” He paused, then gave a low whistle. “I was wrong. Here’s the real kicker. The date that the younger Hedges died?” He was scratching his goatee and studying the screen. “Less than a week after Didi Storm was reported missing.”
“Coincidence?”
He barked out a laugh. “Seems unlikely.”
“We need to know what the younger Oliver Hedges died from. Natural causes or not so natural.”
“Mina is doing more digging.” He tapped the screen. “This report is just the beginning. She says she’ll have more later.”
“Good.” Settler reached for the door handle. “Let’s see what the Gibbs family knows about Karen Upgarde, Ned and Trudie Crenshaw, Didi Storm, and Oliver Hedges Senior and Junior.”
* * *
Greta wasn’t going to be satisfied until she knew everything. And she wanted details.
Remmi brought her up to speed as best she could, but the truth was that, other than believing Vera was somehow involved and accepting the finality that her mother was dead, she didn’t have a lot more information. She had no idea who had murdered Didi or Ned and Trudie. The same person, or another player? She believed that, somehow, Aunt Vera was involved at some level but didn’t know how. She suspected that one of her uncles, or maybe both, were involved, though were they really cold-blooded killers? Could either of them have been involved in Didi’s death and, now, the recent homicides?
And what about Karen Upgarde? What had driven her to take the final step that precipitated a nineteen-story fall?
Remmi was too exhausted tonight to rehash theories and speculation with Greta. The older lady would just have to
wait, though she’d cornered Remmi while Noah was on the phone, motioning her into the kitchen. The minute they were through the doorway, Greta had killed the motor on her chair so that she could whisper, “I assume he’s still here.”
“It’s been a whirlwind. He showed up last night. I thought he was an intruder and . . . he convinced me he wasn’t.”
Greta’s eyebrows arched speculatively, but Remmi didn’t elaborate or try to explain that Noah had camped out, that they hadn’t slept together, and that it wasn’t any of the older woman’s business anyway. “He’s very handsome,” Greta pointed out.
