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“Do you live or work nearby?”
“Yes. I moved here about ten years ago,” she said. “And I work mainly from home.”
“Doing?” Settler prodded.
Remmi hesitated. “I work for Greta Emerson, at her home. I’m her assistant.”
“Doing what?”
“She’s a widow and owns a large home near Mount Sutro. I keep the place up and handle her books. She rents out rooms in the house as well as other properties in the city, so I collect the rent and pay the bills as well as see that she’s cared for by a rotating staff.”
“How long have you worked for her?”
“About five, no, now almost six years. Before that I worked in offices, insurance, bookkeeping, technical stuff.” She handed the detective her card with her street address, e-mail address, and a couple of phone numbers.
“So you were near the Montmort building because . . .” Settler prodded, pocketing the business card.
“I found out that the agent for the person who wrote the book on Didi actually worked in the city, just a block or two from the Montmort. I wanted to talk to her, to ask about whoever had done all this research on my mother. I was on my way there.”
“It was after five.”
“I wanted to surprise her as she was leaving, as I had called and she wouldn’t see me. On the way, I got distracted,” Remmi said, drawing a careful breath. “My mother and I are estranged. I mean, I haven’t heard from her in twenty years, and I didn’t know if she was dead or alive, and then, then yesterday . . .” She shook her head. “It’s all so unbelievable.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Dani suggested. “Sit down.” She indicated a chair near the side of her desk, and Remmi slid into it. “Do you want something? Water? Coffee? A soda?”
“No, no. I’m okay.” But she didn’t look okay. In fact, she’d paled since approaching Dani’s desk.
She took in a long breath, seemed to give herself a quick mental shake. “Years ago, my mother, Didi, worked in Las Vegas; she had had her own act—impressions, singing, a little magic, that kind of thing—and she did a spot-on impersonation of Marilyn Monroe, back in the day.”
Settler listened and took notes, though she knew most of the story. She just wanted to hear this woman’s rendition of it. She didn’t doubt that the woman was Remmi Storm; she’d seen pictures of her as a teen, and yes, this woman was one and the same.
“This all happened twenty years ago.” She met the detective’s gaze. “But I think you already know that.”
“I do. I read the book.”
“Oh.” Remmi’s eyes shuttered a bit.
“I take it you don’t approve.”
She grimaced. “No one interviewed me for the story, and I think that’s kind of weird. I mean, there’s always been speculation, and every once in a while, I read something online about Mom . . . do you know she has a fan club now? With a Facebook page?”
“We haven’t gotten that far.”
“Well, it’s true. So there have been articles about her on and off, nothing serious, but then this book comes out and . . . and she’s more famous than when she was . . . when she had her act. I tried writing the ‘author’ through her website and her own Facebook page, but it all looks fake to me.”
“Fake?”
“Like the author has a pseudonym, a ghost writer, I guess you’d call it. Maryanne Osgoode. Not a real person. At least I can’t find a picture or mention of her, other than the studio shot at the back of the book and another more casual photograph on the website with two dogs, French bulldogs. The website itself is very bland, tells you nothing. Says she’s from ‘California,’ but that’s pretty vague considering the size of the state, and that she lives with her husband and two dogs, which, by the way, are in the only other picture.” She thought for a second, then said, “So when I found out the agent who represents the writer is from San Francisco, I went to meet her, like I said, to surprise her, and then I walked past the Montmort Tower . . .”
“That’s a helluva coincidence,” Settler said, leaning back in her chair.
?
?That’s what I thought.” She swallowed. “The agency is just three buildings down, and since every time I called, I got a recording, and no one responded to my e-mails, I decided to just show up. So I was on my way, and there was this crowd gathered and I . . . I saw her jump.”
“Jesus,” Brown, who was still standing nearby, whispered.
Settler kept on point. “And you think it was your mother?”
