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“Yeah,” Remmi agreed. “And now . . .” She let her voice trail off, then expelled a long sigh. “Look, before we go any further, I think we should find out if the victim is my mom. Otherwise, this is all pointless.”
“I have pictures.”
“I want to see the body.” Remmi visibly braced herself, her jaw setting. The determined glint to her eyes suggested she wasn’t about to be dissuaded or even that she suspected Settler or maybe the police in general might try to pull a fast one.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I have to be honest with you. This won’t be easy. The body’s not in great shape.”
“I get it. I was there, and I did catch a glimpse of her before the cops pushed the crowd back. I assume you need to know if the woman is Didi, and you realize I’ll be able to recognize my own mother.”
Or not. Settler found several pictures taken at the scene before the body of the Jane Doe had been examined by the M.E. Her gauzy pink dress was bunched around her waist, the blond wig askew, her arms and legs at weird angles, blood pooled beneath it all, but at least this side of the angelic-looking face was unmarred; the other side was crushed by the impact. Settler handed two of the least gory shots to Remmi.
Remmi sucked in a quick breath and visibly cringed. All the color drained from her face, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to study the pictures. “Why would anyone do this?” she whispered, then said, “I . . . I can’t tell. Not from these.”
“How about the clothes? Was that dress part of her costume when she impersonated Marilyn Monroe?”
“It looks like it, yes, but there have to be dozens, hundreds of knockoffs.”
“What about the wig?”
“What about it? It’s a short blond wig. Mom had several.”
“Did she put her name in them?”
“I believe so.”
Dani handed over another picture, this one a blowup of the skullcap, with the name Didi Storm scrawled across the insid
e in her distinctive, loopy style.
Remmi stared at the picture. Her throat worked. “That’s her signature. She labeled all of her things herself with a permanent laundry marker, and she’d laugh and tell me that when she was famous, all her things, signed as they were, would be worth a fortune.” Clearing her throat, she added, “But someone could have bought it on eBay or in a nostalgia store. She sold some of her things before she left—things she’d quit wearing, you know, when she’d updated her costume wardrobe. She’d sell something or pawn them when money got really tight, which, unfortunately was pretty often.” Her lips folded in on themselves as she stared at the photograph of the wig. “You have this—here?”
“Yes. If it’s not already in an evidence locker, it will be soon. As soon as the crime-scene techs have processed it. Same with her clothes and personal belongings.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“When I can get them,” Settler promised. “Sure.” What would it hurt?
“I need to verify if it’s really hers, if I can,” Remmi said. “I’d know her signature, and it looks authentic, and—” She shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs, then handed the pictures back, her gaze locking with Settler’s. “Why would anyone do this?”
“Dress up as Marilyn Monroe and jump?”
“Dress up as my mother impersonating Marilyn Monroe. Not only do the clothes look like they came from Mom’s wardrobe, but see, this, the left hand—” She held the photo back so that Settler was looking at it. “The ring finger has one of Mom’s rings on it, and more than that, the fingernail is painted black. That was her signature, not Marilyn Monroe’s—at least, I don’t think so. If Mom ever wore black nail polish, like for Halloween or something, she’d paint that finger orange or red or something else. She always kept that fingernail a different color.” She let out her breath slowly and said, “What I really need to do is to see her. The woman who jumped. For myself. I need to know if she’s my mother.” She shot Settler a look. “I can handle it,” she said evenly, and the detective wondered what else this woman had seen that made her so certain she could deal with viewing what might be her own mother’s broken body.
Dani nodded, grabbing her phone, though she didn’t believe Remmi for an instant and intended to do a little checking on Remmi herself—who knew what kind of a nutjob she could be, though her first instinct was to trust her. As to the mother? Even though Settler didn’t personally think that the dead woman was Didi Storm, it was time to find out.
A pie-in-the-sky condo in Cabo was riding on it.
CHAPTER 14
“She’s not my mother.” Remmi felt a rush of relief as she turned away from the body lying on the gurney. Most of the blood had been cleaned away from the abrasions on the victim’s skin, and enough of the facial features were intact for her to know that the woman lying dead beneath the sheet was not her mother. “It’s not Didi.”
She walked into the hallway and took a deep breath of air, but still she felt as if the smell of death lingered in her nostrils. It was all in her mind, she told herself, the woman hadn’t been dead long enough for any kind of stench to have started, and the body was kept cool.
It was all just too much, and with Detective Settler and her partner, Martinez, following, she made her way out of the morgue and into the night. Her stomach lurched, and she eyed the surrounding shrubbery, but she didn’t throw up, just braced herself with a hand on the cool wall of the building as rain misted around them.
