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How odd. All of the old feelings of abandonment, fear, and anger over having been left had resurfaced. She told herself to push them aside. For now. Since there was interest in Didi’s case again, she needed a level head so that she could find out what had happened to her mother, if Didi were alive or dead, and solve the mystery that had clung to her like a shroud.
She glanced around the apartment that was now her home with its fantastic view. It could be drafty in winter and hot in the summer, but it was the nicest place she’d ever inhabited, thanks to Greta Emerson.
Remmi had met Greta years before when Remmi had been a bookkeeper at a small accounting firm where Greta was a client. At the time, Remmi had still been going to college, and over the years, she and Greta had grown closer. Which was a little odd, but Remmi had rationalized it with her absence of a family and Greta having never had children or grandchildren. Sometime after Remmi had received her degree, the accounting office where she worked had changed hands, and “The Judge,” as Greta had called her husband, had passed away after years of battling heart disease. Greta then decided she didn’t want to manage the upkeep of the house and the rental properties they’d owned, so she’d hired Remmi as her personal assistant. Greta didn’t want to be bothered with finding and keeping housekeepers and groundskeepers, so she offered Remmi the job, paying her a salary as well as offering her free rent. Remmi’s duties had expanded after Greta’s stroke to include finding caretakers and a driver for her, to see that Greta was never alone and could stay in this house she loved. It had worked out well for both of them, and things had gone along quietly until, well, the book and now this suicide . . .
It was unprecedented.
And what about this book? Why were its publication and author cloaked in so much mystery? Did the author want desperately to remain anonymous and hide behind a pseudonym? Or was this some kind of publicity ploy by the publisher to drum up interest in a long-dead unsolved case? And how about the coincidence of the woman jumping just as Remmi passed by the building?
Remmi would force herself to read the book tonight. Greta was right, it might hold answers, a clue to who had written it or why that person had felt compelled to stir up a twenty-year-old mystery, or why some person would pretend to be Didi, even register with the name of D. Storm, then kill herself?
She wondered if going to the police had been the right call.
Possibly not, but she’d had to know if her mother had leapt to her death.
Didi hadn’t.
At least not today, in San Francisco, from a ledge on the Montmort Tower. But that still didn’t answer the question of where she was. Alive? Dead? Remmi checked the meager contents of her own small refrigerator and settled for a dinner of cheese and crackers. She carried the plate into the living room, poured herself a glass of wine, and settled onto the couch with I’m Not Me: The Untold Didi Storm Story.
CHAPTER 16
Rain drizzled from the hood on her jacket and down her face as Dani Settler ran up the final two blocks to her apartment, a small one-bedroom unit on the second floor of a building built sometime in the middle of the twentieth century. Beneath the streetlights, the pavement shimmered, and lights glowed from the windows of the surrounding buildings, warm patches of illumination climbing to the sky, some already twinkling with Christmas lights.
She was breathing hard by the time she unlocked the front door of the building, but once inside, still she took the stairs, two at a time, keeping her heart rate up until she reached the second floor, before walking briskly to her front door.
A sharp yip greeted her as she slid through the door, and her dog, a less-than-slim pug, greeted her enthusiastically. “Hey, slow down. Yeah, I love you, too, Earl.” The little dog was whining and twirling in circles. She took the time to tell him what a “good boy” he was and petted him before feeding him. Once he’d gobbled every bit of kibble in his bowl, she found his leash hanging by a hook and snapped it, along with his camo-designed halter, over his broad chest. “Now, you’re lookin’ good,” she said, and they set off again, this time on a brisk walk through the neighborhood to a small park; it was over half a mile and enough distance that the dog got his exercise and she could cool down from her run.
“Let’s go,” she said at each lamppost, tree, or fire hydrant he deemed it necessary to sniff and/or mark by lifting his leg. Usually, she loved this part of her exercise regimen, the time she started breathing normally again, with Earl trotting at her side. The routine was calming after a long day of dealing with death, paperwork, lying witnesses, and coworkers like Ted Vance. However, today, because of the new suicide case, she hadn’t been able to leave the job at the office where it belonged.
Well, really, when had she ever? She lived and breathed to be a detective.
Face it, Dani, you’re a workaholic with a dog to come home to instead of a husband and 2.5 children.
She didn’t even have a steady boyfriend, hadn’t since college. Maybe she never would. That thought was a little depressing, but she didn’t mind living alone with Earl. At least she didn’t have to pick up his boxer shorts or wash the residue of whiskers down the sink. She’d wondered if her lack of being able to hold onto a committed relationship was due to the fact that she’d been kidnapped by a real whack job when she was around twelve—fearing for her life daily, going toe to toe with a killer. Maybe it had molded her into someone who kept serious relationships at bay. Or maybe it was because her father, Travis, who had been single at the time, had ended up marrying Shannon and having a couple of kids with her. Dani had always wanted a sibling, but rather than draw her close, the new family had almost seemed to distance her. At fifteen, she’d been into herself, hadn’t been interested in a two-year-old or a new baby.
So she’d never married and had broken off every relationship she’d ever had before it had a chance to get too serious. She knew what the problem was, though. She’d taken enough psychology classes in college to self-diagnose and realize she had trust issues. So, big effin’ deal. Ever since she’d been abduct
ed, she’d wanted to become a cop and had focused on a career in law enforcement. Her venture into psychology had been only a temporary diversion during her second year at a junior college.
So here she was, living with a pug who had literally leaped into her life and her heart.
“It’s okay,” she said aloud, her breath steaming as she glanced down at Earl, who was already gathering himself for the final run up the wide stairs to her old apartment building. He shot forward, jumping up each step, and she had to rush to keep up with him. Then the race was on, up the interior steps, along the short hallway, and through the door to her unit as Earl, little black ears flopping, galloped at the thought of a treat. Once inside, she kicked off her wet running shoes, toweled off the dog, and gave him a biscuit before she stripped down and stood under a hot shower.
Ten minutes later, with the pug’s nose visible against the shower stall’s glass door, she toweled off and pulled on her pajamas, hoping she was in for the night. With her job, she could never be certain, as many of the crimes she investigated were committed and discovered in the middle of the night.
Though she tried to turn off from work, the suicide case stayed with her. Why was the victim at the Montmort Tower dressed as Marilyn Monroe, or, if Remmi Storm could be believed, as her mother? Why did she jump?
At least the question of who had leaped to her death had been answered. And no, it wasn’t Didi Storm. Just before Settler had left the office for the day, the police department had gotten a hit through the fingerprint database. The victim had been identified as Karen Upgarde, forty-seven, of Seattle. A waitress/bartender who had never done an impersonation in her life, as far as anyone knew, Upgarde was divorced, with no kids or siblings, and she had two DUIs on her record.
Martinez had talked to the King County Sheriff’s Department and had sent them information on the case via e-mail. An officer with the sheriff’s department had been assigned the unhappy duty of informing the next of kin, who in this case was her mother, a woman of eighty-three who lived in an assisted care facility in Kirkland, Washington.
Settler had done a quick check on the victim, but in her first sweep of information about Karen Upgarde, there wasn’t a single thing about the woman that linked her to Didi Storm or anyone associated with her. The only reason the police had IDed her was because of her priors. She’d been fingerprinted and was in the national database. Upgarde had also attempted suicide twice during her short-lived marriage, both times with pills that had been pumped from her system in time when her husband discovered her barely conscious. She worked as a waitress, had loved drinks and karaoke, and had been known to wear flamboyant clothes, though she’d never been an impersonator, at least at first look. Tomorrow, the police department would dig a little deeper and get to know the victim. According to police records, the last time she’d been convicted of a DUI had been eleven years earlier; since then she’d been clean. No other run-ins with the law had been found.
Yet.
There was still plenty of time, Settler thought, as she heated a leftover taco she’d picked up from her favorite food cart located between her apartment and the station. The microwave dinged and, gingerly, she carried the steaming-hot plate from her galley-style kitchen to the narrow living room where Earl waited, wiggling his tail in anticipation of at least one bite.
“Glutton,” she chided as she sat in her favorite chair—a recliner she got secondhand in college—and picked up the TV remote to click on the news. Her apartment was small, but functional, decorated with hand-me-downs, as rent in this city was sky-high and Settler was saving for her own condo, which she figured she could only afford if some rich unknown relative bequeathed her a small—or, better yet, large—fortune. Nearly burning her lips on the melted cheese, she watched the TV with half an eye and dug into the slightly soggy tortilla.
