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“Huh.”
“I told you, she’s a phony.” Remmi was following a delivery truck that was gearing down for the steep hill. Hoping for a way around the lumbering behemoth belching diesel smoke, she glanced over her shoulder. The cars in the neighboring lane were inching forward bumper to bumper, headlights glowing, as dusk had already descended.
“Okay, so then who would write the book? Who would know everything in it? Some of those details were pretty specific.”
“Anyone could find out, I suppose,” Remmi said as she, too, had wondered how the author had gotten her information. “But they’d have to talk to someone from Missouri who knew Mom.”
“Someone in Anderstown.”
“I suppose. Or nearby, and we’re talking, what? Fifty-some years ago?”
“What about your aunt? You think anyone talked to her to get the info on your mom?”
“Maybe.” She’d already been considering the possibility of Aunt Vera being somehow involved. She would have loved being able to tell someone about her semi-famous sister with her loose morals. There was a break in the lane next to her, and she nosed the Subaru into the open space, only to hear an impertinent beep from a red Toyota when the driver looked up from her cell phone and realized Remmi was squeezing her. You snooze, you lose, Remmi thought and gave the blonde a quick nod. For that she was rewarded with another sharp honk and a rude finger gesture.
Too bad.
Settler was asking, “You talked to her?”
“Vera? Not in a while.” Not since leaving at eighteen, to be exact.
“Do you have a number for her? Address?”
“Old information, but when I get home I’ll send you what I have,” Remmi promised and hung up. She thought of the address book she’d taken when leaving Las Vegas, the names and numbers her mother had written in her strong, loopy handwriting. Maybe she should turn it over to the police. Over the years, Remmi had called every number in the book and reached about half of the people listed; the other half of the numbers had been disconnects or had been reassigned. She doubted many of them were good now, as people used cell phones to communicate. But still, the police might be
able to find something in the notebook and the remainder of Didi’s things that might help. Remmi had been so paranoid about dealing with cops she’d never confided in any, and now she was pinning her hopes on the idea that Detective Settler could help her find her missing mother and siblings. What were the chances of that?
“About zero,” she told herself, then took a call from Greta, asking her to pick up a couple of prescriptions and groceries. The rain had started again, and her wipers began slapping away the cold drops as she drove to a market next to the pharmacy off Clayton, lucking out by getting a parking spot in the nearby lot.
As she was climbing out of her car, a dark SUV passed on the street nearby. She thought again of the vehicle that had been parked on the street in front of Greta’s house the night before. This one looked identical, but it was out of sight down the hill before she caught any numbers on the California license plate. A tiny frisson of anxiety slid down her spine, but she ignored it.
There have to be hundreds, more probably thousands, of them in the Bay Area. Dashing through the rain, she stepped inside the brightly lit store just as the automatic door was closing.
The market was busy, and it seemed no one was inclined to hurry. As she swept down the aisles, she was invariably stopped by a cart clogging the passageway, its owner caught in the dilemma of which product to purchase and totally unaware anyone else might be in a hurry. She did manage to grab a pre-made tuna salad at the deli without too much trouble but was hung up again at the pharmacy, having to wait impatiently in line as all the clerks at the prescription counter were dealing with customers who chatted with the clerk and asked either about their medications or the possibility of getting a flu shot.
By the time she had carried her bags to the car, nearly an hour had passed, and the rain was coming down in a torrent, wind snatching at the hem of her coat as she threaded through puddles to her car. The windows were fogged, making visibility difficult; her wipers streaked the windshield as she backed out of the parking spot. The lot was crowded, and two cars were vying for her space. She eased around a white Chevy Impala that was forced to wait, and before she put her own car into gear, a Mini Cooper darted into the spot she’d vacated, causing the woman at the wheel of the Impala to pound on her horn and shake her fist.
The whole ordeal only added to her tension as Remmi melded her Subaru into the flow of traffic. Turning on the radio, she heard Burl Ives warbling “A Holly Jolly Christmas.” She hated that song. She changed stations only to hear:
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop—
She snapped the radio off even though the lyrics echoed through her brain. Ugh!
“You’re just a grinch,” she told herself, fogging the windshield as she turned onto Stanyan Street. Then she glanced in the mirror. Her fingers tightened over the steering wheel. For just a second, she thought she noticed a dark SUV a few cars back.
Don’t. Be. Paranoid.
But paranoia had seemed to be Remmi’s middle name in the last week or so, and though she kept one eye on the mirror, nearly rear-ending an older Volkswagen in the process, she didn’t catch a glimpse of the vehicle again.
For the first time in her life, she wondered if Aunt Vera had been right after all. Maybe Satan really was always close by.
CHAPTER 20
Settler stood up and stretched, cracking her back. The department was quieter than it had been earlier, many of the employees already having left for the day. She’d been at her desk for hours. Lunch had consisted of a California wrap sandwich that had been primarily avocado, tomatoes, and sprouts and a Coke, consumed while she stared at her computer monitor and tried to piece the case together.
She hadn’t discovered any links between Didi Storm and Karen Upgarde other than the obvious—Upgarde had been dressed in Storm’s clothes and makeup when she jumped. Nor had the book publisher been forthcoming on the author of I’m Not Me. Yet. But even vague threats of abetting a killer or impeding an investigation had gotten the powers that be at Stumptown Press to scramble around. She expected a call from someone higher up, or an attorney, soon.
