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“You can fill me in when we get coffee. Just let me check my e-mail and snail mail. I wanna see what’s come in.” She was already heading toward her desk, catching the evil eye from Vance, who, as always, looked as if he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ. The whole damned department was making her feel as rumpled as Columbo, the detective from the old TV show. Her phone buzzed, and she looked at the screen, recognizing the cell phone number of the most persistent reporter from a local channel. She didn’t answer; the calls had been coming in steadily, and so far, she’d referred everyone to the public information officer. She’d already called the hospital in Sacramento. Ned Crenshaw was still alive. Still unconscious. Nonresponsive. She’d also tried to reach Detective Ladlow in Sacramento and, when he hadn’t picked up, left a message asking for any updates.
The department was already noisy, phones ringing, keys clicking on keyboards, conversations muted but audible, and behind it all the rumble of the heating system circulating warm air on another gloomy San Francisco day.
She’d woken up late, taken Earl outside, and connected with her next-door neighbor, whose ten-year-old daughter always checked in on Earl when Settler was working long hours, like yesterday. Addie was desperate for a puppy of her own, and her single mother hoped that having to deal part-time with the responsibilities of the neighboring pug might cool the girl’s ardor for a dog. The reverse had proven true, and now Addie was begging her mother for a puppy for Christmas. “I may need Addie’s help with this guy, here,” Dani had said as Earl had wiggled and tried to jump up when he spied Addie, dressed in the uniform of her private school, coming up behind her mother in the doorway.
“No problem.”
“I love him.” Addie was already on her knees and giving the dog all her attention, while Earl danced in circles and washed her face, causing Addie to collapse into giggles.
“I’m doomed,” her mother had sighed, and Settler thought she was right. Like it or not, Addie was going to end up with a puppy. If not this Christmas, soon.
Settler slid into her desk chair, cracked her neck, and started going through her e-mail—reports, no autopsy yet on Upgarde, but yes, the bank records, phone records, and computer information. Martinez hadn’t been kidding. Upgarde’s credit cards were maxed, her checking account about nil, and there were a string of past-due notices in her e-mail. But in the past two months, she’d made two cash deposits of five grand each, most of which had been eaten up by her bills, which included payments to the retirement home in which her mother, Irene, resided.
“So where did you get the money, Karen?” Settler asked. “And for what?” More precisely, from whom? Had she sold something, like a car, something big? Cashed in some savings bonds or . . . Was she blackmailing someone? Was someone paying her off? She made a note to check the bank records of Ned and Trudie Crenshaw to see if they had taken out any significant amounts of cash in the last couple of months.
Her cell buzzed and she answered. “Detective Danielle Settler.”
“Hey, yeah, this is Chuck Buford.” A rough voice, deep. “You left me a message yesterday, I think it was. Maybe the day before.”
Buford. The guy who ran the karaoke bar where Karen Upgarde performed.
“Hey, look,” he said, “I told that other officer—Ugali, or something like that—everything I knew about Karen. She was really just a sweet kid who liked to sing, y’know. No friends, a mom who was failing and costing a lot of bucks. If you ask me, what happened was a damned shame.”
“It is,” Settler agreed. “Do you have any idea why she would want to take her own life?”
“Nah . . . Her life sucked, but, well, not bad enough to, you know, off yourself.”
“Was she drinking?”
“Not here. Not around me at least. And I think I’d know. Been around it a lot in my line of work, y’know.”
“What about drugs?”
“Hey—whoa, I don’t know anything about any of that.”
“Weed is legal here.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But really, I have no idea. If I had to guess, I’d say no, but then, what do I know?”
“You said that she was a loner.”
“She was.”
“But that she left with a guy once.”
“Oh, whoa, whoa. She didn’t leave with anyone, not like you’re saying. I think it was more like the guy followed her out. He paid for his tab the second she left and took off after her. But that’s all I know about that. It didn’t seem like she knew him, but I could be wrong about that. Look, I don’t know what happened to Karen, and I don’t know who she hung out with.”
She asked him a few more questions but got no more answers beyond the
guy was wearing a baseball hat and dark glasses, and seemed only interested in Karen.
Martinez—taking pity on her, it seemed—showed up within the hour with a double-shot espresso from the nearest coffee shop. She accepted it gratefully. “I owe you,” she said as he took a seat near her desk.
“I know. Hey, look what the lab came up with.”
She took a sip from a paper cup imprinted with the name of the shop in red and green. “What?”
“Early Christmas present. Check your e-mail.”
