Liar, Liar

by Lisa Jackson

  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.

  “You okay?” Settler asked.

  Remmi straightened. “Of course not.” What kind of stupid question was that? Now that the shock of viewing the dead woman was receding, she had a million questions. “The woman in there”—she jabbed a finger at the door of the building—“isn’t my mother, but she was wearing Didi’s clothes and wig. Who is she? Why would she jump off a damned ledge? What does this have to do with Mom?” she asked, the questions pouring out of her. “This . . . this has to be tied to the book, right? I mean, that can’t be a coincidence?” The rain was blowing against her face, dampening her hair, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would dress herself up like Marilyn Monroe in Didi’s clothes and wig, step onto a window ledge, and leap to the ground below.

  “We don’t know.”

  “There’s a reason this is all coming out now,” Remmi said, brushing rain from her face with her sleeve. “Someone’s behind it.”

  “Do you have any idea who?” Detective Settler asked.

  “Probably someone who has something to do with that damned book,” Remmi said. “Like I said, that’s just too much of a coincidence.” She had some ideas, of course, but she had no proof, so she didn’t mention them. Until she knew more, she wouldn’t give away any of her unfounded suspicions.

  As she left the detectives, she walked three blocks to her car through the rain. She flipped up the hood of her jacket and told herself that tomorrow, come hell or high water, she was going to talk to Maryanne Osgoode’s agent and find out who the author of the book really was. That was a start. It might lead nowhere, but she had to do something.

  She heard footsteps behind her and, glancing back, saw several people through a curtain of rain. Dark, watery shapes following her. Men or women, she couldn’t tell; they were all bundled in black, gray, or navy blue parkas or coats.

  It’s the city. That happens. No big deal. Just other pedestrians.

  But she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold weather slide down her spine, and she quickened her pace, looking back once more and realizing that only one tall figure was still behind her. A man, she was sure, and he was quickening his pace.

  It’s nothing. Nothing. He’s just hurrying to get out of the rain.

  Still, she jogged the remaining half block to the corner, where she had parked her car. She unlocked the door remotely and slid behind the wheel as she yanked the door closed. The instant the door of her Subaru was shut, she locked all of the doors and let out a breath.

  Stop being so paranoid.

  Ignoring her own advice, she started the Subaru and hit the gas, pulling out just as a truck rounded the corner and blasted her with its horn. Narrowly missing her, it careened down the street, and she hit the gas, one tire splashing through a puddle as she overcorrected, her heart pounding.

  “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” she insisted, but kept an eye on her rearview mirror and watched as traffic closed in around her. If anyone was following her now, she wouldn’t be able to tell, but she felt safer in the flow of cars, buses, trucks, and vans than she had walking on the wet city streets.

  Rather than taking a direct route, Remmi zigzagged across the city, even going so far as to cut through Golden Gate Park before finally edging up the hill to her home near Mount Sutro. Once or twice, she was certain a black or dark gray SUV was following her, but she couldn’t be sure as the vehicle hung back and then disappeared.

  Her heart pounded as she made a quick left turn, pulled into an alley, and reversed, heading the opposite direction. No SUV or car or van followed, and she let out her breath. Why was she being so paranoid anyway? So a woman who looked like her mother plunged in a suicide leap to her death. That was upsetting. Yes. Unnerving. But it certainly didn’t mean that someone was following her.

  It was all just a weird coincidence.

  Letting out her breath and checking the mirror regularly to insure no one was tailing her, she drove up the steep, snaking street to a three-story Craftsman home perched near the top of the hill. “Home sweet home,” she whispered, pulling into the narrow side driveway and setting the emergency brake before climbing out of the car and dashing up wide steps to a broad front porch, where the skeletal remains of a once-lush clematis trailed along the rail. Her feet rang on the old floorboards leading to a huge double door with leaded-glass inserts. Using her key, she stepped into the grand foyer of the massive home that was constructed three years after the historic earthquake of 1906. It had survived others since then, including the huge tremor of ’89.

  “Hello?” a female voice called from beyond the parlor as the scent of lavender potpourri reached Remmi’s nostrils. “Remmi?” The familiar whirring sound of Greta’s electric wheelchair accompanied a surprisingly strong voice for a woman in her nineties. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah, I’m home.” She hung her raincoat on the hall tree opposite a wide staircase that swept to the upper floors, as Turtles, a slim tortoiseshell cat did figure eights between her feet.

  “Hi, to you, too,” she said, bending over and petting the cat’s mottled head. Turtles was one of Greta’s three house cats and was always quick to greet any newcomers.

  In her motorized wheelchair, Greta Emerson zipped in through an archway leading from the dining area and whipped across the ancient Persian carpet that had covered the hardwood floors of the parlor for over half a century.

  “I heard!” She stopped the wheelchair in the foyer. “Oh, my God, is that woman, the one who jumped from the Montmort Tower, Didi?” Her eyes were bright behind rimless glasses, her cloud of bluish hair sprayed stiffly in place, her pointed chin turned upward. “I was watching the local news, and they said the woman who jumped, she was dressed like Marilyn Monroe, and I immediately thought of your missing mother.”

  Greta, over the years, had pieced together Remmi’s history, partially from what Remmi had admitted, but also from a deep curiosity, lots of empty hours in the day, and computer skills few people of her age had acquired. There was a slim chance Greta knew more about Didi’s disappearance, or at least the theories surrounding what had happened to the Las Vegas showgirl, than Remmi did. Remmi suspected, though Greta had never admitted it, that Greta was a member of Facebook groups or Internet chat rooms dedicated to unsolved mysteries and Didi Storm. A smart woman who had defied her generation and become a lawyer, Greta Emerson was a stalwart believer in FDR, Jack Kennedy, and all human rights and wasn’t afraid to make her opinions known. An Agatha Christie buff, and a consummate believer in many conspiracies, Greta was keenly interested in Remmi’s mother and the question of what had happened to her.

  Greta said now, “The newsperson—not the anch
or, mind you—was reporting from the base of the tower, near the fountain. She said the body hadn’t been identified, but that the woman was dressed as Marilyn Monroe, someone impersonating her.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You were in the area, yes?”

  Remmi nodded.

  “Oh, dear Lord, you didn’t witness—”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Oh my. Oh my.” Another question was poised on her lips.

  Remmi answered before being asked, “It wasn’t Mom. That’s why I’m late. I went to the police station. I insisted upon viewing the body.”

  Greta was shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “It was hard. That poor woman . . . Why? I just can’t get over why anyone would . . . do what she did.”

  Greta waved Remmi into a chair. “Are you all right?”

  Remmi dropped into one of two floral wingbacks positioned near a massive, mostly unused fireplace, its broad mantel covered with framed photos of Greta and her family. “No, probably not,” she admitted, trying to push the disturbing image of the dead woman from her mind, “But I will be.”

  “Maybe you need some hot tea.”

  “At the very least.”

  Greta’s eyebrows shot up, and her pale eyes sparkled. “I’ve got whiskey.”

  “No, really. I’m fine.”

  Disbelieving her, Greta whipped over to the portable bar, found a dusty bottle of bourbon, and poured them each a drink.

  “Now,” she said, balancing the glasses as the liquor sloshed while she rolled back across the carpet to Remmi’s chair. “Tell me. And don’t leave out a thing.” She handed a short glass to Remmi, clicked the rim of her drink to Remmi’s, then took a long swallow. “Aaaah. There we go. That’s more like it,” she said with a happy sigh.

  Remmi sipped more slowly, the aged bourbon burning a trail down her throat as she explained about seeing the woman on the ledge, about hearing the speculation that it might be her mother, how she’d been horrified as the woman had jumped, then decided to visit the police station, telling her story to Detective Danielle Settler and insisting on ending up in the morgue. “And the weird thing,” Remmi said, swirling the amber liquor in her glass, “is that the victim was dressed in Didi’s things. I know because Didi marked them all, and sure enough, the wig had Mom’s signature inside. And this woman—whoever she is—wanted people to think she was Didi, not Marilyn or someone else because she did everything my mom did, down to the fingernail polish; the ring finger on her left hand was colored differently from the others. That was Didi’s signature.”

  “But . . . why?” Greta’s features were drawn together as she thought, her glass empty.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Does it have something to do with that book? I’m Not Me? Good Lord, what a stupid title.”

  Remmi almost laughed. “I think it must have something to do with the publication. Why else now?”

  Her lips pursed, and she wheeled over to the drinks cabinet again. “Another?” she asked, eyeing the open backgammon board on a nearby table, but for once not suggesting a match.

  Remmi shook her head, the alcohol warm in her empty stomach. As Greta poured herself another couple of shots and asked questions, Remmi filled her in as best she could.

  “Any chance this woman didn’t jump? That she was, you know, helped along?” Greta asked.

  “You mean pushed?”

  “Yes. Either physically or psychologically?”

  “I guess we won’t know until she’s identified. The police should be able to figure that out if it was physical. It didn’t look that way to me, but it was foggy, and there were curtains behind her and . . .” In her mind’s eye, she saw that terrible leap once more, and she shuddered inside as she remembered the dull thud of the body hitting the wet cement. Catching Greta watching her, she said, “There were dozens of cell phones taking pictures of the woman. And the hotel has to have cameras everywhere. It’s just too early to know.” Remmi shivered at the thought and decided another drink might be in order. She pushed herself to her feet and, at the drinks cabinet, poured another shot and took a long swallow.

  “It’s all so very, very bizarre,” Greta said.

  What about my life hasn’t been?

  Greta added, “We just have to find out about this woman, to whom she was linked, how anyone might profit from either her death or from the publicity about it, you know, for the book.”

  “I know, but I never made it to the agent’s office.” She finished the rest of her drink, and for the first time noticed two gold eyes peering at her from behind a pillow on the sofa. Ghost. Greta’s shy, gray, long-tailed cat that Greta claimed was a Russian Blue and was forever hiding. “Tomorrow I’ll go there,” she vowed, studying the remaining drop of liquid in the bottom of the glass.

  “Yes, tomorrow.” Greta finished her last drink as well. “I’m going to do some research.” As Remmi turned toward the foyer and the stairs, Greta said, “Wait. Just a minute. Come with me.” She buzzed through the dining room and butler’s pantry. Remmi grabbed her coat and followed through a large kitchen and past an ancient butcher block island, then turned down a hallway that passed under the stairway and led to Greta’s private quarters, a small sitting room, study, bedroom, and bath. Greta was already through the French doors to her den, where she grabbed a book from the corner of a massive desk. The room was large, nearly a library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a large window overlooking an overgrown backyard.

  Handing Remmi a copy of I’m Not Me, Greta said, “Here you go. I figured you wouldn’t buy this, just on principle, but you need to read it.”

  “I was going to stop by the bookstore tomorrow.”

  “Saved you the trouble.” Greta poked a manicured fingernail on the cover. “Maybe you can figure out who’s behind it without getting a court order.” She laughed and glanced at a large framed picture of a stern-looking man that sat upon the desk he’d once used. Judge Duncan Emerson, her late husband, the “love of my life but definitely not my ‘soul mate,’ whatever drivel that is.” Turtles had followed them into the study and, spying Greta, looked up, then leaped onto the old woman’s lap.

  “Oh, you,” Greta said, her eyes twinkling as she stroked him along his neck and nape, and the cat settled, purring loudly, onto Greta’s lap.

  Remmi thanked her for the book, then walked past Greta’s bedroom, with its view of the back gardens, to circle around to the staircase in the foyer. There were two other ways to reach her suite on the top floor, either by the back stairs once used by the servants or by the exterior steps, a winding staircase once used as a fire escape. The old home had no elevator, only a creaky dumbwaiter, which no one had used in this century. She made her way past the unoccupied guest rooms on the second floor and up the final steps to the space she’d occupied for the better part of five years.

  She set Greta’s copy of I’m Not Me on the coffee table and walked to the bank of windows to stare through watery glass that was over a hundred years old. Her view from this third-floor perch was incredible—from the bay on the east, over the peninsula, where the city lights winked brightly, to the Pacific stretching into the dark horizon. This rambling old manor was as much of a home as she’d had since she’d left Las Vegas twenty years earlier. She’d had many apartments in the intervening years, mostly dives, once in a rare while with a roommate, but after living with her aunt and uncle, she preferred to be alone.

  CHAPTER 15

  Remmi sank onto her couch and thought back about living with the Gibbs family. She’d hated everything about it.

  From the get-go, Aunt Vera had forced Remmi to attend weekly Bible study on Wednesday evenings, as well as the Sunday services, where the sermons could not have been more boring.

  Once Remmi had made the mistake of suggesting she would rather attend a nondenominational church, and Aunt Vera had nearly come unglued. When Remmi had pointed out that it was all the same God, Aunt Vera had given her a blistering to
ngue-lashing about sticking with family and faith and the little church they attended, where Reverend Weber, a personal friend, mind you, held services.

  One memory rose to the surface. It had been late summer, and Aunt Vera had insisted Remmi learn what she referred to as “the basics,” which meant preparing Remmi to be a homemaker like she was—straight out of the 1950s. Remmi was not cool with that at all.

  Aunt Vera had begun canning peaches one sweltering afternoon. She had been standing at the stove and, as always, was ready to impart knowledge. “Your mother,” she told Remmi, “well, she was a hedonist, always all about what made her feel or look good, never giving a thought to anything or anyone besides herself.”

  “That’s not true,” Remmi had burst out. She’d been sitting at the battered kitchen table in the kitchen nook, making labels for the jars, and glancing out the window to the cloudless day beyond. The nook had a view of the driveway, twin lines of concrete leading to a sagging garage, where Uncle Milo kept an old sports car that was in pieces all over the cracked cement floor.

  As Remmi had tried not to daydream about finding her mother and escaping her life here, Aunt Vera had been sweating over a mottled canner squatting on the largest burner, steam rising. The temperature was over a hundred outside, not a breath of a breeze to be had. The lawn had turned brown, the shriveled blades of grass bleached from the California sun, the tinder-dry shrubs and trees lining the drive having already lost their leaves. The too-small air-conditioning unit had been on the fritz again, and Aunt Vera had been waiting, somewhat impatiently, for Uncle Milo to return from his latest business trip and fix it.

  “Mom cares about me,” Remmi had continued and swiped at the sweat beading on her forehead. One globule had hit the label she was working on, smearing the wording from her black Sharpie. She wadded the label up in her hand, crushing it in her fist. “And the babies. She loves them. She does! She’ll come back. Something just must’ve happened.” But it had already been over a year since Didi had driven away from Las Vegas in a piqued state of fury.