Liar, Liar

by Lisa Jackson

  “I don’t know. Some of that stuff in the book, about when she was a kid, they might know from being close to Didi, but no, I don’t see Mom having anything to do with Ned. She was pissed when he left, and they never reconciled. That’s the way she is. Once you burn her, she never forgives.”

  “What would she think about Trudie marrying Ned?”

  “Oh, man. No way she would like it. She would see it as a betrayal on both their parts.” She leaned against the bookcase and viewed a shelf where she’d kept a few favorite pictures. Didi was there, front and center, her black-and-white head shot dominating the smaller pictures.

  The very picture that had been used for the cover of I’m Not Me.

  Damn. The old pain bloomed, feelings of desperation and abandonment emerging. Setting her jaw, she fought them as she stared at the photo.

  Dear God, Mom. Where are you?

  She was so lost in thought she wasn’t aware that Noah had climbed out of his chair and crossed the room to stand next to her. He slid his arms around her waist, and she tensed before he pulled her so close she felt this breath upon her neck. “Give it a rest,” he said. “Go to bed.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Seems as if I’ve got company.”

  “The company can take care of himself.”

  “I was talking about Romeo.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll crash on the couch.”

  She thought about that. “You don’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “We just came back from a disturbing homicide scene, with people linked to you.”

  “So, what’re you saying? You think I need . . . a bodyguard?” She let out a soft chuckle. “When I’ve got a guard cat and a flashlight guaranteed to rip an assailant to shreds, if you use it right.”

  “Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me.”

  “Hope so.”

  She waited for a rejoinder, but suddenly the strong arms slipped away from her. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up a small framed picture that had been partially hidden by the bigger head shot of Didi.

  “Oh.” Remmi studied the picture. “It’s the only picture of the twins I have.”

  Noah studied the snapshot. “Okay, that’s Didi, I recognize her, holding one of the kids.” He was pointing to Remmi’s mother, who was standing under the awning shading the back patio of their house in Las Vegas.

  “I took the picture, not long after the babies were born.” Wearing sunglasses and slacks and a T-shirt, Didi, still hanging onto some of her pregnancy weight, was holding her son.

  “She’s got Adam.”

  “You said twins, but there’s only one kid here,” he said. “Oh, I get it now. There, just inside the patio door.”

  “Uh-huh. Seneca’s got Ariel, but she was still in the house. Didn’t realize I was taking a picture, and I really didn’t notice that she was in the shot as I was concentrating on Mom, and Didi was death on anything proving that there were two babies. She’d admitted to one, but she didn’t want anyone—not the public, not her boss, not anyone—to know there was a second one. I didn’t understand it at the time, but she was obviously planning the baby swap from the time they were born.”

  “Maybe before.”

  “Yeah, possibly when she found out she was going to have twins. She wasn’t very happy but got over it.”

  “So that’s Seneca.” He walked to a table lamp as if to get a better view.

  “Uh-huh. Why?”

  Noah was studying the snapshot, his brow beetled. “Do you have any other pictures of her?”

  Remmi shook her head. “I don’t have many pictures period.” She motioned to the bookcase. “What you see is what you get. These just happened to be in some of Didi’s stuff I took that night. Why?”

  “I’ve seen her before.”

  “Recently?”

  “No.” His eyes narrowed. “Back then. With Ike. But I don’t think that was her name.” He glanced back up at Remmi. “She had this exotic look about her, and she was at the house. Mom wasn’t there. She and Ike were in his little shop, and she was talking about a bike . . . no, a moped.”

  “A motorized scooter.”

  “Essentially, yes. Ike had one, and she was asking about it, but it was just conversation. There was something else . . .” He thought for a moment, staring at the photo again. “She wanted him to fix something that was not his usual thing, and he was saying he could do it.” Noah shook his head. “It’ll come to me, but I’m sure Ike didn’t call her by Seneca.”

  “What then?” Remmi asked.

  “I can’t remember right now,” he said, drawing the picture closer to his face, “Something like . . . Shelly or Shirley or something.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “God, it’s right on the tip of my tongue, but it’s not there,” he said, staring at the picture.

  Shelly or Shirley . . .

  She yawned, all of a sudden weary to the marrow of her bones.

  “Go to bed,” he ordered, and this time she didn’t argue when he pointed her in the direction of her bedroom.

  * * *

  Settler couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t shut down. She’d stayed at the hospital until 2:00 AM, returned home, taken Earl out again, and even managed a short run. By 4:00 she should have been exhausted but was still keyed up.

  Who had attacked Ned Crenshaw and his wife?

  Had to be because of that damned book, right?

  What was the thinking when trying to prove collusion in a presidential election? Follow the money?

  The department was already on that, as well as trying to figure out the blood at the scene. Tomorrow, they might have a hit with the blood typing. They would be able to see how many wounded victims and/or attackers had been at the crime scene. Phone and credit cards and computer records might link the Crenshaws to Trudie Crenshaw’s killer. The bullet casings and any other trace evidence would hopefully provide a link to the murder in the desert, or not. The same killer could have used a different weapon.

  Maybe, too, there would be something more on a tox screen for Karen Upgarde. She doubted it. Those things, like DNA, took time, but the lab could do miracles if motivated.

  She drank a banana, strawberry, spinach, and yogurt smoothie, usually her go-to for breakfast, but what the hell? It was early in the morning, right? Just very early. After the smoothie, she fell into bed. Earl whined, and she gave in. “Up,” she said, and that was all the encouragement the dog needed to hop onto the bed, lick her face, then burrow under the covers.

  Staring at the ceiling, Settler tried once more to put the pieces together. Noah Scott was back, claiming he wanted to clear up his past and find Remmi Storm again. True? She didn’t know. She filed that into the “maybe” category.

  She glanced over at the book lying on her bedside table. The torn picture on the cover did look a lot like Karen Upgarde. So why had that woman jumped? Or had she been pushed? Still a lot of unanswered questions there, and the unfocused photograph of the hotel room hadn’t provided a clear-cut answer. Who would encourage a woman to leap off a nineteenth-story ledge?

  The thought that it could have been Didi Storm herself floated through her mind.

  Who else would profit from the publicity? But would the aging, B-level impersonator go to so much trouble after hiding all these years? Would she drive a mentally unstable woman to end her life? For what? Publicity? To create “a buzz” about Didi? To try to make a comeback to a career that wasn’t that great to begin with? For a few bucks? Or maybe a few hundred thousand bucks?

  Settler rolled over, drew up the covers, listened as rain started to fall again, slanting against the windows.

  She just didn’t see that angle.

  I’m Not Me had been pretty detailed about all of Didi’s life, and the Los Angeles and Las Vegas parts of it were pretty much known to all of her friends and coworkers and other people she’d run across in her life. There had been some newspaper and magazine articles about her—not national, but still available.

  But her growing-up years? Who
would know about those besides her family and close friends in the Midwest? Her parents were dead, but Settler intended to talk to Vera Gibbs and Billy Hutchinson, Didi’s sister and brother, if she could locate them. Maybe they could shed some light.

  Then there was Remmi’s father, the mysterious man without a name. And Noah Scott’s father, whom Scott claimed his mother had told him was in prison and hadn’t been. Instead, he’d left Cora Sue and her son and raised another family. And, of course, Didi’s twins’ (if they existed) father who probably died in the conflagration in the Mojave that night twenty years ago. Lots and lots of daddy issues in the case. Lots of missing people, including Didi and her infant children.

  And now, with Karen Upgarde and Trudie Crenshaw, two more victims.

  So far.

  Settler had requested info on everyone Remmi Storm had mentioned when she’d first come to the department. Tomorrow a lot of that information should be waiting. Maybe then she’d find some answers. Perhaps she’d even catch a killer.

  She finally drifted off to sleep somewhere around 5:00 with a final thought that she should call her own dad, forgive him for finding happiness with a woman who wasn’t her mother, and try to kick-start their once tight father-daughter relationship. Could they repair the fences she’d tried so hard to knock down?

  She hoped so.

  * * *

  The Subaru hadn’t moved.

  Not in the last two hours.

  According to the Marksman’s GPS, which recorded information for up to two weeks, Remmi Storm had returned after spending hours at the Crenshaw place in Sacramento, arriving there soon after he’d finished the job. He only wished he’d been able to stick around. He would have finished her off, too. Wouldn’t that have been tidy?

  But because of that prick Crenshaw and the damage he’d inflicted, the Marksman had been forced to leave.

  And you left your DNA there. What about that? Unless the cops are complete idiots, they’ll have proof that you were there.

  He needed to end this.

  Soon.

  Tonight?

  Before dawn?

  No. He didn’t have cover. And he needed time to recuperate, at least a little time. His entire body felt as if it had gone through a meat grinder and back again, and tomorrow it might not feel a hell of a lot better; then he’d take some over-the-counter painkillers, but nothing too strong that would push him off his game. How hard could it be to kill one woman?

  Tomorrow night. Under the cover of darkness.

  He’d take care of her.

  For good.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Guess who was flat broke?” Martinez said as Settler was hanging up her coat on the rack in the department the next morning.

  “You?” she said. She was dragging a bit from her interrupted sleep. She’d finally gotten about an hour’s worth of shut-eye before her alarm blared at her; her eyes felt like sandpaper, and she was dying for a cup of coffee. Martinez, damn him, looked like he had slept a solid eight hours and was ready for a marathon.

  “I mean besides me,” Martinez said, teeth white against his goatee as he flashed her a devilish grin.

  “Let me take a guess: You got the bank records on Karen Upgarde.”

  “That I did, and man, that girl was drowning in red ink,” he said.

  “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.”

  She turned to her computer while Martinez looked over her shoulder, saw the new e-mail, and clicked on it, opening the first of two attachments. The same picture of the hotel window appeared, only this time it was sharper, the shadowy image clearer. Definitely a person, just behind the veil of the curtains. “So someone was with her.”

  “Yup.”

  The second picture was from a slightly different angle, but sure enough, the image was there.

  “This one came in yesterday,” Martinez said.

  “There’s no way you could recognize anyone in this shot.”

  “Agreed. But that sure looks like a Mariners baseball cap . . .”

  “Bingo,” she said, the espresso forgotten as she tried to zoom in on the last person who saw Karen Upgarde alive. That little buzz tickled the back of her neck again, the thrill of uncovering the truth and potentially nailing a killer.

  He added, “The lab’s comparing this image to the video of the guy in the elevator who is unaccounted for, the one who ran into the janitor that night and hopped off the car on another floor.”

  “Let’s have the lab give us a clip of that, send it to the news stations, and see if anyone recognizes our person of interest. They’ve been calling me nonstop since this all started.”

  “I’m way ahead of you,” he said.

  “Aren’t you always,” she threw back at him and was rewarded with a wide grin. She took another drink from the festive paper cup and enjoyed a moment’s satisfaction; she felt as if, at least now, they were making some progress. She couldn’t help but think that, if they identified the person in these photos, they would find a link to the murderer of Trudie Crenshaw, aka Maryanne Osgoode, and possibly, just possibly, a clue to what had happened to the missing Didi Storm and her reported infants. Settler had checked with Clark County and the state of Nevada, hoping for records of the twins’ birth, but so far hadn’t gotten a response. According to Remmi Storm and the book, Didi and the attending midwife had only recorded the birth of a son, but Didi had borne both a son and a daughter. Records showed the live birth of Adam Brett Storm. Nothing for a girl born on the same day or at any time. No Ariel Storm.