The Liar's Lullaby (10 page)

“Okay, but right now I’m the one with permission from the police to come inside. Sorry, Mr. Chennault.”

He raised his hands. “Wouldn’t want to muddle the pack order, Alpha girl. Mr. Manager and I’ll wait while you take your tour.”

Jo smiled firmly, neutrally, at him. “How about we grab coffee after this?”

Hands still up, he retreated. When he reached the door, he put his hands together and bowed, like a Thai offering a
wai.

She watched him walk down the steps toward his car. To the property manager she said, “Have you seen him here before?”

“No, but I’m not here very often.”

“I’m going to survey the house. I may be a while.”

“I’ll be in the car. Got calls to make.”

Jo took out her digital camera and walked deeper into the house. It was compact and elegantly appointed. Food in the kitchen: organic arugula, an empty KFC bucket in the trash. Vitamins, herbal supplements, and a bottle of Stolichnaya on the counter.

She wandered into the living room. The plate-glass windows overlooked a small backyard that rose steeply into bottlebrush trees and rhododendrons on the hillside.

The police had been through the house already, and apparently hadn’t found any evidence of a crime. So Jo was looking for the contours of Tasia’s emotional landscape. And she was looking for traces of her final day.

Two big bookcases were haphazardly piled with paranormal romance novels, old copies of
Entertainment Weekly
, and a country music Listeners’ Choice award.

Mixed in with the spicy books about hot girl-on-werewolf love was a copy of Gerald Posner’s
Case Closed.
Jo picked it up, perplexed. The book was an anti-conspiracy text, considered an authoritative tome debunking conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.

Why was Tasia interested in JFK? Or presidential assassination?

She snapped a photo of the bookshelf.

The grand piano was covered with slumping piles of music manuscript paper. Jo was certain that the police had shuffled through them looking for a suicide note. They hadn’t found one. The manuscript paper was covered with Tasia’s compositions. Musical notes crowded the treble staff. The lyrics rushed across the page, as if Tasia had been gasping to keep up with the music that poured from her head.

Propped on the music stand was “The Liar’s Lullaby.” Tasia had scored a complete arrangement for piano. At the top she’d scribbled
Allegro. Counterpoint/Round.
Dense chords packed the bass clef.

Jo picked out the piece on the keyboard. The melody was minor key, droning, repetitive, sad. It sounded almost compulsive. From the evidence heaped on top of the Steinway, Tasia had been filled with desperation and obsession.

Jo carefully photographed each sheet. Then she went upstairs.

In Tasia’s bedroom she found disorder. The bed was unmade and clothes were strewn on the floor.

Jo’s own wardrobe was functional. She wore tailored blouses and well-fitting pants that allowed her to simultaneously look professional and run for her life. No pencil skirts, no scarves that wrapped around her neck. Nothing that would prevent her from leaping out a window if a schizophrenic gangbanger heard voices telling him the bitch needed cutting, or a psychopathic convict decided, on a whim, to strangle her. She had combats for the weekend, sweats and shorts for climbing, and a black suit for testifying in court. If she wanted to go high fashion, she’d put on her paisley Doc Martens.

The thought that Tasia McFarland, or anybody, would treat designer clothing—clothing that cost enough to put a teenager through college—like dishrags dropped on the floor to mop up spilled coffee, boggled her. Either Tasia had been inured to the privileges of fame, or she was so depressed that she couldn’t even pick up a . . . she looked at a label . . . Dolce & Gabbana dress from the bathroom floor.

She took more photos. Then she turned to the bed. The covers were turned down on both sides. Two pillows had distinct impressions. A set of men’s boots sat beside it. Worn, well- loved red cowboy boots.

On an easy chair, beneath a gauzy pile of women’s blouses, she found a man’s shirt that still smelled of aftershave. She checked inside the collar. A cleaner’s mark read
SL.
Leaning against the chair was an acoustic guitar.

Searle Lecroix had, it seemed, been serenading Tasia shortly before her fateful trip to the concert.

She headed into the bathroom. The wind sliced through the open window. Half a dozen prescription bottles sat on the counter.

Tasia’s pharmaceutical cornucopia looked as colorful as confetti. Antianxiety drugs. Vicodin and Tylenol with codeine. Sleeping pills. Diet pills, aka amphetamines. Prozac.

Lithium. From the scrip label, the prescription had been filled two months earlier, but the bottle was full.

Off her meds.

Jo lined up the bottles and took photos, making sure she got the labels and the prescribing physicians’ names. All these bottles would be checked by the medical examiner and cross-referenced for tox screening in connection with Tasia’s autopsy. But Jo wanted to verify their contents for herself.

The wind whistled through the open window. She heard a car drive past the house. Men’s voices batted about on the wind.

The floor creaked behind her. She turned.

The bedroom looked exactly as she’d seen it moments earlier. The floor creaked again, in the hallway beyond it.

Chennault.

Damn, the nosy bastard had snuck back inside the house. She strode out of the bathroom toward the bedroom door. “Excuse me.”

Again the creak. She stepped into the hall. Nobody was on the landing.

“Mr. Chennault?”

She told herself she hadn’t imagined it. Again she heard men’s voices outside. She walked to the landing, where a picture window overlooked the street. The hairs on her arms prickled.

Beside his car, Chennault stood talking to the property manager.

Slowly she turned. Behind her, outside a hallway closet, stood a figure in fatigues and a balaclava.

Five foot eight, probably two- fifty, and breathing hard. Jo’s gaze went to his hands. Gardening gloves.

She ran for the stairs.

She sprinted, two steps, three, and heard him coming. His feet thumped on the carpet.
Run,
she thought. She leaped down the stairs two at a time.

A hand grabbed her hair. Her head snapped back.

She swung an elbow and hit padded flesh, heard his thick breathing, felt his meaty presence. His hand twisted her hair. She lost her balance, missed a step, and fell.

She threw out her hands and hit hard, knees to stomach to her face. The masked man grunted and toppled with her. They slid down the stairs and thudded against the hardwood floor.

He landed on top of her. His weight, his smell, were crushing. She squirmed, fingernails out. His flesh was soft and red around the collar. She clawed at his neck.

He lumbered to his feet and careened into the living room, hitting the wall as he ran. He threw open the plate-glass patio door.

Jo clambered to her feet and stumbled for the front door. Looking back, she saw the intruder flee across the backyard.

She threw open the front door. “Help.”

Chennault and the property manager looked up, startled, and rushed toward her.

Jo found her phone. Fingers shaking, she punched 911. She pointed at the back of the house. “Man in a balaclava. Ran out and into the trees.”

The property manager gaped at her, and at the open patio door, with seeming confusion. Chennault took the same long second, then put a hand on Jo’s shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” he said.

She had the phone to her ear. Her ribs were killing her. Her face had rug burns. She couldn’t swallow because her throat was bone-dry.

“I’m okay.”

Through the patio door, she saw movement. The bottlebrush trees were heavy with red blooms, and they swung as the man in the balaclava ran past. Chennault saw it too. He hesitated only a second before running out the patio door.

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“An intruder just assaulted me.”

Jo ran after Chennault. He was already across the yard and running for the trees. Up the steep hillside, the rhododendrons rustled like a black bear was tearing through them.

She gave the 911 dispatcher the address. “I’m in pursuit on foot, with another civilian.”

Part of her thinking, what the hell was she doing? Another part thinking,
Look around. Make sure there’s not another one. And what the hell am I doing?

“Stay on the line, Dr. Beckett,” the dispatcher said. “A unit is on the way.”

“Wouldn’t hang up for a million bucks,” Jo said.

She aimed for the trees.

J
O RAN UP THE HILL BEHIND TASIA’S HOUSE, PHONE PRESSED TO HER ear. Her heart beat like a snare drum. Branches swung past her face. The hillside smelled of damp earth and the musk of the attacker’s clothing. Above her, the bushes swayed violently as the attacker bowled through them.

“He’s a hundred yards ahead of me, heading for the top of Twin Peaks,” she told the emergency dispatcher. “The other civilian is closer to him.”

Rhododendrons were dense on the hillside. Sunlight gashed through the leaves, looking unnaturally bright. Damn it. How had the guy gotten into the house?

Ahead, Ace Chennault muscled through the brush. Ungainly but purposeful, he closed the distance on the attacker.

“Chennault,” she hollered, “watch out for weapons.”

She put the phone back to her ear. “We’re heading toward Sutro Tower. How long for the unit to respond?”

“They’re on the way,” the dispatcher said.

The damp ground gave way beneath her feet. She pitched forward and her hand hit the slope. The attacker disappeared from sight, followed by Chennault. She heard them threshing the bushes. She put her arm up to shield herself from branches and plowed after them.

The hillside flattened and she came out onto a dusty field. Ahead lay eucalyptus groves, then a chain-link fence. Sutro Tower stood beyond it, a fulsome red and white in the sunshine, rising mightily three hundred yards overhead.

The attacker was following the fence line into the distance. He had a smooth stride and was surprisingly light on his feet, motoring toward freedom. Chennault sprinted raggedly behind him.

“He’s headed west. If he gets past Sutro Tower . . .” She tried to picture what lay beyond the antenna. Glades, more eucalyptus, steep ravines. “. . . he could lose us.”

She ran, beginning to blow hard. On the far side of the hilltop the attacker darted into a eucalyptus grove and dropped from sight over the lip of the hill. Five seconds later so did Chennault.

Jo passed Sutro Tower. “They’re in heavy woods, heading downhill.”

At the lip of the hill she slowed. The ground pitched harshly into trees and tangled undergrowth. The vine-covered ground was a morass of eroded gullies. A fallen eucalyptus, at least a hundred feet tall, spanned a ravine like a bridge.

Chennault was eighty yards ahead, pummeling downhill like he couldn’t stop. She didn’t see the attacker. In Chennault’s wake branches snapped and leaves crunched, but nowhere else. A black wire of warning spun around her chest.

She scanned the terrain. She had a rule: Listen to the whisper on the wind. Hear the still small voice that says,
Watch out
.

She cupped her hands in front of her mouth. “Chennault, be careful.”

He barreled onward, seemingly certain that he was still on the attacker’s trail—or maybe just out of control. He put a hand against a tree trunk to slow himself.

Behind him the attacker rose from a thicket. In his hand he had a rock the size of a softball. He whipped his arm overhead and smashed it against Chennault’s head.

Chennault staggered, crashed into another tree trunk, and toppled like an upended floor lamp into the ravine.

The wind snapped through Jo’s hair. She clutched the phone, horrified. “He attacked the man who was chasing him. Get the cops here. Hurry.”

“They’re coming, Doctor.”

The attacker stared into the blank space where Chennault had fallen. His shoulders heaved. The rock looked sharp and bloody.

“Get them to come faster.”

The attacker continued to stare into the ravine.
Shit.
How far had Chennault fallen? The attacker weighed the rock in his hand. Eyes downslope, he inched over the edge of the ravine.
Dammit. Damn.

“A man’s down and the attacker’s moving on him again,” she said. “And I don’t have a weapon.”

Deep in the distance, a siren cried. Jo cupped her hands in front of her mouth and yelled down the ravine. “That’s the cops.”

The attacker turned. His dark eyes peered at her from beneath the balaclava.

Her voice sounded dry. She told the dispatcher, “He’s watching me.”

Fear whispered,
Run.
But if she fled, the attacker would have free range to finish off Chennault. She forced her legs not to bolt. The siren grew louder.

She gritted her teeth and shouted, “Hear that?”

For another moment the attacker stared at her. Then, without a sound, he turned and disappeared into the trees.

The siren grew shrill. A police cruiser heaved into view. Jo pointed at the trees and yelled, “Assailant ran that way.” Then she scurried down the slope to the edge of the ravine. A trail of broken vegetation delineated Chennault’s fall line.

She couldn’t see him. “Chennault?”

From the depths of the ravine, beneath moss and fallen logs, came moaning. She sidestepped down the slope, hanging onto branches and crawling green vines. The shadows deepened. Above, the siren cut off and car doors slammed.