The Liar's Lullaby (28 page)

“When officers arrived, they found a white male suffering multiple stab wounds. At four P.M. today, Searle Lecroix was pronounced dead of those wounds.”

Noise erupted. Reporters shouted. Shutters clicked. People in the square screamed. A young woman fell to the sidewalk in tears. Cameras and lights seemed to bleach the view white.

Over?
Jo thought. Not even close. And the media rodeo was just getting started.

The president was coming to town.

 

 

R
EPLAY THAT.” Edie Wilson was in the backseat of the Volvo SUV, leaning toward Andy, the cameraman. “Pure gold. We’re going to eat this story alive.”

Tranh’s phone rang. Five seconds after saying hello, he braked and pulled a wild U-turn in the middle of Castro Street, phone to his ear, steering with one hand.

Edie grabbed the door handle for balance. “What’s going on?”

Tranh put his foot down. “Stabbing at the Saint Francis. Searle Lecroix’s dead.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Suspect was shot and killed by the cops. Police are giving a news conference.”

He sped up Castro, aiming for Market Street.

Edie grabbed the driver’s seat. “Now? Right now?”

“Right freaking now.”

“I’m missing it? Goddamn it.” She punched the back of Tranh’s seat. “God-shitting-damn it.”

She hauled out her phone and called the network. By the time they got to Union Square, she was still yelling at her network producer. She hung up.

“Local affiliate got the news conference. But I wasn’t there. Tranh, why didn’t you know about this?”

“Maybe because they didn’t announce it until the police spokesman walked out the door of the hotel?” he said.

Ahead, Edie saw the side entrance to the St. Francis. “Pull in. If anybody’s still around, they won’t be leaving through the front door. We’ll catch them coming out the back.”

J
O CROSSED THE ECHOING LOBBY of the St. Francis and headed toward the back exit, away from the click of camera shutters and the jostling press horde and the sobbing fans and Lieutenant Dart’s smooth patter. She called and left Ferd a message, thanking him for all he’d done. She said she’d tell him the whole story when she got home. She headed through the door and turned toward the street. She didn’t think she could walk another step.

She raised her hand to flag a yellow cab. And on the sidewalk she saw Edie Wilson, her big blond hair, and her raptor’s smile.

“Doctor Beckett.”

Wilson didn’t seem to walk toward her. Perhaps it was an optical illusion caused by the monstrous headache, but Wilson seemed to glide instantly in front of her, like a demon-possessed mannequin. She raised a microphone.

“Why didn’t the police get to the hotel in time to save Searle Lecroix?” she said.

Jo fought every instinct for fight and flight. She had no reserves left. She told herself:
Don’t crack.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” she said.

“Why were the police so slow to react to the threat?” The microphone jabbed nearer to her face.

“Really, I can’t talk right now. Please excuse me.”

She tried to walk away. Wilson and her cameraman blocked her path.

“Why won’t you talk to us? What about Searle Lecroix? Doesn’t he deserve an answer?”

“Please, don’t.”

“Who’s going to speak for Searle? Why didn’t the police get there in time? What did you do?”

The yellow cab stopped at the curb. The driver gaped at the scene outside his window, as if Godzilla had just appeared to snack on the cars and trucks and shrinks of San Francisco.

“Did you tell the cops to back off?” Wilson said. “Did you lead them astray?”

“Sorry, but I have to go.”

Jo blinked back tears. If she got angry, she’d blow it. She climbed in the cab and slammed the door. The cabbie peered at her in the rearview mirror, perplexed.

“Kearny and Sutter. Go,” she said.

“Is that—”

“Yeah. Let’s roll.”

The cab pulled out. Wilson shouted, “How about Gabe Quintana?”

Jo whirled to look out the back window.

Wilson’s eyes were bright. “Quintana, Doctor Beckett.”

Shit
. Jo knew she’d just made a big mistake. The cab accelerated toward Union Square, taking her out of Wilson’s range. But she knew more shots would be arriving soon.

J
O LOCKED THE FRONT DOOR BEHIND HER AND SAT DOWN ON THE stairs. The light in the hall seemed green and cracked, as if the horrors of the afternoon had dropped her inside a funhouse tiled with broken bottles. “Amazing Grace” played endlessly in her head.

And she could no longer persuade herself that she was being paranoid. Tang and Captain Bohr had convinced her otherwise. Bohr, because he had tax problems. Tang, because her parents’ business had been raided. And it was all federal. Internal Revenue Service. ATF—the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Air National Guard.

Gabe’s orders had been changed as a message to her. He was being ripped from his little girl and dropped into a hot war to pressure her to drop her investigation into Tasia McFarland’s death.

She took her phone from her pocket and punched a number. “Beer. I’m buying.”

“I’m not in the mood,” Tang said.

“You know Mijita, outside the ballpark? I’ll meet you there.”

The Giants were on the road, a three-game stand against the Cubs. In the plaza outside the ballpark, the bronze statue of Willie Mays shone in the sun. The sky, blue and crisp, seemed sterile. When Jo walked into Mijita, Tang was sitting against the wall, holding a Corona. Jo got a Sam Adams and joined her.

“Don’t ask me how I feel,” Tang said.

“Not planning to.”

“Because the Homicide Detail has my service weapon. To keep you from shrinking me, I’d have to beat you to death with a Mexican beer bottle, which would be messy and tiring. Besides, we’re heroes. That’s how we feel. Heroic.”

Tang tried to live inside a spiny shell, where none of her vulnerabilities could be seen, much less attacked. But the shell had fractured, and she looked ashamed.

Jo thought it was because Tang had been so quick to leave Lecroix’s side, and so relieved. She hadn’t been able to deal with a dying man. She’d tossed the responsibility in Jo’s lap, and she knew it.

Tang slid a sheaf of photos across the table. “Even though I’m on desk duty, they slipped these to me. Detectives found a key in Noel Petty’s pocket. Cheap residence hotel in the Tenderloin.”

As Jo examined the photos, a creepy chill infused her. Petty’s room was wallpapered with photos of Searle Lecroix and Tasia McFarland. The Lecroix walls featured full-color pictures torn from glossy magazines. The wall of Tasia consisted of photos with eyes scratched out, horns drawn on, or other faces pasted over hers. Miss Piggy, Margaret Thatcher, and, most commonly, a mad cow.

“These were beside the bed,” Tang said.

They were photos from
Bad Dogs and Bullets
concerts: Searle, center stage, guitar in his hands. In the front row, nearly crushed against the barrier separating the crowd from the stage, Petty’s frowning face was clearly visible.

“Seattle and Tucson,” Tang said. “She was following him.”

“Ace Chennault mentioned an incident at the concert in Tucson.”

“Petty had a bit of money from a slip-and-fall settlement against an employer. Apparently she used the settlement to support herself as Searle’s number one groupie and stalker.”

“Did he know her? Had he met her?” Jo said.

“That’s the next phase of the investigation. We haven’t even begun to crack open her computer and phone records.”

“Was she at the concert here when Tasia died?” Jo said.

“Found a ticket on her desk. So, yes.” Tang leaned back. “But you don’t consider that dispositive, do you?”

“No. The idea that Noel Michael Petty shot Tasia is implausible.”

Tang pushed a photo toward Jo: Tasia, with her face replaced by a wild-eyed Guernsey heifer.

“She loathed Tasia,” Jo said. “But unless your colleagues uncover proof that Petty got within kissing distance of Tasia in the seconds before her death, I don’t buy it. Hatred isn’t action.”

“No. It’s motive.”

“Yes, Petty was obsessed with Lecroix. She might have had a delusional belief that she and Lecroix had a relationship. She almost certainly believed that her ‘love’ entitled her to claim him as her soul mate. But I don’t buy her as Tasia’s killer.”

“Why not?” Tang said.

“Tasia’s death is different from his.” The memory swelled in her vision. “Petty attacked him directly, and with a knife. You know full well that knife attacks are more intimate than gun attacks. She used subterfuge to get into his suite, but once he opened the door her assault was immediate and full frontal. She stabbed him repeatedly, while he stared her in the eye.”

Tang didn’t disagree.

“But Tasia’s death is equivocal. That’s the entire reason you drew me into the investigation. If it had been straightforward, Petty would have been seen and arrested at the ballpark,” Jo said. “But
if
Tasia’s death was murder, it was accomplished by stealth and guile. A killer had to gain access either to Tasia’s weapon or to areas of the ballpark that required an invitation or an access-all-areas pass. Petty had neither. And nobody who was within a hundred yards of Tasia that night saw anyone remotely like Petty, because if they had, you would have been hunting her from the get-go.”

Tang grunted. “Absolutely right.”

“The fatal shot was a contact wound, fired from the Colt forty-five Tasia had in her grip when she stepped onto the balcony. But Petty wasn’t in the stunt team’s hospitality suite. She wasn’t in the surrounding suites, which were holding private parties. She wasn’t visible on nearby balconies in any of the concert footage. The chance that Petty murdered Tasia is minuscule.”

Tang stared at her, long and hard. “You can bet that all Petty’s venomous e-mails will be released by the department.”

“You’re saying she’s going to be named as Tasia’s killer.” Jo held on to her beer bottle. “Somebody’s pressuring Bohr to close the investigation.”

Tang’s eyes went hot. “I told you that from the beginning.”

“And somebody’s pressuring you. Through your parents.”

“Beckett, that’s—”

“Crazy? It’s not. Tell me what happened.”

Tang’s mouth hung half-open for a second. “The feds got a tip that my mom and dad were smuggling illegal weapons. Came into their import-export business with the bomb-sniffing dogs, put everybody on the floor with their hands behind their heads. My mom and pop.”

“That’s awful.”

“Jo, they sell fireworks—they’re Chinese. Of course the bomb dogs found evidence of explosives. Gunpowder. Pyrotechnics. Christ.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Anonymous tip.”

“Are your parents okay?”

“Tough as barnacles. Those ATF agents can probably still hear Mom swearing at them.” She rubbed her temples. “Mistake, the feds say.”

“And they’re pressuring me.” Jo’s face felt cold. “Gabe’s orders have been changed. He’s being deployed to Afghanistan.”

Tang’s mouth slowly opened. “You okay?”

Jo laughed uncontrollably. “No. I’m not within sight of okay, not even with a telescopic night scope. It’s all federal, Amy. It’s all too close and too scary to be coincidence. And I don’t know what to do, or whether to tell Gabe.”

Tang seemed frozen. “We’ll never find proof.”

“I know.” Jo’s eyes began to sting. “So I’ll file my report, saying I quit.”

Tang leaned back.

“Without further evidence, I can’t determine Tasia’s state of mind. And I’m not going to get it. No psychiatric records. No interview with the man who owns the weapon that killed her. I’m stymied.” The stinging in her eyes increased. “And Gabe’s going to pay the price.”

Tang’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t blame you. I’m sorry, Beckett.”

“Checkmate,” Jo said. “The bastards win.”

Tang didn’t argue. And with her silence, so died Jo’s last scintilla of hope. There was no way to right this sinking ship. She wanted to hurl her beer bottle across the room.

“Before I drove over here, I phoned the office of the White House chief of staff. I left a message asking K. T. Lewicki to phone me. Now I know for certain what I’ll tell him. We’re done.”

At the bar, a group of men broke into friendly laughter. Tang glanced at them.

“I’ll tell Vienna Hicks I’m wrapping things up,” Jo said. “I hate to let her down, but . . . what?”

Tang looked like she’d just swallowed a glass of straight pins. “The news.”

On the television above the bar, the bloodbath at the St. Francis dominated the headlines. Helicopter shots of Union Square. Manic speculation about Noel Michael Petty. Lecroix’s last music video played repeatedly. But this was a break from the Cirque du Searle.