The Liar's Lullaby (32 page)

“I listen to people talk all day.”

“You stare in their faces nine-to-five. And climb mountains for relaxation.”

“Rocks: faces that don’t talk back.”

“They just pitch you off if you do something they don’t like. One mistake, the smallest annoyance, and
boom
, it’s nothing but air all the way to the ground. Climbing is unforgiving. And you relish it. Tackling faces that will never yield.”

“Wrong. The rocks present a problem to solve. That’s even the lingo climbers use.”

“Jo, give it up.”

“No, seriously—climbing is about finding the hidden truths in the rock
and
yourself. Exploring until it reveals its secrets and lets you reach the summit.”

“You really don’t know?” Tina said.

“It’s a rush, absolutely. And plenty of climbers take too many risks. I’m not one of them. You know the saying—”

“There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers. But there are no old, bold climbers.” Tina gazed at her as if staring at a dumb stone. “It’s not all about problem-solving.”

“Of course not. I get a huge buzz from climbing.”

“You get a buzz from taking risks in your personal life.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“With men.”

Jo went still. “That’s outrageous. That’s—Tina, that’s ridiculous, and a slur on . . . what men? Gabe?
Daniel?
”

Tina waved her hands to ward off Jo’s pique. “You like excitement. You’re a thinker who doesn’t seek tranquility, that’s for sure.”

“Will you please make your point, before I dunk your head in the sink?”

“After you lost Daniel, you got back into the game. You didn’t pull the covers over your head.” Tina took a breath. “Gabe’s an awesome guy. But do you realize you actually sought out the person most likely to die the same way Daniel did?”

The light in the kitchen seemed to twist.

“You lost your husband in a helicopter crash. Now you’re in a relationship where the risk of that being repeated couldn’t be higher. You’re seeing a man who flies in a chopper for work—and deliberately flies into terrible conditions.”

Jo tried to breathe. She tried to quiet the snapping noise in her head, the sound of insight smacking her between the eyes.
Stick another bullet in the revolver, Jo. Spin the chamber, pull the trigger, one more time.

“You better believe I actually said it,” Tina said. “Don’t kill me.”

Jo stood and walked to the French doors and looked out at the magnolia, vivid green in the morning sun.

She had long sensed something wounded in Gabe. Buried deep, scarred over, but working away, still cutting. She now knew that he had fought off three attackers, survived a stabbing, and in the process damaged a man permanently.

Was he seeking redemption for that? Was that why he’d become a PJ?

When he was asked about search and rescue, his job, he said, “I find people and get them back.”

It was what he was doing for himself as well.

Her breath caught. He just had to do it without dying in the process.

God, they were a pair.

Tina said, “Need to breathe into a paper bag? Dump the muffins.”

She came over and put a hand on Jo’s shoulder. “Don’t look so shocked. My sister, in most areas of existence you are large and in charge, but when it comes to your love life, you’re as clueless as the rest of us.”

Jo tipped her head back. She tried to stay serious, but laughed.

“Our time is up. My office will send you a bill,” Tina said.

Jo caught her halfway to the front door. “Don’t open it until I check for locusts.”

When she peeked through her office shutters, her blood pressure jumped. Across the street, Edie Wilson was stepping out of a Volvo SUV.

Tina joined her at the window. “She doesn’t look so heroic in person.”

“Heroic?” Jo said.

“On her show, the intro shows her in tornado wreckage, and wearing a flak jacket riding around with the Green Berets, like she’s the Statue of Liberty.” Tina peered at her. “With gigantic hair.”

Edie Wilson sipped from a Starbucks cup and pointed around the street, telling the producer and cameraman where to set up. She gave Jo’s house a leisurely, contemplative look.
The better to eat you with, my dear.

Jo marched to the kitchen and turned on the television. On Edie’s network, the morning news was talking about a Lhasa apso caught in a washing machine. Edie’s show,
News Slam
, was scheduled to start in five minutes, at the top of the hour.

“Can you wait five minutes to go to work?” Jo said.

“Whatever you’re planning, I want in. What are you thinking?”

“Whether I dare.”

Tina put a hand on her hip. “What were we discussing a minute ago?”

Thrill seeking. Right. Her penchant for death-defying stunts.

“Come on.”

She pulled Tina out the back door. They ran across the lawn to the fence. Jo boosted Tina up, clambered over herself, and they hurried to Ferd’s kitchen door.

“How good an actor are you?” Jo said.

“I’m auditioning for the national tour of
Spamalot
.”

Jo did a double take, wondering if she was serious.

Inside Ferd’s kitchen, Mr. Peebles was crouched on top of Ahnuld, drinking from an espresso cup. As if he needed that. When Ferd spotted Jo he nearly skipped with glee. He bustled to the door, slicking his hair down with the flats of both hands.

Behind his glasses, his eyes were electric. “It’s Edie Wilson, isn’t it?”

“It’s war.” Jo pointed at Ahnuld. “And he’s going in.”

E
DIE WILSON RAN OVER HER NOTES ONE MORE TIME. AS SHE READ, she finished her coffee and held out the empty cup. When nobody took it, she looked up.

“Andy.”

The cameraman was adjusting the television camera. “Recycle it.”

She exhaled with annoyance. Through her earpiece she heard the voice of the director at the network in New York.

“We’re going to you in two.”

“Got it.” She checked the radio mike clipped to her blouse, and refreshed her lipstick in the SUV’s wing mirror. Behind her reflection she saw a van coming.

“Damn it.”

Some other network was pulling up the hill. They wanted to step on her scoop and catch the “hero” doctor on her way out. But Edie was going to play the story with her own spin.

She ran down her list of talking points. Snapped her fingers at Tranh. “Moffett Field, this National Guard base—they work with the NASA people there? Spy satellites, terror tracking? They’re what, on call if there’s a bomb threat or attack on Air Force One?”

Tranh took out his BlackBerry. “I don’t think so.”

“Find out.”

In her ear, the network said, “Going live to you in one.”

The rival news van parked and people climbed out. This neighborhood was even more quirky than most—the joggers going past, giving her looks, weren’t the usual admirers. A few dog walkers had paused to watch, and a bunch of people had wandered over from the cable car stop to pose in the background, hoping to mouth
Hi, Mom
. As the other news crew—what were they, European? Russian?—ran a sound check, a dozen lookie- lous congregated on the sidewalk behind Tranh and Andy. Several snapped photos of Edie on their cell phones.

One man was speaking in a stressed-out murmur to a neighbor. “Police have been to Jo’s house twice. With dogs.”

Edie glanced at him. He had greasy hair and glasses and wore a computer store T-shirt. He looked seriously alarmed.

“Sniffer dogs. I know it sounds crazy, but . . .”

In her ear, the network said, “Thirty seconds, Edie.”

She tossed her hair back. Glanced again at Computer Man.

He was shaking his head. “No, if there’s an undercover operation you’d never spot the cops.” Peering at the rooftops, he lowered his voice. “I think those were explosive sniffer dogs.”

She heard the studio feed. The morning show host said, “Edie Wilson has a live update on the situation in San Francisco.”

Andy had the camera on his shoulder. She rolled out the news voice.

“As the president flies toward this city to attend the memorial service for Tasia Hicks McFarland, questions persist about the attack that took the life of Searle Lecroix—and particularly about the police response to that attack. I’m outside the home of Doctor Jo Beckett, the psychiatrist who yesterday failed to resuscitate Lecroix as he lay dying from multiple stab wounds.”

She waved her notes at the house. “Serious concerns have also been raised about Doctor Beckett’s relationship with an Air National Guard employee who has a criminal record. With the nation on edge after the deaths of two beloved singers and a president who won’t put rumors to rest about his role in this, the question is—”

Someone in the crowd said, “What’s that?”

“—the question is . . .” Crap, what was her point?
Don’t freeze. Talk. Talk big.
“With blatant gaps in the police and security cordon around the president’s first wife, why did the police permit a consultant with criminal connections to have intimate access to their investigation? Her boyfriend”—she glanced at her notes—“Gabriel Quintana, is employed at Moffett Field south of San Francisco. He has access to the National Guard’s armory and possibly even NASA’s satellite and air traffic control monitoring systems. The security implications are mind-boggling.”

Tranh stared at her, his face waxen. Well, sure, she’d deviated from her script. But this was
news.
A fresh take.

“Some people claim that the administration was behind Tasia’s death. Presumably, Doctor Beckett was hired to put those rumors to bed. Instead, the flames have been fanned. And whether Tasia was silenced, or attempts to silence those of us in the media who insist on bringing the issue into the clear light of day—”

The crowd stirred. People murmured. A woman’s voice rose above the crowd. “It’s coming this way.”

Andy kept the camera on Edie, but pulled back on the focus. She saw his hand adjust it. Moving away from close-up—she wanted to slug him.

In her ear, the network said, “Keep talking, Edie.”

“It’s . . .”

“What
is
that? It came from the psychiatrist’s house.”

A young woman in the crowd pointed. Her hair was in a curly ponytail piled high on her head. She was wearing black jeans and a black blouse with some restaurant’s logo on it.

“It’s coming this way,” she said.

Edie turned her head. “Something’s going on.”

She saw, motoring across the street toward her, the strangest sight of her life. A little . . . what the hell was that, an eight-wheeled toy car?

“Edie, keep talking,” the network said.

“It’s some kind of—little mechanized
tank,
it looks like, and . . .”

It was covered with radiation hazard symbols and explosives logos.

“It’s got bomb symbols on it,” Edie said. “It’s a bomb sniffer robot.”

From the studio, the morning news host said, “What’s riding it? Is that a monkey?”

The European news crew aimed their camera at it and babbled in Greek, or French. Ponytail Girl backed up.

“That monkey doesn’t look right.” Inching away, the girl said, “I don’t like this.”

A dog walker said, “Oh no.” He swept his terrier into his arms and took off as the dog howled. Ponytail Girl put a hand to her mouth. A jogger said, “This ain’t good,” turned, and jumped a hedge into the park. More spectators bolted.

Bolted? What was going on?

Ponytail Girl pointed. “Oh my God, what’s wrong with it?”

The little tank accelerated at Edie from across the street. The monkey straddled its back like Slim Pickens riding the H-bomb in
Dr. Strangelove
, shrieking and biting and seemingly trying to pull it apart. A car came around the corner, saw the tank zooming across the road, and braked sharply. The little tank veered around it.

“Jesus Christ, it can steer,” Edie said.

The car honked and swerved toward the curb. The crowd scattered. Somebody screamed. Tires squealed. Coffee flew.

Edie threw down her notes and ran.

She charged into Andy, knocking her face against the lens of his camera. In her ear, network shouted, “What are you doing?”

“Run!” she screamed. “Out of my way. Move!”

She knocked Tranh over and ran down the sidewalk, shoving spectators aside. The little deathtrap followed her.

She swerved into the road. A truck honked and slammed on its brakes to avoid her. Ahead, Ponytail Girl sprinted across the street with people behind her. Edie charged past a woman running with grocery bags. Ponytail Girl cut along a path between houses, waving and shouting, “This way.”

Behind her Edie heard tiny wheels and a whirring motor and ticky little monkey sounds. She followed.

“Where the hell did that monkey come from?” she yelled.

Ponytail Girl ran down a narrow sidewalk between two houses, toward a gate. “I don’t know—maybe Jo was keeping it for psych research.”

“How’d it get control of a bomb disposal robot?”

“Bomb disposal? Oh Jesus, it’s a suicide monkey. She must have trained it. God, what’s it doing?”

Edie turned. The robot was pelting along the narrow sidewalk toward them.

“It’s coming. Run faster.”

Ponytail Girl reached the gate and yanked on it. “Locked,” she cried. “We’re trapped.”

Here it came. Death on tiny wheels, rattling at them down the path. The monkey’s eyes were frantic. Why, Edie thought, was he glaring at her?

Ponytail Girl pressed her back against the gate. “If that thing’s packed with plastique, we won’t stand a chance.” She turned to the homeowners’ trash can. “Hide.”

She pulled off the lid and began throwing things out. Edie shoved her aside, upended the trash can, and dumped the contents. She dropped it and crawled inside. Scrabbled around for the lid. She couldn’t reach it.