The Liar's Lullaby

by Meg Gardiner

  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.

  Crouched in the stinking garbage can, she heard an electric motor whir. She looked up. The little tank was outside. The monkey perched on top of it, teeth bared.

  “What the hell?”

  The monkey leaped at her.

  THEVIEW FROM across the street was good. It was pretty damned fine. Ferd stood beside Jo, making excited squeaking sounds. Jo held the remote control by her side. Ahnuld didn’t need to go anyplace else at the moment.

  Down the path beside Ferd’s house, the trash can bucked and rolled. The screaming was high-pitched.

  Ferd murmured, “Oh, I hope he’s okay.”

  “That’s not Mr. Peebles, it’s Edie,” Jo said.

  Tina crouched near the trash can, peering in. She caught Jo’s eye. Jo shrugged.

  Tina stood, put her foot against the trash can and gave it a hard shove. It rolled along the sidewalk, slowly turning to display its contents.

  The cameraman from Edie Wilson’s crew was still filming. The Asian American producer was standing openmouthed in shock. A second film crew, shouting in German, ran across the street to get a closer look.

  The producer said, “Shut it down, Andy.”

  Andy kept filming.

  “Cut. Cut.” The producer took off toward t
he trash can. Jo strolled over to Andy.

  He kept filming. Gave her a quick glance. “You drove that thing out here?”

  “It’s a prototype for a robotic vehicle competition. Nifty, huh?”

  The producer reached the trash can and dragged Edie out.

  “Ultrasonic navigation system,” Jo said. “Drives animals insane.”

  “That explains why he went for her. Her radio mike probably picked up the sound and fed it back through her earpiece,” Andy said.

  Edie lay on the ground, kicking her feet in the air and flapping at Mr. Peebles. He was hanging on to her hair, tiny hands gripping her blond tresses, shaking her head like a crazed hairdresser in the Monkeyhouse salon.

  “Are you live?” Jo said.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Across the street, the producer turned to Andy and made a slashing motion across his throat. “Cut.”

  Andy lowered his camera. The producer waved his arms at the German crew, shooing them away.

  “YouTube?” Jo said.

  “Of course.”

  Jo leaned back against the fender of the Volvo SUV. Andy joined her. He lit a cigarette and watched the free- for-all with a smile as bright as neon.

  IN THE BREAK room at the SFPD Homicide Detail in the Hall of Justice, two detectives broke into laughter. Amy Tang walked through the door. A uniformed officer was staring at the television, shaking his head. One of the detectives was shaking spilled coffee from his hand. He grabbed a napkin and wiped his tie. Tang looked at the screen.

  She saw a trash can, Jo’s sister, Tina, and a frantic Asian American man trying to pull a monkey out of Edie Wilson’s hair.

  “Well, now I’m awake,” she said.

  GABE PULLED A T-shirt over his head, put on his diver’s watch, and opened the blinds. Downstairs in the kitchen, the television came on.

  “Sophie,” he called.

  He loped barefoot down the stairs. He heard a newscaster’s rapid-fire narration, and high-pitched shrieking.

  He walked into the kitchen. “What’d I say? No TV without asking first.”

  Sophie was dressed in her school uniform, holding a bowl of Cheerios, gaping at the morning news. He reached to turn off the television, and stopped.

  They watched Mr. Peebles ride Edie Wilson’s head like a tiny camel jockey.

  Sophie turned to him. “I knew there was gorilla warfare.”

  49

  AMY TANG PUSHED THROUGH THE DOOR INTO THE CRAMPED DELI. JO stood at the counter. Through the plate-glass windows, the Hall of Justice shone like alabaster, looming over the street’s bail bondsmen and auto body shops.

  Tang took off her sunglasses and looked Jo over. “You testifying to Congress?”

  “Ambushing the White House chief of staff.”

  “Aren’t you the scalp taker?” She suppressed a smile. “I suppose you’re entitled to dress like a dominatrix.”

  Jo considered her black suit conservative, though the slacks did fit like a surgical glove. And her heels were sharp.

  She got her bagel and they found a table. “I haven’t signed off on my report,” she said. “I’ve had a change of heart.”

  Tang drummed her fingers on the table. “You ate the whole box of Wheaties this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Call it professional responsibility.”

  Tang feigned cool, but again Jo saw her secret smile.

  “Very well,” Tang said. “Unofficially, here’s what we’ve learned about Noel Michael Petty. She had a record of small-time thefts, mostly related to musicians and movie stars she was infatuated with. Posters, DVDs, T-shirts. She contributed to a number of online forums about Tasia McFarland and Searle Lecroix. Her computer search history lists Lecroix-related searches as the top thousand things she hunted for online.”

  “But? There’s a but, I can tell.”

  “She’s not on any footage from the concert where Tasia died. None.”

  Jo nodded, not in agreement but excitement. “And?”

  “She didn’t vandalize Tasia’s rented SUV at the ballpark. CCTV caught somebody keying the vehicle, and it wasn’t Petty. The vandal wore sunglasses, gloves, and a hoodie, but had a dramatically slimmer silhouette.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Good question. Here’s something that doesn’t fit. We found matchbooks at both Petty’s hotel room and in Tasia’s kitchen.”

  “What makes that unusual?”

  “Same design. From Smiley’s Gas ’n’ Go in Hoback, Wyoming. Near Grand Teton National Park.”

  “Let me guess—there’s no record of either woman ever being in Hoback?”

  “Petty had never even visited Wyoming.”

  “It’s not much.”

  Tang leaned forward. “The matchbook in Tasia’s kitchen was set next to an envelope. Self-sealing, so no DNA. Mailed from Herndon, Virginia—down the road from the hotel where Tasia met the president. Postmarked the day after their meeting.”

  “And the matchbook in Petty’s possession?”

  “We have a request in for a search of her premises in Tucson.”

  “I have a question. Petty sent more than fourteen hundred messages to an e-mail address Tasia hadn’t publicized. How did she get the address?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Thanks, Amy.” Jo stood up. “Wish me luck. Will you be at the Hall of Justice?”

  “No, I’m taking the afternoon off. Going to help my parents put their store back together.” She made sparkle fingers. “We’re ordering fireworks. It should be a hell of a day.”

  IVORY SAT IN a booth at the Hi-Way coffee shop, a mile south of San Francisco International Airport. Her steak sandwich was half-eaten. The waitress came by again with the coffeepot.

  “Warm you up, hon?”

  Ivory had already drunk four cups of the disgusting coffee, but she held up her mug. She couldn’t let the waitress think she was loitering. She opened the newspaper. Nothing but the ROW blowing things up, eating weird shit, planning ways to destroy the U.S.A. The waitress went away. Ivory glanced out the big windows that overlooked the bay. Any time now.

  At San Francisco International, planes approached over the water. Normally, flights passed overhead every two minutes. But not a single plane had flown past for fifteen. The skies were being cleared.

  Ivory forced a sloppy bite of the steak sandwich. She needed the red meat. But all she could think about was blood pouring out of her sister Noel’s head.

  She hadn’t clocked in today. Blue Eagle Security could shove their job, and their confiscatory illegal taxes, up their ass. After today, she and Keyes weren’t coming back. They were going to take the day’s cash haul with them when they hit the highway. Sixteen hours hard driving, she figured, and they’d get into the mountains up in Washington, near the Canadian border. Some sovereign citizens had a compound in the back country. She and Keyes planned on joining them.

  After today, it would be time to get out of San Fran-sewer. Run for it before the bridges were blockaded or blown. Hunker down and wait while the fires raged.

  She drew a hard breath. This was actually it.

  In a booth by the window, a kid pressed his face to the glass. “It’s Air Force One.”

  His mother glanced up idly. “It’s just a seven forty-seven.”

  “It says ‘United States of America’ on the side. Mom, look.”

  His mom looked again, along with everybody in the restaurant. Ivory froze, eyes pinned on the sky.

  In the distance, gear down like an evil bird, the blue-and-white 747 floated toward the runway. People scurried to the windows. Several pulled out cameras and phones and snapped photos.

  “That is so cool,” the boy said.

  The sandwich fell from Ivory’s hand. The roar of the engines, the shriek of death, passed outside, not close enough to touch. Not yet.

  She called Keyes as she headed out the door. “Wheels down in thirty seconds. I’m moving and will report when the motorcade is sighted.”

&nb
sp; PAINE PICKED UP his mail from the post office box. The envelope was slim, the handwriting crabbed. No return address. Keyes had got that right. So far so good.

  Paine tore open the envelope and shook out a claim check ticket from the Hilton near Union Square. One of the busiest hotels in the city—two points for Keyes. Twenty minutes later he handed over the ticket at the bell stand in the Hilton. The bellman retrieved a gray sports bag and said, “Need help loading your car?”

  “No.” Paine took it from him. “It’s no trouble.”

  He set the bag down and dug two bucks from his pocket. The bellman already found him distinctive; fail to tip, and he’d become that asshole. Tips were insurance against standing out. He hoisted the sports bag over his shoulder and left.

  Three blocks uphill, he walked into another chain hotel. It was bustling and upscale, but not so ritzy that the staff were all over people who walked through the doors or—as Paine did—into the men’s room. Good: no attendant. Nobody would see and remember him.

  He locked himself in a stall and opened the sports bag. Maneuvering awkwardly in the tight quarters, he changed into the Blue Eagle Security uniform Keyes had left for him. He could barely zip the navy blue pants. He fumbled with the buttons of the shirt, sucking in his gut. The short jacket was roomier. He zipped it halfway.

  Today was shaping up. Today was going to be the pinnacle.

  Today, the fire would be lit.

  To have a task before him that so united all his goals—a task that aligned with his beliefs, and promised riches—filled him with awe. It was righteous and beautiful.

  And it chilled him. If he failed, he’d die.

  He would be hunted, relentlessly, and there wouldn’t be arrest and trial. Federal agents might try to capture him. But his paymaster would expend huge resources to ensure that he was never taken alive. His paymaster would break the bank to kill him before he could talk. Fail this time, and he had no out. He couldn’t turn back. He had to succeed.

  So he would.

  Today the message would be delivered. He would, as usual, come at the task obliquely. But today the message wouldn’t be oblique. Today, he would drive home the point in blood and fire.