The Liar’s Lullaby. Meg Gardiner

they walked, she sent a text message to Gabriel Quintana. Am OK. With Tang, will call.

      “The second chopper managed to crash-land at McCovey Point with no fatalities,” Tang said.

      They passed through a tunnel and emerged onto the bottom deck of the stands. The ballpark’s jeweled views, of San Francisco and the bay, were the greatest in Major League Baseball, and Jo usually met her parents at the stadium for a Giants game at least once a summer. Now forensic teams, photographers, and the medical examiner were working the scene. The yellow tarp stood out, as bright as a warning sign.

      “I saw her drop,” Jo said. “Debris hit the stanchion where the zip line was anchored. It collapsed and she fell like…” A ribbon of nausea slid through her. “She fell.”

      “The fall didn’t kill her,” Tang said. “She had a gunshot wound to the head.”

      Jo turned, lips parting. “Somebody shot her? She shot herself? What’s confusing about her death?”

      Tang walked down the aisle toward the field. “Aside from the fact that she slid down the zip line with half her throat blown away?”

      “Aside from that.”

      “And that at least seventy-five people in the crowd were hit by falling debris or trampled in the stampede?”

      “And that.”

      “And the fact that Fawn Tasia McFarland, age forty-two, born and bred in San Francisco, was the ex-wife of the president of the United States?”

      Jo slowed to a stop. “No, that, without a doubt, most definitely covers it.”

       5

      TANG TURNED TO JO. “TASIA’S DEATH COULD BE AN ACCIDENT. COULD be suicide.”

      “Could be murder?” Jo said. “Somebody may have just shot the president’s ex to death?”

      Tang nodded.

      Jo felt an electric tremor of excitement. “You want me to perform a psychological autopsy on Ms. McFarland?”

      “This is going to be an alphabet soup investigation. SFPD, NTSB, DA’s office. Join the lineup. I want you to turn on your radar and cut through the clutter. Will you?”

      Jo thought of reasons a fast-rising lieutenant might want the assistance of a forensic psychiatrist: ass covering, running up the score on the opposition, positioning a scapegoat to take the arrows. But Amy Tang had always played straight with her.

      The cops called Jo when they could identify how a person had died—a fall, an overdose, a collision—but could not determine why. Jo investigated a victim’s state of mind, and retraced his final hours, to pinpoint whether he had tripped from the roof or jumped; overdosed on barbiturates accidentally or deliberately; stepped carelessly in front of the bus, or been pushed.

      Some police officers dealt reluctantly with Jo, seeing her as a sorceress who cast bones to divine a victim’s fate. Some, like Tang, treated her as an investigative teammate who could uncover the emotional and psychological factors that led to victims’ deaths. Working with Tang was like holding a cactus-covered live grenade. But Tang cared about putting the good guys first, and bad guys behind bars. She didn’t play games.

      “My sister could have been sliced in two by a helicopter blade. I will,” Jo said. “But I don’t want to end up in a meat slicer myself.”

      “I want your perspective and insight. This will be a backstage role, not a star turn.”

      “Did you know that when you lie, your cheek twitches?”

      Tang huffed. “All right. This case has enough celebrity, politics, and carnage to feed the world. But you’ll be a consultant, not the lead investigator.”

      “Great. Tell me about the case.”

      “Tasia McFarland apparently bled to death when her carotid artery was severed at the jaw line by a forty-five caliber bullet.”

      “Did she pull the trigger?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “That’s a hell of an admission.”

      “It certainly is.” Tang’s shoulders tightened, as though somebody had turned a knob. “We need to slam the door on this case. You saw the media outside. The networks, cable, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and some camera crew from, I swear, the Garden Gnome Channel. And they all want to eat us for lunch.”

      “Again, I refer you to the image of the meat slicer.”

      “As thrill rides go, this’ll be cheaper than Disneyland.” Tang gazed at the field. “Fawn Tasia McFarland died in front of forty-one thousand witnesses. Cameras caught it from three angles. And we can’t see the shooting on any of them.”

      The breeze swirled through the ballpark, blowing Jo’s curls around her face. “Who claims Tasia was murdered?”

      Tang nodded at the shiny yellow tarp. “Tasia does.”

      

      “TASIA LEFT A message,” Tang said.

      “But not a suicide note. What did she say?” Jo said.

      “I’ll get to that, but first let me explain how we got to this.” Tang nodded grimly at the yellow tarp on the baseball field. “She was supposed to slide down the zip line, singing the song from that action movie. Guns ‘n’ poses. All butch-and-big-hair, patriotism and sexual innuendo. She turned up with a real gun. A Colt forty-five.”

      Jo raised an eyebrow. “Classic weapon. And a hell of a choice.”

      “She liked big statements.”

      “Was she known to carry?”

      Tang shook her head. “No. I’ve spoken to her agent and manager, plus the tour manager and the concert promoter. Nobody had ever seen her with firearms. But she wasn’t the most reliable person—which we’ll also get to.”

      High above the stands the American flag snapped in the wind, vivid under the stadium lights. Jo brushed her hair from her eyes.

      “Ballistics?” she said.

      “Don’t count on it. The shot was through and through. We haven’t found the round or the brass. We’re bringing in metal detectors, but I’m not hopeful.”

      The field was churned to bits. The scene was hopelessly contaminated.

      “How many cartridges were loaded?” Jo said.

      “That’s part of the problem. After the fatal shot, the weapon fell into the crowd and a bunch of idiots fought for possession of it.”

      Jo almost guffawed. It seemed preposterous, yet unsurprising.

      “They grappled like bridesmaids fighting for the bouquet at a wedding. One guy finally got it and ran off, then had second thoughts about selling it online. He turned it over. Unloaded—says that’s the way he got it.”

      “You’re sure it’s the weapon?” Jo said.

      “There’s DNA on it. Of types I have no doubt will prove to come from the victim.”

      Tang didn’t need to say blood, bone, brain matter. Her face said it for her.

      “Tasia told the stunt coordinator the weapon was unloaded,” she said. “But he didn’t know if she was lying, teasing him, or serious. And the Colt’s capacity is seven-plus-one.”

      Seven rounds in the cylinder plus one in the chamber. “You think she checked the cylinder but not the chamber—and actually believed the weapon was empty?”

      “It’s possible. The gun’s twenty years old. The round