Meg Gardiner - The Liar’s Lullaby

Blue Blazer Man, quick and skinny, scurried inside the house and shut off a beeping alarm. He opened a window to let in fresh air. He came to the sliding glass patio door and opened it a crack, thank you very much. Then he disappeared.

NMP waited. Inside that house lay proof, and the truth, and NMP was going to get it, because the truth will set you free.

A minute later, the front door slammed. Blue Blazer Man got back in his car and sat there, making phone calls.

NMP slipped down the hillside and ran across the backyard. Noel Michael Petty might have lumbered, or tripped and fallen, but not NMP. He glided inside through the sliding glass door.

He stood there, dizzy.

It looked like Tasia. It smelled like Tasia. Slowly he turned his bulk to take in the panorama. In the living room was a grand piano. Sheet music lay on top of it. He balled his fists and pressed them to his mouth.

Don’t squeal. Don’t gasp. He saw the photos on the walls. Oh, the photos! So many famous people, all lined up to get their picture taken with Tasia.

He crept along the wall and examined each in detail. He recognized many of them from TV and magazines. Red carpet shots. Awards ceremonies. Tasia singing the national anthem at the Indianapolis 500, wind blowing her hair across her face like a shroud—a portentous shot. To finally see those famous photos firsthand felt like coming home.

See, Tasia: I know you. I’ve been this close to you, from the beginning.

This hallway, this house, validated everything. All the hours, the days, the year NMP had spent gaining familiarity with Tasia’s background. Learning about her early life, her school days, her early forays into entertainment; they all showed here. The weekends NMP had spent at the library, the online all-nighters tracing her life through articles and links, images and videos, music downloads, chat room discussion threads about her, snarky comments by know-nothings…he had followed her lifeblood, from her beating heart to her fingertips. That’s how well Petty knew her.

Petty.

Stop calling yourself by your last name. You’re NMP. Out on the streets, you’re three letters, no more. No ID, no driver’s license or wallet, no way to identify you. You’re NMP, big bad bastard of the Tenderloin.

NMP knocked a fist against the side of his head as a reminder to be careful.

Then he fought down a giddy giggle. He was inside Tasia’s house. It was like exploring the heretofore-undiscovered tomb of an ancient ruler. And, oh, goodness—in the living room were photos that weren’t to be found on the Net. Private snapshots, albums showing Tasia with friends and family. Photos from the Bad Dogs and Bullets tour.

NMP’s stomach soured. Who were those people? Entourage. Stage crew. Groupies, managers, hangers-on, bandmates, stuntmen. Why did they get backstage passes? NMP was the tour’s most fervent follower. Where was his backstage pass?

Not fair. Not motherloving fair.

He was seeing her soul, at last, and it was corrupt.

Disgusted, NMP crept into the kitchen—and saw signs of Searle. The empty box of KFC in the trash. Searle Lecroix was an extra-crispy man; it was in US Weekly magazine. Up the stairs, creeping on tiptoe, big bad dude moving like Papa Bear sneaking up on Goldilocks, finding himself outside her bedroom door, her fantasyland, her center…

Her clothes were draped across the bed, the nightstand, the chair, the floor—as if she had performed some debauched striptease. Guitar leaning against the chair. Boots by the bed.

Petty gasped, a hard involuntary moan of pain.

Outside, a car door slammed. Petty lurched to the window and peeked through the blinds. Somebody was here. Petty fled the bedroom.

TASIA MCFARLAND HADN’T BEEN SOLELY A SINGER. SHE HAD WRITTEN songs from the time she was a child. The melodies seemed to spin inside her head, growing louder and more insistent until they woke her at night and demanded that she play them on the piano. The music seemed to jump from her hands like sparks, and she would play until her fingers stung. By the time she finished high school she had written two hundred songs and a fully orchestrated rock cantata.

Jo drove up winding streets through the Twin Peaks neighborhood where Tasia and Vienna Hicks had grown up. The city tumbled around her in all directions, houses and apartments stacked on ridges and crammed into valleys like dice. The view was one that sold the place to the world. The bay glittered. The Golden Gate anchored the city to the wild Marin Headlands to the north. Along the western edge of the city, the fog curled against the beach, cold and thick.

As the hill rose higher and grew ridiculously steep, the streets became rustic. Eucalyptus groves grew in ravines, filling the depths with shadow. Manicured lawns bordered the snaking road. Neat homes boasted groomed gardens and rustling, well-tended pines. She followed the road past Sutro Tower. The radio mast rose almost a thousand feet above the peak. No matter how aggressive the fog became, Sutro Tower’s three gigantic prongs protruded above it. The mast was like a science fiction monster, awaiting the signal to awake and rampage through the city below. Or so Jo had imagined when she was nine.

Tasia’s house was an Italian-style villa tucked against the hillside, gazing down on the Financial District and the bay. Jo got out of the Tacoma and a biting wind stung her cheeks. The driveway was so steep she nearly needed crampons.

Behind her on the street a car door slammed. “Hang on, there.”

Jo turned and saw a man walking toward her. “Are you the property manager?”

He climbed the drive, shaking his head. He was in his mid-thirties, with a guileless face and boyish blond hair, dressed in jeans and a Bad Dogs and Bullets T-shirt. His hands were stuffed in his pockets but the nonchalant façade didn’t hide the red flush in his neck. He was out of shape.

“You the psychiatrist I heard about?”

“I’m Dr. Beckett. And you?”

He stopped beside her. “Ace Chennault.”

“Tasia’s autobiographer.”

“The author is gone but the ghost remains.”

He tried to sound jocular, but only managed forced. Belatedly he extended his hand.

Jo shook it. “I’d like to interview you. I’m—”

“Performing a psychological autopsy. I know. News travels fast.”

“Apparently.”

“Perhaps we can help each other out.”

His cloudless smile and baby-fat cheeks must have gotten him interviews with kindly grandmothers and with rock singers who were needy for a big brother’s attention. His voice had a hint of jollity. But Jo sensed a practiced stratagem behind the sad clown’s eyes. Journalists, one had once told her, needed to connect instantly and deeply with people they interviewed. They needed the illusion of intimacy, of being a person’s best friend for a day or an hour, to get the really juicy quotes.

And Ace Chennault was a journalist who’d just lost his biggest source—and source of income.

“Can we set up a time later today?” Jo said.

“I thought we could do some horse trading. You want to poke through my notes and listen to the stream-of-consciousness narration Tasia recorded?” He smiled again. “I’m willing to share it all with you. But be fair. Give me something in return.”

“Such as?”

“Your unique insights into her mind.”

A mental warning light blinked red. “If my report becomes part of the public record, you’ll have access to it.”

“That’s not what I was hoping.”

“I figured not. But I’m working for the SFPD. They have dibs on my work.”

The smile broadened. “No tit, no tattle?”