Читать книгу The Liar’s Lullaby - Meg Gardiner - Страница 11

ROBERT MCFARLAND OWNS THE COLT FORTY-FIVE?” JO’S HEART rate kicked up. “I’d better see the footage of the shooting.”

“You should. But don’t expect it to clarify anything,” Tang said.

Tang led her to a control room on an upper deck of the ballpark, overlooking the field. One wall was lined with television monitors. Cops and stadium officials filled the room. Below, under the bleached stadium lighting, forensics techs in white bodysuits searched the scene. The medical examiner was preparing to move Tasia’s body to the morgue. A gurney had been brought in and the yellow tarp pulled aside. Against grass churned to dust, Tasia’s clothing stood out, sharp swipes of magenta and black. She looked small, delicate, torn.

Tang asked a tech to run a video. Jo braced herself.

She had seen people die—as a physician, an investigator, and a wife. Death, that radical moment, was a desperately intimate thing to watch. Being of Coptic descent, with a basting of Japanese Buddhism and a thick shellac of Irish Catholic education, Jo believed that death didn’t equate to annihilation. Still, as the video started, she knew she was going to feel like she’d had her bell rung. She slipped her emotional chain mail into place.

The footage began with Searle Lecroix and the band playing the introduction to “Bull’s-eye.” Then the camera swiveled to reveal Tasia on the balcony of the hospitality suite.

Her outfit was a western twist on the Madonna-whore dichotomy: like a barrel-racing champion had taken control of the Mustang Ranch. Yee-haw, by Victoria’s Secret. Her waist harness was clipped on to the zip line. Knowing that the cable was going to collapse gave Jo, as a rock climber, a visceral feeling of dread.

Beneath the thundering music, Jo heard muffled shouting. Tasia was wearing a headset mike. Jo couldn’t make out her words, just a rising tone of indignation—or fear. Inside the suite, the stuntman rattled the doors.

Tasia turned and beckoned to the crowd. The gun flashed in the sunlight. As people surged onto the balcony and surrounded her, stage smoke erupted. She broke into song and aimed the pistol at the stage.

“Holy crap, she’s blowing on the barrel,” Jo said.

She watched, aghast. The music soared. The crowd swarmed around Tasia. CO₂ obscured the view.

The roar of the gunshot was sharp and shocking.

Tasia emerged from the roiling smoke, hanging limp from the climbing harness, and slid down the zip line. The gunshot wound was plainly visible, a gory rose blooming on her neck and head.

The camera swerved. The scene turned to panic, falling helicopter debris, collapsing stage scaffolding, people screaming.

Then, amid the chaos, the camera zoomed in on the field. In front of the stage Tasia’s broken form lay on the grass. Beside her knelt Searle Lecroix. Her headset mike amplified his voice above the torrent of noise.

“For the love of God, somebody help her,” he cried.

Jo exhaled. “Stop the video.”

The air seemed to smell of smoke and salt water and the wretched, oily stink of wrecked aircraft. She stared at the screen.

It was impossible to see who had fired the gun.

“Somebody could have taken the pistol from her, or grabbed her hand and squeezed the trigger. Still, three seconds before the shot, Tasia had possession of the weapon,” she said.

She thought about Tasia acting out a high-risk, sexualized game with the Colt .45. Blowing on the barrel was showy, attention-grabbing behavior. Not playful, exactly—more like shtick. And suicides, in the moments before death, tended not to goof around.

“Can I talk to the stunt coordinator?” she said.

“Sure. Guy’s name is Rez Shirazi. Fifteen years experience on feature films.”

Tang led her to one of the corporate hospitality suites. As they walked, she summed up what Shirazi had already told the police.

“He tried to talk Tasia into putting down the weapon—the only thing she was supposed to take onstage was her bad, Botoxed self. She refused, but didn’t threaten him or the crowd or herself. Wasn’t angry. She was frazzled and terrified.”

Tang knocked on the door and entered the hospitality suite. It was filled with cops and stadium officials. A television was tuned to a news channel. Shirazi was pacing, phone to his ear. When Tang introduced Jo, he ended the call and shook her hand.

“I’ve been talking to detectives and lawyers for two hours,” he said. “Please, read my written statement, or else ask me something new.”

He had warm eyes in a rough face, and bounced on his toes as he talked, like a welterweight boxer. In film credits, Jo thought, he’d get stuck as “Thug” or “Crazed Bomber.”

“I’m assessing Tasia’s state of mind. Can you describe her mood tonight?” she said.

“She was wired.”

“Can you be specific? Wired meaning happy? Coked up?”

“Not coked up. At least, she said she was clean. And not happy. I’ve seen her ecstatic, zooming a million miles an hour, and she had a smile, man…but tonight she was agitated.” He circled his hands, seeking the right description. “Once she started talking, I couldn’t get her to stop. It was like her mind was a popcorn machine.”

He shook his head. “I heard she was bipolar. Tonight she seemed manic and depressed. She was energized but dismal. Saying things like, ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die. Like Princess Di.’ And making musical…jokes, kind of, but bummers. ‘Do, re, mi, fa, so long, suckers.’”

“She mentioned death, more than once?”

“She said tonight was all about life and death. She mentioned martyrdom. Car bombs, death squads, holy war.” He tilted his head. “Then she mentioned the Secret Service. And said, ‘He’s out there.’”

“You think she was referring to the president?” Jo said.

“Maybe. But I thought tonight’s main event was supposed to be a concert, so what do I know?”

“Anything else you noticed about her attitude tonight?”

“Yeah. Everything was exaggerated. She came in with the corset undone more than usual, the jeans slung lower, and her makeup was just extreme.” He looked weary. “She acted like she was the center of the universe. All performers do, but tonight she really believed it was all about her. She seemed—on a mission.”

“And this was a change from her mood recently?”

Shirazi rubbed his chest as though it ached. “Yeah. At the start of the national tour, couple months back, she was really up. Bubbly. Then she went flat. Moody, withdrawn—I mean, it was a noticeable swing. But over the past few weeks, everything’s been building up. Her energy and her…discontent.”

“Wired but miserable.”

“You got it.”

His phone rang. He took the call, said, “On my way,” and hung up. “My brother was in the helicopter that hit the bay. He just came out of surgery. I need to get to the hospital.”

“All right,” Tang said. “Anything else you can tell us before you go?”

“I got a terrible feeling she was going play with the gun like a toy. It was a recipe for disaster. And I wish I could tell you what happened. When I couldn’t break the plate-glass windows, I ran for the suite next door, to see if I could get to her on the balcony. But I heard the gunshot.” His voice ebbed. “I ran out of time.”

Tang gave him her card, and said she’d be in touch. He headed out the door.

“Initial assessment?” Tang said.

“Besides the fact that Shirazi feels guilty that she died?” Jo said. “Get a tox screen on Tasia. If she wasn’t on cocaine or amphetamines, she was having some kind of manic episode.”

“You don’t sound convinced about that.”

“Manic episodes are characterized by euphoria, and Tasia sounds far from euphoric. But other things fit,” she said. “With mania, people can’t stop talking. Their speech becomes pressured. And they’re showy. They wear bright-colored clothes and tons of inappropriate makeup. It looks…off.”

Tang nodded. “ ‘Playing in the crayon box’ is the phrase the makeup woman used.”

Jo thought again about the game Tasia had acted out with the Colt .45. “They can also be hypersexual. And they can have grandiose delusions.”

“Like they’re the target of an assassination plot?”

“When people with bipolar disorder become paranoid, they think massive forces are threatening them. Not merely the neighbors and the mother-in-law and their shrink.”

“Such as the president of the United States?”

“There’s the rub,” Jo said.

Behind them, conversation bubbled above the noise from the television. Jo mulled what she’d seen and heard.

“Three possibilities. One, the pistol was defective. It just went off,” she said.

“Unlikely. But we’ll tear it apart and find out.”

“Two, Tasia McFarland put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.”

“You believe that less than you did ten minutes ago.”

“Three—”

On the TV, a news anchor said, “Now we go to the White House, where President McFarland is about to speak about the death of his ex-wife.”