LITMIR.BIZ

       11

      IN THE MORNING JO WOKE TO THE RADIO.

      “…investigation into the death of Tasia McFarland. A police source tells us that a psychiatrist has been hired to evaluate Tasia’s mental state.”

      She sat up.

      “Our source believes that the police are working on the theory that Tasia committed suicide, and want a psychological opinion to back it up.”

      She reached for the phone. Saw the clock: six twenty. Too early to harangue Lieutenant Tang about departmental leaks.

      She heard the foghorn. She kicked off the covers, pulled on a kimono, stumbled to the window, and opened the shutters. Fog skated across the bay and clung to the Golden Gate Bridge. But uphill, the sun was tingling through the clouds. The magnolia in the backyard looked slick in the early light.

      The news continued. Not a word about a merchant ship on fire and down by the stern five hundred miles off shore. Not a word about the 129th Rescue Wing. Accidents at sea could entangle rescuers in disaster, and she listened, shoulders tight, for the words Air National Guard. Nothing.

      She grabbed her climbing gear and drove to Mission Cliffs. She found a belay partner and spent forty-five minutes on the gym’s head wall. It soothed her. Hanging fifty feet off the ground, with nothing but a void between her and a broken neck, always cleared her head.

      She was at her desk by eight. She’d finally cleared out Daniel’s mountain bike and Outside magazines, and turned the front room into her office. She kept gold orchids on the bookcase and her favorite New Yorker cartoon framed on the wall—where a drowning man yells, “Lassie! Get help!” And Lassie goes to a psychiatrist.

      Normally she began a psychological autopsy by reading the police report and the victim’s medical and psychiatric records. But those weren’t yet available. To determine NASH—whether a death was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide—she needed to assess not only the victim’s physical and psychological history but also his or her background and relationships. Jo interviewed family, friends, and colleagues, and looked for warning signs of suicide or evidence that anyone might have intended the victim harm. She built a timeline of events leading up to the day of the victim’s death.

      Since she didn’t have records, she read press accounts of Tasia McFarland’s psychiatric history. It was sad and brutal. And Tasia hadn’t hesitated to talk about it.

      Tasia had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at thirty-two. But she’d whipped between mania and depression for years before that. Volcanic highs and hideous lows had played out in public—tantrums, car wrecks, drug binges, and flights of creativity—as she veered from teen singing sensation to washed-up party animal to comeback queen. In short, as analyzed by Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and People magazine: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.

      But bipolar disorder was a devastating diagnosis. The DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, defined Bipolar I Disorder as the occurrence of one or more “Manic Episodes or Mixed Episodes,” though people often had major depressive episodes as well.

      During a manic episode, people didn’t need sleep and didn’t feel tired—for a week, a month, two months. They felt on top of the world. They might learn new languages or take up a new instrument. Their extraordinary energy and sense of power came on spontaneously, without being triggered by any outside event, such as graduating from college or winning an Oscar, that could generate euphoria.

      Jo wondered about Tasia, revved into the red zone on the night she sang a hit song to a stadium crowd in her hometown.

      Manic people could be gregarious and entertaining. In fact, physicians training in psychiatry were told: If you’re highly entertained by a patient, consider mania as a possible diagnosis. But while manic people could be lovable, they could also be exhausting.

      And when patients dropped into depression, they crashed. Guilt and hopelessness overwhelmed them. Suicide was common.

      And mixed episodes were the roughest of all: A person’s mood disturbance met the criteria for manic and major depressive episodes simultaneously. Mixed episodes were difficult to diagnose. Jo believed they were the state in which people were most likely to commit suicide.

      She thought about the way Rez Shirazi, the stuntman, had described Tasia: hyper but dismal.

      She got herself a cup of coffee. She needed Tasia’s prescription records and toxicology results. When well medicated, people with bipolar disorder could be accomplished and creative. They became physicists, computer scientists, artists. A number of famous classical composers had been bipolar.

      But people often went off their meds because they loved feeling manic. They loved the explosion of creativity brought on by mania.

      “Art and madness” was a cliché. But Jo had attended a med school lecture series on the mind and music. Strong evidence existed that Schumann had bipolar disorder. Gershwin may have had ADHD. And composers’ mental states influenced their compositions. Bipolar composers, she recalled, loved repetitive melodic motifs and sometimes became obsessed with particular sounds or tempos.

      Jo listened again to “The Liar’s Lullaby.” Her musical ear wasn’t sharp enough to pick out clues buried in the melody, but the lyrics were disturbing enough. You say you love our land, you liar / Who dreams its end in blood and fire. The third verse was less eerie, but nonetheless sad.

       I fell into your embrace

       Felt tears streaming down my face

       Fought the fight, ran the race

       Faltered, finally fell from grace.

      She tapped her fingers on the desk, wondering if the verse referred to Tasia’s marriage.

      Few photos existed of Tasia and Robert McFarland together. But online she found an old, and vivid, magazine photo essay. Tasia had met McFarland while performing for the troops, and several photos showed her mingling with soldiers. McFarland was prominent among them. He looked young, handsome, and sure of himself. In one lighthearted shot, McFarland and a bullet-headed officer Jo recognized as K. T. Lewicki, now White House chief of staff, had hoisted Tasia onto their shoulders. In another, taken soon after the McFarlands’ marriage, they brimmed with energy—seemingly from being in each other’s presence. Tasia looked like a saucy cheerleader, ready to single-handedly rouse the army to victory. McFarland looked like he believed himself the luckiest man alive: confident, swimming in love, and unselfishly proud of his talented young wife. They were laughing as though the world had revealed its secrets, and was beautiful.

      At nine, Amy Tang phoned. “Tasia’s autopsy is this morning. Medical and psychiatric records might be with you this afternoon, but full tox and blood work will take days. Her next of kin will meet with you at ten A.M.—her sister, Vienna Hicks.”

      Jo wrote down Hicks’s phone number. “Did you know that police sources are talking to the press about me?”

      “As I told you, this is a cheap thrill ride, not the Pirates of the Caribbean. But I’ll remind people to keep their mouths shut.”

      Jo looked again at the photo of Tasia and Robert McFarland, young

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