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speak out about him. Tasia did that enough when she was off her medication.”
    Jo nodded. Ahead, she saw the clock tower at the ferry building, the bay, and Alcatraz.
    “Besides,” Vienna said, “you don’t need to hear my opinion on Rob. There’s plenty to go around. Read the Vanity Fair profile, the one that described Tasia as a hopped-up, bebop Bunny wannabe with her gleaming eyes on the prize.”
    Jo kept her mouth closed. If Vienna wanted to talk, she wanted to hear it.
    “I presume you’ve got the whole IMDb-of-crazy database that lists Tasia’s greatest hits of conspiracy theory,” Vienna said.
    “I’ve seen a few clips.”
    “Fox News?”
    “Talking about the Second Amendment. Assault rifles for all. Homeland Security putting tranquilizers in the water supply,” Jo said. “The YouTube rant against the Federal Reserve.”
    Vienna’s mouth pursed. “The vitriol was clinical paranoia, and yeah, it was embarrassing as well as frightening. But in her defense, she was off her meds then. In recent years she got much better treatment and good med management. The political rants stopped.”
    They paused at a corner. Palm trees stood sturdy against the breeze, fronds cutting the air. A tram rolled past, orange and yellow, one of the mid-twentieth-century electric trolleys recently resurrected by the city. When it stopped, Jo half-expected to see Humphrey Bogart climb off, fedora rakishly cocked.
    “Being Tasia’s sister must have been difficult—”
    “Eight years of medical training for that insight? You went to public schools, didn’t you?”
    “—but you must have felt both angry and protective of her.”
    Vienna’s Afrika-Corps-size sunglasses hid her eyes, but she radiated heat. The light changed. Vienna plowed across the street toward the waterfront.
    “And helpless,” Jo said. “As if she was being taken from you by a host of banshees, and you were powerless to stop it.”
    Vienna walked on for a few seconds. Then she turned to Jo and pulled off the shades. She let out a slow, barely controlled breath.
    “People feasted on her like vultures. And she enabled it,” Vienna said. “She was so passionate about performing—so talented, so needy for an audience, so . . . panicked about the idea that all the attention might go away. She practically staked herself out on the ground and called them down to tear chunks from her flesh.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” Jo said.
    “Thank you. Tell me it was an accident. Please.”
    “That’s why I’m talking to you.”
    The wind blew Vienna’s scarf skyward. “I know.”
    “Did you know she had the gun?”
    “It always worried me.”
    Jo surmised how Vienna felt: In a perverse way, the fait accompli was a relief. The dread she had lived with for years, the fear that her sister would suffer harm, had come to pass, and brought with it release from the awful pressure and anxiety. None of that lessened Vienna’s grief. But the grinding worry that never went away . . . had now gone away.
    “Did she ever threaten to shoot herself?” Jo said.
    “Not in so many words. ‘What’s the point?’ she’d say. ‘Who’d miss me? Would people treat me like Kurt Cobain if I played his final verse?’ ”
    “That must have been awful for you. Did she ever attempt suicide?”
    Vienna’s lips parted, words seemingly on the tip of her tongue. Tart words. Then she checked herself. “Maybe he can tell you. Or at least supply her medical records from the army hospital.”
    Superb. Intra-family feuds, with a guy who had round-the-clock Secret Service protection.
    “Any attempts you personally can tell me about?” Jo said.
    “Half-hearted, twelve years ago. Southern Comfort and a dozen ibuprofen.”
    Vienna glanced at the bay. A windsurfer scudded along atop the whitecaps, his lime-green sail a shark’s fin.
    “She also said she pictured herself going out like fireworks on the Fourth of July,” Vienna said. “Did you know she was writing an