by Keith Ablow
Julia Bishop, wearing a black pareo and white T-shirt, was a little shorter and slighter than I would have guessed from her photograph in the study. She was walking with her head hung.
From twenty yards away, mother and son looked like a college-aged couple fresh from a tennis tournament. But as they came closer, it became clear that Julia looked her age-mid-thirties-and that she was taking the loss of her daughter hard. Her cheeks were a bit puffy and her throat was blotchy in places, suggesting she had been crying a long time. And yet, her beauty was undeniable, a spotlight burning through fog. I noticed her emerald eyes first, a deep green made more remarkable by a frame of silky black hair cut shoulder-length-the hair of a geisha. Then my gaze traveled to her high cheekbones and full lips, the slender neck that blended gracefulness and raw sexuality into something more potent than the simple sum of the two, something magnetic and irrepressible, created by their fusion.
I couldn't take my eyes off her. They cheated lower, taking in Julia's short-sleeved, scoop-neck white T-shirt, the Hanes kind I wore as a little boy. Hers was tight enough to show the outline of a lace, underwire demi-cup bra, and short enough to expose her navel and three or four inches of her tanned abdomen. Lower still, the skinny sides of a black bikini bathing suit bottom peeked over her pareo of black linen, tied on one hip, completely exposing one perfectly toned leg.
I held out my hand as Anderson made the introductions, and Julia took it.
"I'm sorry you had to come all this way, Doctor," she said in a voice full of vulnerability, as if she might ask to be held at any moment.
"She would ask or you would offer?" the voice at the back of my mind interjected.
I silently conceded the point. The impulse to hold her was mine. As I kept looking at her, the luminosity she emanated seemed to envelop me. An azure haze. I felt the loss of her hand as she withdrew it. "I was able to talk with your husband," I said. "I'm glad I made the trip."
Julia looked at Claire. "How is Tess?" she asked anxiously.
"Just fine," Claire said. "She had a little crying jag earlier…"
Julia sighed and looked up toward the second floor of the house. "I knew I shouldn't have left her. Is she…?"
"She's fine," Claire said, a soothing lilt in her voice. "She stopped right away with a bottle. Now she's napping."
Julia nodded to herself, twisting her engagement ring and wedding band nervously. The diamond shimmered in the light. It had to be eight or ten carats. A skating rink.
Garret looked even more fidgety. Occasionally, he'd kick at one of the pebbles on the ground. He was not a handsome young man, but he had a Roman nose and Lincolnesque, prominent cheekbones that made him look sturdy and serious. "I want to go inside," he said. He pulled at the braided leather bracelet around his wrist.
Julia forced a smile, but the sadness never left her eyes. "Garret nearly beat his tennis instructor today."
"I don't care about any of that," the boy objected, directing the words at Claire. "I didn't want to play in the first place. I just want to be alone."
"My husband wants him to keep his routine," Julia said, looking at me plaintively. She obviously felt the need to explain why Garret would be taking a tennis lesson a couple days after his sister was murdered and several hours after his brother was shipped off to a locked psychiatric unit. It wasn't a bad question. "It's not just Win," Julia added. "Our family doctor said to keep things as normal as possible."
Garret shook his head. "Whatever," he said.
I didn't want to be a bull in a china shop, but I didn't want to leave without learning as much as I could about the family's emotional dynamics. "Garret," I said. "How are you handling what's happened here over the past forty-eight hours?"
He stopped fidgeting and made fleeting eye contact with me. For an instant, he looked as if he might cry. But then his expression hardened. "Fine," he said defiantly. "I'll get through it."
Julia winced.
I reached out and gently touched her arm. "If you-or anyone else in the family-want to talk about what happened, I'd be happy to take the time," I said. I noticed Anderson staring at my hand lingering on Julia's soft skin and withdrew it.
She swallowed hard. "Thank you," she said. "I don't suppose we can all be expected to 'get through it' by ourselves."
"What do you think?" Anderson asked as we started down the driveway, heading back toward Wauwinet Road.
"I'll tell you what I don't think," I said. "I don't think Darwin Bishop forgot to let you know Billy was hospitalized in New York."
"Meaning?"
"Anyone who can trade stocks on the Nikkei twenty-four hours after he finds his daughter dead in her crib doesn't forget that the chief of police is stopping by with a shrink from Boston. He wanted us at the house."
"Why? Why drag us out here when Billy wasn't available?"
"Maybe to check me out, maybe to deliver a message. He certainly got his points across: How damaged Billy is; how he, Julia, and a half-dozen psychiatrists have tried to help him; even how Billy fits the portrait of a psychopath to a tee. He didn't miss a beat: Firesetting. Cruelty to animals. Bedwetting. He even threw in self-mutilation, for good measure-the biting and hair-pulling."
"He was answering your questions," Anderson said. "He didn't volunteer a thing."
"A man like Darwin Bishop communicates the same way a black belt fights," I said. "He harnesses your momentum to take you where he wants you to go. If he wanted to tell you something about his company, he wouldn't blurt it out. He'd make you think you were dragging the information out of him." I nodded to myself. "He's handling this the way he would handle a business deal. Strategically."
"Well, it isn't a great strategy," Anderson said. "He's backing the D.A.'s office against a wall. Once the media gets hold of the fact that Billy is out of state, Tom Harrigan almost has to charge him with the murder. Otherwise, he looks weak."
"That could be exactly what Bishop is hoping for."
"To force Harrigan's hand, make him go after Billy before he's really ready to?"
"Or," I said, "to make him go after Billy instead of someone else."
4
The last Cape Air flight landed me back in Boston just after 8:00 p.m. Anderson and I had decided I would shuttle to New York the next morning, provided he could get me clearance that quickly to meet with Billy Bishop at Payne Whitney.
On my way back to Chelsea, I stopped at Mass General. I wanted to make good on my promise to see Lilly Cunningham after the incision and drainage of her leg abscess.
She was sleeping when I got to her room, but her bedside lamp was on. Even from her doorway I could see that the surgery had been more extensive than planned. Her leg was in traction, bent at the knee and suspended six, eight inches off the mattress. Her thigh was covered with a wet gauze dressing. Two thin steel rods had been screwed into each side of her femur.
I knocked on the door frame, but she didn't awaken. I walked into the room. I stood there half a minute, listening to the tired electronic beeping pulse of the ward at night, and watching Lilly breathe. I tried to imagine the emotions she might have experienced each time she buried a hypodermic needle in her flesh, soiling her insides. I didn't settle on rage or panic or even sadness. I thought she probably felt relief. Maybe even euphoria. For the moment, she could shed the pretense of normalcy. Her sham self-esteem and self-confidence could melt away, yielding to her real unconscious vision of herself as dirty and infected. Trash. Like someone finally allowed to drop her arms after holding them aloft for hours, she could give up the struggle to fend off her demons and, instead, let them spirit her away.
"Lilly," I said softly.
She didn't stir.
A little louder: "Lilly."
She slowly opened her eyes, but didn't respond.
"It's Dr. Clevenger," I said. "I told you I'd stop by after the procedure."
She took a dreamy breath, then closed her eyes again. "They gave me something for the pain."
"Would you rather
sleep? I could try to stop back tomorrow."
She looked at me, squinting to focus. "No. Stay."
I walked the rest of the way to her bedside, pulled up a chair, and sat down. "How did it go?" I asked.
"Dr. Slattery says the infection had gotten into the bone. They had to take a piece of it."
I nodded, looking at the steel rods holding her leg together. "Opening the wound and letting the bad stuff out should prevent that from happening again," I said, picking up on the metaphor for her psychological trauma that I had started to build during our last meeting.
"Right," she whispered, obviously unconvinced.
I remembered telling her that I wasn't afraid to see the truth-even if it was ugly. I needed to prove that that was true in the physical realm, in order to coax her to reveal her emotional wounds. I leaned forward and touched one corner of the gauze bandage. "Do you mind if I take a look?" I asked.
She shook her head. Her gaze focused intently on my hand.
I gently pulled the gauze back far enough for me-and Lilly-to see the incision. She turned her head immediately and stared at the wall. I kept looking at the dissected layers of skin, fat, and muscle. Sterile gauze, soaked with bloody drainage, filled the base of the wound, which clearly went bone-deep. "Good," I said.
"Good?" she said bitterly.
"All the tissue they left looks healthy," I said.
She rolled her eyes.
"The last thing you'd want," I said, "would be a surgeon who wasn't willing to follow the infection all the way to its source." I noticed a tear start down Lilly's face. I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and blotted her cheek dry.
She turned her head toward me, but said nothing.
"It's really no different than what I try to do," I said. "I have to help my patients trace the roots of their pain as deep as they go."
A few seconds passed. "What if your patient doesn't know what caused the pain?" she asked.
"Asking the question is half the answer," the voice at the back of my mind said. "She wants to take the journey. At heart, everyone wants the truth."
My breathing slowed. My eyes closed an instant, then reopened. "If you don't know, then we both have to find the courage to figure it out," I said.
Lilly blushed. "I have trouble talking about myself," she said.
"Why is that?" I asked.
"I guess I think it's safer to keep things inside."
"Safer?"
She didn't respond.
"What's the danger in opening up?" I asked.
"People who tell too much about themselves end up…" She stopped short.
"End up… what?" I asked.
"I don't know." Her brow furrowed. "Alone, I think."
That statement spoke volumes about Lilly. Fabricating an illness-lying-had brought her close attention from a team of doctors. Coming to terms with the real source of her suffering, especially if that source was abuse at her grandfather's hand, would end her relationship with him, and possibly with other family members as well. The risk of abandonment was real and had been with her since her childhood. There was no sense candy-coating the stakes. "I know how frightening it is for you," I said, "but you have to be willing to be alone, for a while. At the very least, you have to be willing to be alone with your own thoughts."
She nibbled at her lower lip, like a timid little girl. "I can't stand being by myself."
That was a pretty clear message. She needed something-someone-to count on, no matter what she divulged. I touched her thigh, just above the incision. "I promise to stay with you every step of the way," I said.
"But how can you say that?" she asked. "You don't even know me. How am I supposed to trust you?"
I could have come up with a platitude to sidestep that question, but only an honest response would count with a person whose life had become a lie. "You can't be sure that I'm trustworthy," I said. "You can never be certain-not with anyone. Eventually, you'll have to take a leap of faith. You'll have to go with your gut."
"I don't know," she sighed. "I'm so confused."
Another small victory; confusion is often the first sign of weakening in the mind's defense mechanisms. I didn't want to seem too eager to breach them. "Shall I stop back in a few days, then?" I asked.
She stared at me several seconds. "Okay," she said. "Yes."
I made it home just before 11:00 p.m. A message from North Anderson on my voice mail told me I was scheduled to interview Billy Bishop at 10:30 a.m. the next day. Judging from my experience flying to Manhattan on other cases, that would mean taking the 7:30 A.M. shuttle, planning for it to be late by a couple hours, which it pretty much always is.
I decided to hop on the Internet and learn what I could about Darwin Bishop. Yahoo! came up with 2,948 references, from sources like the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and CNN Financial News. The pieces told me Bishop had founded CMM with over $40 million of venture capital, that he had recruited engineers and metallurgists out of MIT, CalTech, and the University at St. Petersburg, and that his company had grown to one thousand employees within eighteen months. A mention in the New York Times noted Bishop's winning bid of $4.2 million for a Mark Rothko oil painting that had been predicted to bring $800,000 at auction at Sotheby's. His lavish lifestyle caught the eye of Vanity Fair, which published photographs of his vintage car collection and his nineteen-thousand-square-foot River House penthouse, as large as a quaint hotel. The property, located on 52nd Street, on a cul de sac between First Avenue and the East River, was also home to Henry Kissinger and Sir Rothschild. The penthouse had itself been owned by the Astor family before Bishop picked it up for a mere $13 million. And that was before Manhattan real estate really went through the roof.
I lingered over an archived, older piece from New York magazine entitled "Bishop Takes Bride on Ride of Her Life" that focused on Bishop's marriage to "socialite and Elite model Julia Oakley." A photo captured the Bishops in tux and wedding gown, driving a red Ferrari Testarossa down Fifth Avenue. Julia looked ravishing.
Midway through the article, Bishop commented on his first marriage. "Lauren and I had two great years," Bishop had told the reporter. "I wouldn't trade our time together for anything. We just sort of woke up one day and said, 'We're better as friends than we are as husband and wife.' And let me tell you something: I couldn't have a better friend."
I chuckled. You had to figure there was a lot more to that story.
I scanned dozens of entries, flew past a couple hundred others, then stopped short when my eye caught one that seemed out of sync with the rest. It was a 1995 article in the New York Daily News, headlined "Trouble at the Top," that described Bishop's arrest for drunk driving.
STUART TABOR
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS
MANHATTAN
A Manhattan man was arrested shortly after 2:00 a.m. yesterday when his Porsche Carrera slammed into two other cars on the Triboro Bridge, and he then fled the scene.
Darwin Bishop, age 45, of 32 East 49th Street, was charged with driving under the influence, driving to endanger, leaving the scene of an accident and resisting arrest. Police apprehended him after a high-speed chase that ended in Astoria, Queens.
Despite a prior 1981 conviction for assault and battery, Bishop was released today on personal recognizance after posting $250,000 cash bail.
Estelle Marshfeld, 39, was transported from the scene of the crash to the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where she is listed in guarded condition, with injuries to her chest and abdomen. There were no other reported injuries.
A photograph showed a very different Darwin Bishop from the unflappable man I had seen earlier in the day on Nantucket. His head was down and his hands were cuffed behind him as two police officers escorted him into the Twenty-third Precinct station. Bloodstains covered the front of his blue and white pinstriped shirt.
I kept looking at the image of a drunken Darwin Bishop with bowed head. He had seemed so starched and buttoned-down in his Nantucket digs. Invulnerable. The pi
cture made him real to me because it confirmed what I had long believed: Everyone-rich or poor, black or white, educated or not-is in emotional turmoil, in some sort of pain. For years I had doused mine with booze and cocaine. Bishop obviously had had his own trouble with alcohol. Now he was high on money, a drug at least as intoxicating.
But maybe that meditation on humanity was only part of what kept me looking at the photograph. Maybe I liked seeing a humbled version of Bishop because the thought of him with his new bride, Julia, irked me.
I wondered why Julia Bishop had made such an immediate and powerful impression on me. She was stunningly beautiful, but that didn't feel like the whole reason. It didn't even feel like half the reason. I thought back to our conversation in front of the Bishop estate and realized that, within those few minutes, I had come to feel that she was suffering and that she might need my help. And, for me, a woman in distress is the ultimate motivator.
My mind wandered to my mother, a weak person who had the unattractive habit of locking herself in the bathroom when my father was three sheets to the wind and looking for somebody to hurt, no doubt to avoid the hurt festering inside himself. I was the only other one in the apartment, the top floor of a run-down tenement house in decaying Lynn, Massachusetts, and my father invariably spent his rage on me, until he was spent and fell down, or fell off into a drunken slumber. And even though my mother was not a loving person, nor brave, nor responsible enough to get us out of that house and out of harm's way, she was my mother and I loved her. And that made me feel a little bit like a hero as the blows landed. And with all the time I spent on Dr. James's couch, untying the knots in my psyche, I was never able to free myself from that double bind of pride and pain. I am still happier to suffer than to watch a woman suffer.