Compulsion

by Keith Ablow

  The scene spoke of timelessness, security, elite tranquility.

  I looked up at the building itself, which ran an entire city block. It was about fifteen stories high, the first three stories of limestone and the rest of brick, covered with ivy in places. The corner penthouse Darwin Bishop and his family called home was a duplex that boasted a series of two-story pillars and a terrace that had to be a thousand square feet or more, its innermost wall lined with enormous slate slabs.

  I walked down to the East River and took in a view framed by the Queensboro Bridge to the left and the Williamsburg Bridge to the right. Between them stood epic symbols of American industry-giant smokestacks, the Citibank Building, a landmark neon Pepsi-Cola sign. My eyes skated past them and lingered on the mesmerizing ruin of a castle on Roosevelt Island.

  Standing there, I got what I had come for: a hint of the majesty Darwin Bishop must have felt the moment he purchased his home, laying claim to real estate at the epicenter of the civilized world, a safe haven not one mile from the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall, and Central Park. Nobody would ever peg him for a guy from Brooklyn, with a criminal record. I walked back to the cab.

  "So?" Puzick said. "You saw so fast everything you needed to?"

  "Pretty much," I said.

  "Garbo lived right there," he said, pointing to the building across the street from the River House.

  "Garbo," I said. "Really."

  "That's what they say." He started back toward First Avenue, heading toward FDR Drive for the rest of trip downtown. He glanced at me twice in the rearview mirror, without saying anything.

  "You visited her in Poland?" I prompted him. "Your daughter?"

  "Every year, as God is my witness," he said. "But it wasn't enough." His voice trailed off.

  I knew exactly what Alex Puzick was looking for. Forgiveness. I stared at the little plastic Jesus glued to his dashboard. "Leaving your wife didn't make your daughter sick," I said.

  He didn't turn around, didn't even look at me in the mirror. "How can you know?" he said, in a voice as solemn as a prayer.

  "Because you worry over it," I said. "You worry about her."

  He sighed. "Probably I should have stayed with them," he said, as much to himself as to me.

  Maybe he should have. And maybe staying would have made things worse. All I could say for sure was that a man I had known barely fifteen minutes was in so much pain that it was flowing freely from him to me. "You left because you were in love," I told him. "That means you acted on your heart. You were true to yourself. I don't know what made Dorothy lose control of her emotions, but I can tell you it wasn't that."

  "You sound so sure."

  "I've done this work a long time," I said, leaning toward him. "I am sure."

  He relaxed visibly. "I'll see her in another month," he said. "Five weeks."

  I sat back in my seat. "Good."

  Neither of us spoke another word until we had pulled over in front of 25 Beaver. I got out of the cab and stepped up to Puzick's window.

  "On the house," he said.

  The meter read $11.30. I held out a twenty. "You don't need to do that," I said.

  "I don't need to. You didn't need to," he said. "We're even."

  I took an elevator to the eighth-floor Criminal History Search office. There were two clerks and about a dozen people in line, so I waited my turn, which meant waiting about an hour. When I got to the desk, a young Asian woman, with a very serious expression on her face and very large silver hoop earrings, reminded me that I would need to pay sixteen dollars to do a computerized criminal background check on Darwin Bishop. The search would yield the docket number and disposition of any case against him since the mid-1970s. I was happy to hand over the money, but unhappy when she told me to come back the next morning for the results.

  "I'm working with the police on a case," I said. "I could really use the information today."

  "You're a police officer," she said skeptically.

  "A psychiatrist," I said. "I'm working with the police on a case involving the Bishop family."

  "A psychiatrist. That's a first." She almost smiled. "You don't look like a psychiatrist."

  "I've been told that," I conceded. "More than a few times." I pulled out my wallet and showed her my medical license.

  "It says here, ' Massachusetts,' " she said, pointing at the card.

  "That's where my office is, but I take cases in other states," I said.

  "This one case," the voice at the back of my mind chided me. "This case, then no more."

  I silently agreed. Forensic psychiatry had nearly cost me my sanity. I didn't want to gamble it away.

  The clerk looked at me, as if to check whether I was on the level, then shook her head. "If you're a liar, you're a good one." She turned around and disappeared into an office. Ten minutes later, she came back to the counter with a computer printout. She folded it and placed it in an envelope. She held it out to me, but pulled it back before I could take it from her. "We can't do this all the time," she said. "Doesn't matter who you are."

  "I appreciate this one time," I said.

  She handed over the envelope.

  I took the report to a bench just outside the office, sat down, and started to read:

  Adult Record Information as of 06/24/2002 Page 1 of 1

  Name: Bishop, Darwin G. DOB: 05/11/1948

  PCF# 507950C0 POB: Brooklyn

  Sex: M SS#: 013-42-1057 Mother: Norma Erickson

  Father: Thomas

  Home Address: 829 Park Avenue Ethnicity: White

  NY, NY 10021

  Alias Name(s): None

  Date: 05/22/95 Manhattan Docket #6656 CR952387

  Criminal Offense: Operating to Endanger

  Lives and Safety

  Disposition: Dismissed

  Date: 05/22/95 Manhattan

  Criminal Offense: Operating Under the Docket #6656 CR952388

  Influence of Alcohol

  Disposition: Dismissed

  Date: 09/06/81 Manhattan

  Criminal Offense: Domestic Assault Docket #7513 CR811116

  Disposition: Convicted

  (Probation)

  Date: 07/23/80 Manhattan

  Criminal Offense: Violation of Restraining Docket #4912 CR800034

  Order, Abuse Prevention Act

  Disposition: Convicted

  (Probation)

  ____________________

  Nothing about the rap sheet gave me any comfort. Bishop's 1981 conviction for assault obviously had been for smacking his first wife, Lauren, around. And that episode had apparently followed another worrisome event during 1980-something threatening enough that the court had issued a restraining order against Bishop, an order he then violated. So much for the "I couldn't have a better friend" line that Bishop had fed the New York magazine writer who asked about his and Lauren's divorce.

  For all his Manhattan and Nantucket cachet, Bishop was starting to look like a garden variety alcoholic and domestic abuser-something I knew more than a little bit about, firsthand. I'd grown up with one. It didn't seem like much of a reach to think Bishop could be beating Billy, or that he could have killed little Brooke.

  I called North Anderson 's mobile phone from the lobby. He answered right away.

  "I just picked up a copy of Darwin Bishop's criminal record in New York," I told him.

  "What criminal record?" he asked.

  "I found a newspaper article that referenced an assault charge against him during the early eighties, so I pulled his whole sheet."

  "And?"

  "Not good. He was convicted of a domestic assault on his wife Lauren during 1981. He also violated a restraining order the prior year. That's on top of charges of driving to endanger and driving under the influence during the mid-nineties that he managed to get dismissed, with the help of F. Lee Bailey."

  "That puts Sir Bishop in a whole new light," he said. "How about Billy? What did you learn from him?"

  "He sa
ys he's innocent."

  "What do you think?"

  "I'm not sure what to think. Billy says his father's been beating him, badly. He has welts all over his back to prove it. He also seems convinced that his father is the one who killed the baby. He even suggested a motive: According to him, Darwin never wanted the twins. He pressured Julia to get an abortion. Ranted and raved about it, all hours of the night. But she wouldn't give in."

  "And Bishop's used to getting his way," Anderson said.

  "Probably in any way he has to," I said. I took a deep breath and let it out. "We've got to remember, though: Billy's no saint. He's a sociopath, whether he murdered Brooke or not. He may be lying about his father's feelings toward the twins. The wounds he showed me could even have been self-inflicted."

  "This case keeps getting more complicated," Anderson said. "There's another wrinkle."

  "What's that?"

  "My friend Sal Ferrera, a private eye out of Brooklyn -used to teach at Xaverian-did a little research for me. Turns out Claire Buckley's job description must be something more than the traditional nanny. She and Darwin traveled together to San Francisco, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, and Buenos Aires, just this year. No other family members had reservations on any major airline for any of the dates they were away."

  "She could be an executive assistant type," I said, even though I didn't really believe it.

  "According to Sal, they only booked one room at each of the hotels where Bishop checked in," Anderson said. "There were plenty of room service charges for two meals. And there was a hell of a lot of wine and champagne on the tab."

  "The man has his needs," I said.

  "So, if I'm Darwin Bishop," Anderson said, "looking to hook up with my nanny, maybe make her Mrs. Bishop number three, I might not like the idea my present wife is saddling me with twins. I might see that as a direct threat to my future."

  I winced, wondering whether Anderson 's own conflicted feelings about his unborn child might be coloring his perspective. But I went with the theme he was developing, because it did seem powerful. From my perspective, Darwin Bishop was starting to eclipse Billy as the lead suspect in Brooke Bishop's murder. "Bishop is a man who has recreated himself," I said. "He's Jay Gatsby. He rises out of poverty, sheds his Brooklyn roots and accent, plants his flag on the Upper East Side and Nantucket. He's at the top of the world. He wouldn't take kindly to anyone telling him that he can't go forward with his plans. In fact, he may experience people who get in his way as, quite literally, trying to do him in, trying to kill off his vision of himself. Then he's psychologically prepared to defend himself-by lethal means, if necessary." I paused. "What do we do to protect the other baby?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure there's much we can do," Anderson said. "The D.A.'s office has decided to charge Billy with the murder. Tom Harrigan is in court today seeking an order to arrest him and bring him back to Massachusetts. New York seems to be cooperating. Making the case that Tess Bishop could be in danger from another family member isn't going to fly."

  "Even if it's true," I said.

  "I wish it were always about that, Frank," he said. "Welcome back to my world."

  6

  I flew to Logan and got to my loft at about 9:30 p.m. I listened to my phone messages and found one from Julia Bishop. My pulse started to race, partly because the message took me by surprise, partly because Julia's voice took me back to feelings I hadn't felt since splitting with Kathy. It was a voice full of intelligence and worldliness at the same time as it brimmed with vulnerability. She said she needed to meet me, alone, but didn't say why. And I found myself not only willing but wanting to see her, something I should have pegged as trouble right off the bat.

  The phone number Julia left on my machine was different from the one directory assistance gave me for the Bishops' home in Nantucket. I dialed it, taking the chance she would be somewhere she could talk.

  "Yes?" she answered.

  "Frank Clevenger," I said.

  "I'm glad you called."

  "Where are you?"

  "A friend's house. Here on the island. But I have to get back home."

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  "Can we meet?" Her tone had urgency and a hint of fear in it. "I could come to Boston tomorrow. Win has a full day of business meetings at the house."

  "Of course," I said. "Did you have a specific place in mind?"

  "Wherever you like," she said. "I can be in the city by one."

  "Bomboa Restaurant," I said. Bomboa was tucked in an alleyway, and quiet in the afternoons. "It's right downtown on Stanhope Street, around the corner from Mistral, if you know that place. I'll wait for you at the bar."

  "I'll wait for you at the bar-another sign of trouble," the voice at the back of my mind said.

  "I'll see you then," she said. She hung up.

  I didn't know exactly why Julia wanted to meet, but I knew I was being invited deeper into the Bishop family's psyche. That reassured me I was burrowing toward their truth. It also worried me because I sensed that the journey would end in a very dark place.

  I felt tired enough to sleep. I undressed and laid down, but my mind wouldn't shut down. I kept going over what Billy had told me about being beaten by his father, what I had learned from Darwin Bishop's rap sheet, and what North Anderson had told me about the romance between Bishop and Claire Buckley. If Bishop was hiding behind gentility, if he was someone who had tried desperately to extinguish parts of his life, then he would find it that much easier to extinguish another life. The dying embers of a man's repressed pain have the unwieldy habit of catching fire, spreading underground, and burning down everything nearby.

  Billy might even have been expressing his father's destructiveness when he torched property and tortured animals. He could be what psychiatrists call the designated patient-the family member everyone points to as the insane one, the black sheep-when the truth is that that person is simply less able to resist acting on the pathological dynamics alive elsewhere in the household.

  But then there was Claire Buckley. A wild card. I knew almost nothing about her, other than that she was playing confidante and counselor to Julia while sleeping with Julia's husband. And she was the one Julia relied on to help care for Brooke's surviving twin, Tess. I felt glad I would be seeing Julia the next day. Maybe there was a chance I could move her to let the baby stay with grandparents, or somewhere else off the Bishop estate.

  After half an hour lying there awake, wrestling with my suspicions, I realized a good night's sleep wasn't in the cards for me. I got up, pulled on my boots, jeans, and black T-shirt, and headed out to the truck. I felt like grabbing a drink, so I decided to grab a coffee at Cafe Positano.

  Carl Rossetti, my renegade attorney friend (and onetime patient), was standing at the espresso bar when I walked in. His long black hair was tied in a braid. I took the space next to him and nodded at Mario.

  "What's new, chief?" Rossetti asked. Before I could answer, he held out his pinkie, showing off a diamond solitaire that had to weigh over two carats. "What do you think?" He took a drag off a cigarette.

  "I guess it's okay," I said. "I mean, if you're planning to get engaged and give it to your girl."

  He smiled and spewed a thin stream of smoke up toward the silver tin ceiling. He probably thought I was kidding. "I got it off Scotty Deegan as a fee," he said. "I handled a drug case for him before Judge McClure in Federal Court. Possession, intent to distribute five hundred pounds of weed. We did good. Thirty-six months in Allenwood. Easy time. Maybe a halfway house after two years. So it was a score."

  "He came to the right person," I said. I meant it. If I were in trouble, my first call would be to Carl Rossetti.

  He waved his hand back and forth, admiring the stone as it caught the light. "I would never cough up the cash for something like this, but when it falls in your lap, what the hell, right?" He shrugged.

  "It's a little flashy for my taste," I said. "It may even be a little flashy for your taste. And that's say
ing a lot."

  "Sometimes you got to stretch," Rossetti said. He slapped my shoulder. "So tell me, already, what's happening in your world? You still hanging around that beautiful Brazilian from the other night?"

  It seemed like more than a few nights had passed. I pictured Justine getting dressed in my apartment the morning North Anderson had rung my doorbell. "She's back in Brazil," I said. "I'd be over there myself if I hadn't gotten called into the Bishop case. You remember: the baby on Nantucket."

  "Of course. The Russian kid," he said. "He's pleading insanity?"

  "It doesn't look that way. He says he didn't do it."

  He smiled. "What else is he gonna say? Does he have a lawyer?"

  "Not that I know of," I said.

  "Put in a good word for me, if you get the chance."

  "Two nights ago you told me the kid was guilty, for sure."

  "He's still gonna need an attorney," Rossetti said. "And I could use that kind of payday. My other clients aren't billionaires."

  Mario delivered my coffee. I sipped it. Then I bummed a cigarette off Rossetti, lighted it, and inhaled as much smoke as my lungs would hold.

  "Can you share anything you've learned about the case?" Rossetti asked.

  Rossetti was peculiar-looking, but he was also peculiarly brilliant. I welcomed the chance to run some of what I knew about the Bishop case by him. "One of the things I dug up," I told him, "is that Darwin Bishop-the father of the suspect-has a record of domestic assault. He beat his first wife. He also violated a restraining order she took out against him."

  "You're joking," Rossetti said.

  "I pulled his rap sheet. It's all right there in the public record."