by Keith Ablow
"What I don't understand," he said, "is why they always leave the second-floor bathroom window unlocked." His speech was staccato-pressured speech, we call it in psychiatry. "They don't even lock it when we leave the island for Manhattan -which, I guess, is also an island, but I forget that, sometimes. I mean, it's like they figure no burglar will notice the window because it has frosted glass, which is just… stupid. Unless they think nobody would notice it behind the oak tree, which actually makes everything easier, if you can climb. 'Cause no one can see you once you're into the branches. Not that Darwin 's Range Rover robots are exactly Secret Service." He laughed, but it was a quick, anxious laugh that made me think he was high or very scared or manic. "Anyhow, that takes care of my immediate cash crunch. I won't need to bother you." He laughed again. A couple seconds passed. "I think you believed me at the hospital. That's why I'm calling. I want you to know I believe what you said, too. I don't think I really ever wanted to hurt anything or anyone other than my father." He hung up.
I started to pace. I ran my hand over my shaved scalp again and again, a nervous habit that only manifests itself when I sense things have gone very wrong. Billy was on the island-or had been. And, unless he was bluffing, he had managed to slip into the Bishop house and steal something of value. I thought back to our discussion at Payne Whitney, when I had pressed Billy on a potential motive for killing Brooke. And that made a crown of shivers ring my scalp. Because Billy was right: I had argued that his violence had always been about taking things away from his father. I prayed that this time it had been a watch or a ring or a lockbox stuffed with cash, and not little Tess.
I showered and pulled on a fresh pair of jeans. Then I called North Anderson at home. It was only five-twenty, but I had to let him know that Billy was close by-or had been, and that he had apparently invaded the Bishop home.
Tina answered the phone after half a dozen rings. "Hello?" Her voice still had sleep in it.
"Tina, I'm sorry to wake you. It's Frank Clevenger."
She skipped the pleasantries. "Hasn't North called you?" she said.
"No." I picked my cell phone off the bureau and saw that it was registering "Out of Range." "Was he looking for me?" I glanced at the ceiling, cursing the layer of steel or concrete blocking my signal.
"He left for the emergency room about an hour ago. There's something wrong with Tess Bishop."
I felt lightheaded. "Something wrong? Did he say anything else?"
"She stopped breathing," Tina said.
"Where's the hospital?" I asked.
"On South Prospect Street, at Vesper Lane," she said. " Nantucket Cottage Hospital. It's only about a mile out of town. There are little blue hospital signs all over that will point you the right way. You can't miss it."
"Thanks, Tina," I said.
"Sorry to give you bad news, Frank. I'd love to see you. Maybe when this whole thing settles down."
"You will," I said.
I ran down the stairs to the lobby. The woman at the front desk gave me directions to the hospital, but as I raced from street to street in the darkness, I realized I actually could have connected the little, fluorescent "H's" and gotten there just fine. Another thing about Nantucket: Nothing is random. Everything has signage. Over the course of four hundred years, Nantucketers have slowly worn away all the island's rough edges, and all possibility for surprise, so that the island now has its metaphor in every piece of beautiful, smooth, dead driftwood that washes up on its shores.
In such places, I reminded myself, things must happen to let people know they are alive and human. Love affairs take root-complicated ones, full of jealousy, pain, and revenge. Deep depression strikes. Addictions flourish. And, occasionally, some very ugly variety of psychopathology, which has had time to twist on itself grotesquely-like a gnarled, forbidding tree-begins to bear poisonous fruit.
North Anderson 's cruiser was parked near the emergency room, next to an ambulance and two black Range Rovers. I parked alongside them and hurried through the sliding glass doors.
Darwin Bishop, in khakis, a pink polo shirt, and black Gucci loafers, was pacing the lobby, talking on his cell phone. Two of his security guards stood nearby. He turned away and, keeping his voice just above a whisper, said, "Sell all of it at fifty-eight."
I walked up to the receptionist, a blue-haired woman who was obviously beside herself. "I'm Dr. Clevenger," I said. "I'm here to see Captain Anderson."
"He's in Room Five, with Mrs. Bishop and the baby," she said, wringing her thickly veined hands. "I hope you can do something. She's so tiny."
"You're not going in there," Bishop said, from behind me.
I turned around. He was standing with his two goons. "What happened to Tess?" I asked flatly.
He ignored the question. "You're not welcome here," he said.
I started past the receptionist. But I hadn't taken more than four steps when someone grabbed my wrist and jerked it, hard, behind my back, his arm falling across my neck.
I looked over my straining shoulder and saw one of the bodyguards had hold of me. It was an amateur move that made me question whether Bishop had hired him away from a Kmart. I leaned slightly forward, then drove my free elbow into the man's rib cage. A sharp crack told me I had hit home. He groaned and let go. Then his friend started coming at me.
"That's the end of it!" Anderson yelled from the hallway, half a dozen yards past the reception desk. He walked toward us.
Bishop pointed at me, but kept his distance. "I want him out of here."
Anderson walked up to me. "Let's go outside. I can bring you up to speed."
I took a mental note of that minor surrender and followed him back through the sliding glass doors, over to his cruiser.
"What the hell is going on?" I said. "What happened to Tess?"
He leaned against the hood. "Cardiac arrest," he said. "They got her back, but her heart's still not beating the right way. They're not sure if there's damage to her brain from lack of oxygen."
"My God."
"The Bishops rushed her to the ER at about three a.m." he explained. "I guess she'd been crying for about an hour before she stopped breathing. Julia and Claire were with her the whole time. When she passed out, they called 911. Actually, they had Darwin place the call."
"What does the doctor say?"
"She drew a toxic screen and found a high level of nor… trip… something."
"Nortriptyline," I said.
"That's it."
Nortriptyline is an antidepressant medication that can be fatal in overdose. Too high a concentration in the bloodstream slows electrical conduction through cardiac muscle, making the heart skip beats, then spiral into chaotic rhythms that pump no blood. "Where did the nortriptyline come from?" I asked.
"It's Julia's, prescribed by a psychiatrist in Aspen," Anderson said. "She was skiing there with Darwin a year or so back and was really feeling low. She says she felt better when they got home, so she stopped using it."
"But she kept the bottle?" I said.
"Right."
"So what are you thinking?"
"Actually, Frank," Anderson said, "it's looking like Billy's our man."
I hadn't even broached the news about Billy having broken into the Bishops' home. "Why do you say that?"
"He snuck into the house through a bathroom window during Brooke's funeral, stole some cash and jewelry. I guess he must have decided to take a little side trip to the nursery and feed Tess the pills. Claire had been writing letters in Darwin 's study most of the night."
"How did you know he'd been in the house at all?" I asked.
"He left a note," Anderson said.
"What did it say?"
"Payback's a bitch. Love, Billy."
"Where did he leave it?" I asked.
"In an empty bank envelope Bishop says was full of cash-about five grand. The envelope was in a little antique desk in the master bedroom. I guess that's where he keeps his spare change."
"Interesting." I shook my
head, thinking how peculiar it would be for Billy to tie himself so clearly to a murder scene. "Billy left me a message on my Chelsea machine about an hour ago. I tried calling you to tell you about it just before I headed here."
"What did he say?" Anderson asked.
"That he went in through that window, stole some things. That's all."
"I've got officers combing the house for evidence. We'll see what turns up. All hell is going to break loose on the island now."
"Meaning?"
"I've asked the State Police to help with a manhunt for Billy," Anderson said. "They're bringing in thirty troopers, dogs, infrared search devices, the whole nine yards. And that's the tame part. Bishop may have used his contacts to keep the press at bay so far, but that dam won't hold. Reporters will start pouring in as soon as word about Tess filters through the wires. One rich kid murdered at home sounds like yesterday's news. Another attempted murder in the same family, and you've trumped the Ramseys."
"And raised them about nine hundred million," I said. "How's Julia?"
"Stunned," Anderson said. "She hasn't said ten words in there."
I wanted to be with her. More, I felt it was my place to be with her. But I was troubled by the fact that it was Julia's medication Tess had overdosed on. "Anyone in that house could still be the killer," I said. "The signs of nortriptyline toxicity can show up many hours after an overdose. Tess could have been poisoned before the funeral." Another thought occurred to me. "I'm not sure Billy would even know a nortriptyline overdose can be lethal. The only ones who talked to the doctor in Aspen were Darwin and-"
"Julia," Anderson said. "Agreed. Nobody's cleared yet. But anybody would say Billy is the lead suspect, by a country mile."
"Why would he leave a note and a voice message about breaking into the house, if he knew he would be connecting himself to another murder?" I asked.
Anderson shrugged. "We're not talking about a normal kid."
"No," I said, "we're talking about a sociopath. They usually don't make our work easy, do they?"
"I didn't say to stop poking around," Anderson said, "to the extent Bishop lets you."
"He could have poisoned Tess as easily as anyone else," I said. "For all we know, he might have decided Billy's break-in was the perfect cover. So, tell me: When, exactly, did he start deciding who investigates what?"
Anderson stiffened. "Don't go there again, Frank. I'm paying him the same deference I'd pay anyone. He doesn't have to give you access if he doesn't want to. I'm sure you can figure a way around him."
"Great," I said. "I'm on my own, all of a sudden. This wasn't a case I exactly lobbied you for, if you remember. I took it because you said you needed help."
"And I still do." He winked. "We're waiting on a helicopter from Mass General. Tess will be flown to their ICU for observation and treatment. Julia's going along for the ride, not Darwin. He meets her there tomorrow."
"So if I had a few questions for Julia, I should get to Boston sooner rather than later," I said.
"That sounds right," Anderson said. "Once Bishop lands in Beantown, I'd head back here to touch base with Claire and Garret. She was home alone with Tess during the funeral, and he strikes me as one very angry young man."
"Not a bad plan," I said.
"For a guy abandoning you." He looked out over the hospital's expansive lawn. "You know, I wanted to give Billy a real chance. He just didn't read like a killer to me." He looked at me. "I think I may have read him wrong."
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe I did, too. But my gut tells me to dig deeper."
"Then that's what you'll…" He caught himself. "That's what we'll do."
12
As I waited for a space to open up on the ferry back to Hyannis, three ferries came in carrying some of the state troopers North Anderson had requested for the manhunt. More than twenty drove off in cruisers, SUVs, and ATVs. Reporters from local networks, and a few of the nationals, had traveled on the same boats. I spotted R. D. Sahl from New England Cable News, Josh Resnek from the Independent News Group, and Lisa Pierpont from Chronicle TV, all cozying up to Jeff Cooperman, from Dateline NBC. The skies hosted not only the usual commuter planes but more than one State Police helicopter, no doubt fueled to crisscross the hidden forests and ponds and cranberry bogs that make up the Nantucket Moors, better known as the Commons.
On any day in late June, Nantucket has no shortage of celebrities strolling down Main Street, but the Bishop tragedy was one of those island events that felt like it might resonate for generations. People who were not impressed by many things seemed to want to be part of the spectacle. Or perhaps, collectively and unconsciously, they were intent on making it into a spectacle, draining it of its terror and tragedy, in order to tame it into an entertainment event that could fit neatly inside a twenty-inch television. Then it could be labeled on-screen, over a ten-second clip of ominous, computer-generated music: "Infanticide on Nantucket: Day Four." The murder of a baby and attempted murder of another would be inscribed in something as innocuous as TV Guide.
I finally made it onto the 3:00 p.m. ferry, which landed me in Hyannis at 4:40 p.m. I caught the 5:00 WRKO news broadcast, driving up Route 3. The Bishops were the lead story. About fifteen seconds were devoted to the facts of the case, and the next minute or so to Darwin Bishop's billionaire lifestyle. Money sells better than murder and almost as good as sex. If the press had only known about Bishop sleeping with Claire Buckley, we might not have heard any other news for days.
North Anderson was interviewed at the end of the piece and said the department was "still investigating," but had identified a lead suspect. He explained that the individual's name was being withheld because he was a minor.
I got to Mass General at 5:50 p.m. and headed to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit-PICU, for short.
Few places could inspire more reflection. The space looks like a miniature mall from hell, with tiny glass storefronts along all four walls. Each room holds a child at risk of death or awaiting certain death. The nurses' station sits at the center, a kiosk of pathos, with monitors beeping out the weak rhythms of hearts meant to beat strong for the next seventy or eighty years. Below the monitors, a row of looseleaf charts holds a collection of short stories detailing God's limitations, with the first names of patients written on white tape along the bindings.
I found Tess's name and matched the number above her chart with one posted outside the furthest room to my right. Just as I did, I noticed John Karlstein, the pediatrician in charge of the intensive care unit, walking toward the nurses' station from one of the other rooms. He spotted me, too, and headed over.
Karlstein is a huge man, with a full beard, who stands six foot four in his trademark black alligator cowboy boots. He had been hired when the previous PICU director refused to dance to the tune of managed care companies and was eased into a full-time teaching position. Since then, the PICU had become a cash cow. "How are you, Frank?" he said in his bass voice. "It's been a while."
"Okay. You?"
"Can't complain," he said. "We're full. That's the good news. The bad news is that everybody's length of stay keeps getting shorter and shorter."
I nodded. "I guess it depends how you look at it-from our side of the bed, or the patients'."
He smiled, not seeming to take any offense. "I look at it the end of every month to make sure we're meeting our projections. We're on life support ourselves." He slapped my shoulder. "Someone file a psych consult?"
"Not this time. I'm involved in the Bishop case-forensically," I said.
"I didn't know you were back in that game."
"I'm not. A friend of mine with the Nantucket Police called me in. I took this one case."
"I can see why," Karlstein said. "What a story, huh? First one twin, now the other. And this guy Bishop is a billionaire. Brilliant, they say. A financial genius."
"That's the word," I said. I nodded toward Tess's room. "How's she doing?"
"The baby?"
"Right."
&
nbsp; Karlstein's face turned serious. His left eye closed halfway, a reflex that seemed to kick in whenever his intellect engaged. As much as John Karlstein watched the bottom line, and as much as that could get under my skin, he was still one of the best pediatric intensivists in the world. Maybe the best.
"Here's the deal," he said. "The nortriptyline is a cagey sonofabitch, especially in children. After overdose, you can still see fatal cardiac arrhythmias crop up days later. Tess's QRS interval was point fourteen seconds, which you know is too long. The electrical impulses traveling through her heart are still sluggish. That means she's still very much at risk. We've done what we can-meaning large-volume gastric lavage, followed by charcoal to really go after any pill fragments or trace medicine still in her gut. I don't think they were aggressive enough with that down on the island."
"It's a small hospital," I said.
"No crying over spilt milk." He winked. "The only other thing that worries me is whether there could be another toxin in her system that wouldn't show on the blood and urine screens."
Plenty of substances don't turn up on toxic screens unless you go looking for them, with precise chemical probes.
"Do her symptoms suggest another poison?" I said.
"No, but I don't want to be blindsided by anything." He glanced over at Tess's room. "We've got her monitored, on all the right IVs, crash cart one foot from the bed." He looked at me with the kind of brash confidence everyone should pray for in a doctor. "No fucking way I'm letting this kid go, Frank. Period."
Doctors don't pat each other on the back much, but I was moved by Karlstein's determination. "She couldn't be in better hands," I said. "Not for all the money in the world."