Compulsion

by Keith Ablow

  "We're going to watch Tess like hawks," Karlstein said. "What I'd advise is for you to take, say, five, ten minutes with her, then go and get some rest. There's a decent hotel across the street. Check in. Nap. She'll be here when you get back."

  "I'm not leaving," Julia said, looking to me for support.

  I saw Karlstein's left eye close halfway, his mind chewing on something. "Why don't you give Dr. Karlstein and me a minute?" I said to Julia.

  She took a deep breath, wiped her tears away. "I'm doing fine," she said. "I won't get in anyone's way. I promise."

  I nodded. "One minute," I said. "I'll be right back." I stepped away and headed to a corner of the PICU, with Karlstein lumbering behind me.

  "Talk about touch and go in there," I said, nodding toward Tess's room.

  "I'm gonna call one of the cardiac boys and have him thread a temporary pacemaker," he said. "I don't like the way she crapped out on us. Ventricular tachycardia, out of nowhere."

  "What do you think her chances are?"

  "Impossible to predict," he said. "If we can get her out of here okay, she's still at increased risk for a year or more."

  "From sudden death," I said.

  "You got it. Twenty-five percent of people who make it back after cardiac arrest drop dead during the first year after discharge from a hospital. Take it out four years and you go up to about thirty-one percent. No one knows exactly why."

  "That's still better odds than she had about three minutes ago."

  Karlstein smiled. "Thanks for reminding me." He shook his head. "This place could get to you, if you were a half-normal person, you know?" He chuckled.

  I did know. I also knew Karlstein couldn't think it was all that funny. "You can always give me a call," I half-joked, trying to take the edge off the invitation.

  He slapped me on the back. "I'm one of those guys who'd fall apart if I gave myself fifty minutes to think," he said. "Better to keep on chugging."

  I didn't respond, which was enough of a response to let Karlstein know I wasn't a big fan of that strategy.

  "Two things I do need to tell you," he went on, "seeing as you're involved in the Bishop case-forensically, at least." The way he said "at least" made me wonder whether he intuited that Julia and I were more than professionally involved.

  "Shoot," I said.

  "I'm gonna go ahead and file that psychiatry consultation on the mother. I've been at this long enough to know she's having a tough time."

  "Fair enough," I said. "I'm sure you're right."

  "And I'm ordering a sitter, as well," he said.

  "A sitter?" I said. "You want the baby on one-to-one observation?"

  "One of the nurses suggested it, but I was already batting the idea around in my head." He took a deep breath, glanced at Julia, then looked back at me. "She hovers, you know? She's got that stickiness to her."

  Those were code words for parents who seem too close to their kids. "You're not sure she has the baby's best interest at heart," I said. "You want someone to keep an eye on her."

  "At heart, that's a good one." He smiled.

  "I didn't mean it that way," I said.

  "Freudian slip, maybe," he said. His voice turned serious. "Let's face it, Frank, there's been a murder in this family already. If Tess codes again, I damn well want to know it's because of the nortriptyline from last night, not something in Mommy's purse."

  "She's lost one daughter," I said. "Another may die. I'm not arguing against the sitter, but I don't think there's any 'normal' way to respond in a situation like this."

  "Granted," he said. "I'm being extra-cautious. It's my way."

  I swallowed hard at the realization that another person I respected was red-flagging Julia as a suspect. "No. You're doing the right thing," I said. "I'll let her know to expect company."

  I walked back to Julia. "Staying here around the clock isn't going to change Tess's prognosis," I said. "There's a hotel across the street. Let me check you in. You can eat, maybe sleep a little. Then you can come right back here."

  "I don't trust them to keep Darwin away," she said.

  "I'll stay here myself until you're back," I said.

  She shook her head. "I'm not leaving."

  "Okay…" I wanted to let her know about the one-to-one. "There's going to be someone watching Tess, anyhow," I said. "They're ordering what's called a 'sitter.' "

  "What's that?"

  "Usually a college kid, or a student nurse," I said. "The person sits by the bedside, twenty-four hours a day."

  "What for?" she asked.

  I thought about fibbing that the reason was to monitor the baby's breathing, but decided to be straight with her. "With the investigation ongoing, the hospital needs to protect Tess from anyone who may have had access to her before the overdose," I said.

  "Including me," she said.

  "Right," I said, watching for her reaction.

  "Good," she said. "That makes me feel a little better. At least they're taking her safety seriously."

  Julia's comment made me feel a little better, too. Typically, a parent who has caused a child's injuries will resist close monitoring by the staff, sometimes insisting on a meeting with the hospital's patient rights advocate, or even calling in an attorney. "Does that mean you'll think about the hotel?" I asked.

  "I'll get a room a little later," she said unconvincingly.

  "You know, I live ten minutes from here, in Chelsea," I said. "You could always-"

  "Thanks." She reached for my hand and held it a few moments. "You've been incredible," she said. "I need you with me to make it through this."

  "You've got me," I said.

  "Just blind luck, I guess," she said.

  13

  I stopped at Cafe Positano for a quick, late dinner. Mario steamed my milk and handed me a cappuccino while I waited for three slices of the best pizza outside of Rome. It felt good to be back in familiar territory. When Carl Rossetti walked in, I actually started to relax for the first time in days.

  "You're buying," he said, striding over to me at the espresso bar.

  "The two-carat stone tap you out?" I said.

  "I got some information for you. But it's gonna cost you. A double espresso, a nice bottle of Limone soda, and a cannoli."

  "Done."

  He laid his hands on the bar, his pinkie still dancing with excitement about the ring. "I would have called you, but this is news to me, like two hours ago, so I sat on it, seeing I was on trial in Suffolk Superior, and you can't carry a cell phone in there. That, and I was thinking I might bump into you here."

  "How'd you do in court?" I asked him.

  "Not so good this time. Statutory rape case. The guy's an accountant, twenty-six years old, never so much as a traffic ticket. He meets a girl who says she's seventeen- according to his version of events-when she's really fourteen, almost fifteen. I'm sitting there, looking at this girl, who's drop-dead gorgeous, built like a centerfold. And I'm thinking how many of us would turn it down, right? Not Roman Polanski. Not Elvis. Not Jerry Lee Lewis. Probably not me. I would have liked to ask the judge and court clerk what they'd do."

  "I bet you didn't," I said.

  "No," Rossetti said. "I asked for six months house arrest."

  "What did you get?"

  "Judge Getchell came down on him like a ton of bricks, sent him to MCI Concord for two years. He gets listed as a pedophile on the state registry, probation for five years. That's if he makes it out of Concord alive. The inmates get word he's a sex offender, they'll be waiting for him."

  "That's the kind of verdict you get when the judge has to wonder whether he'd commit the crime," I said. I caught Mario's eye. "Double espresso for the counselor," I told him.

  "And…" Rossetti said.

  "And a Limone and cannoli," I said.

  "Thank you, Franko."

  "Exactly what am I paying you for?" I asked.

  "I heard back from my buddy Viktor in Russia," he said. "The one who runs an oil refinery."
r />   "Right…"

  "He snooped around, asked his globe-trotting friends about Darwin 'Win' Bishop-who, by the way, I hear had another tragedy in the family."

  "Tess, the other twin, is at MGH," I said. "I just came from there. She was poisoned. She went into cardiac arrest."

  "She made it, though? She'll pull through?" he asked.

  "Looks that way."

  "Good. Good for her."

  "They're saying the Russian boy did it," he said.

  "They're not supposed to say anything publicly," I said. "Billy's a minor."

  "Yeah, well, it's all over the news, as of ten minutes ago, anyhow. He broke into the Bishop estate, blah, blah, blah. They're gonna leak everything on this kid. Harrigan wants him. Like any D.A. would. Another notch in the prosecutorial belt." He shrugged. "Myself, I don't buy the party line here. Everything I hear about this Darwin Bishop makes me more convinced he's the killer."

  "What did Viktor find out?" I asked.

  "Long and short of it, Bishop isn't Trump-if Trump is even Trump."

  "I'm not sure I follow." I was sure I didn't.

  "Bishop might have a billion in assets, but he's got that and maybe fifty, sixty million in debts. This guy's further over the edge financially than I am. And that's saying something."

  Mario brought Rossetti's espresso, Limone, and cannoli, and set them down in front of him.

  "How would Viktor know that?" I asked.

  Rossetti bit off half the cannoli, keeping his eyes closed as he chewed it. "Oh, baby," he purred.

  "You doing all right there?" I said.

  He held up a finger, sipped his espresso. "Heaven," he called out to Mario, then focused on me again. "These guys all hear about it when someone's hemorrhaging," he said finally. "According to Viktor, it's common knowledge that Bishop's scrambling. He invested most of the cash he netted from Consolidated Minerals and Metals in four Internet plays: Priceline.com, MicroStrategy, Inc., CMGI, and Divine InterVentures. They all plunged about ninety-five percent after he bought in. Priceline dropped from $136-a-share to a buck. Okay? Bishop's looking to liquidate some of his art, a property he owns in Cannes and another at Turnberry Isle in North Miami."

  "That may explain why he's trading stocks every time I see him," I said.

  "And you know what that means. More trouble. It's like grabbing at waves when you're drowning."

  "Especially if he's been reaching for more technology plays," I said. "Tide's been going out a long time."

  "One question to ask is whether he insured the kids," Rossetti said.

  "Brooke and Tess? Life insurance on infants?"

  "You can write a policy on anyone."

  "We'll look into it," I said.

  "Are they getting any closer to finding Billy?" Rossetti asked.

  "I haven't heard anything. But if he's still on the island, they'll track him down. They've got dogs, helicopters, and a small army of state troopers."

  "Let's hope he doesn't resist and doesn't have a weapon."

  I hadn't thought of the possibility of Billy being harmed by the police, let alone killed. "If he were to take a bullet to the chest," I said, thinking aloud, "everyone would assume the case was closed and go home happy."

  "Like I told you before," Rossetti said, "you're in the ring with heavyweights now. A man like Bishop can decide to make things happen-especially if he's on the ropes himself."

  I finally made it home at 10:55 p.m. There were no distressing messages or strings of hangups on my machine, for a change. I called North Anderson 's mobile phone to bring him up to speed on the information I had gotten from Carl Rossetti. "A lawyer friend of mine named Carl Rossetti has a high-level, corporate connection in Russia. The word on the streets-or in the boardrooms-is that Bishop is in financial trouble," I told him. "Bad stocks, lots of debt. He's got a bunch of art and real estate up for sale."

  "You never know whether people are what they seem to be," he said.

  "No argument there." I paused. "Rossetti thought we should check whether Brooke and Tess had life insurance."

  "Will do. I already sent that detective by to speak with Julia at MGH," Anderson said. "Terry McCarthy. I'll get a report on the interview soon. And I had someone on the force down in Duxbury check in with Kristen Collier, the baby nurse Julia fired."

  "Come up with anything?"

  "Nothing earth-shattering. She told me she was enraged with Julia when she was let go. Now she feels bad about the whole thing, like she was partly to blame. I guess Claire Buckley had given her a whole song and dance about how Julia's depression could get worse and worse, how she might not be able to think clearly, might end up not being able to care for the twins at all."

  "Nice borderline move there," I said. "Splitting off the baby nurse from the mother. Claire keeps control of the household that way."

  "And this Collier kind of lost sight of who she was really working for," Anderson said. "She started double-checking Julia's plans for the twins with Claire-even things that sound pretty routine, like which baby formula to order up, when to schedule doctors' appointments."

  "Those things may seem routine to us, but not to a woman who's expecting," I said.

  "Tell me about it," Anderson said. "Tina's rereading every baby and parenting book she can lay her hands on. There are no small details."

  "And when you have a woman like Julia suffering with postpartum depression, she's going to want to appear strong, not ill," I said. "She could be hypersensitive to people treating her like a basket case."

  "Apparently so. She axed Collier with no notice."

  "What does Kristen Collier look like, anyhow?" I asked.

  "Young and pretty, just like Claire," he said. "And if you're headed where I think you are, I did get the feeling that her relationship with Win didn't help things any."

  "Tell me more."

  "I guess working as a baby nurse was her way of biding time. She's got her R.N., but she's back in school for an MBA. During the week or so she lived with the Bishops, she took the opportunity to ask Darwin for his thoughts on her career, the economy, what-have-you. They spent some time together."

  "Julia might not have liked that," I said. "Claire would have hated it."

  "Claire has called her from time to time over the past few months, saying she was checking in, wanted to make sure she'd landed well. But Collier had the feeling she was checking her out, making sure she hadn't had any more contact with the man of the house."

  "Had she?" I asked.

  "She says no."

  "And is she carrying a grudge?"

  "I don't think so," he said. "Not the kind that leads to murder, anyway. She seemed pretty straight up."

  "At least someone does," I said.

  "Will I see you tomorrow on the island?" Anderson asked.

  "Definitely. We'll talk then."

  He hung up.

  I walked around my loft, putting things in order. I stopped in front of the Bradford Johnson canvas that Justine Franza had taken a liking to-the one with a rope tied between two ships' masts, as a storm threatens not only the distressed vessel but the rescuing craft as well. The painting had always spoken to me, but I wasn't sure any longer that the only reason was the bravery of men putting their lives on the line to help others. This time I read another message in it-something about being bound to trouble, treating it almost as ballast, as if I would feel unstable on calm waters. Did that mean I was forever destined to have pained and broken people as my constituency? Or would I gravitate toward safety once I had healed more of the broken parts inside me?

  I looked up toward the liquor cabinet, then forced myself to look away. I turned on the television, hoping for distraction, but caught the last thirty seconds of a report by David Robichaud on WBZ that took viewers live to the manhunt for Billy. Huge spotlights swept over dunes as state troopers with dogs combed the dense foliage of the Nantucket moors. State Police Captain Brian O'Donnell, the man North Anderson had told me was pressing to run the entire investig
ation, promised: "Wherever he is, we'll find him. I've assured Mr. Bishop, the mayor's office, and the Governor that an arrest will be made in this case-and soon."

  I noted the order in which O'Donnell had ticked off his allegiances. Bishop first.

  I was about to surf for something mindless when the buzzer sounded, signaling someone at my front door. I walked to the intercom. "Yes?" I said.

  "Frank, it's Julia. I'm sorry I didn't call first. I…"

  I hit the speak button. "No reason to be sorry," I said. "Please come up." I hit the buzzer to let her in. Then I stood there, feeling anxious and excited and, strangely, exposed. Having someone you care for visit the place you live is like stripping naked. My place was a loft in gritty Chelsea, after all, not an estate in Nantucket or a two-story penthouse in Manhattan. I was a lot more comfortable assessing the lives of others than laying mine bare. I listened to Julia's footsteps as she took the nights of stairs. When she knocked on my door, I opened it slowly, as if I could better control things if I could make them unfold gradually.

  Julia stood there in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a short black leather jacket, looking as beautiful as I had ever seen her. "I felt a little better about leaving Tess once the sitter came, so I checked into that hotel and tried to nap, but I couldn't," she said. "I thought, maybe, here-with you. I mean, if it isn't putting you out, or putting you in an awkward position. Because…"

  I took her hand and gently pulled her inside. We kissed deeply. The warmth of her lips and tongue, the press of her hands against my back, the smell of her hair transported me to an emotional state in which passion and peacefulness not only coexisted, but fed one another. I felt strangely comfortable with wanting her, as if, from all time, she had been destined to be my object of desire. We separated and stood in silence, each of our hands in one another's, like schoolkids on a dimly lighted front porch. "I'm glad you came here," I said.

  "A little variation on the traditional house call," she said. "I was surprised you're listed, like a regular person, in the telephone book."

  "I'm pretty regular, when you come right down to it," I said.