Compulsion

by Keith Ablow

  The word supposedly stuck out like a sore thumb. I wondered whether jealousy was blurring Hallissey's therapeutic vision. Psychiatrists call it countertransference-the clinician's own feelings boomeranging back as if they had something to do with the patient's inner world. "She did model," I said. I pushed further to gauge Hallissey's reaction. "I guess she was pretty successful at it. The cover of Cosmo, Vogue, all that. Big time."

  "Of course she was successful," Hallissey said. "It's textbook. She's magnificent-looking, but she has no real self-esteem. She exists for men. She needs them to adore her because she loathes herself. And that's why she immediately feels hatred toward me. Because I'm a woman."

  The idea that Julia might harbor ill-will toward females troubled me. She had given birth to twin girls, after all. "Do you think she's a risk to the baby?" I asked Hallissey. "You feel the sitter is necessary?"

  "I don't see what good it would do," she said. "I mean, if the kid's going home with her within a couple days, what's the sense of one-to-one observation now?" She rolled her eyes. "She'd probably end up taking advantage of the coverage to run to Gucci for a pair of shoes, or something. Beef up the wardrobe."

  That comment increased my suspicion that jealousy or ill-will might be coloring Hallissey's perspective on Julia. I nodded and relaxed, but only a little. I couldn't afford to ignore her theory. "Will you be checking in with Ms. Bishop again?" I asked.

  "Dr. Karlstein asked me to stop by tomorrow," she said.

  "Would you page me if you come up with anything else interesting?" I asked.

  "I'll do that," she said.

  "And congratulations on your child," I said. "Hopefully, she won't end up modeling."

  Hallissey's face lighted up. "No way," she said. "I can promise you that isn't going to happen."

  It was 7:20 a.m. when I pulled myself into my truck and headed home to throw a few things together for my trip to Nantucket. The day was sunny and heating up the way Boston can in late June. I took the curves on Storrow Drive slowly, avoided potholes where I could, and slowly climbed the stairs, pausing every half-flight to gather courage.

  I was most of the way to the fifth floor when a few frames of my experience in the alleyway visited me. I remembered being pushed, feeling a flash of pain, then losing my balance and pitching forward. I closed my eyes and stood motionless on the steps, trying to coax more of the attack back into consciousness, but nothing would come.

  I grabbed fresh jeans and a black T-shirt in my apartment and was about to pull them on when I noticed the gauze around my abdomen had bled through. I walked to the bathroom and unwrapped myself.

  Colin Bain had worked hard on me. The surface of the wound was more of a jagged laceration than a simple puncture, as if my assailant had ripped the knife upward, trying to gut me from behind. Bain's handiwork was impressive- tiny stitches, the mark of a surgical craftsman, ran in a lightning bolt shape along the bottom of my rib cage. I turned toward the sink, doused the wound with cold water, and blotted it dry. Then I rewrapped myself with a roll of gauze Bain had thrown in an emergency-room doggy bag, along with samples of Motrin, my prescription for Keflex, and my wallet. I swallowed three more Motrin, stuffed the wallet in my jeans, and got dressed.

  My chances of making it to Hyannis conscious, then having the luck to get a seat (let alone space for my truck) on the ferry, were vanishingly slim, so I drove to Logan and waited for the ten-fifteen Cape Air flight. I tried North Anderson on his mobile, but got his voice mail. I left him a message that I'd be arriving at eleven and hoped he'd meet me at Nantucket Memorial-an intriguing name, I've always thought, for a very pleasant airport on a very beautiful island.

  14

  Anderson was waiting at the gate when I arrived. We'd had some turbulence in the last fifteen minutes of the flight, and I was bent toward my right side, trying to keep the muscles on that side slack. "You look great," he said, with a tight grin.

  "Thanks a lot," I said.

  The grin dissolved. "Truth is, you should be laying low, letting yourself heal up."

  "I feel fine."

  "Half of me thinks we should get out of the way," he said, "let the state cops handle the whole investigation from here."

  "They'll let it begin and end with Billy," I said. "Bishop's too wired politically."

  "I don't want it to end with you in a box," Anderson said. He shook his head, let out a long breath. "You're sleeping at my place tonight, period."

  "Your place it is. Better safe than sorry." I winced as I straightened up.

  "You didn't get a look at whoever did this? Nothing?"

  "Not that I can remember."

  "I guess it could be a random attack," he said. "The ER at Mass General draws a tough crowd."

  "Could be," I said.

  "It doesn't feel that way, though," Anderson said. "I'd lay hundred-to-one odds that whoever did this was looking to do you."

  "Maybe we're making somebody nervous," I said. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing." I didn't add that I had done more than enough to make someone jealous, namely, Darwin Bishop.

  Anderson nodded to himself. "How's Tess?"

  "Her heart stopped again. They got her back, and they're putting in a temporary pacemaker. I think she'll pull through."

  "Julia hanging in there?" he asked.

  "As well as anyone could," I said. "No question, she's depressed. She'll need help down the road."

  "From a disinterested third party, I hope," he said.

  I sidestepped that comment. "She says she'll take out a restraining order on Bishop if he tries to visit Tess in the hospital."

  "We'd see the fireworks from that day in court all the way down here," he said. "I spoke with Lauren Dunlop, Bishop's first wife. She's remarried, three kids. Lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, now."

  "What did she have to say?" I asked.

  "She confirmed everything," he said. "Said she put up with physical and emotional abuse from Bishop for years, finally found the backbone to get the restraining order and file for divorce. It was a long haul. She was terrified of him."

  "Did you ask her why she didn't end up with custody of Garret, under the circumstances?" I asked.

  "According to her, it was out of the question," Anderson said. "Bishop would have fought the divorce tooth and nail, if it meant surrendering Garret. He was obsessed with the boy. Like some Prince and the Pauper thing. He wanted to take an abandoned baby and raise him to be a nuclear physicist or pro athlete or President of the United States. He even did what he could to interfere with Lauren's visitation rights. She doubts very much that he'll let Julia leave with the children. Not without a huge battle."

  "I don't think Julia's going to back down," I said. "She doesn't plan to go home when Tess is discharged. She says she's leaving for her mother's-with the children."

  "Good for her. Terry McCarthy filled me in on her statement, by the way. I think he's the best detective on the Boston force."

  "And?"

  "She came through with flying colors," Anderson said. "Everything was consistent with what she told you: Bishop took the nortriptyline from her just before Tess was poisoned." He paused. "Tommy found her convincing. He got no bad vibes, even when he bluffed and asked her if she'd sit for a polygraph."

  I thought back to Caroline Halverson's comments and wondered how well Julia would have fared with a female detective. "What did she say?" I asked.

  "She said, 'How about we do the polygraph right now?' "

  "Good for her," I said, feeling relieved. I smirked. "I wonder whether Win would sit for one."

  "I asked him to," Anderson said.

  "You asked Bishop to take a polygraph?"

  "Obviously it wouldn't be worth jack at trial, but I wanted to gauge his reaction."

  "And…"

  "He told me to talk with his lawyer," Anderson said.

  "He may need one."

  "He retained John McBride about an hour after I made the polygraph suggestion."

  McBride, bas
ed in Boston, was one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country and a master at excluding physical evidence against his clients. "Better be careful how you conduct the search of the Bishop estate."

  "White glove, all the way." Anderson smiled. "I heard from McBride personally this morning. He wanted to put me on notice that his client won't be available for questioning until charges are filed against him."

  "Is McBride representing anyone else in the family?"

  "He didn't say he was."

  "So what's the plan? We just drive onto the Bishop estate and ask for Claire and Garret?"

  "Just like that, the way I figure it," Anderson said. "I still have an active search warrant for every inch of that property, and they're both on the grounds right now, according to the patrolmen I stationed on Wauwinet Road. Either one of them can refuse to talk. But I don't think they will."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "The family is full of agendas," he said. "Garret's got one. Claire has her own. They're all using this tragedy to get things done-jockeying for more power, more freedom, whatever."

  "So let's get over there while we can." I bent to pick up my overnight bag, sending the muscles of my back and side into spasms that nearly brought me to my knees.

  Anderson grabbed me under the arms. "Easy," he said.

  I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, waiting for the pain to end. When it had died down, I stepped back and forced a smile. "Sudden movements are not what the doctor ordered," I said.

  Anderson leaned and picked up my bag. "Let me do the heavy lifting for now," he said.

  We met three cruisers on the drive up Wauwinet Road. Television vans lined the road, starting half a mile from the estate. Reporters leaned dangerously toward Anderson 's car, waving hands for us to stop for interviews. Photographers snapped photos as we drove by. I heard the sound of a helicopter, looked up through the windshield, and saw a State Police chopper and another from Channel 7 News crisscrossing the sky.

  "Big change," I said.

  "The press is loving this," Anderson said. "As soon as they find out Tess is at MGH, they'll send an army over there, too."

  A couple Rovers were parked at Bishop's "watch house," and a couple more sat in the semicircle in front of the main house, but no one tried to stop us when we headed for the front door. I checked out the grounds and noticed that Win's security team was outnumbered by State Police SUVs and ATVs. "Are they here to search the grounds or defend them?" I asked Anderson.

  "You got me," he said, shrugging. "It depends how cozy Bishop really is with Captain O'Donnell. You'll meet him, eventually. I'd love your take on him."

  Claire Buckley answered the door, as usual. She seemed nervous. "No one let me know to expect you," she said, with a tight smile. "Win headed to Boston."

  "We won't take much of your time," Anderson said. "Just a few questions."

  "I guess that would be fine," she said. "Come in."

  Anderson glanced at me and winked. His prediction that we wouldn't meet with much resistance from Claire seemed to be holding up.

  As we followed her toward the living room, she glanced back at me struggling along. "You seem like you're in pain," she said.

  "I had a little problem in Boston," I said. "Someone jumped me."

  She stopped and looked at me with what seemed like real concern. "Are you all right?" she said.

  "I will be." I smiled. "Pulled muscles." And a few slashed ones.

  "Can I get you anything?"

  "Thanks, no."

  She invited Anderson and me to take seats on the couch. She took a floral wingback chair opposite us. "How can I help you?" she asked, twisting her diamond pinkie ring back and forth. She noticed me noticing her nervous hands and laid them unnaturally still on her thighs.

  Anderson motioned for me to take the lead.

  I didn't know exactly what I was after, so I started with a very general question. "Claire, when we last met," I said, "I didn't ask you directly whether you actually saw anything the night Brooke was murdered-anything that might shed light on the investigation. Now, with Tess in the hospital, I need to ask about both twins."

  "What sort of thing do you mean?" she said.

  "Anything peculiar," Anderson interjected. "Something that got your attention. Maybe seeing the tube of plastic sealant or the bottle of nortriptyline or hearing one of the babies in distress."

  "If I had had anything like that to share," she said, "I already would have." She paused. "And the police finished searching the house, right?"

  "She has nothing like that to share," the voice at the back of my mind said.

  "Claire, did you see or hear anything at all that we should know about?" I said. My mind replayed the question she had just asked Anderson about the search. "Or maybe you found something…" I added.

  She cast a worried glance my way, as if she and I shared knowledge that shouldn't be extended to North Anderson. She started twisting her pinkie ring again.

  "I've told Captain Anderson about Julia's feelings toward the twins after they were delivered," I said, prompting her. "We share all the information about the investigation. Anything you would tell me, you can tell both of us."

  "I didn't see anything directly related to the attacks," she said.

  "Okay," I said. "What did you see?"

  "I found something," she said. "Something weird."

  "Weird…" Anderson said.

  "A letter," Claire said. She looked down and shook her head. "I only bring it up because of Tess-because Julia is still with her." She let her head fall into her hands. "God, I don't know if I should be mentioning any of this."

  My skin had started to crawl. I was either about to hear a baseless attack on Julia, fueled by Claire's desire to take her place in Darwin Bishop's life, or something that would topple my vision of Julia and rocket her forward on the suspect list. "If there's something weighing on you related to Julia and the twins," I said, "please tell us-especially if it can help us keep Tess safe."

  Claire looked up at the ceiling, glanced at Anderson, then focused on me. "Wait here." She got up, walked out of the living room, and headed upstairs.

  "What do you figure she's up to?" Anderson said.

  "No way to know," I said. "I think the whole, 'I don't want to tell, make me tell' routine is a bunch of crap, but that's my only read so far."

  "She's a gold digger," Anderson said. "I don't trust her."

  I nodded, but my anxiety about what Claire was about to reveal kept growing. I tried to keep it in check by getting up and walking around the expansive room. I lingered on some of Bishop's trinkets: a vintage Chelsea ship's clock, a set of Daum torsos in subtle shades of blue and green and rose, a collection of enamel fountain pens in a glass-topped, mahogany box.

  I stopped wandering the room when my gaze crossed an empty space on the wall. I stood still, looking at the spot. Bishop's Robert Salmon painting of a ship at sea had been hanging there when I last visited. I scanned the walls and saw that the beach scene by Maurice Prendergast was gone, too. Carl Rossetti and Viktor Golov, I thought to myself, must have been right; Bishop was liquidating his art collection. Those two canvases alone could bring several million at auction.

  Claire Buckley walked back into the room clutching a folded piece of stationery. I returned to my seat on the couch. She took hers in the wingback.

  Anderson leaned forward, staring at the sheet of paper.

  "I found this in Julia's closet," she said. "I was straightening up."

  "The closet?" I said.

  "I'm compulsive that way. Inside closets. Under beds. Behind bookcases. I can't relax until every nook and cranny is spotless."

  I resisted making a diagnosis. "And what did you come across?" I said.

  "It was tucked inside a hatbox," she said. "The box seemed like it was empty, so I was going to use it to store some loose hair ties and so on, but then I found this." She held up the stationery. "I read it. I shouldn't have, but I did."

  "So what d
oes it say?" Anderson asked, a little irritation sneaking into his voice.

  "I don't know how important it is," she said, letting out her breath dramatically. "That's why I'm giving it to you." She shook her head. "I don't feel good about this."

  I couldn't stomach Claire's manufactured reticence much longer. I walked over to her, held out my hand. "Thank you," I said. "We understand."

  She placed the folded sheet on my palm with exaggerated care, as if it was a wounded bird. Then she looked away.

  I took my seat back on the couch, unfolded the stationery, and saw that it was a page of a letter, written in a feminine hand. My eyes flicked to the bottom of the sheet. It was signed by Julia, and dated June 20, 2002, the day before Brooke was murdered. My heart fell. As Anderson watched for my reaction, I kept a game face and read in silence.

  I wish this marriage had never happened. I am bound to it by my worst qualities-fear, dependency and-pathetic as it is to admit-attachment to material things. To complicate matters further, there are the twins. Darwin is still enraged about them.

  Since the day I first saw you, you have sustained me. I think constantly of our time together. What I need now is the courage to leave everything else behind, no matter how much suffering that causes in the short term. Ending everything can't be worse than what we have already lived through.

  I cry every day, don't sleep, hardly eat, and often lack the will to go on…

  Except when I think of seeing you. Which is enough to give me hope, for now.

  My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end.

  – Julia June 20, 2002

  My heart was racing. A wave of nausea overshadowed the pain in my back. The most optimistic reading of the letter was that Julia had another lover. The more sober reading was that she had grown desperate enough to strike out at the twins. The last line of the letter, "Here at life's end," struck a particularly ominous note. I handed the sheet of paper to Anderson.