by Keith Ablow
"We'll get a conviction," O'Donnell said. "Billy Bishop will do life. Mark my words."
"Any decent defense lawyer is going to depose me and figure out I have doubts about Billy's guilt," I said. "The jury will hear those doubts. Let me address them now and get them out of the way."
"Mark Herman from the Public Defender's office has been court-appointed to defend Billy," O'Donnell said. "I'm sure he'll be in touch with you. He's a good man. The Bishops aren't retaining private counsel."
I didn't know Mark Herman, but O'Donnell's tone of voice made me wonder whether it was possible Herman was in the bag, too. Maybe he wouldn't press for an acquittal. Maybe he'd try to convince Billy to plead to a lesser offense, like second-degree murder. I exchanged a look with Anderson that conveyed my cynicism. It was obvious to me that we weren't ever going to get anywhere with O'Donnell. I decided to burn the bridge. "I actually have a great deal of sympathy for people like you," I said.
"Is that so, Doctor?" O'Donnell said.
"It's harder to see a sociopath when he's wearing a uniform," I said. "But I know you must have gone through something terrible that ruined you. Nothing comes out of nowhere."
"I guess we're done with our meeting," O'Donnell said.
"The only question left is what that something was," I said.
He stood up.
"What was it? What was so hurtful in your life that the badge hasn't been enough to help you turn your hatred around?"
O'Donnell walked out of the office. "See yourselves out," he called back to us.
The rest of the day felt like running into wall after wall in an endless maze. Anderson 's meeting with Mayor Keene went down pretty much the way he had thought it would. Keene handed him a copy of the photograph of him and Julia embracing by water's edge, then handed him a three-month suspension, without pay, for inappropriate conduct.
Anderson and I tried driving to the Bishop estate to see if we might stumble on Garret again, but were intercepted by State Police vehicles and turned back.
I called Julia Bishop at MGH to ask her to intervene and arrange a meeting with Garret, but she hung up on me before I could say three words.
Finally, I contacted Carl Rossetti to see if he could get a court order allowing Garret's interview with Julia's consent. He went to the trouble of finding Julia at MGH and getting her written permission, but then learned that Darwin Bishop's team of lawyers had already gotten a preemptive order from the court prohibiting any access to Billy or Garret unless both parents allowed it.
I had to admit things were looking worse for Billy. It felt as if a particular version of the facts was congealing around him, casting him permanently and inescapably as the killer in a drama that would not yield, even to the truth.
19
North Anderson and I decided to weigh our options over coffee at Brotherhood of Thieves, a favorite haunt of his. We settled on going to the media with the information we had, hoping to bring enough facts to light that Billy would go to court still enjoying a shadow of a doubt as to his guilt. If we were quickly and wildly successful getting our message out, the D.A.'s office might even start worrying about their prospects for a conviction and wait a while before asking a grand jury to indict. That would buy us more time. In any case, I was almost certain Carl Rossetti would agree to represent Billy-pro bono, if necessary. The exposure would pay him back a hundred times over.
The strategy was anything but surefire. Anderson had left his badge with the mayor. That meant I was officially off the case, too. O'Donnell would probably try painting us as exiled, disgruntled former members of his team. And that might be enough to keep our version of the evidence largely out of print and off the airwaves. These days, maverick reporters are as few and far between as maverick investment bankers.
We were waiting for the check when my cell phone rang. The number on the display was for MGH. I thought it might be Julia, apologizing for hanging up. I felt a little uncomfortable answering the call with North at the table, but I didn't want to miss any important news.
Anderson intuited the reason I was hesitating. No doubt Julia was still on his mind a good deal of the time. "If it's her, go ahead," he said. "I'll take a walk, if you want."
"Stay." I picked up. "Frank," I said.
"Frank, it's John." John Karlstein. His voice sounded more solemn than I'd ever heard it.
The background noise in the restaurant seemed to disappear. I could feel, even hear, my galloping heart. Tess was dead, I told myself. I stared at North Anderson, not looking at him as much as looking for him. For more ballast. I felt I had sailed too far into the storm. After bearing witness to Trevor Lucas's butchery, I had barely pieced my psyche back together. Failing to prevent the murder of Julia's baby felt like it might snap the mast of my life once and for all, leaving me adrift forever. That had always been the risk in taking this case. I had spoken the fear to Justine Franza, the Brazilian journalist I'd met at Cafe Positano, who had seen so much beauty in my Bradford Johnson painting of men from one ship trying to save another at risk. What if both ships end up sinking?
Anderson gave me a reassuring nod of his head.
"You there, Frank?" Karlstein asked.
When people use your name while talking to you-especially when they use it two times in as many sentences- it is because they feel the need to reach out to you, to take care of you. "Bad news," I said.
"Afraid so," he said. "This really came out of left field."
I closed my eyes. "Tell me."
"Julia's been hurt," he said.
My eyes opened to a squint. "Julia? What happened to her?"
Anderson looked at me, a lover's worry in his eyes. "Jesus Christ," he said. "Is she all right?"
I looked down, listening to Karlstein. Guilt clawed at my insides. I had left Julia alone, in harm's way.
"Keep in mind, I'm getting this secondhand," he was saying. "I wasn't on the Telemetry floor when the whole thing went down. Long and short of it, her husband came back. I guess he wanted her to sign legal papers of some kind. She did the right thing-reminded him there was a restraining order against him and asked him to leave. He wouldn't budge, so she asked one of the nurses to call the police."
"And…" I said.
"And then he just lost it," Karlstein said. "It took a bunch of staff to drag him off her."
I looked at North. " Darwin beat her up."
"That fucking bastard," Anderson said.
I had a sinking feeling that Karlstein was letting me down easy. "She made it, though? I mean, she's alive?"
"Yes. Yes," he said. "Of course."
"How bad off is she?" I asked.
"She's stable," Karlstein said, "but she took some serious punishment. There's a good deal of facial swelling from a fractured zygomatic arch. She's also got four broken ribs and a liver laceration. I put her in the ICU, just to be cautious. Grabbed a CAT scan of her head, which came back normal. I'll order a repeat before she leaves here, make sure she hasn't started to bleed intracranially. Ophthalmology came by to check out her eye; the right one is swollen shut. Doesn't look like there's any retinal damage." He paused. "She'll heal up, physically. Emotionally, it's got to be a longer mile."
"Is she with it?" I asked.
"I put her on a fair amount of Darvocet, so she's drifting in and out. But when she's awake, she's holding her own. She's completely oriented. She knows who I am, what day it is, where she is, who the president is-all those questions you guys throw at people."
"How about Tess?" I asked. " Darwin didn't hurt her, did he?"
"He didn't go near her," Karlstein said. "I mean, this wasn't one of those things where the father can't stand being away from his kid and goes berserk. The one-to-one sitter said Bishop never even went to Tess's bedside."
"Was he arrested?" I asked.
"Security held him until the police got here. He left in cuffs," Karlstein said. "I'm no lawyer, but I'd say he's gone for a while, even with his connections. There's no shortage of witnesses
to what he did. And the way they say he went after her… He was trying to kill her."
"Tell her I'll be there as soon as I can," I said. "Me, and my friend North Anderson."
"I'll tell her right now," Karlstein said.
"Thank you, John," I said. "Thanks again."
"No problem," he said. "See you later."
I hung up.
"Will she be all right?" Anderson asked. "What the hell happened?"
I told him everything Karlstein had told me. "It sounds like Bishop cracked," I said. "I guess he really had the subsoil to lose it. He's looking at charges of violating a restraining order and attempted murder. He could go away twenty years." Saying that made me see more clearly that Darwin Bishop really had been battling to keep parts of himself buried. But marrying a model, accumulating a billion dollars, and buying his way into Manhattan and Nantucket society hadn't freed him of his underlying rage- not any more than alcohol had.
"This makes it a lot harder for O'Donnell to close the investigation," Anderson said. "And even if he does, your friend Rossetti should be able to raise doubt in a jury's mind about whether the D.A. put the wrong person on trial."
Anderson was right. "It's certainly not the way I wanted to score points, but I'll take 'em."
"I wonder what those papers he wanted her to sign were all about." Anderson said.
"I guess we'll find out from the Boston cops who arrested him," I said. "Coming with me?"
"If you'd rather go alone, all you have to do is say so."
"I know that," I said. "That's the biggest reason we should go together."
Even with John Karlstein's description of Julia's injuries, even with his tipping his hand by telling me she needed to be observed in the ICU, I wasn't prepared for what I saw when I visited her there. Maybe it was the fresh memory of her extraordinary beauty, or maybe I had simply summoned a level of denial to make it through my phone conversation with Karlstein, but the swelling and discoloration of Julia's right eye, cheekbones, and lips shocked me. So, too, did the nasogastric tube that ran into one of her nostrils, down her throat, and into her stomach, draining blood-tinged fluid, and preventing her from speaking clearly. Yet, seeing all that, I wanted nothing more than to hold her and stroke her hair and promise her that everything would turn out all right. I tried to keep my smile bright and my voice steady, because I could tell that she was watching North and me for our reactions.
Anderson was good enough to take the first shot at humor. "I'd like to see the other guy," he said. It was a twist on a tired cliché, but he delivered it with warmth and reassurance, and it seemed to give Julia something she needed. She smiled.
"I talked to Dr. Karlstein," I said. "You'll heal up. It's a matter of time. All you have to do is rest."
Julia tried to say something, but choked on the nasogastric tube and fell into a coughing fit.
I bent over the bed and helped her sit up, relishing the chance to put my arm around her shoulders.
"Let me get a pen and paper," Anderson said. "You can write down whatever you need to tell us." He walked off toward the nurses' station.
I brushed my lips against Julia's ear and felt her move her hand to the side of my thigh. "I'm sorry I wasn't here," I said. "I'll be here for you from now on." A single tear escaped her eye. I dried it with my shirtsleeve.
Anderson walked back into the room. He handed Julia a pen and pad of paper. She wrote just three words: Is Tess okay?
My throat tightened. Julia's concern for her baby, while she nursed her own battered body, began to paint as absurd the notion that she could be responsible for Brooke's death or Tess's cardiac arrest. "Dr. Karlstein said she's absolutely fine. I'll check in on her."
She nodded weakly. Then she held up a finger, signaling us she had more to write. Good to see the two of you together, she wrote.
Anderson and I looked at those words and both nodded. It was good that our friendship had survived wanting the same woman. It meant it could survive most things.
I took particular comfort in what Julia had written because it seemed to say she was openly choosing me, despite her affection for North, that she was willing to acknowledge our being a couple, even in his eyes. Maybe she really could commit to one man. Maybe Brooke and Tess's father really was out of her life for good. And maybe someday she'd be able to admit that the letter Claire Buckley had found was written to him, not to her therapist. It didn't have to be that day. Or the next. "You rest up," I said, helping her lay back on the pillows.
Her brow became furrowed. "Billy," she mouthed.
"North and I will take care of Billy," I said.
She looked at North for confirmation.
"We're not going to let him down," he said.
We left Julia's room about 6:30 p.m. and were walking out of the ICU when Garret Bishop appeared in the hallway leading to it. We stopped. He walked right up to us. "What are you doing here?" he fumed.
"Checking on your mother," I said. "I take it you know what happened to her."
He glared at North Anderson. "Do they still have the bastard under arrest or have they let him go on a couple hundred thousand bail?"
"He's in jail, right here in the city," Anderson said.
Garret's lip twitched. He was grinding his teeth.
"If you were willing to tell us everything you know about the night Brooke died," Anderson said, "the bastard might stay locked up, forever. If you're not willing to stand up to him, I can't guarantee anything."
Garret looked away, then back at us. He took a deep breath. "Can I get any kind of protection?"
My heart leapt at the thought that Garret might finally be willing to take on his father.
"Police protection?" Anderson asked. "That could be arranged, under the circumstances. I'm sure of it."
"Who would I be giving my statement to?" Garret said, visibly trying to settle himself down.
"I'd set up an interview for you with three people: a Boston police officer, a State Police officer, and the District Attorney. Dr. Clevenger and I would be there, too." He glanced at me, then looked back at Garret. "We might even be able to get you in front of a couple reporters. That way you'd get to speak your mind to the whole state. The whole country, really."
Garret hung his head for several seconds, apparently mulling over the offer. Then he looked at us again. "Set it up," he said. "I want that animal gone for life. He isn't going to lay a hand on my mother ever again."
"Consider it done," Anderson said. "We'll meet you in the lobby in one hour and drive you over to the Boston Police Station. I'll start getting the audience together right now."
"See you in the lobby," Garret said. He walked past us, headed for the ICU.
"That could do it," Anderson said. "An eyewitness connecting Darwin to Brooke's murder makes the case against him. Let's hope he doesn't flake."
"What about that court order against interviewing Garret without both his parents' consent?" I asked.
"Call your buddy Rossetti and get him to shoot back to Suffolk Superior Court," he said. "With Darwin jailed for attacking Julia, he ought to be able to get a quick hearing with a judge and have that order reversed. I'll set the rest of the gears in motion."
"Will do," I said.
"The lobby, in say forty-five minutes, then?"
"Forty-five," I said.
It took until 10:00 p.m. to get the relevant players into an interview room at Boston Police headquarters on Causeway Street: Detective Terry McCarthy from the Boston force; State Police Captain O'Donnell; District Attorney Tom Harrigan; and Carl Rossetti, now officially chosen by Julia to represent her, Garret, and Billy.
Two hours earlier, Rossetti had worked his magic with Judge Barton at Suffolk Superior, getting us an emergency court order to take Garret's statement.
Darwin Bishop's assault on Julia had dissolved most of the animosity between the players in the room. Bishop was beyond rescue, and his henchmen knew it. The papers he had demanded that Julia sign at MGH turned out to be forms
closing out two bank accounts in the twins' names, each of which held $250,000. He also happened to have been carrying two one-way tickets to Athens, Greece, a nice stopover on your way to disappearing forever. The tickets had been issued in his name and Claire Buckley's.
We chose Terry McCarthy to conduct the interview. McCarthy, a soft-spoken man of forty-two years who looks about fifty-five, is a former Boston College hockey player. He leans into every step with his right shoulder, half-lifting, half-sliding his feet, as if still on the ice. And, despite his smooth voice, he can still get this look in his eye that makes you think he's about to crush you against the boards or drop gloves and pummel you. That dichotomy may be the reason he can coax the truth from just about anyone.
McCarthy sat catty-corner to Garret at the conference table, the rest of us taking seats a respectful distance away. He turned on a tape recorder.
"Why don't we start with your name?" McCarthy said to Garret.
"That's easy," he said. "Garret Bishop."
"Your date of birth?"
"October 13, 1984."
"And today's date?" McCarthy asked.
"June 29, 2002."
"And, Garret, are you giving this statement voluntarily? Of your own free will?"
"Yes," Garret said.
"No one here has coerced you in any way-offered you anything?"
"No, sir," Garret said, with a hint of a smile. "I wish they would."
Captain O'Donnell chuckled.
Garret laughed a nervous laugh.
McCarthy got that look in his eye.
"Just answer his questions," Rossetti told Garret. "No jokes."
"Let me ask you again," McCarthy said, leaning into the table, his voice especially kind. "Has anyone offered you anything for what you are about to say?"
"No," Garret repeated.
"Very well. Let's get started, then. Tell us what you saw on the night of June 21, 2002."
Garret stared at McCarthy, seemed about to answer, then slumped a little in his seat and looked down at the table. Several seconds passed.