Compulsion

9

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

As soon as Anderson and I had reached Wauwinet Road, we picked up a tail-one of Bishop's Range Rovers. It followed us down the road and pulled up behind Anderson 's cruiser when he parked in the semicircle in front of the Bishop estate. "Take your time in there," Anderson said. He grinned. "Doesn't look like I'll be lonely."

"I won't be long," I said. I walked to the door alone and rang the bell. I looked out toward the tennis courts and saw two men crossing the grounds on ATVs, rifles strapped to their backs. Security had obviously been beefed up around the complex.

Half a minute later Claire Buckley greeted me, holding Tess Bishop in her arms. The infant was wrapped in a pale yellow blanket, asleep. "She was fussy," Claire said dreamily. "She wouldn't let me put her down." She moved aside. "Come in."

I stepped into the foyer. Seeing Tess in Buckley's arms made me anxious, but I tried not to show it. I focused on Tess's delicate fingers where they curled around the edge of her blanket. Her tiny fingernails were cotton-candy pink. Her skin had the luster of silk. "She's beautiful," I said.

Claire looked down at the baby, smiled, and nodded to herself.

Our life stories begin to take shape very early, and completely without our consent. At five months, Tess had lost her twin sister to murder and was being nurtured, in part, by her father's mistress. She was being weaned on violence, duplicity, and danger. I wondered whether she would ever overcome her first twenty weeks on the planet. "I feel badly for her," I said automatically.

"At least she never really knew Brooke," Claire said quietly. "It's better that way."

I supposed that was true, but I didn't think it was Buckley's place to say it. I wanted to remind her that Tess belonged to someone else. "Do you plan to have children of your own?" I asked.

She looked up at me, seemingly taken aback by the question. Maybe she actually felt Tess was hers, or maybe she just felt I was getting too personal. "I haven't thought that much about having kids," she said. "I'm still young. You know?"

I had noticed. So had Darwin Bishop. Claire's youth was hard to miss. Her straight brown hair, which she had worn in a braid on my last visit, was loose this time and hung halfway to the small of her back. Her body, more visible now in shorts and a simple light blue, sleeveless blouse, had the muscle tone of a gymnast. I let my gaze linger on her face and realized that she was more than pretty; she was a natural beauty, with deep brown eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones that mixed elegance and sensuality. She had the looks of a freshly minted high school English teacher who makes half the class-the male half-daydream about being kept after school. "You're right," I said. "You have plenty of time. And you're certainly needed here."

"I'm glad I can help. The Bishops have been wonderful to me," she said. Tess stirred in her blanket, stretching her arms so that Claire had to readjust her own. "She'll need a bottle soon. I'd better bring you to Win."

We started toward the study. "Is Julia at home?" I asked.

"I gave her the day off," Claire joked.

"Nice of you," I said flatly.

She stiffened. "Actually, she went to the Vineyard to visit with her mother. The two of them will come back together by late afternoon." She paused. "Brooke's funeral is at five."

"I plan to stop by," I said.

"I'm sure the family would appreciate that," she said. "I'll be here with Tess. I think we can spare her the mood at the church."

"Probably a good idea," I said, even though I didn't think it was the best one. I would rather have seen Tess stay close to Julia or Julia's mother.

Darwin Bishop was working on a laptop computer when Claire and I got to the door of his study. Looking at him, I felt a surge of loathing. The intensity of the emotion took me by surprise.

He glanced at me over half-glasses. "Please, come in," he said.

"I'll see you on your way out," Claire said to me.

I watched her leave with the baby, then walked into the study. I lingered a few moments on the portraits of Bishops' polo ponies, buying time to calm myself.

"Doctor," Bishop said, motioning for me to take the seat in front of his desk. I did. He kept watching the computer screen.

"Do you need another minute?" I asked.

"I need another year," he said, pulling his eyes away from the screen. "Acribat Software is down forty-five percent since last March. I have a rather substantial position."

It bothered me that Bishop was tracking his portfolio on the day of his infant daughter's funeral, but it didn't surprise me. "Sorry to hear that," I said, trying to filter the sarcasm out of my voice.

"Not as sorry as I am." He glanced back at the screen. "Do you follow the markets?"

"Not much," I said.

"You're better off." He removed his glasses and focused on me for the first time. "It's a rough game. Like a lot of things in life, you don't want to get into it unless you can stand to lose. You can get hurt badly."

I didn't think Bishop was talking about the market. He was warning me to stay away from the murder investigation-or from Julia. "Thanks for the advice," I said. "I'll keep it in mind."

"For whatever it's worth." He put on the fake Bishop smile. "What brings you?"

I decided to start with what I needed to tell Bishop about Billy. "Your son called me last night," I said.

He didn't show any surprise. "Were you able to trace the call?" he asked.

Bishop hadn't asked whether Billy was all right, or living on the streets, or about to do himself in. His first question had been a strategic one about whether Billy could be tracked down. "He wasn't on the line long enough," I said. "I wasn't set up for a trace, anyhow."

"What did he have to say?"

"He wanted me to loan him money, which I refused to do."

"I think that was wise," Bishop said. "Maybe he'll get hungry or scared and head back to the hospital." He shook his head. "I wish he had stayed put. We would have done our best for him."

"He wasn't convinced of that," I said.

"He never has been," Bishop said. "It isn't easy to trust anyone after you lose your parents the way he did."

"No question," I agreed.

"It's also hard to trust anyone," the voice at the back of my mind said, "when your adoptive father is whipping you with a strap."

"You should know that he's very angry," I told Bishop. "I had the feeling he might lash out at you or your family."

"We've struggled with Billy's rage a long time," Bishop said. "Since Brooke, we're taking every precaution. It's a little like Fort Knox around here. We'll be just fine."

"Do you have any idea where his anger stems from?" I asked.

"I would say that emotion is displaced from tragic losses he's suffered in his life," he said. "But you would know better than I."

"Did you know the police were set to arrest him early this morning?" I asked.

"I did," Bishop said. "Their plan actually helped me focus my thoughts." He folded his thick arms.

"How so?"

"Given that they've decided to arrest and try Billy, his best chance for acquittal is a straightforward plea of innocence. His mental state and his trauma history should be irrelevant because no case for insanity or diminished capacity need be made. As I've said before, there were several of us at home the night Brooke was killed. I don't see any way the police and the District Attorney can prove that Billy was the one responsible."

That was a simple strategy: Billy would stand trial for murder and either be acquitted or do life. Either way, the chances of suspicion settling on any other family member would be close to zero. Judging from what Laura Mossberg at Payne Whitney had told me, that had always been Bishop's plan. He had never really intended to keep Billy out of the courtroom. I decided to play my hand more aggressively. "If you believe the D.A. won't be able to prove Billy is guilty," I said, "why are you so certain he is?"

Bishop looked at me like he didn't understand.

"Why do you think he's the one who did it?" I asked, more directly. "Did you see him?"

Without a word, Bishop stood up, went to the door, and closed it. Then he walked back to his desk chair and sat down, staring at me. "Do you have another theory?" he deadpanned.

"You've said yourself, five people were at home that night. Billy, your wife, Claire, Garret-and you."

He nodded to himself, gazed out his window at the rolling lawn behind the house, then looked back at me. "I've learned to be straightforward whenever possible," he said. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking. You went to see my son at Payne Whitney, and he spun such a compelling fantasy that you've lost track of reality."

"I'm hopelessly deluded," I said.

"I'm not saying that," Bishop said. "But it took me years to understand how manipulative and skilled in deception Billy is."

"I believe he's both those things," I said.

"Yet whatever lies he told you," Bishop went on, "led you to seek out my wife, to learn more about this family."

That wasn't completely accurate. Julia had called me, not the other way around. But I wasn't about to share that fact with Bishop. "I certainly wanted more background," I said. "Your wife and I talked briefly over lunch in Boston. But you already know all that." I paused. "Just out of curiosity, if you're going to have me followed, wouldn't a Chevy sedan or a 4Runner be a little less conspicuous than a Range Rover with smoked windows?"

"I wasn't trying to be coy," he said.

"Neither was I," I said. "Do you always have people followed?"

Bishop kept his game face. "Not infrequently. More information is better than less." He ran his fingers through his silver hair. "Let's get to it, Dr. Clevenger: What tall tale did Billy fabricate that would lead you to believe someone else might have harmed Brooke?"

That felt like an open door to Bishop's truth. I couldn't resist walking through it. "It's hard to fabricate welts all over your back," I said.

Bishop smiled, nodded. "Ah, so that's part of the equation here," he said. "He claimed I beat him. That's been an ongoing refrain."

"Whereas you would claim his wounds are self-inflicted," I said.

"I didn't any more use a belt on Billy than bite him or cut him or pull the hair out of his head. All that was his doing."

"Maybe," I said. "But his version does fit pretty well with your history."

Bishop shouldn't have had to ask what I meant by that comment. The message I'd given his driver about Bishop preferring to fight kids and women wasn't subtle. But he must have wanted to hear what I had to say firsthand. "What history do you mean, exactly?" he asked.

I didn't mind hitting the highlights. "I mean the trouble with your first wife, Lauren: you know, the little problem with violating a restraining order. That, and the conviction for assault and battery."

He didn't flinch. "I was a different person then," he said.

"Oh?" I said.

"For one thing," he said, "I was a drunk."

I hadn't expected him to admit that-certainly not so plainly. "You were a drunk," I said. "An alcoholic."

"A drunk," he said. " 'Alcoholic' makes it sound like I had fallen victim to some fancy illness over which I had no control. Take a trip to the Betty Ford Center, and all's well. The truth is I was making the decision to drink every day. Because I wasn't willing to look at myself in the mirror. No detox program, no matter how much it cost per day, would have done me any good. I needed to face facts."

Bishop's apparent candor didn't square with the lie he had told Julia about his prior criminal record or with his having savaged Billy with a strap. "What is it that you weren't willing to face?" I asked skeptically.

"Who I was," Bishop said. "And some things I had done."

I nodded once, letting him know I was prepared to keep listening.

"I didn't grow up with much in the way of material possessions," he said.

"You were poor," I pushed.

He didn't back away from the word. "Yes. Not enough to eat, if you really want to know. Secondhand clothes to wear to school. Nights without heat. And those things bothered me for the longest time. It's pathetic to admit it, but I was embarrassed about where and what I had come from. It made me angry. And hateful. I kept it all inside as a kid and a teenager. Then, when I went to Vietnam, I suddenly had carte blanche to express all that negative emotion." He pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and stared through the window again. "I did things over there that I'm not proud of." He looked back at me. "For a long time, I tried to obliterate the memories with booze. I was out of control. And my wife Lauren was in that line of fire. God bless her, she's a friend of mine today. I don't know why. I don't deserve it."

I couldn't tell whether Bishop was leveling with me or playing me. What he was saying sounded good, but I couldn't see any reason why Julia would lie about witnessing Billy's beatings. "Thank you," I said. "That gives me more insight. There aren't many people who can talk about themselves that way."

"Neither could I, for a long time," Bishop said. "It's still a struggle opening up."

That last sentence missed its mark, coming out hollow and contrived. I think Bishop knew it. My gut told me he was painting himself in the kind of light he thought a psychiatrist would favor. "Let me tell you a little about me," I said, "as long as we're opening up here."

He cocked his head slightly to listen.

Even that movement looked scripted to me. "I have one real skill," I said. "It's the only thing people pay me for."

"And what's that?" he asked.

"I'm a burrower."

"A burrower."

"Yes," I said. "I just keep going deeper and deeper, kind of like a screwworm, until I get to the truth."

Bishop must have heard me loud and clear: I didn't intend to stop working the investigation. "In that regard," he said, "despite how much I might value your relentlessness in other circumstances, I should tell you that my plan for Billy to plead innocent-rather than entering an insanity plea or putting forward a diminished capacity defense- makes your services unnecessary."

'To whom?" I asked.

"This family," he said.

That certainly could have been debated, given that Billy-and Tess-were members of the family, but I had a simpler point to make. "The family isn't my client in this case," I said. "The Nantucket Police Department is."

"And I'm sorry if they gave you the impression this would be a long and involved piece of work," Bishop said. "I'll make good on that expectation. I'm happy to cover a month of your time. Two months. Whatever you think is fair."

Bishop obviously felt the police department and he were one and the same. It was also obvious he wanted me off the case badly enough to pay for it. I wondered how badly. "Two months, full time, bills at fifty thousand dollars," I said.

"That's a rich fee," Bishop said.

"Too rich for you?" I said, forcing a smile.

"I didn't say that. If your expectation was for two months' employment, you should be compensated accordingly. I'll arrange everything." He held up his hand. "There is one condition: You're to have no further contact with Julia."

Maybe I had missed the point. Maybe I was being bribed to stay away from Bishop's wife, more than from Billy's case. Regardless, it was time to end the charade. I stood up. "No deal," I said.

Bishop's face hardened. "I met your price."

"The thing is, once I start burrowing," I said, "I can't stop. Not for any price. It's a little like your drinking."

"Or yours," the voice at the back of my mind said.

"I wish you would rethink your decision," Bishop said.

I nodded. "Thank you for your time," I said. "I can show myself out." I started toward the door.

"Last chance," he called to me. Something in his tone had changed dramatically, becoming mechanical, with no effort to connect or persuade in it.

I stopped in front of the portraits of Bishop's horses again. "How can someone as open and sensitive as you are not fall for these animals?" I said. "It seems inhuman."

"If you were a stock," Bishop said, "I'd be selling."

I walked out of the office.

Claire Buckley caught up with me before I reached the front door. "I hope you got your questions answered," she said.

"Some of them," I said.

"Is there anything I can help with?" she asked.

I slowed my pace. I decided to increase the anxiety level in the house another notch by letting Claire know I had my doubts about Billy being the assailant. "Do you think Billy is the one who killed Brooke?" I asked. I watched her face, expecting a replay of the same confusion with which others, like Laura Mossberg and Julia Bishop, had greeted that question-as if they had never considered any other possibility. But Claire bit her lower lip, looked down at the ground, and said nothing. "Do you think Billy's the one?" I repeated, finally.

She took a deep breath. "Is this confidential?"

"Just between you and me," I said. "It won't go any further."

"Not even to Win."

"You have my word."

"You need to understand," she said, "there was a reason I got so involved with Brooke and Tess."

"Okay," I said.

"I never expected to be a full-time nanny, you know? It just sort of happened. I was mostly helping with decorating, arranging parties, setting up some of Win's business meetings at the house."

"What changed?" I said.

"Julia did, actually."

"What do you mean?"

"As long as I've known her, she's always been very upbeat and vibrant. She's a wonderful woman. I have a lot of respect for her."

That had to make it more gratifying to sleep with her husband. "You have respect for her, but…" I prompted Claire.

"But after she gave birth to the twins, she went downhill. She took no interest in the babies. She didn't want to be around them."

"And you picked up the slack." I tried to keep my tone even, but cynicism crept in.

"Because Mr. Bishop asked me to," she said.

He was "Mr. Bishop" all of a sudden. My putting her on the defensive was shutting her down. I backtracked. "To be honest, they're lucky you were here-and willing to step in. A lot of people would have said, 'Hey, it's not in my job description.' "

"I could never do that," she said. "Win was beside himself."

"Of course," I said. "What was Julia like, exactly?" I asked. "Was she sad and tearful, or…?"

"More irritable. Win called it a 'black mood.' They'd hired a baby nurse for the twins-a woman named Kristen Collier-but Julia argued with her and fired her a week after the twins were born."

"Do you remember where she was from?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "I helped find her. She's from Duxbury."

Duxbury is a suburb of Boston, about twelve miles south of the city. I took a mental note of Kristen's name and hometown. "Did Julia ever mention hurting herself?" I asked. "Or anyone else?"

Claire shook her head. "I don't want to make more of this than it is. I mean, it's probably not that uncommon. Right? I think a lot of women feel the way Julia did and just never say anything. And her moods had been getting better over the last month."

"A lot of women never say anything" the voice at the back of my mind prodded me, "but what did Julia say?"

"I understand," I said. "But did Julia share anything specific about her feelings-anything, in particular, that concerned you?" I asked.

Claire looked away and said nothing.

"Claire?"

"Well, she told me once that…" She fell silent, again.

"Go on."

"She told me… She said she wished she never had the twins." She dropped her voice to just above a whisper. "She said she wished they were dead."

My heart fell. It is true that many women feel overwhelmed after childbirth and wish they could go back to their lives without the constant demands of a new infant. They may even fantasize about the baby not surviving. The most honest and brave of them might even confess their private thoughts to doctors or close friends. But given Brooke's death-her murder-the question had to be asked whether Julia had acted on those thoughts. My whole being told me that that wasn't the case, but I couldn't completely trust my instincts where Julia was concerned.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Claire went on, "but when they took Billy to the psychiatric hospital, he really did seem shocked."

"Tell me what you mean," I said.

"I've heard him lie plenty of times," she said. "He's very convincing. He could have your wallet in his pocket and tell you flat out that he hasn't seen it. That happened to me once with him. He even helped me look for it after he'd stolen it. And I remember him swearing he was nowhere near any of the neighbors' pets, even when he had scratch marks all over his arms from one of the cats." She toyed with her shiny Cartier love bracelet. "But the night he left for Payne Whitney, he seemed just plain scared. Like he didn't know what had hit him."

"Are you saying you don't think he did it?" I asked.

She bit her lower lip again. "I'm not sure what I think. I just wanted to get all this off my chest."

"I appreciate that, Claire," I said. "I really do."

"If I think of anything else, should I be in touch with you?" she asked.

"I'm staying at the Breakers overnight," I said. "Feel free to call me there. And you can always reach me on my cell phone." I gave her the number. She walked me to the door. "By the way, where's Garret today?" I asked.

"In his room," Claire said. "He's having a lot of trouble coping. He's lost his sister and his brother. It's a chore to get him to come out of there for meals."

"But he makes it to his tennis matches," I said.

"Reluctantly," she said, "to say the least." She glanced at her watch. "Actually, he has to defend his singles championship at twelve-thirty."

"On the day of his sister's funeral?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't get involved in any of that," she said. "That's between Garret and his father."

I looked up the staircase, then glanced back toward Darwin Bishop's office. "You think Garret would mind if I talked with him a few minutes?" I asked.

"He won't speak with anyone," she said. "I don't think you'd get anywhere right now."

"I don't mind trying," I said.

She hesitated. "I would have to run that by Win."

I knew how that would turn out. "Don't bother," I said. "I'll catch up with him another time."

"Learn anything?" Anderson asked, as we drove away from the Bishop estate.

"You're right about one thing. Bishop wants this investigation to end," I said.

"What did he say?"

"He offered me fifty grand to cut bait."

"I hope you took it," Anderson said.

I looked over at him. He was grinning. "He wasn't happy when I turned him down," I said. "He's not pretending we're on the same team anymore."

"So he still sits at the top of your list? You think he's the one."

"I think if we keep the pressure on him," I said, "he'll let us know, one way or the other."

"I'll buy that," Anderson said.

I didn't want to hold anything back. "Claire stopped me on my way out," I said. "She wanted to tell me a few things about Julia."

"Like?"

"Julia did get quite depressed after the twins were born." I kept any alarm out of my voice. "I guess she even made a stray comment about wishing they hadn’t been born."

Anderson raised an eyebrow. "All worth hearing," he said. "I'm glad you made the trip."

"Me, too," I said.

"I reviewed that data you e-mailed about the risk of a second infanticide when one twin has been killed," Anderson said. "Seventy percent. I'm going to press the Department of Social Services to intervene and get Tess out of there."

I didn't like the idea of forcing Julia's hand, but the risk to Tess was too high to worry about hurt feelings. "It's the right thing to do," I said.

As we passed Bishop's "watch house" another Range Rover pulled behind us.

Anderson glanced into the rearview mirror, then over at me. "You should get out of that hotel and head to my place for the night."

I instinctively felt for the Browning Baby in my front pocket. "Not a bad idea," I said. "Maybe I'll head over after the funeral."

"Why just maybe?" he asked.

"Because my room is nonrefundable," I joked.

Anderson shook his head. "If you're planning anything with Julia, you're not thinking straight."

"I'll probably come by," I said, feeling the urge to close down the discussion.

"You've been warned," Anderson said.