Compulsion

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."

"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 investigation, 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.

"No, you're not," she said. "Far from it. The people you've worked with, the violent ones… can find you so easily."

"That's the best way to let them know I'm not afraid of them."

"Are you, sometimes, though?"

"No," I said. "Never. But that may just mean there's something wrong with me."

She brushed past me, into the living room.

I walked toward the kitchen. "Can I get you anything? A drink? Dinner?"

"I grabbed something at the hospital cafeteria," she said, wandering around the loft. "Please go ahead, though."

I watched her as she checked out the loft, taking in the art, touching some of the furniture. She stopped in front of the plate-glass windows. "This is one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen," she said. "How did you find this place?"

"A friend of mine used to live in this building," I said. "I liked watching the tankers."

"From her place," Julia said. She smiled.

I nodded.

She took off her jacket and walked over to my bed. "I need to sleep for half an hour or so. I'm exhausted. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," I said.

She laid down on the gray linen comforter, curled up like a cat. "Hold me?" she asked.

I walked over and climbed onto the bed, spooning myself against her, my face lost now in her hair, my hand laced into hers, held close to her breast. I could feel her engagement ring against my skin, but that seemed an artifact from a life she had lived before ours intersected.

"A psychiatrist-a woman-came by the intensive care unit to talk with me," she said.

"And…"

"I told her I won't want to go on if Tess doesn't make it," she said. "I couldn't bear to survive, thinking I let this happen to her."

"Dr. Karlstein is fighting like hell for Tess," I said.

"I believe that," she said. "And I believe she'll pull through. Otherwise, I could never have left her, not even for an hour."

We lay together as Julia slept. Before dozing off myself, I let my mind wander three, four months into the future, past the investigation, which I now believed should end with Darwin Bishop's arrest. And I could actually see Julia and myself making a life together, somehow offering Billy and Garret safe harbor from the storms they had weathered. I actually thought I might have the chance to redeem myself for losing my adolescent patient Billy Fisk to suicide.

We awakened at the same moment. Julia rolled over and faced me. "I want to know that we're together," she whispered. "I want you to make love to me."

I propped myself on an elbow and brushed her hair away from her face. "This is a complicated time to start," I said.

"We started the first time you touched my arm," she said. "The day you met me outside the house, with Garret."

"I just…"

"You can't control what you feel for me," she said, glancing at my crotch, full with my excitement. She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, guided my hand into her panties and between her legs. She was completely shaved, and her impossibly soft skin was warm and wet. "Not any more than I can control what I feel for you."

Julia's sexual desire in the face of losing Brooke and nearly losing Tess troubled me, but I silently chastised myself for judging her. What textbook reaction, after all, would have satisfied me? Bitter rage? Isolation? Did I want to see her slip deeper and deeper into depression?

My head was swimming. Why resist Julia's needs, I asked myself, when the gods of chance and love might be giving me my one shot at happiness? Why deny my own needs? I looked into Julia's eyes and ran the tip of my finger along the cleft between her delicate folds. She sighed. And as she opened herself to my touch, it seemed a part of my soul, lost a long time, was being returned to me.

Friday, June 28, 2002

I started driving Julia back to Mass General at 1:30 a.m. We had fallen asleep again, after making love. I checked my rearview mirror a few times to make sure we weren't being followed.

"Worried about Win?" Julia asked.

"Shouldn't I be?"

"I've worried about him for so long, I sometimes forget to."

"Why do you think you married him in the first place?" I asked. "You've said you thought you were in love, but why did you fall for him? What attracted you?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm not sure it was about Win," she said. "He was charming, handsome. All that. But it was more about me. I think I was actually using him."

That sounded pretty up-front. "How so?" I asked.

"I come from a large family," she said. "Four brothers and myself. Dad was an attorney, but not a real name in his profession, nothing like that. My mother was quiet. A homemaker. She didn't have any dreams to speak of and she never seemed terribly interested in mine. Darwin was larger than life-certainly larger than my life seemed at the time."

"Your relationship with your father?" I asked. "How was that?"

"I loved him, but he spent most of his time with my brothers-their athletics, their schooling. I started modeling at fourteen, probably to compete for his attention. It grew into a lot more than I expected, but he never really cared about it. And I never developed real self-confidence from it."

"Your marriage provided that?"

"In a way," she said. "Or it seemed to. Being Win's wife meant I didn't have to figure out what else I was. Mrs. Darwin Bishop was a good enough label for my parents and friends. For most people. And for a long while, it was good enough for me, too. I borrowed his success. I even fooled myself into thinking I was contributing to it. The power behind the throne. That kind of thing."

"But you had achieved a good deal of success yourself, in modeling," I said.

"I always understood that was skin-deep, and that it would end." She looked out the window at the Boston skyline as we crossed the Tobin Bridge. "I knew from the first time Darwin hit me that our marriage would end, too. But I was… paralyzed. I never took the time or had the strength to find my own way."

"Yet," I said.

"Yet." She smiled. "Enough about me, already, Dr. Clevenger. How have you happened to stay single?"

"I was with a woman for years who was ill-mentally," I said.

"Who was she?"

"A doctor," I said. "An obstetrician."

"Is that what brought you together?" Julia asked. "Medicine?"

"That was part of it. But, in a certain way, I was using her, too," I said. "She was fragile, so I was the one in control. My being with her gave me the chance to say I was in a relationship when I was really avoiding relationships. Hiding out."

"Why hide?" she said.

"Because I had to hide-emotionally and physically-in the house I grew up in. I guess it got to be a habit."

She looked at me as if she wanted more of an explanation.

"My father used a belt, just like Darwin," I said.

"I'm so sorry, Frank," she said. "I had no idea."

"It was a long time ago," I said.

Julia was silent several seconds, sitting and looking through the windshield. Then she turned to me. "You don't have to hide anything, anymore," she said.

I wanted to believe the heart of what Julia had said- that I could be known and loved at the same time. Because, deep down, I had always suspected the two were mutually exclusive. I glanced at her as she looked at me, with eyes full of acceptance and warmth. And I felt, truly, as though I had arrived at a new and better place.

I parked in the MGH garage and walked Julia the two blocks to the door of the hospital. We played it safe-no parting kiss, no long good-bye. She walked into the lobby, and I turned and started back for the truck. It was just before 2:00 a.m.

The MGH garage is a five-story cement structure, the back of which overlooks the Charles River. The building runs two city blocks, with the wall furthest from the hospital sitting on Cambridge Street and the wall closest to it bordering a darkened alleyway that leads to Storrow Drive. I had just started to walk across that alleyway when someone pushed me, hard, from behind. I lurched forward and, struggling to stay on my feet, felt a sudden and odd twisting sensation at the bottom of my rib cage, about halfway between my spine and my side. It burned red-hot for the first second or two, then flipped into a penetrating ache so severe it made me double over and fall to the ground. I tried reaching for the Browning Baby in my pocket, but my arm didn't seem to be taking instructions from my brain.

"What could she have done," a husky, peculiar-sounding voice said, "being what she is?"

I struggled to see the figure jogging away from me, but only caught a glimpse of black, army-style boots. I groped for the painful place on my back that was making me see double. I felt something warm and slick. Then everything went black.

"Frank!" Colin Bain called to me. "C'mon, man, stop ignoring me." I felt my sternum being assaulted by Bain's knuckles-a sternal rub, they call it, which is actually more of a brutal sternal raking, designed to wake the unresponsive and separate them from the dead.

"Christ! I'm fine," I muttered, twisting away from him. I opened my eyes and tried to sit up, but a searing pain reached through my back and yanked me down to the mattress by my ribs.

Bain was standing by the bed, wearing his round wire-rimmed glasses. He swept his longish red hair away from his face. "Welcome, friend," he said.

I was naked to the waist. Bandages circled my torso like a half-wrapped mummy. "What the hell happened to me?" I said.

"Someone jumped you in the alleyway near the garage," he said. "Stuck you good. A five-inch blade, so far as I can tell. At least, that's how deep it went." He smiled. "You slept through the best parts. I already explored the wound, cleaned it up, sewed you shut. You were so out of it I didn't even have to use lidocaine."

"The mind is a wonderful thing," I said. "Thanks for the help."

"No problem," he said.

"Did they catch the guy?" I asked.

"Not even close," he said. "They didn't find you for five or ten minutes, judging from the amount of blood you'd lost."

I checked out the space around me and spotted a unit of packed red blood cells hanging from an IV pole. A length of red IV tubing ran into my arm. I shook my head.

"Hospital security said they thought you were some homeless drunk napping on the pavement," Bain said. "They didn't notice the blood all over your jacket until they flipped you onto a gurney to sleep it off in the lobby." He winked. "I do have their names, if you want to catch up with them."

I started to chuckle, but choked on a bolt of pain that shot straight through my abdomen, then up into my throat.

"You're gonna be in a fair amount of discomfort for a couple days," Bain said.

"Discomfort's a nice word for it," I said, catching my breath.

"An MRI showed the blade sliced through the latissimus dorsi and internal oblique," he said. "I threw in about sixty stitches. The tip just missed your portal artery, by the way. If that had been severed, you'd have bled out for sure. You're lucky to be alive."

"Thanks for letting me know."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to be admitted overnight, for observation. Just to make sure nothing got nicked in there that we don't know about."

"No way," I said. "I don't have the time."

"You were almost out of time-for good," he said. "What's a day or two?"

Now it was a day or two. "I'm in the middle of a forensic case," I said. Saying those words helped my still-foggy brain make the obvious connection between the Bishops and my being stabbed. "This probably has something to do with that."

"So maybe it would be good to lay low for twenty-four, forty-eight hours, you know?"

"I can't," I said.

"Suit yourself," he said. "I'll write you a scrip for some Keflex. Hopefully, that'll prevent any infection. Percocet for the pain. Just let me know when you need more."

The addict in me perked up. Downing three, four Percocet would be like taking a chemical vacation from the whole Bishop mess. I actually caught myself wondering how many refills Bain would write for me. Luckily, I realized what a great excuse he was giving me to fall apart. "I'd better skip anything abusable," I said. "I've had problems with that stuff before."

He took the revelation in stride. "I didn't know. We'll make do with Motrin, then."

"Thanks."

"If you get any fever, chills or swelling, come right back here. Agreed?"

"You got it," I said.

"The external sutures come out in ten days. The internal ones dissolve," he said.

"I'll see you in ten days, then." I gritted my teeth and sat up. My side felt as if it was ripping away from the rest of my body.

"The cops want to talk to you, by the way," Bain said. "Should I let them know you're awake?"

"Sure."

"These guys are Boston cops," he said. "But I did take the liberty to let a friend of yours from Nantucket know your condition. North Anderson? He told me he heard what had happened to you from colleagues of his on the force up here. I hope I didn't step out of line filling him in."

"No," I said. "I'm glad you talked with him."

Bain looked at me with concern. "You're sure you won't stay the night? A couple very pretty nurses on Blake eight."

"Maybe I'll take a rain check after I'm healed up," I said.

I told the Boston patrolmen everything I could remember, which was nothing much. Even the black boots had temporarily slipped my memory, let alone the odd turn of phrase spoken by my assailant. They had no clues, either. There'd been a mugging in the same spot about eight months before, but that didn't amount to much of a pattern, and it didn't do anything to push Darwin Bishop-represented, of course, by one of his thugs-out of my mind as the most likely culprit.

I waited for the rest of the blood to drip into my arm, swallowed three Motrin, and pulled myself together enough to roll off the gurney and maneuver into a big white button-down shirt I borrowed from Bain. I steeled myself for the elevator ride up to the ICU, but every jostling stop made me break out in a cold sweat.

I found Julia seated next to Tess's bed, with a twenty-something male sitter on the opposite side of the mattress, reading what looked like a law school textbook. He and I exchanged the standard greetings.

"What happened?" Julia said. "You look awful."

I told her.

She went pale. "This is my fault," she said. "I should never have taken the chance coming to your place."

"It could have been a random attack," I said, even though I knew better.

"We have to be much more careful," she said, shaking her head. "This is what I was afraid of."

I was feeling more determined than scared, which I probably should have taken as a warning sign that I was losing perspective. "I'm going to the island later today," I said. "I have to finish some work with North Anderson."

"When will you be back?" Her eyes filled up.

"A day. Maybe two."

"Win flies in today," she said. "I'm going to tell him I don't want him to see Tess. If he tries to, I'll file a restraining order with the court."

"I have someone who could help you with that," I said. "Carl Rossetti, a lawyer from the North End." I took her in my arms and held her a moment, trying to keep my breathing steady, despite the searing pain that gripped me whenever I raised my hands above waist-level. "I'll call to check in," I managed. I let go.

She leaned closer. "You know that I love you," she said.

Those words took me by surprise, not because I didn't feel the same way, but because I wasn't used to anyone keeping pace with my emotions. "I love you, too," I said.

I was headed out of the hospital lobby when Caroline Hallissey, the MGH chief resident in psychiatry, caught up with me. Hallissey, a gay activist, was around thirty years old, under five feet tall, and about 250 pounds. Her face might have been pretty at one time, but her features were swollen now. She wore a silver hoop through her right nostril and a silver bolt through the skin over her left eyebrow. I had heard that she and her partner had just adopted a daughter of their own. "Got a minute?" she said.

"Sure," I said.

I must have looked as bad as I felt. "You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine. What's up?"

"I did the consult on that woman in the ICU. Julia Bishop? You're involved in that case, right?"

"Right," I said. "What do you think?"

"She's depressed, that's for sure," Hallissey said. "She has numerous neurovegetative signs. Sleep loss. Lack of appetite. Difficulty concentrating. Low self-esteem. The symptoms were even worse just after her twins were born, but she's very resistant to being treated for any of it."

"It's a tough time for her to think clearly about herself," I said.

"Agreed," she said. "I wouldn't force anything on her. She's not suicidal, in the classic sense-just alluding to not wanting to go on if her daughter should die." She paused. "The thing that troubled me more was that I felt a lot of hostility from her."

"Meaning?"

"She asked a lot about my credentials. What undergrad school did I graduate? Where did I go to medical school? Who supervises my work with patients? The whole nine yards."

I wondered if that had anything to do with Hallissey's appearance. "She's in the middle of a homicide investigation," I said. "She doesn't know exactly who to trust."

"That could be part of it," Hallissey said. "But this felt more personal than that. Like she had an issue with me." She looked away, her eyes thinning as she struggled for words to describe her interaction with Julia. "I got the same feeling from her that I used to get from male patients who didn't respect female physicians. The ones who wanted to make sure I knew it."

"Not every psychiatrist-patient interaction is a love match," I said.

Hallissey looked directly at me. "I don't mean to step out of line, but it doesn't sound like you want to hear any of this. Maybe it's not a good time to talk."

I shook my head. Hallissey was right. I was automatically discounting her negative feedback about Julia. "I do want to hear it," I said. "Please. Tell me what else you noticed."

She hesitated.

"I'm listening," I said.

"Maybe it's the way she is with women," Hallissey said. "I mean, I've seen her be very cordial with Dr. Karlstein. And you don't seem to have any problem with her. But a couple of the female nurses in the ICU told me she treats them like she owns them. They definitely get bad vibes." She shrugged. "She supposedly modeled, right? Someone mentioned Elite or something."

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.