Compulsion

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, based 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 does 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.

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.

Anderson 's jaws worked against each other as he read. His eyes ran up and down the page a few times. Then he folded the letter back into thirds and slipped it into his shirt pocket. "What do you make of it?" he asked Claire.

"I don't know what to think," she said. "I was shocked."

"Having read it, do you think Julia attacked the twins?" he pressed. "You think she killed Brooke?"

"I can't believe she would," Claire said, "but with her depression and, now, this… I'm not sure of anything anymore."

Anderson glanced at me, then looked back at Claire. "I'll ask you again: Are you holding back any information? Did you see something important the night of Brooke's death or Tess's poisoning?"

"No," she said, rather unconvincingly.

"Okay, then," Anderson said. His cell phone began to ring, but he ignored it. "What about your relationship with Darwin Bishop? Do you feel that contributes to Julia's depression? Or don't you think she even knows what's going on?"

I looked at Anderson, unsure where he was headed.

"I don't know what you mean," Claire said. "I'm close to both the Bishops."

"Let's level with one another, Claire," Anderson said.

She squinted and shook her head as if she had no idea what he might be getting at.

"I'm talking about your romantic relationship with Darwin Bishop," he said. "The suites you've shared abroad. The expensive wine. All that."

Her face flushed. She stood up. "I think you should leave," she said. She looked at me as if I had betrayed her. "Both of you."

Anderson stayed seated. "We're not in the business of screwing up anyone's life," he said. "The secret stays with us. One interview with Garret, and we're on our way. That's all we have on our agenda."

Now I realized what he was up to. He was pushing Claire to get us face time with Garret.

Claire looked like she was barely keeping control of her anger.

I wasn't sure whether we'd get our interview with Garret or get thrown out. "You can count on us not to leak any of this to the press," I encouraged her, nodding toward Wauwinet Road. I let the veiled threat sink in a moment. "They're lined up for half a mile out there. We should just talk with Garret and be on our way."

A few seconds passed before Claire responded. "I'll tell him you're coming up to his room to see him," she said finally. "Then, I'll trust you to leave."

Anderson waited until she was gone. "With John McBride, Attorney-at-Law, on retainer and Captain O'Donnell taking over," he explained, "we may not get another shot at Garret. I think it's time to shake things up a little bit, anyhow. See if anything falls out."

I nodded, then pointed toward Julia's letter in Anderson 's pocket. "That doesn't read so good," I said. I pictured Julia seated at Tess's bedside. All of a sudden, I wished Caroline Hallissey hadn't decided to discontinue the one-to-one sitter.

"I warned you," Anderson said.

"I know," I admitted. "I should have listened."

"It's hard to hear anything but violins around a woman like that," he said. "Don't beat yourself up over it."

Claire came back and walked us to the door to Garret's room, then turned around and left again without a word. Garret was hunched over a desk covered with books, writing on a pad of white, lined paper. The walls of the room were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, overfilled with titles.

Unlike the uncreased, unread volumes in his father's study, Garret's were well worn. There were dog-eared classics by philosophers from Plato to Kerouac, scientific texts by Albert Einstein and James Watson, volumes of poetry by Eliot and Yeats, religious works by the Dalai Lama and William James and St. Thomas Aquinas. The room had none of the trappings of a seventeen-year-old boy. No model of a Porsche or Corvette could be found on any of the shelves. No poster of any teen sex goddess hung over the bed. There was no phone. And the room contained absolutely nothing to do with sports-including tennis.

"Garret," I said from the door, "It's Dr. Clevenger. I'm here with Captain Anderson."

He kept writing.

"Garret?" I said. I took a few tentative steps into the room. I felt almost dizzy from a potent cocktail of physical and emotional pain. Part of me wanted to rush back to Boston, to Julia, to get at the truth.

Garret's hand stopped moving across the paper. "Jesus. Have some respect," he said. "Did I say you could come in here?"

I backed up one step. "We won't take a lot of your time," I said.

He let out a heavy sigh and spun around in his desk chair. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk," I said.

"So, talk," he said.

I wanted to lighten the mood. "Nice collection, by the way," I said, motioning toward the walls of books.

He ignored the compliment. "If this looks like it might go long, we should move it somewhere else," he said. "I'm only allowed to stay in here two hours a day. I don't want to waste it."

"What do you mean, you're only allowed to stay in here two hours?" Anderson said. "This is your room, isn't it?"

" Darwin 's worried I'll become a recluse, a bookworm, maybe a fag," he said, sounding half-bitter, half-amused. "Even worse, I might start 'thinking too much,' as he puts it. Much better to swat a fuzzy ball back and forth over a net or ride a horse within an inch of its life, swinging a long stick."

"I take it you're no fan of polo," I said.

"Not much, lately. I used to like watching this one horse. Her name was Brandy," he said. "She was special."

"In what way?" I said.

"Her coat was unbelievable-kind of a cinnamon brown, very soft to the touch. Every muscle on her was perfectly cut. When she ran, it was like poetry. And she was sweet. She'd walk right up to me whenever I came around the stables, look at me with these big, brown eyes, almost as if she knew we were in the same tough spot."

"What spot is that?" Anderson said.

"Being ridden by Darwin," Garret said.

Garret sounded more human and vulnerable than he had the other two times we had met. "Is Brandy still around?" I asked him.

"Glued, dude." He winked. The hard edge had come back into his voice.

"She died?" Anderson said.

"She stopped winning. Then she disappeared." Garret shrugged. "It's all very Darwinian. Survival of the fittest."

He looked at me. "Are you all right?" he said. "You look like death yourself."

The muscles in my back had tightened, and I was trying to stay on my feet. "I'm fine," I managed. "Sprained muscles." I paused, shifted gears. "Captain Anderson and I are here because I haven't had the chance to speak with you since I saw you at the tennis club," I said. "That was the day before Tess was rushed to the hospital."

"And…" he said.

"And I want to know if you can help us," I said.

"Help you, like, how?"

"For starters, if you saw anything strange before you left for Brooke's funeral, or when you got back, we'd be interested in hearing about it," I said.

"You would," he said.

"Of course," I said.

"Enough to pay for it?" he said.

Anderson and I glanced at one another.

Before either of us could answer him, Garret smiled broadly. "Just kidding," he said. "The last thing I need is money. Would you shut the door, please?"

Anderson took care of it. "Anything you tell us stays confidential," he said.

"Right," Garret said. "I've already told Dr. Clevenger I'm not testifying at any trial, if there ever is one. Dad's got Johnny McBride working for him now, you know."

"We know," I said.

"There aren't even any bloodstains in this case," Garret said. "How hard do you think it's gonna be for McBride to make jackasses out of the police and D.A.?" He looked at Anderson. "The search of the house was bungled, by the way. UPS dropped off two packages inside the foyer, and the State Police sergeant let the driver use the upstairs bathroom to take a leak-the one Billy snuck into."

"I'll look into that," Anderson said.

"You'll want to, before they carve you up on the witness stand," Garret said. "Better you than me."

"Did you have something to tell us about that night?"

Anderson said, nudging the discussion back into line.

"All I heard was another argument between Darwin and Julia," he said. "It got just as hot as the ones they used to have about the twins-how Darwin wanted to abort them."

"Was Claire around to hear it?" I asked, wondering whether she had edited her memory of that night.

"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," Garret said. "I think she had gone to the store to buy formula for Tess." He shrugged. "I wouldn't swear to it, but that's what I remember."

"What was the argument about?" Anderson asked.

"The nortriptyline," Garret said.

"What about it?" I said.

" Darwin wanted the prescription bottle from Julia. He was screaming at her for most of an hour before she gave in."

"Did he say why he wanted it?" I asked.

"He said she should find some other way to kill herself," Garret said, "like she was about to take an overdose, or something."

"And did you think your mother might try to hurt herself?" I asked.

"I think Darwin had something else in mind," Garret said, smiling.

"What?" I said.

"An overdose for little Tess, of course."

Anderson let out a long breath. "So you think it's a coincidence your brother broke into the house that night?" he said.

"A lucky break for Darwin, the way I see it. Win was already going to do the deed, but Billy's daring move- which I give him a lot of credit for, by the way-made it the perfect crime." He paused and looked at me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable. "Or nearly perfect," he said.

"Why nearly?' I asked.

"Because I have the prescription bottle," Garret said matter-of-factly.

"You…" I started.

"Where?” Anderson asked anxiously.

Garret turned around and pulled open the lowest drawer of his desk. He reached all the way to the back of it. His hand emerged holding a key. "My locker at Brant Point," he said. He tossed me the key. "Number 117, top shelf. Back, right-hand corner. Inside a tennis ball can."

"How did you get it?" I asked.

He winked. " Darwin left it in the top drawer of his desk in the study. Pure arrogance." He glanced at Anderson. "Of course, when you figure you have the local police and the state cops in your back pocket, you get heady."

Anderson ignored the comment.

"When did you find the bottle?" I asked.

"The day after Tess's overdose," Garret said. "But that's not the important part. The important part is that you won't find Billy's fingerprints anywhere on it."

Claire Buckley showed us to the door. Her demeanor was ice-cold. Before stepping outside, I tried to think of something to say to reassure her that Anderson and I had no intention of revealing her secret, but all of us got distracted by a State Police cruiser barreling into the circular drive. It stopped short behind North Anderson 's car. A tall and broad fellow, about fifty, wearing a State Police uniform decorated with elaborate, embroidered patches and enameled pins, bolted out of the car and headed for us. His face was one of those sharp-angled, weathered ones that looked like it would stay ruggedly handsome forever. His salt-and-pepper hair was full and wavy.

"Told you you'd meet him," Anderson said. "That's Brian O'Donnell."

"Got a minute?" O'Donnell called gruffly to Anderson.

"Sure," Anderson said.

Claire turned around, walked back inside, and closed the door.

"I should introduce Dr. Clevenger," Anderson said, as O'Donnell reached us.

O'Donnell nodded at me, but didn't extend a hand. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked.

"Conducting an investigation," Anderson said. "What did you think we might be doing?"

O'Donnell frowned. "I thought we decided you'd clear things with me. I had no idea you were arranging another set of interviews for the doctor here."

"I don't think we ever came up with a hard-and-fast rule about what got cleared with who," Anderson said. "I agreed to work closely with you. And I will."

"Look, if you need a call from the Governor's office to make it official, I'll get that done for you. From here on out, the investigation is being run by my department. That means me."

"Maybe that call from the Governor would help clarify things," Anderson said.

"Well, let me make this much clear right now," O'Donnell said. "If you just interviewed the boy, you did so without his parents' consent. That means his statements aren't freely given and can't be used at Billy's trial."

Billy's trial. I heard that loud and clear.

Anderson didn't say whether we'd interviewed Garret or not. He also didn't mention the key to Garret's locker.

"As for Ms. Buckley," O'Donnell said, "I just don't see why she's on the suspect list at all. I know you have your thoughts about her supposed relationship with Darwin Bishop, but that hasn't been proven, and it's a pretty weak motive for a double homicide, to begin with."

"We're just dealing with the one homicide right now," I reminded him. "Hopefully, it stays that way."

"Whatever," O'Donnell said, shooting me an annoyed look. He collected himself. "North, I'm not trying to clip your wings here," he said. "I'm trying to get things done right so the case doesn't fall apart. First things first, let's get Billy and go from there."

"You any closer?" I asked.

"We think we're closing in," O'Donnell said. "We're moving as fast as we can, but not so fast that we ignore the potential dangers. The Commons are surprisingly tough terrain to search. And we don't know if Billy is armed or not."

That comment made me think back to Carl Rossetti's fear that the cleanest way to bury the truth in the Bishop case would be to bury Billy. "He's never used a gun before," I said.

"He hadn't asphyxiated one sibling and tried to poison another before, either," O'Donnell said.

"If he did this time," I said.

O'Donnell smiled. "I know you interviewed Billy at Payne Whitney. That went, what, half an hour?"

"It went long enough for me to use what I learned to learn more," I said.

"Just so you know something about me, Doctor: I've gotten to be a quick study, too. I've led twenty-six homicide investigations. And my take here is that everyone else in this family who might land on somebody's suspect list is no more than a red herring," he said. "Billy Bishop looks like, smells like, is the killer. Period. He worked his way up to murder in the usual manner, with stops along the way at destruction of property, theft, arson, and cruelty to animals. There's nothing very special about him."

"Sounds open and shut," Anderson said.

"Think what you want," O'Donnell said. "But please do what you say you will. And you said you'd clear your moves with me."

I saw Anderson 's jaw set. His breathing moved into a Zen-like study in self-control.

O'Donnell made a visible effort at relaxing himself. "This is the way it always goes, North," he said. "I know it doesn't feel good yielding your home turf to the state, but we'll be out of your hair soon enough." He paused. "We found a swatch of cloth from one of Billy's jackets about a half-mile into the Commons. So we know we're headed in the right direction. It's just a matter of time now."

Anderson nodded. "I'll talk to you later, then." He walked toward his car.

I started to follow him.

"Good meeting you, Dr. Clevenger," O'Donnell said, extending his hand just as I moved past him.

I shook it. "I'm sure we'll see each other again," I said.