Compulsion (27 page)

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 a 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 on 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 some 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 the 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 to 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 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 around 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.

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

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

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

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

My temptation is quiet.

Here at life’s end
.

—
Julia

June 20, 2002

My heart was racing.  A wave of nausea overshadowed the pain in my back.  The most optimistic reading of the letter was that Julia had another lover.  The more sober reading was that she had grown desperate enough to strike out at the twins.  The last line of her 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 looked 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 with them.

"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 creased, 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.  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.