Compulsion (36 page)

"Afraid so," he said.  "This really came out of left field."

I closed my eyes.  "Tell me."

"Julia’s been hurt," he said.

My eyes opened to a squint.  "Julia?  What happened to her?"

Anderson looked at me, a lover’s worry in his eyes.  "Jesus Christ," he said.  "Is she all right?"

I looked down, listening to Karlstein.  Guilt clawed at my insides.  I had left Julia alone, in harm’s way.

"Keep in mind, I’m getting this secondhand," he was saying.  "I wasn’t on the Telemetry floor when the whole thing went down.  Long and short of it, her husband came back.  I guess he wanted her to sign legal papers of some kind.  She did the right thing — reminded him there was a restraining order against him and asked him to leave.  He wouldn’t budge, so she asked one of the nurses to call the police."

"And..." I said.

"And then he just lost it," Karlstein said.  "It took a bunch of staff to drag him off her."

I looked at North.  "Darwin beat her up."

"That fucking bastard," Anderson said.

I had a sinking feeling that Karlstein was letting me down easy.  "She made it, though?  I mean, she’s alive?"

"Yes, yes," he said.  "Of course."

"How bad off is she?" I asked.

"She’s stable," Karlstein said, "but she took some serious punishment.  There’s a good deal of facial swelling from a fractured zygomatic arch.  She’s got four broken ribs and a liver laceration.  I put her in the ICU, just to be cautious.  Grabbed a CAT scan of her head, which came back normal.  I’ll order a repeat before she leaves here, make sure she hasn’t started to bleed intracranially.  Opthalmology came by to check out her eye; the right one is swollen shut.  Doesn’t look like there’s any retinal damage."  He paused.  "She’ll heal up, physically.  Emotionally, it’s got to be a longer mile."

"Is she with it?" I asked.

"I put her on a fair amount of Darvocet, so she’s drifting in and out.  But when she’s awake, she’s holding her own.  She’s completely oriented.  She knows who I am, what day it is, where she is, who the president is — all those questions you guys throw at people."

"How about Tess?" I asked.  "Darwin didn’t hurt her, did he?"

"He didn’t go near her," Karlstein said.  "I mean, this wasn’t one of those things where the father can’t stand being away from his kid and goes berserk.  The one-to-one sitter said Bishop never even went to Tess’s bedside."

"Was he arrested?" I asked.

"Security held him until the police got here.  He left in cuffs," Karlstein said.  "I’m no lawyer, but I’d say he’s gone for a while, even with his connections.  There’s no shortage of witnesses to what he did.  And the way he went after her...  He was trying to kill her."

"Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can," I said.  "Me, and my friend North Anderson.

"I’ll tell her right now," Karlstein said.

"Thank you, John," I said.  "Thanks, again."

"No problem," he said.  "See you later."

I hung up.

"Will she be all right?" Anderson asked.  "What the hell happened?"

I told him everything Karlstein had told me.  "It sounds like Bishop cracked," I said.  "I guess he really had the subsoil to lose it.  He’s looking at charges of violating a restraining order and attempted murder.  He could go away twenty years."  Say that made me see more clearly that Darwin Bishop really had been battling to keep parts of himself buried.  But marrying a model, accumulating a billion dollars, and buying his way into Manhattan and Nantucket society hadn’t freed him of his underlying rage — not any more than alcohol had.

"This makes is a lot harder for O’Donnell to close the investigation," Anderson said.  "And even if he does, you friend Rossetti should be able to raise doubt in a jury’s mind about whether the D.A. put the wrong person on trial."

Anderson was right.  "It’s certainly not the way I wanted to score points, but I’ll take ’me."

"I wonder what those papers he wanted her to sign were all about?" Anderson said.

"I guess we’ll find out from the Boston cops who arrested him," I said.  "Coming with me?"

"If you’d rather go alone, all you have to do is say so."

"I know that," I said.  "That’s the biggest reason we should go together."

*            *            *

Even with John Karlstein’s description of Julia’s injuries, even with his tipping his hand by telling me she needed to be observed in the ICU, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I visited her there.  Maybe it was the fresh memory of her extraordinary beauty, or maybe I had simply summoned a level of denial to make it through my phone conversation with Karlstein, but the swelling and discoloration of Julia’s right eye, cheekbones, and lips shocked me.  So, too, did the nasogastric tube that ran into one of her nostrils, down her throat, and into her stomach, draining blood-tinged fluid, and preventing her from speaking clearly.  Yet, seeing all that, I wanted nothing more than to hold her and stroke her hair and promise her that everything would turn out all right.  I tried to keep my smile bright and my voice steady, because I could tell that she was watching North and me for our reactions.

Anderson was good enough to take the first shot at humor.  "I’d like to see the other guy," he said.  It was a twist on a tired cliché, but he delivered it with warmth and reassurance, and it seemed to give Julia something she needed.  She smiled.

"I talked to Dr. Karlstein," I said.  "You’ll heal up.  It’s a matter of time.  All you have to do is rest."

Julia tried to say something, but choked on the nasogastric tube and fell into a coughing fit.

I bent over the bed and helped her sit up, relishing the chance to put my arm around her shoulders.

"Let me get you a pen and paper," Anderson said.  "You can write down whatever you need to tell us."  He walked off toward the nurses’ station.

I brushed my lips against Julia’s ear and felt her move her hand to the side of my thigh.  "I’m sorry I wasn’t here," I said.  "I’ll be here for you from now on."  A single tear escaped her eye.  I dried it with my shirtsleeve.

Anderson walked back into the room.  He handed Julia a pen and pad of paper.  She wrote just three words: 
Is Tess okay?

My throat tightened.  Julia’s concern for her baby, while she nursed her own battered body, began to paint as absurd the notion that she could be responsible for Brooke’s death or Tess’s cardiac arrest.  "Dr. Karlstein said she’s absolutely fine.  I’ll check in on her."

She nodded weakly.  Then she held up a finger, signaling us she had more to write. 
Good to see the two of you together
, she wrote.

Anderson and I looked at those words and both nodded.  It
was
good that our friendship had survived wanting the same woman.  It meant it could survive most things.

I took particular comfort in what Julia had written because it seemed to say she was openly choosing me, despite her affection for North, that she was willing to acknowledge our being a couple, even in his eyes.  Maybe she really could commit to one man.  Maybe Brooke and Tess’s father really was out of her life for good.  And maybe someday she’d be able to admit that the letter Claire Buckley had found was written to him, not to her therapist.  It didn’t have to be that day.  Or the next.  "You rest up," I said, helping her lay back on the pillows.

Her brow became furrowed.  "Billy," she mouthed.

"North and I will take care of Billy," I said.

She looked at North for confirmation.

"We’re not going to let him down," he said.

*            *            *

We left Julia’s room about 6:30
P.M.
and were walking out of the ICU when Garret Bishop appeared in the hallway leading to it.  We stopped.  He walked right up to us.  "What are you doing here?" he fumed.

"Checking on your mother," I said.  "I take it you know what happened to her."

He glared at North Anderson.  "Do they still have the bastard under arrest or have they let him go on a couple hundred thousand bail?"

"He’s in jail, right here in the city," Anderson said.

Garret’s lip twitched.  He was grinding his teeth.

"If you were going to tell us everything you know about the night Brooke died," Anderson said, "the bastard might stay locked up, forever.  If you’re not willing to stand up to him, I can't guarantee anything."

Garret looked away, then back at us.  He took a deep breath.  "Can I get any kind of protection?"

My heart leapt at the thought that Garret might finally be willing to take on his father.

"Police protection?" Anderson asked.  "That could be arranged, under the circumstances.  I’m sure of it."

"Who would I be giving my statement to?" Garret said, visibly trying to settle himself down.

"I’d set up an interview for you with three people:  a Boston police officer, a State Police officer, and the District Attorney.  Dr. Clevenger and I would be there, too."  He glanced at me, then looked back at Garret.  "We might even be able to get you in front of a couple reporters.  That way you’d get to speak your mind to the whole state.  The whole country, really."

Garret hung his head for several seconds, apparently mulling over the offer.  Then he looked at us again.  "Set it up," he said.  "I want that animal gone for life.  He isn’t going to lay a hand on my mother ever again."

"Consider it done," Anderson said.  "We’ll meet you in the lobby in one hour and drive you over to the Boston Police Station.  I’ll start getting the audience together right now."

"See you in the lobby," Garret said.  He walked past us, headed for the ICU.

"That could do it," Anderson said.  "An eyewitness connecting Darwin to Brooke’s murder makes the case against him.  Let’s hope he doesn’t flake."

"What about that court order against interviewing Garret without both his parents’ consent?" I asked.

"Call your buddy Rossetti and get him to shoot back to Suffolk Superior Court," he said.  "With Darwin jailed for attacking Julia, he ought to be able to get a quick hearing with a judge and have that order reversed.  I’ll set the rest of the gears in motion."

"Will do," I said.

"The lobby, in say forty-five minutes, then?"

"Forty-five," I said.

*            *            *

It took until 10:00
P.M.
to get the relevant players into an interview room at Boston Police headquarters on Causeway Street:  Detective Terry McCarthy from the Boston force; State Police Captain O’Donnell; District Attorney Tom Harrigan; and Carl Rossetti, now officially chosen by Julia to represent her, Garret, and Billy.

Two hours earlier, Rossetti had worked his magic with Judge Barton at Suffolk Superior, getting us an emergency court order to take Garret’s statement.

Darwin Bishop’s assault on Julia had dissolved most of the animosity between the players in the room.  Bishop was beyond rescue, and his henchmen knew it.  The papers he had demanded that Julia sign at MGH turned out to be forms closing out two bank accounts in the twins’ names, each of which held $250,000.  He also happened to have been carrying two one-way tickets to Athens, Greece, a nice stopover on your way to disappearing forever.  The tickets had been issued in his name and Claire Buckley’s.

We chose Terry McCarthy to conduct the interview.  McCarthy, a soft-spoken man of forty-two years who looks about fifty-five, is a former Boston College hockey player.  He leans into every step with his right shoulder, half-lifting, half-sliding his feet, as if still on the ice.  And, despite his smooth voice, he can still get this look in his eye that makes you think he’s about to crush you against the boards or drop gloves and pummel you.  That dichotomy may be the reason he can coax the truth from just about anyone.

McCarthy sat catty-corner to Garret at the conference table, the rest of us taking seats a respectable distance away.  He turned on a tape recorder.

"Why don’t we start with your name?" McCarthy said to Garret.

"That’s easy," he said.  "Garret Bishop."

"Your date of birth?"

"October 13, 1984."

"And today’s date?" McCarthy asked.

"June 29, 2002."

"And, Garret, are you giving this statement voluntarily?  Of your own free will?"

"Yes," Garret said.

"No one here has coerced you in any way — offered you anything?"

"No, sir," Garret said, with a hint of a smile.  "I wish they would."

Captain O’Donnell chuckled.

Garret laughed a nervous laugh.

McCarthy got that look in his eye.

"Just answer his questions," Rossetti told Garret.  "No jokes."

"Let me ask you again," McCarthy said, leaning into the table, his voice especially kind.  "Has anyone offered you anything for what you are about to say?"

"No," Garret repeated.

"Very well.  Let’s get started, then.  Tell us what you saw on the night of June 21, 2002."

Garret stared at McCarthy, seemed about to answer, then slumped a little in his seat and looked down at the table.  Several seconds passed.

"Garret?" McCarthy prompted him.

No response.

I glanced at Anderson, who looked just as worried as I was that Garret was losing his nerve.

"Garret, if you don’t want..." McCarthy started.

"Tell me again how I know I’ll be safe," Garret said, still staring at the table.

"Okay, let’s go over that again," McCarthy said.  "A state trooper is being assigned to you as a bodyguard.  That person will be with you for at least six months, much longer if anyone you implicate in a crime is ultimately brought to trial.  It’s important, you understand, though, as we’ve informed your mother and your lawyer:  There are no guarantees.  Nothing we can do will take away every bit of risk."

Garret pursed his lips, apparently pondering what he had just heard.

All I could do was sit there and wait.  I scanned the faces in the room.  Tom Harrigan rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"Are you reconsidering, Garret?" McCarthy said.  "You shouldn’t feel pressured to say anything."  His tone suggested otherwise.  "We can call it a night right now, if you want.  Everyone will go home, like this never happened."