Keith Ablow - Compulsion

His brow furrowed. "Go. See what you have to see. I wait here for you."

I pulled myself out of the cab. I walked to the sidewalk, lined with black, chauffeured limousines, and looked through the open gates of the River House, their immense wrought frames anchored in limestone pillars marked "Private" and capped by carved eagles, heads turned, staring at one another. Past the eagles, a cobblestone driveway separated a magnificent courtyard with flowering gardens from the entrance to the building, flanked by two doormen standing under a massive, hunter green awning.

The scene spoke of timelessness, security, elite tranquility.

I looked up at the building itself, which ran an entire city block. It was about fifteen stories high, the first three stories of limestone and the rest of brick, covered with ivy in places. The corner penthouse Darwin Bishop and his family called home was a duplex that boasted a series of two-story pillars and a terrace that had to be a thousand square feet or more, its innermost wall lined with enormous slate slabs.

I walked down to the East River and took in a view framed by the Queensboro Bridge to the left and the Williamsburg Bridge to the right. Between them stood epic symbols of American industry-giant smokestacks, the Citibank Building, a landmark neon Pepsi-Cola sign. My eyes skated past them and lingered on the mesmerizing ruin of a castle on Roosevelt Island.

Standing there, I got what I had come for: a hint of the majesty Darwin Bishop must have felt the moment he purchased his home, laying claim to real estate at the epicenter of the civilized world, a safe haven not one mile from the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall, and Central Park. Nobody would ever peg him for a guy from Brooklyn, with a criminal record. I walked back to the cab.

"So?" Puzick said. "You saw so fast everything you needed to?"

"Pretty much," I said.

"Garbo lived right there," he said, pointing to the building across the street from the River House.

"Garbo," I said. "Really."

"That's what they say." He started back toward First Avenue, heading toward FDR Drive for the rest of trip downtown. He glanced at me twice in the rearview mirror, without saying anything.

"You visited her in Poland?" I prompted him. "Your daughter?"

"Every year, as God is my witness," he said. "But it wasn't enough." His voice trailed off.

I knew exactly what Alex Puzick was looking for. Forgiveness. I stared at the little plastic Jesus glued to his dashboard. "Leaving your wife didn't make your daughter sick," I said.

He didn't turn around, didn't even look at me in the mirror. "How can you know?" he said, in a voice as solemn as a prayer.

"Because you worry over it," I said. "You worry about her."

He sighed. "Probably I should have stayed with them," he said, as much to himself as to me.

Maybe he should have. And maybe staying would have made things worse. All I could say for sure was that a man I had known barely fifteen minutes was in so much pain that it was flowing freely from him to me. "You left because you were in love," I told him. "That means you acted on your heart. You were true to yourself. I don't know what made Dorothy lose control of her emotions, but I can tell you it wasn't that."

"You sound so sure."

"I've done this work a long time," I said, leaning toward him. "I am sure."

He relaxed visibly. "I'll see her in another month," he said. "Five weeks."

I sat back in my seat. "Good."

Neither of us spoke another word until we had pulled over in front of 25 Beaver. I got out of the cab and stepped up to Puzick's window.

"On the house," he said.

The meter read $11.30. I held out a twenty. "You don't need to do that," I said.

"I don't need to. You didn't need to," he said. "We're even."

I took an elevator to the eighth-floor Criminal History Search office. There were two clerks and about a dozen people in line, so I waited my turn, which meant waiting about an hour. When I got to the desk, a young Asian woman, with a very serious expression on her face and very large silver hoop earrings, reminded me that I would need to pay sixteen dollars to do a computerized criminal background check on Darwin Bishop. The search would yield the docket number and disposition of any case against him since the mid-1970s. I was happy to hand over the money, but unhappy when she told me to come back the next morning for the results.

"I'm working with the police on a case," I said. "I could really use the information today."

"You're a police officer," she said skeptically.

"A psychiatrist," I said. "I'm working with the police on a case involving the Bishop family."

"A psychiatrist. That's a first." She almost smiled. "You don't look like a psychiatrist."

"I've been told that," I conceded. "More than a few times." I pulled out my wallet and showed her my medical license.

"It says here, ' Massachusetts,' " she said, pointing at the card.

"That's where my office is, but I take cases in other states," I said.

"This one case," the voice at the back of my mind chided me. "This case, then no more."

I silently agreed. Forensic psychiatry had nearly cost me my sanity. I didn't want to gamble it away.

The clerk looked at me, as if to check whether I was on the level, then shook her head. "If you're a liar, you're a good one." She turned around and disappeared into an office. Ten minutes later, she came back to the counter with a computer printout. She folded it and placed it in an envelope. She held it out to me, but pulled it back before I could take it from her. "We can't do this all the time," she said. "Doesn't matter who you are."

"I appreciate this one time," I said.

She handed over the envelope.

I took the report to a bench just outside the office, sat down, and started to read:

Adult Record Information as of 06/24/2002 Page 1 of 1

Name: Bishop, Darwin G. DOB: 05/11/1948

PCF# 507950C0 POB: Brooklyn

Sex: M SS#: 013-42-1057 Mother: Norma Erickson

Father: Thomas

Home Address: 829 Park Avenue Ethnicity: White

NY, NY 10021

Alias Name(s): None

Date: 05/22/95 Manhattan Docket #6656 CR952387

Criminal Offense: Operating to Endanger

Lives and Safety

Disposition: Dismissed

Date: 05/22/95 Manhattan

Criminal Offense: Operating Under the Docket #6656 CR952388

Influence of Alcohol

Disposition: Dismissed

Date: 09/06/81 Manhattan

Criminal Offense: Domestic Assault Docket #7513 CR811116

Disposition: Convicted

(Probation)

Date: 07/23/80 Manhattan

Criminal Offense: Violation of Restraining Docket #4912 CR800034

Order, Abuse Prevention Act

Disposition: Convicted

(Probation)

____________________

Nothing about the rap sheet gave me any comfort. Bishop's 1981 conviction for assault obviously had been for smacking his first wife, Lauren, around. And that episode had apparently followed another worrisome event during 1980-something threatening enough that the court had issued a restraining order against Bishop, an order he then violated. So much for the "I couldn't have a better friend" line that Bishop had fed the New York magazine writer who asked about his and Lauren's divorce.

For all his Manhattan and Nantucket cachet, Bishop was starting to look like a garden variety alcoholic and domestic abuser-something I knew more than a little bit about, firsthand. I'd grown up with one. It didn't seem like much of a reach to think Bishop could be beating Billy, or that he could have killed little Brooke.

I called North Anderson 's mobile phone from the lobby. He answered right away.

"I just picked up a copy of Darwin Bishop's criminal record in New York," I told him.