Keith Ablow - Compulsion

I didn't like the idea of forcing Julia's hand, but the risk to Tess was too high to worry about hurt feelings. "It's the right thing to do," I said.

As we passed Bishop's "watch house" another Range Rover pulled behind us.

Anderson glanced into the rearview mirror, then over at me. "You should get out of that hotel and head to my place for the night."

I instinctively felt for the Browning Baby in my front pocket. "Not a bad idea," I said. "Maybe I'll head over after the funeral."

"Why just maybe?" he asked.

"Because my room is nonrefundable," I joked.

Anderson shook his head. "If you're planning anything with Julia, you're not thinking straight."

"I'll probably come by," I said, feeling the urge to close down the discussion.

"You've been warned," Anderson said.

The Brant Point Racket Club on North Beach Street is the kind of place you'd expect people of leisure to spend leisure time. The fences around the outdoor courts are hung with green nylon sheeting intended to protect the players not only from the sun but from the paparazzi. The clubhouse is understated and elegant, with deep armchairs to linger in and talk about this shot or that shot, this racket or that, all the while nursing a gin and tonic, maybe checking a stock quote on a Palm VII.

I had driven over to Brant Point after Anderson left me at my hotel. I thought I might get a few minutes alone with Garret Bishop. My gut told me that something other than grief was keeping him scarce.

I got to Garret's singles match just before 2:00 p.m. The temporary bleachers around the court were filled with spectators. Garret was already winning the third set 4-1. He'd taken the first two 6-2, 6-4. He was serving for another game point. He leaned back. Beads of sweat flew off his brow. He tossed the ball over his head, tracking it with his eyes like a hunter. Then he reached to the sky and funneled every ounce of strength in his powerful body to his arm and wrist. A dull thud broke the silence, his opponent swung and missed, and, just like that, it was 5-1.

What sort of young man, I wondered, can perform with excellence on a tennis court when his baby sister's funeral is to be held four hours later? And what had it cost Garret to buckle to Darwin Bishop's demands for performance and grace under any pressure, no matter how intense? Where had all his anxiety, sadness, and fear gone?

The match ended just five minutes later-6-2, 6-4, 6-1. Garret scored match point, moving in for a weak lob, posturing to slam the ball down the right baseline, making his opponent back up to defend against his power, then tapping the ball ever so gently, so that it dropped just over the net.

As applause filled the air, Garret simply turned and walked off the court-no fist raised in triumph, no nod to the crowd, no handshake at the net.

I tried to get his attention when he was about halfway to the clubhouse. "Garret," I called out, from a few steps behind him. He didn't stop. I quickened my pace until I was walking beside him. He kept staring straight ahead. "Garret," I said, a little louder.

He turned to me, a blank expression on his face. "What?" he said, without any hint that he remembered we had met.

"I'm Frank Clevenger," I said. "I met you with your mother at the house. I was with Officer Anderson."

He kept walking.

"The psychiatrist," I prodded him.

"I know who you are," he said, without breaking pace.

"I'd like to talk with you for a minute," I said.

"I don't need to," he said. He picked up his pace. "I'm getting through it."

It dawned on me that he might think Julia had sent me to help him with his feelings about the murder. "No one knows that I've come here," I said. "Your father and mother didn't send me. I came because I need information."

"Such as?" he said.

I didn't think I had the luxury of being subtle. "I want you to tell me what you can about your father."

That stopped him. He turned to me. "My father," he said, with palpably fragile patience.

"Yes," I said.

"What do you need to know about him?" he asked.

I had the feeling I would get more, rather than less, information from Garret if he knew I suspected his father of involvement in Brooke's death. Maybe he'd relish the chance to get out from under Bishop's thumb. "I'm not comfortable with the party line that Billy killed your sister," I said. "I'm looking at other possibilities."

He looked at me doubtfully. "Isn't Win the one paying you?" he asked.

I remembered that Billy had asked me the same question. I also noted that Garret called his father by his first name. No terms of endearment anywhere in sight. "No," I said. "I work for the police."

"They usually work for Win, too."

Garret's statement gave me a moment's pause about whether North Anderson had always kept himself at arm's length from the Bishop family. But the doubt didn't last more than that moment. Anderson and I had been through hell and back together. "Nobody investigating this case is on your dad's payroll," I said. "That may be a problem for him."

He glanced at the ground, then back at me, sizing me up. "Okay," he said. "So, talk."

"Do you think Billy killed your sister?" I said.

"No," he said.

"What do you think happened?"

"I think she was born dead."

"Excuse me?"

"Stillborn," he said.

I shrugged. "I don't get it."

"Not just Brooke. Her and Tess."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I mean we're all walking dead people in that house," Garret said. "Only one person matters. Darwin Harris Bishop."

"He made you play in the tournament today," I said. "Claire told me that."

"Claire," he repeated with scorn. He shook his head. "You don't get it," he said.

"Get what?"

"It's not this tournament. It's not tennis. It's everything. What I wear. Who my friends are. What I study. What I think. What I feel."

In some ways, Garret's complaint sounded like one that most seventeen-year-olds would have about their fathers or mothers. And that probably explained why I responded with an unfortunate cliché. "You don't have your own life," I said.

"Right on," he said. "I'm going through a phase."

"I'm sorry," I said immediately. "I didn't mean it that way."

Garret looked at the ground again, kicked the sand, and chuckled to himself.

"I really do want to know what it's like in that house," I said.

He looked back at me. His lip curled. "It's like being eaten from the inside out, until there's nothing left of you," he said. "Dad's kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer. Only he doesn't have to pour acid in your head to turn you into a zombie. He does it in other ways."

Garret clearly thought of his father as psychologically fatal to him, but I wanted to know if he had any direct physical evidence that would link him to Brooke's murder. "Did you see anything the night Brooke died?" I asked. "Do you think your father…?"

He looked away. "You still aren't getting the point," he said.

"I want to," I said. "Give me another shot at it."

"There's only air in our family for Win. The rest of us have been struggling to breathe our whole lives. So it doesn't matter if he suffocated Brooke." He looked at me more intensely. "It really doesn't. In a way, it's better. Less painful. Quicker."

Garret was speaking the language of learned helplessness, the mindset that takes over in prisoners who, seeing no chance of escape, stop struggling to achieve it. "You still might be able to help Billy," I reminded him. "I know you two aren't close, but he could spend his life behind bars."

"He'll have more freedom there," Garret said. "And I doubt the guards would beat him as badly."

I heard that loud and clear. Julia, Billy, and Garret all seemed to disagree with Darwin Bishop's claim that the wounds on Billy's back were self-inflicted. "If Billy is innocent, and you can prove it," I said, "then you must have seen something the night Brooke died."