Keith Ablow - Compulsion

"You're buying," he said, striding over to me at the espresso bar.

"The two-carat stone tap you out?" I said.

"I got some information for you. But it's gonna cost you. A double espresso, a nice bottle of Limone soda, and a cannoli."

"Done."

He laid his hands on the bar, his pinkie still dancing with excitement about the ring. "I would have called you, but this is news to me, like two hours ago, so I sat on it, seeing I was on trial in Suffolk Superior, and you can't carry a cell phone in there. That, and I was thinking I might bump into you here."

"How'd you do in court?" I asked him.

"Not so good this time. Statutory rape case. The guy's an accountant, twenty-six years old, never so much as a traffic ticket. He meets a girl who says she's seventeen- according to his version of events-when she's really fourteen, almost fifteen. I'm sitting there, looking at this girl, who's drop-dead gorgeous, built like a centerfold. And I'm thinking how many of us would turn it down, right? Not Roman Polanski. Not Elvis. Not Jerry Lee Lewis. Probably not me. I would have liked to ask the judge and court clerk what they'd do."

"I bet you didn't," I said.

"No," Rossetti said. "I asked for six months house arrest."

"What did you get?"

"Judge Getchell came down on him like a ton of bricks, sent him to MCI Concord for two years. He gets listed as a pedophile on the state registry, probation for five years. That's if he makes it out of Concord alive. The inmates get word he's a sex offender, they'll be waiting for him."

"That's the kind of verdict you get when the judge has to wonder whether he'd commit the crime," I said. I caught Mario's eye. "Double espresso for the counselor," I told him.

"And…" Rossetti said.

"And a Limone and cannoli," I said.

"Thank you, Franko."

"Exactly what am I paying you for?" I asked.

"I heard back from my buddy Viktor in Russia," he said. "The one who runs an oil refinery."

"Right…"

"He snooped around, asked his globe-trotting friends about Darwin 'Win' Bishop-who, by the way, I hear had another tragedy in the family."

"Tess, the other twin, is at MGH," I said. "I just came from there. She was poisoned. She went into cardiac arrest."

"She made it, though? She'll pull through?" he asked.

"Looks that way."

"Good. Good for her."

"They're saying the Russian boy did it," he said.

"They're not supposed to say anything publicly," I said. "Billy's a minor."

"Yeah, well, it's all over the news, as of ten minutes ago, anyhow. He broke into the Bishop estate, blah, blah, blah. They're gonna leak everything on this kid. Harrigan wants him. Like any D.A. would. Another notch in the prosecutorial belt." He shrugged. "Myself, I don't buy the party line here. Everything I hear about this Darwin Bishop makes me more convinced he's the killer."

"What did Viktor find out?" I asked.

"Long and short of it, Bishop isn't Trump-if Trump is even Trump."

"I'm not sure I follow." I was sure I didn't.

"Bishop might have a billion in assets, but he's got that and maybe fifty, sixty million in debts. This guy's further over the edge financially than I am. And that's saying something."

Mario brought Rossetti's espresso, Limone, and cannoli, and set them down in front of him.

"How would Viktor know that?" I asked.

Rossetti bit off half the cannoli, keeping his eyes closed as he chewed it. "Oh, baby," he purred.

"You doing all right there?" I said.

He held up a finger, sipped his espresso. "Heaven," he called out to Mario, then focused on me again. "These guys all hear about it when someone's hemorrhaging," he said finally. "According to Viktor, it's common knowledge that Bishop's scrambling. He invested most of the cash he netted from Consolidated Minerals and Metals in four Internet plays: Priceline.com, MicroStrategy, Inc., CMGI, and Divine InterVentures. They all plunged about ninety-five percent after he bought in. Priceline dropped from $136-a-share to a buck. Okay? Bishop's looking to liquidate some of his art, a property he owns in Cannes and another at Turnberry Isle in North Miami."

"That may explain why he's trading stocks every time I see him," I said.

"And you know what that means. More trouble. It's like grabbing at waves when you're drowning."

"Especially if he's been reaching for more technology plays," I said. "Tide's been going out a long time."

"One question to ask is whether he insured the kids," Rossetti said.

"Brooke and Tess? Life insurance on infants?"

"You can write a policy on anyone."

"We'll look into it," I said.

"Are they getting any closer to finding Billy?" Rossetti asked.

"I haven't heard anything. But if he's still on the island, they'll track him down. They've got dogs, helicopters, and a small army of state troopers."

"Let's hope he doesn't resist and doesn't have a weapon."

I hadn't thought of the possibility of Billy being harmed by the police, let alone killed. "If he were to take a bullet to the chest," I said, thinking aloud, "everyone would assume the case was closed and go home happy."

"Like I told you before," Rossetti said, "you're in the ring with heavyweights now. A man like Bishop can decide to make things happen-especially if he's on the ropes himself."

I finally made it home at 10:55 p.m. There were no distressing messages or strings of hangups on my machine, for a change. I called North Anderson 's mobile phone to bring him up to speed on the information I had gotten from Carl Rossetti. "A lawyer friend of mine named Carl Rossetti has a high-level, corporate connection in Russia. The word on the streets-or in the boardrooms-is that Bishop is in financial trouble," I told him. "Bad stocks, lots of debt. He's got a bunch of art and real estate up for sale."

"You never know whether people are what they seem to be," he said.

"No argument there." I paused. "Rossetti thought we should check whether Brooke and Tess had life insurance."

"Will do. I already sent that detective by to speak with Julia at MGH," Anderson said. "Terry McCarthy. I'll get a report on the interview soon. And I had someone on the force down in Duxbury check in with Kristen Collier, the baby nurse Julia fired."

"Come up with anything?"

"Nothing earth-shattering. She told me she was enraged with Julia when she was let go. Now she feels bad about the whole thing, like she was partly to blame. I guess Claire Buckley had given her a whole song and dance about how Julia's depression could get worse and worse, how she might not be able to think clearly, might end up not being able to care for the twins at all."

"Nice borderline move there," I said. "Splitting off the baby nurse from the mother. Claire keeps control of the household that way."

"And this Collier kind of lost sight of who she was really working for," Anderson said. "She started double-checking Julia's plans for the twins with Claire-even things that sound pretty routine, like which baby formula to order up, when to schedule doctors' appointments."

"Those things may seem routine to us, but not to a woman who's expecting," I said.

"Tell me about it," Anderson said. "Tina's rereading every baby and parenting book she can lay her hands on. There are no small details."

"And when you have a woman like Julia suffering with postpartum depression, she's going to want to appear strong, not ill," I said. "She could be hypersensitive to people treating her like a basket case."

"Apparently so. She axed Collier with no notice."

"What does Kristen Collier look like, anyhow?" I asked.

"Young and pretty, just like Claire," he said. "And if you're headed where I think you are, I did get the feeling that her relationship with Win didn't help things any."

"Tell me more."