Keith Ablow - Compulsion

"Unless it's a coincidence," I said. "I mean, one of Darwin 's security guards could shoot the film, turn it over to a lab for processing, and bring the negatives back neatly tucked in an envelope, with no one ever touching their surfaces."

"Sure. That's possible. Sometimes you get perfect pitch out of a choir, too. I just would have been reassured by a little background noise."

"Agreed," I said. "Did you call in the results to Captain Anderson?" I said.

"Should I?" he asked.

That question had to be about whether Anderson was to be trusted, given what Fields had seen in the photograph. And the question helped me see that I still had faith in Anderson. I believed his story about having been magnetically drawn to Julia and having lost his bearings in the relationship. She had that power. That was more obvious to me than ever. "Yes," I said immediately. "He's the one to funnel all the information through."

"Will do then," Fields said.

"I appreciate it. Thanks for your help."

"No problem," he said. "I do the work for whoever comes through the door with credentials, but I actually like doing it for people who want to hear the truth. Take care." He hung up.

I agreed that the photographic negative would have been an even more convincing piece of evidence had it been a little dirtier. But the portrait of Darwin Bishop as the killer was compelling, nonetheless. His were the only fingerprints on that negative. He had lobbied Julia to abort the twins. He had taken out life insurance on them, had a history of domestic violence, and had asked Julia for her bottle of nortriptyline.

It was just past 10:00 p.m. Julia would probably be arriving soon. I needed to sleep, even for half an hour. I dropped into a tapestried armchair that looked out at the Tobin Bridge, enjoying the silent, firefly traffic arching through the night, then closed my eyes and actually drifted off.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang again. I glanced at the caller ID and saw North Anderson 's mobile phone number. I figured he was calling to touch base after Fields shared the news about Bishop's prints with him. Part of me wanted to let it ring. But I knew that avoiding Anderson wouldn't solve anything. I grabbed the receiver. "It's Frank," I said.

"How are you doing?" he said.

"Okay," I said, a little more stiffly than I wanted to. "You?"

He skipped the question. "They picked Billy up," he said. "He wants to see you."

"Picked him up?" I said. "Is he all right?"

"Other than being worn out, from what I hear. He hadn't eaten or slept much."

"Where did they find him?" I asked.

" Queens. LaGuardia Airport," Anderson said. "He was ready to board a flight to Miami."

"How did he manage to get off the island without the police stopping him?"

"He probably made a run for it right after the break-in."

"I'll fly to New York on the first shuttle," I said.

"Stay put. He's headed back your way," Anderson said. "The State Police are picking him up by van and transporting him to the Suffolk County House of Corrections, right downtown in Boston. I can get you in there as soon as you want. He's under arrest, charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and a laundry list of lesser charges-breaking and entering, grand larceny, fleeing the jurisdiction. A grand jury will decide whether to indict sometime tomorrow. If they go for it, Billy stands trial as an adult. He could get life."

"Does he have a lawyer?" I asked.

"Court-appointed, so far. Darwin Bishop didn't want to pay for private counsel, assuming he still has the cash to swing it. I thought you might talk to Julia. See if she can help."

I could recognize an olive branch when somebody held one out. Anderson was yielding Julia to me. "I'll mention Carl Rossetti to her," I said. "He's brilliant. And I've known him almost as long as I've known you. We can trust him."

Anderson heard my handshake loud and clear. "Thanks, Frank," he said. He let a few seconds pass. "Billy's going to need somebody like Rossetti. O'Donnell and the D.A. are both convinced they've got their man. They'll paint Billy as such a monster in the media that he'll be public enemy number one by the time he steps into court."

Their man happens to be a boy, I thought to myself. If they can try kids as adults, why don't they try immature fifty-year-olds as juveniles? Another one-way street paved by the state. "Have you talked to Fields?" I asked, switching gears.

"I did. There are a lot of things pointing in good old Darwin 's direction-including that negative-but it's all circumstantial. The way the D.A.'s office is looking at this case, the break-in is the place to hang their hats. If they can convince a jury that the timing of Tess's cardiac arrest and Billy's B & E is too close to be a coincidence, then they prevail. Billy fleeing the jurisdiction doesn't look good, either."

"No," I agreed. "It doesn't."

"That it?" he said.

"I talked to Julia about the letter," I said.

"What did she say?"

"She told me she wrote it to her therapist, in Manhattan. Marion Eisenstadt."

"Can you check that out?"

"I already called her," I said. "She wouldn't really open up without a release from Julia, but she did tell me the two of them had only had four or five sessions together."

"And?"

"And Julia's letter sounds like something you'd write to a therapist after four or five sessions a week, for a lot of weeks."

"Sounds that way," he said. "But don't forget who we're dealing with here."

"Meaning?"

"Julia brings out incredibly strong feelings in people, incredibly quickly. Maybe that kind of thing cuts both ways."

"That she'd bond that quickly in therapy herself? Instant transference?"

"You're the psychiatrist," Anderson said, "but it seems possible."

"Possible," I agreed. "But, more likely, that was a love letter to another man."

"A man we'd want to talk to," he said.

"If we ever find out who he is," I said.

Anderson was silent a few seconds. "It doesn't make you feel very special, does it?"

"No," I said. "I guess not." Saying that, I didn't quite believe it. Remarkably, I was still holding on to the slim chance that Julia was a woman with a complicated past who had firmly settled on me for her future. I wanted to forgive her-almost anything.

"Are you headed back to the hospital to talk to her?" he asked. "I'd like to know what she has to say when you tell her you talked with her doctor."

I didn't want to tell him that Julia was headed over to my place. "I'll get to her one way or another," I said. That didn't sound great, even to me.

"It's your call," Anderson said. "Just keep being careful. You lucked out last time. You could have been killed."

"I hear you," I said. I paused, noticing that a hint of paranoia about Anderson had crept back into my mind. From his tone of voice, I wouldn't have been able to say whether he was warning me or threatening me. You lucked out last time. You could have been killed. "Can you get me an interview with Billy at eight a.m.?" I asked.

"You got it," he said.

"Let's talk soon," I said, and hung up. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. On empty. I closed my eyes again, thirsting for sleep.

I woke with a start, not knowing where I was for the first few seconds. I checked my watch-1:20 a.m. and still no Julia. I dialed Mass General to see if she had left the Telemetry unit.

The unit clerk answered the line. "This is Dr. Frank Clevenger," I said. "I'm calling to see whether Ms. Bishop might still be with her daughter Tess."

"Can you hold?"

"Of course."

Almost a minute passed. I started getting nervous, wondering whether something had happened to Tess. John Karlstein finally picked up the phone. "Frank?" he said.