I thought back to my first psychotherapy session with Dr. James. I'd been talking five or ten minutes about a nurse I was romancing. She wanted a commitment, I didn't feel ready to make one, and that seemed to mean I was going to lose her. Looking back on it, the whole affair was hopeless; I was nowhere near ready for a real relationship.
James stopped me midsentence. "We don't have a lot of time together," he said. "We shouldn't waste it talking about some conquest of yours. May I ask you a specific question, so we can begin, in earnest?"
I stopped jawing and nodded my head.
"When was the first time," he said, "that you thought of killing yourself?"
I sat there, stunned, looking at the gnomish, eighty-one-year-old man seated across from me, wearing a seersucker suit and two silver and turquoise cuff bracelets. "When was the first time I thought of killing myself?" I echoed.
He looked at his watch. Then he winked at me and smiled warmly, even lovingly. "C'mon, Frank," he said. "Give it up. What have you got to lose?"
And I did. Just like that. Such were the man's gifts. I told him that the first time I thought of ending it all was when I was nine years old. I had taken a beating from my father, and I had gone upstairs to my room and thrown a pair of jeans, my baseball glove, and a favorite model airplane into a duffel bag. Then I had walked downstairs, stopping in the tiny foyer outside the kitchen. A short staircase led to the front door.
My father saw me and walked out of the kitchen. "Going somewhere?" he asked.
I summoned all the nerve I could and stared up at him. "Good-bye," I said.
"What do you think you're doing?" he said.
"Don't look for me," I said, shaking with fear. "I'm not coming back." Translation: Tell me you're sorry, and that you want me to stay, and that everything will be different if I do.
He laughed at me. "So, go," he said. "You want to be a big shot? You don't want to live here? Take off." He walked back into the kitchen.
I glanced at my mother, cooking dinner. All the years she had stood idly by as my father meted out his brutality could have been overshadowed if she had had enough courage to come to me at that moment. But she didn't make a move, didn't say a word.
In truth, I had nowhere to go. I was nine. I had never felt as helpless. I dropped my suitcase, ran to my room, and started to cry. And I came up with a plan to wait until my parents were asleep, then use my father's belt as a noose to hang myself from a hook on the bathroom door.
Thinking about two things had kept me on the planet. The first was my best friend, Anthony, who sat behind me in homeroom and had an uncanny ability to finish my sentences. The second was my two-year-old turtle, Seymour, who surely would perish if left alone with my mother and father.
I wiped the mist from my face and took a deep breath of Atlantic air. The night seemed even chillier than before. I reached into my pocket and took out my flask. I unscrewed the cap, brought the metal to my lips, and swallowed a mouthful.
By the time the ferry reached Nantucket Sound, with Martha's Vineyard off to my right and the lighthouse at Cape Pogue just visible on Chappaquiddick Island, I had downed about a third of the scotch. More went as we slipped between the jetties that protect the channel into Nantucket Harbor. And once we had powered past Brant Point light, headed toward the wharf, the flask was empty. I held it up to the moonlight and focused on the monogram engraved in the sterling, pregnant with my father's "G" in its center. I rubbed it a few times with my thumb, picturing him standing outside the kitchen, telling me to leave if I wanted to. Then I tossed it into the waves.
I checked into the Breakers, walked over to my suite. Fresh flowers and a bottle of Merlot had been left for me, courtesy of the management. Fortunately, I was already feeling guilty about my drinking. I put the bottle in the hallway, just outside my door.
I hadn't been in the room fifteen minutes when North Anderson called from the lobby. He said he wanted to talk. I told him I'd be right down.
We walked over to the hotel's Brant Point Grill for a late dinner. From our table we had a sweeping view of the harbor and a good view of the rest of the dining room. Both of them were a little too pretty and made me uneasy. Looking at the tanned, well-dressed, bejeweled patrons, I wondered how the community was coping with a murderer at large. "Has the local paper covered the Bishop case?" I asked Anderson.
"I hear the Boston Globe's working on a long piece," he said. "But they've treated it like a car theft on the island. There was a two-paragraph story buried in the Inquirer & Mirror."
"See no evil, hear no evil," I said. "Funny thing how that doesn't seem to make it disappear."
Anderson nodded. "People use all kinds of escapes. You know that. This island, the way of life here-it's definitely one of them. To be honest, that's the reason I signed on as chief of police. I didn't think I'd be working another murder case the rest of my career. And I would never have missed it." He leaned a little closer. "For you, escaping still seems to mean booze."
I realized I must have had scotch on my breath. "Just a slip, you know? It happens."
"No, I don't." he said. "I don't know how it happens that you'd risk everything you've built over the last two years. Because I remember where your head was after the Lucas case. I wasn't sure you'd make it back." He looked away. "Maybe I was wrong bringing you on board."
I squinted at him. "Excuse me?"
The waitress had walked up to our table. I reluctantly focused on the menu and put in my order. Anderson did the same.
"Listen," he said, as soon as she had left. "I needed help, so I pushed you to get involved. But you might have had it right when you turned me down." He looked at me like a physician about to diagnose something incurable. "You may not be able to do this work anymore. It tears you up too much."
"Didn't you just tell me on the phone last night that they'd have to shake you loose from this case to shake me loose?" I said.
"I'm letting you off the hook," he said. "Think about it and let me know."
"I don't need to think about it," I said. "I'm into this too deep to back off."
He nodded unconvincingly.
"I won't touch the crap. All right?"
"Sure," he said.
I was feeling leaned on, so I leaned back. "Maybe my drinking isn't really the issue here," I said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're getting pressure from the mayor. You've got a nice job. You want to keep it. So I slip, and you say I'm down for the count. You make everyone happy."
"Like who?" Anderson bristled.
I shrugged. "Like the mayor and Darwin Bishop." Having said those words, I wished I could have stuffed them back inside me. I knew Anderson was just trying to help me. "I didn't…" I started.
He was already on his feet. "Hey, fuck you," he said, barely keeping his voice down.
"I didn't mean that," I said. "And I didn't start this whole thing."
The muscles in Anderson 's jaw were tight, his expression telegraphing he was barely in control, but he managed to sit down. "All I want," he said, "is to solve this case without it ruining your life or mine. So when I see you starting to get close to a suspect's wife…"
"Is that what this is all about?" I said.
"Let me finish." He lowered his voice. "When I see you getting close with Julia, then starting to dive back into a bottle, I worry whether your vision is getting cloudy. Because I'm depending on it. Is there something strange about that? Or did you forget that her son and husband are the two lead suspects in this case?"