A few seconds passed before Claire responded. "I'll tell him you're coming up to his room to see him," she said finally. "Then, I'll trust you to leave."
Anderson waited until she was gone. "With John McBride, Attorney-at-Law, on retainer and Captain O'Donnell taking over," he explained, "we may not get another shot at Garret. I think it's time to shake things up a little bit, anyhow. See if anything falls out."
I nodded, then pointed toward Julia's letter in Anderson 's pocket. "That doesn't read so good," I said. I pictured Julia seated at Tess's bedside. All of a sudden, I wished Caroline Hallissey hadn't decided to discontinue the one-to-one sitter.
"I warned you," Anderson said.
"I know," I admitted. "I should have listened."
"It's hard to hear anything but violins around a woman like that," he said. "Don't beat yourself up over it."
Claire came back and walked us to the door to Garret's room, then turned around and left again without a word. Garret was hunched over a desk covered with books, writing on a pad of white, lined paper. The walls of the room were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, overfilled with titles.
Unlike the uncreased, unread volumes in his father's study, Garret's were well worn. There were dog-eared classics by philosophers from Plato to Kerouac, scientific texts by Albert Einstein and James Watson, volumes of poetry by Eliot and Yeats, religious works by the Dalai Lama and William James and St. Thomas Aquinas. The room had none of the trappings of a seventeen-year-old boy. No model of a Porsche or Corvette could be found on any of the shelves. No poster of any teen sex goddess hung over the bed. There was no phone. And the room contained absolutely nothing to do with sports-including tennis.
"Garret," I said from the door, "It's Dr. Clevenger. I'm here with Captain Anderson."
He kept writing.
"Garret?" I said. I took a few tentative steps into the room. I felt almost dizzy from a potent cocktail of physical and emotional pain. Part of me wanted to rush back to Boston, to Julia, to get at the truth.
Garret's hand stopped moving across the paper. "Jesus. Have some respect," he said. "Did I say you could come in here?"
I backed up one step. "We won't take a lot of your time," I said.
He let out a heavy sigh and spun around in his desk chair. "What do you want?"
"Just to talk," I said.
"So, talk," he said.
I wanted to lighten the mood. "Nice collection, by the way," I said, motioning toward the walls of books.
He ignored the compliment. "If this looks like it might go long, we should move it somewhere else," he said. "I'm only allowed to stay in here two hours a day. I don't want to waste it."
"What do you mean, you're only allowed to stay in here two hours?" Anderson said. "This is your room, isn't it?"
" Darwin 's worried I'll become a recluse, a bookworm, maybe a fag," he said, sounding half-bitter, half-amused. "Even worse, I might start 'thinking too much,' as he puts it. Much better to swat a fuzzy ball back and forth over a net or ride a horse within an inch of its life, swinging a long stick."
"I take it you're no fan of polo," I said.
"Not much, lately. I used to like watching this one horse. Her name was Brandy," he said. "She was special."
"In what way?" I said.
"Her coat was unbelievable-kind of a cinnamon brown, very soft to the touch. Every muscle on her was perfectly cut. When she ran, it was like poetry. And she was sweet. She'd walk right up to me whenever I came around the stables, look at me with these big, brown eyes, almost as if she knew we were in the same tough spot."
"What spot is that?" Anderson said.
"Being ridden by Darwin," Garret said.
Garret sounded more human and vulnerable than he had the other two times we had met. "Is Brandy still around?" I asked him.
"Glued, dude." He winked. The hard edge had come back into his voice.
"She died?" Anderson said.
"She stopped winning. Then she disappeared." Garret shrugged. "It's all very Darwinian. Survival of the fittest."
He looked at me. "Are you all right?" he said. "You look like death yourself."
The muscles in my back had tightened, and I was trying to stay on my feet. "I'm fine," I managed. "Sprained muscles." I paused, shifted gears. "Captain Anderson and I are here because I haven't had the chance to speak with you since I saw you at the tennis club," I said. "That was the day before Tess was rushed to the hospital."
"And…" he said.
"And I want to know if you can help us," I said.
"Help you, like, how?"
"For starters, if you saw anything strange before you left for Brooke's funeral, or when you got back, we'd be interested in hearing about it," I said.
"You would," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"Enough to pay for it?" he said.
Anderson and I glanced at one another.
Before either of us could answer him, Garret smiled broadly. "Just kidding," he said. "The last thing I need is money. Would you shut the door, please?"
Anderson took care of it. "Anything you tell us stays confidential," he said.
"Right," Garret said. "I've already told Dr. Clevenger I'm not testifying at any trial, if there ever is one. Dad's got Johnny McBride working for him now, you know."
"We know," I said.
"There aren't even any bloodstains in this case," Garret said. "How hard do you think it's gonna be for McBride to make jackasses out of the police and D.A.?" He looked at Anderson. "The search of the house was bungled, by the way. UPS dropped off two packages inside the foyer, and the State Police sergeant let the driver use the upstairs bathroom to take a leak-the one Billy snuck into."
"I'll look into that," Anderson said.
"You'll want to, before they carve you up on the witness stand," Garret said. "Better you than me."
"Did you have something to tell us about that night?"
Anderson said, nudging the discussion back into line.
"All I heard was another argument between Darwin and Julia," he said. "It got just as hot as the ones they used to have about the twins-how Darwin wanted to abort them."
"Was Claire around to hear it?" I asked, wondering whether she had edited her memory of that night.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," Garret said. "I think she had gone to the store to buy formula for Tess." He shrugged. "I wouldn't swear to it, but that's what I remember."
"What was the argument about?" Anderson asked.
"The nortriptyline," Garret said.
"What about it?" I said.
" Darwin wanted the prescription bottle from Julia. He was screaming at her for most of an hour before she gave in."
"Did he say why he wanted it?" I asked.
"He said she should find some other way to kill herself," Garret said, "like she was about to take an overdose, or something."
"And did you think your mother might try to hurt herself?" I asked.
"I think Darwin had something else in mind," Garret said, smiling.
"What?" I said.
"An overdose for little Tess, of course."
Anderson let out a long breath. "So you think it's a coincidence your brother broke into the house that night?" he said.
"A lucky break for Darwin, the way I see it. Win was already going to do the deed, but Billy's daring move- which I give him a lot of credit for, by the way-made it the perfect crime." He paused and looked at me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable. "Or nearly perfect," he said.
"Why nearly?' I asked.
"Because I have the prescription bottle," Garret said matter-of-factly.
"You…" I started.
"Where?” Anderson asked anxiously.
Garret turned around and pulled open the lowest drawer of his desk. He reached all the way to the back of it. His hand emerged holding a key. "My locker at Brant Point," he said. He tossed me the key. "Number 117, top shelf. Back, right-hand corner. Inside a tennis ball can."