I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my soul. First of all, Eisenstadt actually existed. Secondly, Julia was clearly her patient. "I completely understand," I said. "We haven't had time to dot our i's or cross our t's. You probably know Billy is still at large. I've had contact with him by phone. Anything you can share with me could help me-either to reach out to him now, or to help him in court later."
"Such as…" she said.
"Such as where you think he fits, in terms of family dynamics," I said, as a throwaway line. "Have you treated Ms. Bishop a long time?"
"Sporadically," Eisenstadt said, still sounding cautious.
"She summers on Nantucket, of course," I said.
Several more seconds passed. "More sporadically than that would explain. I think we've met four, possibly five times, in total. But that's really all I can say."
My confidence in Julia's story plummeted and all that weightiness settled right back inside me. I sat down. "I didn't know it was that infrequent," I said. "Perhaps you still feel you know her well enough to-"
"If you do get that release, I'd be happy to share the file."
"Would that include her letters?" I asked, reaching.
Eisenstadt was silent.
"Ms. Bishop mentioned she's written you, from time to time," I said. I could hear my tone of voice drift toward an investigator's, and I knew Eisenstadt would hear it, too.
"Without a client's written permission, I can't confirm or deny the existence of any specific item in the medical record," she said flatly. "That's the law. I'm sure you're familiar with it."
"I understand," I said. I tried taking another tact. "Shall I have Ms. Bishop specifically authorize release of the letters, or would a general release of information suffice?"
"I can't say any more," she said, coldly this time.
"Of course. Thank you for your time. I'll be in touch."
"Not at all. I'll be happy to talk with you again." She hung up.
I stood there, holding the phone in one hand, rubbing my eyes with the other. It seemed beyond the realm of possibility to think that Julia could have bonded so closely with Eisenstadt in four or five hours as to have written that Eisenstadt "sustained" her, that she meditated "constantly" on their time together, and that she had the will to live only when "I think of seeing you." Eisenstadt was female, after all-the wrong gender to inspire that kind of intimacy from Julia.
Julia had another lover. I didn't know whether that fact itself, or her lying about it, troubled me more. In any case, the investigation had missed a critical beat: Interviewing whoever she had been sleeping with at the time of Brooke's murder.
There was no telling what such an interview would yield. What if Julia and her lover had plans to run off together-plans her lover abandoned when she became pregnant with the twins? What if Julia had come to see Brooke and Tess as the only barrier between her and a fresh start with another man?
Conversely, what if her lover had come to see the twins as an obstacle? A man might do anything to have Julia.
A dull headache had cropped up at the base of my skull. I needed better news. A little relief. Ballast. I dialed State Police headquarters and asked for Art Fields, feeling like I was pulling the lever on a one-armed bandit that had just swallowed my last coin. He picked up a minute later. "Frank Clevenger calling," I said.
"Glad you called."
"Do we know whose prints are on that negative yet?" I asked.
"Just one person's," Fields said tentatively. " Darwin Bishop's."
I felt like I had hit the jackpot. But Fields's voice didn't have celebration in it. "You don't sound satisfied with that," I said.
"There aren't any other prints," he said. "Not Billy Bishop's. Not anyone's. I would have liked to see one unidentified stray-from whoever processed the roll, some clerk in a store, whoever shot the film for Bishop and turned it over to him. Somebody."
"Wouldn't those people be trained to hold the negatives without touching the surfaces?" I asked. "Don't some of them wear gloves?"
"But a lot of them screw up, don't care, or whatever," Fields said. "So you have to wonder whether someone went to the trouble to keep the negative extra clean before it made its way to Bishop. And you have to wonder why."
"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."