With my wound still howling at me and my gun on the coffee table five stories up, I wasn't about to go looking for trouble. I figured I'd travel real light to Nantucket, buy myself a change of clothing on the island. I needed a new pair of jeans and a new black T-shirt, anyhow. My favorite set was bloodstained, and the T-shirt had a nasty tear across the back, to boot.
I turned up Front Street and drove straight for Logan Airport and the first Cape Air commuter flight of the morning.
Anderson picked me up at 7:30 a.m., an hour before his scheduled meeting with Mayor Keene. We headed over to the temporary State Police headquarters for the Bishop investigation, a specially decked out trailer that had been sited next to the Nantucket Police Station.
Brian O'Donnell greeted us cordially enough, maybe because he figured Anderson was about to be fired, anyhow.
As we walked through the strategy room, its conference table loaded with maps of the island, its walls covered with aerial photographs of the varied terrain, I managed to hold back from needling O'Donnell about the fact that Billy had apparently escaped the island before all the ATVs and choppers started scrambling through cranberry bogs and hidden forests.
Anderson showed less restraint. "Did they use infrared heat-seeking devices out there in the moors?" he asked O'Donnell.
"I believe so," O'Donnell said, without breaking stride.
"Anything turn up? A lost dog or cat, or something? That might make an interesting human interest story for New England Cable News, trigger some goodwill toward the department. You always want to have something to show for a production as expensive as what went down around here."
"We got what we were looking for," O'Donnell said, turning to smile at us for the briefest moment. "That's all that matters."
O'Donnell's office occupied the last third of the trailer. He took a seat behind a folding aluminum table he was using as a desk. We each took one of the plastic chairs opposite him. He laced his fingers behind his neck. "Gentlemen, how can I help you this morning?" he asked.
I got right to the point. "I'd like to interview Garret Bishop one more time," I said.
"Impossible," O'Donnell said.
"Why is that?" Anderson asked.
"You already know why. The investigation is wrapped up. Garret's given his statement. We have a suspect under arrest. Billy will be indicted by the grand jury within a day or so."
I heard O'Donnell loud and clear. Don't rock the boat. "I think Garret may be able to add critical information about what happened in the Bishop household the night Brooke died," I said.
"We have a clear picture," O'Donnell replied, with a grin. He glanced at Anderson in a way that seemed to telegraph that he'd seen the photograph of him with Julia on the beach. He let his not-so-subtle double meaning sink in for a few seconds. "The picture's been developing ever since Billy Bishop tortured his first animal. From there, he's escalated. Breaking and entering. Destruction of property. Arson. Murder. We've been over this ground."
"That picture doesn't fit with the fingerprint evidence I shared with you from the state laboratory," Anderson said.
"It doesn't need to fit that data," O'Donnell countered. "'Unless you're a Navy Seal, you're not going to get into and out of a property with no evidence you were ever there. The important thing for Billy, given that his hands had been all over that house for years anyhow, would be to keep his prints off anything directly linked to the mayhem he committed while inside. It's simple enough. He wore gloves. End of story."
"I don't think you'll get a conviction with the information you have," I said. "Garret might actually make that easier. If he tells us anything, it might cut against Billy, not for him. I have no idea."
"We'll get a conviction," O'Donnell said. "Billy Bishop will do life. Mark my words."
"Any decent defense lawyer is going to depose me and figure out I have doubts about Billy's guilt," I said. "The jury will hear those doubts. Let me address them now and get them out of the way."
"Mark Herman from the Public Defender's office has been court-appointed to defend Billy," O'Donnell said. "I'm sure he'll be in touch with you. He's a good man. The Bishops aren't retaining private counsel."
I didn't know Mark Herman, but O'Donnell's tone of voice made me wonder whether it was possible Herman was in the bag, too. Maybe he wouldn't press for an acquittal. Maybe he'd try to convince Billy to plead to a lesser offense, like second-degree murder. I exchanged a look with Anderson that conveyed my cynicism. It was obvious to me that we weren't ever going to get anywhere with O'Donnell. I decided to burn the bridge. "I actually have a great deal of sympathy for people like you," I said.
"Is that so, Doctor?" O'Donnell said.
"It's harder to see a sociopath when he's wearing a uniform," I said. "But I know you must have gone through something terrible that ruined you. Nothing comes out of nowhere."
"I guess we're done with our meeting," O'Donnell said.
"The only question left is what that something was," I said.
He stood up.
"What was it? What was so hurtful in your life that the badge hasn't been enough to help you turn your hatred around?"
O'Donnell walked out of the office. "See yourselves out," he called back to us.
The rest of the day felt like running into wall after wall in an endless maze. Anderson 's meeting with Mayor Keene went down pretty much the way he had thought it would. Keene handed him a copy of the photograph of him and Julia embracing by water's edge, then handed him a three-month suspension, without pay, for inappropriate conduct.
Anderson and I tried driving to the Bishop estate to see if we might stumble on Garret again, but were intercepted by State Police vehicles and turned back.
I called Julia Bishop at MGH to ask her to intervene and arrange a meeting with Garret, but she hung up on me before I could say three words.
Finally, I contacted Carl Rossetti to see if he could get a court order allowing Garret's interview with Julia's consent. He went to the trouble of finding Julia at MGH and getting her written permission, but then learned that Darwin Bishop's team of lawyers had already gotten a preemptive order from the court prohibiting any access to Billy or Garret unless both parents allowed it.
I had to admit things were looking worse for Billy. It felt as if a particular version of the facts was congealing around him, casting him permanently and inescapably as the killer in a drama that would not yield, even to the truth.
19
North Anderson and I decided to weigh our options over coffee at Brotherhood of Thieves, a favorite haunt of his. We settled on going to the media with the information we had, hoping to bring enough facts to light that Billy would go to court still enjoying a shadow of a doubt as to his guilt. If we were quickly and wildly successful getting our message out, the D.A.'s office might even start worrying about their prospects for a conviction and wait a while before asking a grand jury to indict. That would buy us more time. In any case, I was almost certain Carl Rossetti would agree to represent Billy-pro bono, if necessary. The exposure would pay him back a hundred times over.
The strategy was anything but surefire. Anderson had left his badge with the mayor. That meant I was officially off the case, too. O'Donnell would probably try painting us as exiled, disgruntled former members of his team. And that might be enough to keep our version of the evidence largely out of print and off the airwaves. These days, maverick reporters are as few and far between as maverick investment bankers.