She looked away and shook her head. Several seconds passed. I sat still. Nearly a minute more went by. I was ready to gamble again by telling Lilly I knew she had injected herself with dirt. But, of a sudden, she turned back toward me. Her eyes had filled with tears. "I did this," she whispered.
"Tell me what you mean," I said.
"I used a needle to inject... I caused the infection. I did this to myself."
I nodded. "I understand," I said.
She started to cry.
"I understand," I said again. I waited while she dried her eyes. "Can you tell me why you did it?" I asked.
"I don’t know," she said. "I’m so ashamed."
"
But she does know. Ask about the shame
," the voice said.
"Is there something that happens to you around the time you inject yourself? Are there memories that bother you?"
She didn’t hesitate this time. "I do it," she said, "when I feel filthy. I do it to punish myself."
"And what makes you feel filthy?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said, almost inaudibly.
"I’ll never tell anyone," I promised.
She looked into my eyes, seeming to decide whether she could truly trust me. "I have bad thoughts," she said finally. "Terrible thoughts."
"Tell me about them."
Se closed her eyes and stayed silent.
"Lilly, you have to let the truth out. You can’t tie up your immune system any longer. You need it in order to stay with people you care about."
"I think..." She stopped herself.
"They don’t want to lose you," I said. "They don’t want to have to say good-bye."
"I think about my grandfather."
"What about him?" I asked. "What are the thoughts, exactly?"
"I think of myself... with him." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Touching him. Him touching me."
"Were you ever close with your grandfather in that way? Physically?"
"Never." She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. "That’s the strangest part." She looked at me. "I’m certain he never did anything like that." Her face was a portrait of confusion. "It feels so awful thinking that way about him."
"And thinking that way is what makes you want to inject yourself," I said.
"I would do it right now, if I could," she said. "It would make me feel so much better."
"To punish yourself," I said.
"Yes. The thoughts would stop."
So there it was, the pathogen attacking Lilly’s heart. It had taken on the life of a bacterium, but it had been born in Lilly’s psyche. Her guilt — and her infection — stemmed from her sexual feelings for the man who had taken care of her after her father’s death. The only question that remained was what had cultivated that desire. Had she been the victim of sexual abuse she later repressed? Or could there be another explanation? "You have to be willing to feel all the pain without using a needle to chase it away," I said. "If you’re brave enough to do that, then your stress will start to evaporate. The infection won’t have a chance of winning. It won’t be able to hide from your immune system."
"I want to try," she said. "Really, I do."
"Good."
"You’ll help?" she asked.
"I told you I would stay with you through this," I said. "I meant it."
* * *
I made it to Bomboa about twenty minutes before my schedule meeting with Julia Bishop. The place was unusually busy for lunchtime, but I’m a regular there, and K.C. Hidalgo, one of the owners, offered me my usual table right by the window. I told him I’d rather he find me a quiet table toward the back, and that I’d wait for my guest at the bar.
He looked at me with concern. "The bar? That’s a new perch for you."
I’d eaten enough dinners alone at Bomboa for K.C. to hear my whole life story in two-minute installments. He was a slim El Salvadoran man in his early forties, with chiseled features and a smile that would have kept his restaurant full if the food was average. But the food was some of the best in Boston, and K.C. was getting rich. He ran his fingers through his thick black hair. "I thought the bar was off limits. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and all that."
"I’m drinking my usual brew," I said. "Coffee."
"Then my place is your place." He walked me to the bar and caught the attention of the bartender. "Coffee for the doctor," he said.
"You’re taking good care of me," I said.
"Somebody ought to do it twenty-four, seven, dude," he said. "Somebody much prettier than me." He slapped me on the back. "’Cause, let’s face it, you don’t have a great track record taking care of yourself." He smiled that smile, then headed back to his post near the door.
The bar was about twenty-five feet long, with every variety of alcohol stocked against a mirrored back. I could see my reflection, framed by bottles of gin and scotch and vodka. I didn’t like the picture. But that didn’t stop me from asking for a Sambuca on the side when the bartender brought me my coffee.
He never came back, disappearing into the kitchen a few minutes, then tidying up the sink a few minutes more. I wondered whether I had whispered my order so softly that he had missed it. I was reluctant to approach him more openly for the booze, so I sat tight.
I was finishing off the last of my coffee when I caught Julia Bishop’s reflection in the mirror. My heart started racing like a schoolboy’s. She was wearing a whisper-thin, off-the-shoulder black cashmere sweater and hip-hugging tight black pants that flared slightly at the bottoms. Black sandals with three-inch heels made her look taller than I remembered her, like she had stepped out of the pages of
Vogue
. I glanced around the room and watched heads turning, including K.C.’s.
She walked up to me. "I’m glad you were able to see me," she said.
"Not a problem," I said, already adrift in that azure haze I had experienced the first time I met her. Julia’s presence was so absorbing, in fact, that I felt removed in some measure from myself and heard my own words as I spoke them, almost as an echo.
"I don’t think I’ve slept ten hours since Brooke... And now, with Billy missing." She pressed her lips together to keep from breaking down.
The perfume Julia was wearing was more intoxicating than Sambuca. "We’ll talk through everything," I said. "They’re holding a table for us toward the back. It’s quieter."
We moved to the table. Julia ordered a bottle of sparkling water. She said she had no appetite, which was understandable. But taken together with her sleeplessness, it made me worry she might be slipping into another depression. I ordered a few appetizers, to satisfy the waiter.
"I couldn’t tell you much when you visited the house," she started, "but there’s a lot you need to know about Billy. I think some of it will be critical when he goes to trial. Someone needs to make the judge aware of what he’s been through."
"Anything you can tell me would be appreciated," I said.
"I’m sure my husband filled you in on Billy’s background in Russia."
Listening to her use the words
my husband
bothered me. "He did. He told Captain Anderson and me about Billy witnessing the murder of his biological parents, then suffering abuse at the orphanage."
She seemed pained by what she was about to disclose. "What I doubt Darwin would have shared with you is how much trauma Billy has suffered since his arrival in this country."
"He didn’t share any of that," I said.
She swallowed hard. "Darwin isn’t the man you might think. He’s very intelligent. He can be remarkably charming. But he’s also very controlling. And he can be cruel."
I decided not to offer up the fact that Billy had shown me the welts on his back. I wanted to hear from Julia firsthand whether she believed Darwin Bishop was physically abusive. "Cruel, in what way?" I said.
"His demands on the boys are extreme," she said. "He expects them to be perfect — in school, athletics, at home. He interprets any emotion other than pride and self-confidence as a sign of weakness." She shook her head. "My son, Garret, is competing in a tennis tournament today, completely against his will," she said. "He pleaded with his father to let him drop out. He’s beside himself about the baby, of course. And he’s worried about Billy having left the hospital. Win wouldn’t hear of him not playing."
"Garret wouldn’t defy him?"
"Never," she said. "That’s a difference between Garret and Billy. Garret wouldn’t risk Darwin’s temper."
"Tell me about his temper."
She dropped her gaze. "I called you because I sense you were an extraordinary person, Frank. But this still isn’t easy to talk about."
"Nothing shocks me anymore," I said.
She looked deep into my eyes — into
me
. "Why is that?"
"I’ve seen people at their worst, doing terrible things." Telling her about my pain felt like giving it to her, relieving myself of it.
She kept looking into my eyes as she nodded, her posture and expression inviting me to say more, to empty myself into her.
"I left forensics years ago," I said. "I wasn’t doing well." That was as much as I wanted to yield, and Julia seemed to know it.
She took a deep breath. "I’ve always believed people appear in our lives when we need them to," she said.
"I believe that, too," I said. Our eyes met, and I realized why models command the fees they do. Her luminous eyes promised to see the best in you and to help you see it. They made me want to be strong for her.
"The truth is," she said, "the boys and I have lived in fear of Darwin for years. He becomes physically abusive, unpredictably. It used to happen when he drank. I thought the alcohol was to blame. But it only got worse after he managed to stop drinking."
"He hits you?" I asked. I could feel my jaw tighten, my pulse rate start to climb. I knew some of my reaction had to be rooted in having watched my father beat my mother, but I didn’t know how much of it. And I didn’t know how to control it.
Julia looked embarrassed. "Let’s say I’ve worn my share of dark lenses," she said. "I’ve hidden a lot over the years."
"And he’s physically abusive to the boys?"
Her expression turned solemn. "That’s as much my fault as anyone’s," she said. "I should have left with them a long time ago."
"So you’re saying he does abuse them," I said.
She nodded once. "Billy’s gotten the worst of it," she said.
I noticed I was leaning into the table. I settled myself back in my seat. "Why?" I asked.
"Two reasons, I think. First of all, Billy’s had a much harder time achieving. Win takes that as a direct challenge to his authority. He doesn’t seem to understand that Billy’s background may mean he always has to struggle. He literally believes that Billy willfully failed again and again in school — and in sports — to spite him."
That certainly didn’t sound like the man who had made so much of Billy being ill, rather than evil — and so worthy of help. But I was learning that Darwin Bishop had at least two faces. "What’s the other reason Billy is your husband’s preferred target?" I asked.
Your husband
. I didn’t like the words any better when I spoke them.
"Billy is the one who always seems to fight back. He won’t give in. No apologies. No promises of more effort or better behavior — not even after setting the house afire. Obviously, that stubbornness makes Darwin angrier. He doesn’t have anyone else in his life who stands up to him."
I decided to share what Billy had told me about being beaten with a strap. "When I visited Billy at Payne Whitney, he showed me his back," I said.
"He won’t let me look at his back," Julia said. "He hides it from me."
"It’s covered with welts. He told me your husband whips him with a belt."
She winced.
"That happened some number of times?" I said. "What Billy described?"
She nodded.
"Do the boys try to protect one another?" I asked.
"No," she said. "They don’t have a close relationship. They pretty much steer clear of one another. I’ve always thought that had something to do with Garret having come from Darwin’s previous marriage. The boys didn’t meet until Garret was seven and Billy was six. But I think Garret also avoids him because Billy’s been the one acting out, getting into trouble. He doesn’t want to be painted with the same brush."
"Or hit with the same strap," I said.
"Or that," she said.
"Darwin told North Anderson and me that Billy inflicted those wounds on himself," I said.
"That’s absurd," she said. She looked directly at me again. "Listen to me. Part of me would like to see Billy spend his life in prison for what he did," she said, working to keep her voice steady. "Part of me wishes this state had the death penalty." Her chest rose and fell sharply with her breathing. "I’ve lost my baby."
"I understand," I said.
"You couldn’t."
She was right. I stayed silent.
"I’m here because the other part of me knows that Billy isn’t fully to blame for what he did — even though he did it to my daughter. My husband is also guilty. And I am, too, for not having done something about Win’s violence." She took a few moments to steady herself. "My husband and Billy have been locked in a terrible struggle," she said. "It’s nothing a boy should have to deal with. Certainly not a boy with Billy’s history. And I think it’s the reason he struck out at Brooke. I think he really wanted to hurt Win."
That fit eerily with the theory I had shared with Billy during my hospital visit. It also answered a question for me; Julia Bishop obviously didn’t think her husband was responsible for her baby’s death. I wasn’t at all sure she would consider moving Tess off the estate. I decided to slowly test the waters. "I happened to see the
New York
magazine article that ran after your wedding," I said. "The two of you were driving down Fifth Avenue in a Ferrari. You seemed very much in love."
"I thought I was," Julia said.
"Did you know a great deal about him before you married him?"