CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
I make it all the way outside to the parking lot before I realize one crucial fact: I don’t have transportation. Paul dropped me off.
And as I swipe through my phone to call him, I notice my battery life is at just under 20 percent. In all the running around I’ve been doing, I’ve forgotten to charge it. Searching for a signal, as the phone was likely doing while in the woods, also drains the battery.
Paul’s line rings until his voicemail answers. In his usual upbeat, affable-sounding voice, my husband says, “Hi, you’ve reached Paul Lindman. I’m actually on vacation right now, if you can believe that. I’ll be back in the office August 26. If it’s an emergency, call my office . . .”
I wait through the rest of it. Then, “He isn’t awake, Paul. Whatever it is you think you’re doing . . .”
It’s impossible to know where to even take this. My brain is stuck on the craziest fact of all: Did my husband actually just lie to me about our son waking up? It’s such a low blow, such a horrible thing to do in order to get me away from Michael.
The midday sun is hammering down. It’s hot out here in the parking lot and I’m feeling heavy on my feet. So much so that I almost lose consciousness. I walk to the edge of the parking lot, where some trees provide shade. My whole body is vibrating, like I’m in shock.
I try Joni next, but her phone goes straight to voicemail — it seems she’s lost service.
Does that mean she finished her hike and is back at the yurt? Would Paul do anything to Michael with our daughter there? Or does he have some plan to get rid of her too? Lie to her about something, drive her a convenient distance away? What about her friends?
Dear God.
This is my life.
An unraveling nightmare.
My next call has to be to 911. There’s no other way. I mean, I don’t even know the address of Madison and Hunter’s place — it’s a yurt in the middle of the woods, for God’s sake — but I know the vicinity. And the police will likely have them in the system.
Get real.
You haven’t done it yet, and you’re not doing it now.
It’s true. I hesitated in the past in order to gather more information. To find out what Michael saw. But even if he said it was Doug Wiseman, no one is going to believe how he arrived at that conclusion. Not when the woman who led him to it lied about knowing his family fifteen years ago. Paul is right.
But . . .
There could be one thing. One way through this.
Because this has to end.
My hand slips into my pants pocket. I feel the stiff card, press my thumb against its straight edge.
I pull it out and stare at the name. The number. Then I key it into my phone.
Starzyk answers on the second ring. “Hey, Doc. I was hoping you’d call.”
*
The state investigator pulls into the hospital parking lot just ten minutes later. He leans over and pushes the door open wide. “Get in.”
Seconds later, we’re speeding along, taking the same route I took earlier in the day, skirting along the edge of town. “Talk to me,” Starzyk says.
“Like I told you on the phone, I think Paul could hurt Michael.”
“Because your husband thinks Michael hurt Sean. On the boat.”
“Maybe.”
Starzyk waits. “You’re not telling me everything.”
No, I’m not. But first, I need to level the playing field. “Mooney says mistakes were made. Do you admit that?”
He sniffs, delaying a response. “I wouldn’t be here if mistakes hadn’t been made. You know that.”
“Tell me, please; just tell me. You said Doug Wiseman wasn’t a suspect. That he came later. But there was someone else there. You have to know who. If it wasn’t Wiseman, then who?”
Starzyk takes a deep breath. “Yeah, we knew there was someone else there. We had the witnesses, the car in the street, the cigarette butts — you’ve heard all that. Crime scene made mistakes. We made mistakes. We allowed the kid in the room when we first questioned Laura Bishop, for one thing. We shouldn’t have done that — it contaminated her statement and his. But we went through everybody. We talked to all of David Bishop’s work contacts.”
I’m just quiet, listening, waiting for the point when he tells me he knows about me and the Bishops.
“We had half a dozen theories about someone else being there. Someone David owed money, maybe. Or someone who was screwing his wife. That was the other big one. We even had a witness, a friend of David’s, tell us he suspected an affair. But we couldn’t stick that to Doug Wiseman, because there was no Doug Wiseman at that time. He literally did not exist in Laura Bishop’s life. He came later, this older guy who got kind of obsessed with her, I think, wanted to save her from the whole thing, move her away. It never happened. We got her before she could run off.”
Starzyk has driven us through the residential area, and we merge onto a highway that takes us through the trees, between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.
He looks over at me. I feel those reflective bug eyes on me again, but I don’t look at the investigator. I’m facing the window, marshaling the will to do what comes next.
“There’s something else,” I say to Starzyk.
“What?”
“I knew the Bishops. We did. Paul and I.”
He drives in silence a moment.
“How? We looked at everything and—”
“Just socially. It’s not a big place. 6,400 people. Not everyone intermingles — it’s the uptight suburbs — but we did. We went to their place for at least a party or two. Maybe even had them over. It’s a hazy time in my life. Paul and I were going through a difficult patch. There was lots of drinking.”
I stop there, not wanting to go any further. Afraid to go any further.
But I have to. I’m so deep in an ethical breach I don’t know if I can ever crawl out anyway.
“I knew the Bishops when I agreed to evaluate their son.”
“Why would you do that?”
My lips feel numb. Maybe I’m in someone else’s body. Maybe I’m asleep.
“I’m not proud of it,” I say. A single tear slips down my cheek. I make a vow that it’s the last. “But I think I just wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t want to read about it in the paper. And I wanted to help.”
“Jesus,” Starzyk says.
I place my hands on the sides of my head again. I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Can you pull over?”
“We’re almost there.”
I try to breathe through it. “Why are you even here? You’re here because you’re covering your own self. For coercing Tom.”
“Hey — we made mistakes, we let a guy get away, but I didn’t coerce anybody. I don’t know why the kid named his mother. And it doesn’t matter — she pled guilty. Case closed. I’m here because I could never let it go. Who was the guy we all knew had been there? That’s the same question you’re asking. The medical examiner looked at all the wounds inflicted on David Bishop. He looked at Laura, her size, her reach, and he said, no way. This was done by someone much bigger than her. David Bishop struggled with this guy.”
Bad fighting.