Greg Iles - Blood Memory

She nods, her chin digging into my shoulder. “You know why I quit that year?”

“Why?”

“Because I knew cigarettes was poison. And after Mr. Luke died, I knew you was gonna need me around to look after you. I’m just sorry I didn’t do more, baby. Sorry I couldn’t save you from all the pain you been through.” She pulls back and looks into my eyes. “You’re the strongest of all my girls. I always said that. Dr. Kirkland think you got that strength from him, but I know better. Mr. Luke was a good man, and tough when he had to be. Old Mr. DeSalle, too. Maybe…oh, I don’t know. I’m just gonna pray for you, whatever prayers is worth. Maybe with the Lord’s help, you can come through all right.”

I kiss her gently on the cheek, then unlock the door and walk out into the sunlight.

My grandfather’s Lincoln is still parked beside Pearlie’s Cadillac. As I stare at the two cars, I sense someone watching me. Turning to my right, I see Billy Neal staring down at me from the rear gallery of Malmaison.

He’s smiling.

I turn toward him and start walking, my strides long and resolute. The closer I get, the more his smile fades. By the time I’m within speaking distance, he’s scowling at me. He’s also wearing a sport jacket in the dead of summer. Looking closer, I see the butt of an automatic pistol protruding from a shoulder holster beneath the jacket.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“You’ve hitched your wagon to a falling star,” I say in a flat voice. “You should leave while you can.”

He laughs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Follow me and find out.”

Grandpapa is talking on the telephone at his rolltop desk, his broad back clothed in a custom-tailored shirt of French blue silk. His deep voice fills the room like a finely tuned bass viol.

“Hang up,” I say sharply.

He rotates his leather chair, and his eyes fix upon me.

“I know what you did,” I tell him.

“Just a minute,” he says into the phone. He presses the mouthpiece against his shirt. “What is it, Catherine? I’m very busy right now.”

“I know you murdered my father.”

His only reaction is a slight narrowing of the eyes. Then he glances at Billy Neal, who’s standing by the door. “I told you what happened that night, Catherine.”

“You told me four different times. A different story every time. But I know the truth now. Evidence doesn’t lie. You murdered him, and I can prove it.”

Grandpapa raises the phone to his lips again. “I’ll have to call you back.”

“First you shot him. Then you shoved my favorite stuffed animal into his mouth to keep him quiet. Then I figure you held his nose shut with your fingers while he suffocated.”

In the time it takes Grandpapa to hang up the telephone, his eyes change from the benign blue of a loving grandfather to the cold slits of a wolf sensing threat. The transformation chills my blood. I have never seen this face before, and yet I recognize it. This is his real face -the face of the man who put himself inside me when I was a baby.

“Are you wearing a microphone?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He doesn’t believe me. For some reason, this sends a surge of anger through me. “You want me to strip for you?” I start to unbutton my top. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before, is it?”

“Stop that,” he snaps. Then he waves his hand at Billy Neal.

The driver takes something from one of the shelves and walks toward me. It’s a black metal wand like the ones they use in airports to check for concealed weapons. He sweeps it up and down my body, lingering in the crotch area.

“She’s clean,” he says finally. He walks back to the door and stands beside it like a guard dog.

“Do you know anything about this?” Grandpapa asks, pointing at the far wall.

To my amazement, dozens of books lie strewn about the floor, as though someone ripped them off the shelves in a frantic search. Pearlie’s words replay inside my head: I been looking for more pictures like that…but I ain’t found none yet.

“Mice?” I say in a flat voice.

He starts to respond, then discards the whole subject as not worthy of his attention. “All right. I told you I was busy. Is there anything else?”

I can’t believe his arrogance. “Didn’t you hear me? I can prove that you murdered my father. I can also prove you sexually abused Aunt Ann. And worse.”

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I have evidence.”

“Bloody footprints on a floor? I’ve already explained that.”

“I have a lot more than that.” I’d like to tell him about Pearlie, but I can’t put her at risk. “And I’m remembering more every day. I know what you did to me.”

Grandpapa’s eyes narrow again. “ Remembered evidence? It sounds to me like you’ve been taking your friend Dr. Malik a little too seriously.”

What the hell is going on here? I had no idea that he even knew who Malik was.

“Catherine, so-called repressed memories count for exactly nothing in a court of law. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“Ann’s body will count,” I say evenly.

For the first time, I see a shadow of worry cross his face. “What are you talking about?”

“How could you do that to her, Grandpapa?”

“Do what?”

“ Sterilize her! You cut her fallopian tubes when she was ten years old. Jesus. All your life you’ve acted like you’re better than everyone else. The best surgeon, the best businessman, the best hunter, the best father. You’re none of that! You’re a fucking monster. A freak. ”

His steely eyes are riveted on my face. “Are you finished?”

“No. You’re going to pay for everything you did. For Ann, for Mom, for me. For the children on the island, too.”

The jaw muscles flex in his impassive face. I know more than he thought possible, and he doesn’t like it.

“I’m not going to pay for anything,” he says. “I have nothing to pay for.”

“Do you deny what you did? That’s what child molesters do. They scream they’re innocent all the way to the pen. They’re probably still screaming that when it finally gets done to them in the prison shower. Your kind doesn’t fare too well in Parchman, Grandpapa.”

William Kirkland has never been talked to this way in his adult life, but he only straightens in his chair and smiles coldly at me. “I’d fare well anywhere in the world, Catherine. You know that. But I’m not going to prison. Your so-called evidence is worthless. A stuffed animal taken from a coffin that’s been in the ground for twenty years? You can’t connect me to that.”

“I can identify the maxillary arch of Daddy’s teeth in the latent blood on Lena’s coat.”

He purses his lips in thought. “Luke must have grabbed Lena and bit down on her to fight against the pain after you shot him.”

“Don’t even try that,” I snap, but I can see Grandpapa selling that story to a jury as smoothly as he’s sold himself all his life.

“Ann’s body proves that you sterilized her,” I say softly. “You never dreamed she’d be autopsied, did you? Not back in 1958. You shouldn’t have used silk sutures, Grandpapa.”

He rises calmly from his chair and shoots his cuffs. “Catherine, you’re obviously delusional. Ann was obsessed with becoming pregnant, everyone knows that. She went to all sorts of quacks for fertility treatments. She even went to Mexico. God knows what procedures she had done, or what butchers performed them. You’ll never prove I did anything more than remove her appendix. Even if you did, what’s the crime? Unnecessary surgery?” His eyes brim with confidence. “I’ve been accused of that before, and I came out smelling like a rose.”