Greg Iles - Blood Memory

I hate the smell of roses. I have ever since I saw my father lying dead among them -

“Have you been taking your medication?” he asks in a condescending voice. “Maybe I should review your drug regimen with your psychiatrist. Are you still on the Depakote?”

I was prepared for extreme reactions when I entered this room-rage, denial, rationalization, even begging-but supreme confidence wasn’t one of them. He hasn’t even denied the abuse. He’s just shooting down my accusations as though he were playing games with a poorly prepared lawyer. I want to shake that confidence. I want to see the worm of fear work its way through his gut and up into that megalomaniacal mind.

“I’m not the one you have to worry about,” I tell him. “It’s Dr. Malik who’s going to nail you.”

Grandpapa glances at Billy Neal again. “That would be quite a trick. Since the good doctor happens to be dead.”

A dry chuckle from Billy. I’m starting to wonder if it was Billy Neal who faked Malik’s suicide in the Thibodeaux Motel.

“Dead or alive doesn’t matter,” I say with confidence I don’t quite feel. “He’s going to speak from the grave. You’re going to be revealed for what you are on TV screens from coast to coast.”

Neither Billy nor my grandfather is laughing now, and I thank God for it. If they were, I’d be pretty sure that Dr. Malik’s film had already been destroyed. But it hasn’t-not by them anyway. They don’t even know about it.

“I see you don’t know about Dr. Malik’s documentary on sexual abuse.”

In seconds, the threatened wolf is back. I hear a creak to my left. When I look that way, Billy Neal is gone. Did Grandpapa signal him to leave? Whether he did or not, he takes Billy’s exit as a cue to advance toward me, six feet six inches of rage, with blazing eyes and a voice like Moses’ down from the mountaintop.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me? I’m sweating blood trying to save this town, and you’re working around the clock to sabotage everything I’ve achieved!”

What the hell? I accuse him of sexual abuse, and he’s screaming at me about a business deal?

“Federal certification of the Natchez Nation could come any day!” he roars. “The state gaming commission would love an excuse for a federal injunction to stop that. I am deep into this deal, Catherine. I have money on the table. Not other people’s money. Mine. Your inheritance, if you give a goddamn-which you probably don’t.”

“You’re right,” I say quietly. “I don’t. All I care about is what you did to this family. That’s all you should care about, too. But that was the problem all along, wasn’t it? You didn’t care. We didn’t exist, except to pleasure you when the mood struck you.”

He takes another step toward me, but I don’t back up. “I remember what you did. It’s taken almost thirty years, but it’s coming back. The pond…the island…the orange pickup…the rain.”

Something flickers in his eyes, an emotion I can’t read. The fury he displayed only moments ago seems to have been discharged. “Do you remember?” he asks, his voice suddenly much softer. “Do you remember how you felt? You loved being my special girl. My little angel. You loved being better than your mother. You gave me what the others couldn’t, Catherine.”

He’s very close to me now. The moment has an obscene intimacy that makes my bowels turn to water. “You do remember. They all liked it…but not like you. No one else responded the way you did. You’re just like me.”

“No,” I moan. “Shut up.”

Grandpapa squares his broad shoulders and looks down at me. “Has anyone made you feel the way I did? I’ve watched you go from man to man…always searching…None of them are man enough to handle you, are they?”

I was right not to give Sean the identity of the killer in New Orleans. She and I are sisters. If I had a gun in my hand, I would open fire and keep firing until the gun was empty.

Grandpapa folds his arms and looks down at me the way he used to look at his patients. “I’m going to speak frankly to you, Catherine. What’s the point of going through life with illusions? Mine were taken away when I was a little boy, and I’m glad for it. It made me strong. It saved me a lot of heartache later on.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everything you’ve said today is true. I had relations with Ann. Gwen, too.”

I want to interrupt, but my voice won’t come.

“Great men have great appetites, darling. It’s that simple. More hunger than one woman can satisfy. Your grandmother knew that. She didn’t like it, but she understood.”

“Liar!” I shout, finding strength in my grief and outrage. “How do you convince yourself of this shit? Grandmama didn’t understand. She suspected you for years, but she did everything she could not to validate her fears. Just like the rest of us. Because to believe it, we’d have to admit that you never loved us. That you only kept us around to fuck us!”

“You’re wrong about your grandmother.”

“No. Somewhere beneath all the lies you tell yourself, you know the truth. When she finally figured out what a monster she’d married, she drowned herself, so she wouldn’t have to live with what she’d let happen to us.”

Grandpapa’s composure comes apart slowly, like mud cracking in the sun.

“You say she wasn’t enough for you. Why didn’t you divorce her, then?”

He walks away from me and stops before a painting of the Battle of Chancellorsville. “It was my destiny to manage the DeSalle fortune. The fact that I’ve quadrupled it in size proves that.”

“Take a mistress then. Why come to us ? Your own children?”

He shakes his head. “A mistress makes you vulnerable.”

“And having sex with your own children doesn’t?”

“Exactly.” When he looks back at me, he reminds me of a math teacher puzzled by kids who can’t grasp the simplest concept. “Your grandmother didn’t suspect what I was doing, Catherine. She knew . How could she not? She knew I needed more than she could give me, and she preferred that I get it at home rather than embarrass her in society.”

A coldness unlike any I’ve ever known envelops me. Could he be right? Could Pearlie be wrong? “I don’t believe you.”

He shrugs. “Cling to your illusions if they make you feel better.”

“You’re saying you had sex with us for utilitarian reasons? And Grandmama knew that?”

Exasperation tightens his features. “Damn it, girl, you act like I’m the first man who ever did this. The same thing happened to me when I was a boy. My grandfather was a widower. He used me for sex. I’m not whining about it. But the fact is, that kind of sex does something to you. It gives you a taste for something that nothing else can satisfy. It’s like war. You get a taste for killing, and you have to keep doing it. Only this craving is stronger. I know you’ve felt it, too. That’s the way it works.”

I shake my head in denial, but I’m not so sure he’s wrong.

He holds up his big hand and stabs a forefinger at me. “I’m going to tell you a hard fact of life, Catherine. A woman is a life-support system for a pussy. Period.”

I blink in disbelief.

“You know I’m right. You’re a scientist. But heredity has given you a chance to rise above that primitive function. You’ve got brains, and you’ve got will. But you’ll never transcend your sex if you blind yourself to the realities of life.”

“You’re insane.”

“Am I?” He goes to a shelf and pulls out a large black volume, then tosses it at my feet with a bang. It’s a King James Bible. “Take a look at the book of Leviticus. There you’ll find all the biblical proscriptions against incest. All the rules laid down for everyone to see. A man is forbidden by God to have sex with his mother, his wife’s mother, his sister, his aunt, with an animal, with another man, or with a woman having her period. It even mentions the daughter-in-law. But one relationship is specifically not mentioned.”