Greg Iles: Blood Memory

She looks at Michael, then back at me. “No, I don’t.”

A low humming has started in my head. “What is it, Pearlie? What do you know?”

She looks as serious as I’ve ever seen her. “I know everything. How much do you want to know?”

“Same as you.”

She looks doubtfully at Michael. “Some things it’s best not to know, Doctor. Why don’t you go get the car?”

Michael looks down at me, and I nod.

As he walks away, Pearlie steps in front of the wheelchair and fixes me in her gaze with an old woman’s severity. “After you left me on the island, I stayed with Louise Butler awhile. But I was nervous as a cat. I couldn’t rest. So I took me a walk. I wound up on the other side of the lake. At the big house.”

She’s talking about my grandfather’s lodge, the showplace designed by A. Hays Town.

“Before I knew what I was doing, I was tearing that place apart. I was still looking for the pictures, see? I knew they had to be somewhere.” She sighs and looks at the ground. “Well, I found ’em. They was inside a hollow book, just one out of hundreds in that library down there. And they were bad, baby. Lots worse than the two of you and Ann in the swimming pool.”

“What did they show?”

Pearlie wrinkles her nose as though smelling rotten meat. “Everything. It made me sick to look at them. I went to use the bathroom, and I was crying so bad I couldn’t stop. And then I heard something.”

“Grandpapa?”

“No. Jesse.”

“Jesse Billups? He saw the pictures?”

Pearlie nods, her face filled with anxiety. “And they wasn’t just pictures of any old children. Some of them were from the island. Jesse recognized them. Some of them belonged to people still living down there.”

“My God. What did he do?”

“He cursed me. Then he took the pictures and left with them.”

“What happened, Pearlie? What did he do with them?”

“He showed them to some other men down there. Some of the daddies of them children. See, the women had known about Dr. Kirkland, just like I guessed. Some of them, anyway. But they never let their menfolk know. But now the men knew. And they was killin’ mad, just like the women worried they would be. Well…Jesse called Dr. Kirkland and told him somebody had busted into the big house and tore everything up. Said Dr. Kirkland ought to come right away.”

I close my eyes, almost afraid to hear the end of the story.

“You sure you want to hear this, baby?”

“Yes.”

“When Dr. Kirkland got there, Jesse and the other men put him in a truck and carried him round to Big Leon’s house.”

“Who’s Big Leon?”

“One of the men on the island. He spent twenty years on Angola Farm. Jesse showed Leon the pictures and told him what Dr. Kirkland had done. Then he told Leon, ‘You can have him for two hours. Just don’t mark him up none.’”

“Oh, my God.”

As Pearlie nods, her eyes glow with fierce knowledge. “Two hours later, they went back and got him. Then they did what that Billy Neal was gonna do to you and me.”

“What?”

“Tied him to the steering wheel of his car and ran it off the bridge.”

“Jesus.”

“After a while, one of them swum down and took the rope off Dr. Kirkland’s hands.” Pearlie is watching me closely, waiting to see my reaction. “You said you wanted to know.”

“Did you see Grandpapa at all during any of this?”

“No. All I know is what Jesse told me.”

My mind is filled with one question. “Did he beg for his life at the end?”

“No, baby. He cursed them till his head went under the water. Wasn’t nothing gentle left in that old man. He’ll curse the devil hisself when he gets to hell.”

I suddenly feel exhausted.

“What you gonna do now?” Pearlie asks.

“I don’t know. Wait for my wound to heal, I guess. The bullet wound, I mean. The other could take my whole life.”

“I meant about the house. Malmaison.”

“What do you mean?”

Pearlie shrugs. “Well, it’s gonna be yours now.”

“What?”

“I thought you knew. Dr. Kirkland always said Miss Gwen couldn’t take care of her own self, much less the wealth she was born into. That’s why Billy Neal hated you so bad. You gonna get just about everything.”

Her words take some time to register. I have no idea what might be included in my grandfather’s estate, but it’s bound to be enormous.

“So, what you gonna do?”

“Sell it all,” I say.

Pearlie makes an uncertain sound. “The island, too?”

“Why not? I don’t ever want to see it again.”

“If you sell that island, the people down there won’t have nowhere to go. You own it all, the houses and everything. They just rent.”

For a few moments, images of the island rush through my head. But the pain that comes with them is too much to bear. “They can have it, Pearlie. The whole damn thing. It’s theirs anyway.”

“Do you mean that? That island’s worth a piece of money.”

“I couldn’t care less. I’ll have the lawyers draw up papers first thing. You and Jesse work out fair shares for everybody. Except for Louise Butler.”

Pearlie’s back stiffens. “What about her?”

“Louise gets the lodge.”

Pearlie gasps. “The big house? You’re not serious. Those women down there hate Louise.”

“It’s her house, Pearlie. As of today.”

The old woman makes several noises I cannot interpret. Then she says, “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

“For the first time, I think I do. Do you see Michael? I’m ready to go.”

“We don’t need no Michael. I can push this chair good as any man.”

She steps behind the wheelchair and takes the handles in her firm grip. As she turns me around, I catch a last glimpse of the river, vast and majestic under the shadows of the rain. The water down there will soon flow past DeSalle Island, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico. Where I’ll be then, I don’t know. But the chain of misery forged through the generations of my family has finally been broken.

By me.

That’s about as good a start as I can imagine.

Pearlie pushes me back toward the lane, where Michael’s Expedition waits. As we approach, Michael gets out and waves. I lay one hand on my stomach and close my eyes. I’m not touching the wounded place, but a spot lower down. I don’t need a drink now. I don’t need anything. But for the first time in my life, I feel truly free to choose what I want.

“It’s going to be different for you,” I whisper, rubbing my tummy in a slow circle. “Your mama knows what love is.”