Greg Iles - Blood Memory

Pearlie clucks softly. “There’s one thing we can’t change in this world. Our natures. We come into the world with them, and they stay with us all the way through.”

“Do you really believe that?”

A terrible wisdom seeps from her eyes. “I believe it, all right. I’ve watched too many children from the cradle to the grave not to.”

I don’t agree, but neither do I argue. Pearlie Washington has lived a lot longer than I have. We walk out into the sunlight of the rose garden.

“I have one more question,” I tell her. “And I want you to tell me the truth.”

The maid’s eyes deepen again, like a stilling pool. “I’ll try, baby.”

“Do you think Daddy might have killed himself?”

She draws back. “What you talking ’bout, girl?”

“I’m asking you if there was really a prowler here that night, or whether everybody’s been lying to me all these years to protect my feelings. Whether what Daddy went through in the war was just too much for him. So bad that…that even Mom and me weren’t enough to keep him wanting to live.”

Pearlie lifts her long brown fingers to my cheek and wipes away tears. “Oh, baby, don’t you ever think that. Mr. Luke thought the sun rose and set in your eyes. That’s a fact.”

I try to blink away the wetness in my eyes. “Did he? I don’t remember.”

She smiles. “I know you don’t. He got took from you too early. But Mr. Luke didn’t go through all he did in that war just to shoot hisself when he got back home. He loved you more than you’ll ever know. So you get that foolishness right out of your mind. All right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I’m surprised by the childlike sound of my own voice.

“I better find Natriece,” Pearlie says, squaring her shoulders and looking toward Malmaison. “You holler if you need me.”

As Pearlie walks toward the rear of Malmaison, I take my cell phone from my pocket and check the screen. Eight more missed calls, all from Sean. He won’t give up.

I open my digital phone book and dial my mother’s cell phone. She answers through a crackle of static.

“Cat? What’s wrong?”

“Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“Why else would you call me?”

Good God . “Where are you, Mom?”

“About thirty miles south of Natchez, coming back the Liberty Road way. I’ve been to see your aunt Ann.”

“How is she?”

“Not good. It’s too long a story to tell on a cell phone. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Are you working on those murders down there? I saw the news.”

“Yes and no. I’m actually in Natchez right now.”

Static never sounded so empty. “What are you doing in Natchez?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Don’t you dare do that to me. Tell me now.”

“When you get here. Good-bye, Mom.”

I hang up and look back at our house. I want to work the rest of my bedroom for latent blood, but I don’t have the right chemicals. Luminol can damage the genetic markers used to identify the person who lost the blood. Some rapidly evaporating solvents neither dilute nor damage bloodstains. I have some in New Orleans, but not here.

My cell phone rings again. I answer by saying, “I’ll tell you when you get here, Mom.”

“This isn’t Mom,” says Sean. “But I guess I know why you finally answered.”

I feel a rush of guilt. “Hey, I’m sorry about the missed calls.”

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t have kept bugging you today if it weren’t important.”

“What is it?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Just tell me, damn it.”

“We’ve finally connected the NOMURS victims.”

My heart stutters. “How?”

“You won’t believe it. It’s the women.”

“Women? What women?”

“Female relatives of the victims.”

I look around the gardens of Malmaison, my mind too filled with thoughts of the past to make sense of what Sean is saying. “Tell me from the beginning. I’m not there with you, remember?”

“When a low-risk victim is murdered, you have to look at the family, right? And these were all low-risk victims. The task force has been taking apart the lives of every family member, moving out in concentric circles. Well, this morning we learned that female relatives of two of the victims go to the same psychiatrist.”

My skin feels hot. “Which victims?”

“Two and four. Riviere and LeGendre.”

“What’s their relation?”

“Riviere’s daughter, LeGendre’s niece.”

“Holy shit. What’s the shrink’s name?”

“Nathan Malik.”

I run the name through my memory. “Never heard of him.”

“I’m surprised. He’s pretty well known, and fairly controversial. He’s written a couple of books.”

“On what?”

“Repressed memories. Bringing back repressed memories, I guess.”

This pricks something in the back of my mind. “That’s usually related to sexual abuse.”

“I know. Are you thinking what I am?”

“Revenge killings. Our victims are child abusers being killed by their victims. Or by a male relative of the abuse victims. From that angle, the sex and advanced age of the victims suddenly makes all the sense in the world.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Sean. “We’re checking every relative of every victim for visits to Nathan Malik or any other therapist. It’s not easy, though. The two women we’ve linked to Malik were hiding the fact that they were seeing him. Paying in cash and lying to their families about where they went. The only reason we figured it out is because they were obsessive about keeping up with their money. They had amazingly detailed private records.

“The FBI psychiatrist at Quantico says there’s a strong possibility that Dr. Malik could be doing the murders himself. There’s something called countertransference, where a shrink vicariously experiences the pain of his patients. The FBI shrink says that could trigger Malik to commit revenge murder just as if he’d been abused himself. And Malik would have the knowledge to stage the scenes to look like garden-variety sexual homicide.”

“Has anyone talked to Dr. Malik yet?”

“No, but he’s under surveillance.”

“How old is he?”

“Fifty-three.”

This is outside the age range of the FBI’s standard serial-killer profile, but well within the bounds of possibility, based on the literature. I can’t believe the adrenaline flowing through my veins. “What happens next?”

“That’s what I’m calling you about. We want you to check Nathan Malik’s dental records. See if they match the bite marks on the bodies.”

“You already have them?”

“No.”

“When will you?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I don’t get it. What’s going on, Sean?”

“We’ve got the name of Malik’s dentist. And since you know damn near every dentist in the New Orleans area, we were hoping you could have an informal chat with this one. Maybe get a look at some faxed dental records. Just enough to tell if Malik is the killer or not.”

A red flag goes up in my mind. “An ‘informal’ chat? You’re shitting me.”

“No.”

“Who wants this, Sean? The task force? Or you?”

The resulting pause is long enough for me to guess the answer. “Are you out of your mind? There’s no way a dentist is going to let me see his records without a court order. Not with all the new HIPAA regulations. When can you get a court order?”

“The task force is debating that now. The problem is, as soon as we ask for those records, we tip Malik to our interest in him.”

“So? If his dental records match the bite marks on the victims, that won’t matter. But if I break the law to get an ‘informal’ look at those records-or Malik’s dentist breaks it-and that’s brought out at trial, couldn’t that get Malik off?”