Greg Iles - Blood Memory

“Are you familiar with the concept of the underworld? The River Styx? Charon, the ferryman? Cerberus, the three-headed dog?”

“I know the basics.”

“If you want to understand my work, think of it this way. Victims of chronic sexual abuse aren’t merely the walking wounded. They’re the walking dead. The repeated trauma and dissociation I described to you has effectively killed their spirits. ‘Soul murder’ is how some clinicians describe this pathology. I see these patients’ souls as trapped in the underworld. Call it the subconscious, whatever you will. The children that they once were are cut off from the world of light, wandering in eternal shadow. But though their souls have crossed the river to the land of the dead, their bodies remain behind. With us.”

I remember the jacket of Malik’s book, the old man in the boat waiting for the young woman to board. “What river do they cross? The Styx? Your book had Lethe in the title.”

Malik smiles in surprise. “Five rivers bordered the underworld. Styx was merely the river the gods swore oaths by. My patients have crossed Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. And my job is to do what the living are not meant to do: journey to the land of the dead and bring back the souls of those poor children.”

“Is that how you see yourself? A classic hero reversing the whims of fate?”

“No. But it’s certainly a heroic undertaking. In myth, only Orpheus came close to accomplishing the task, and even he failed in the end. I actually see myself as Charon, the ferryman. I know the underworld the way most people know this one, and I guide travelers back and forth between the two.”

I think about the metaphor for a while. “It’s interesting that you identify with Charon. The main thing I remember about him is that he had to be paid to ferry the dead across the river.”

“Your turn for insults?” Malik smiles in appreciation. “Yes, Charon had to be paid. With a coin in the mouth. But you misunderstand the metaphor. My fees don’t pay the price of the patient’s journey to the underworld. The patients have usually paid that price long before they see me.”

“To whom?”

“To the darkness. The price is paid in tears and pain.”

To avoid Malik’s challenging gaze, I look over at the Buddha. “Repressed-memory work is pretty controversial. Aren’t you afraid of lawsuits?”

“Lawyers are parasites, Catherine. I have no fear of them. I deal in truth. I journey to the land of the dead and come back with memories that terrify the most powerful of men. They haven’t got the balls to sue me. They know that if they do, they’ll be destroyed. Destroyed by eyewitnesses to their own depravity.”

“What about your patients?”

“I’ve never been sued by a patient.”

“Haven’t you ever made a mistake? I mean, even if delayed-memory recall is a real phenomenon, there are many documented cases of such memories being proven false. Recantations by patients. Right?”

The psychiatrist waves his hand. “I’m not getting into that controversy with you. Recantations are a problem for therapists who are inexperienced, misguided, poorly trained, or downright gutless.”

I understand why Harold Shubb warned me that the FBI had better have an ironclad case if they were going after Malik. The man has no fear, and he never questions his own judgment. But maybe that’s his weakness. “I’ve been here for quite a while now, and you haven’t asked me anything about the murders.”

Malik looks surprised. “Did you expect me to?”

“I thought they would interest you from a psychiatric perspective.”

“I’m afraid sexual homicide is depressingly predictable as a rule. I suppose trying to identify and apprehend particular offenders offers a certain lurid excitement-the thrill of the hunt, as it were-but I have no interest in that.”

Malik’s subtle cuts and backhanded insults remind me of my grandfather on a bad day. “You don’t see sexual homicide as an extreme form of sexual abuse?”

He shrugs. “It’s merely the dropping of the other shoe. The poisoned chicken coming home to roost. Childhood sexual abuse is almost universal in serial murderers. And they’ve frequently suffered the most systematic and violent forms of it. The rage they carry is unbearable. Their turning that violence back on the world is as inevitable as the setting of the sun.”

I suddenly remember Kaiser and the others listening to the transmission from my “hidden” microphone. I have a unique opportunity to probe their most likely suspect, and I don’t want to squander it. I close my eyes and try to let instinct guide me, but the voice that comes to me is not my own.

“Do you have nightmares, Catherine? Recurring nightmares?”

Before I can dissemble or deny, I see blue lights in the rain and my father lying dead, his eyes open to the sky. Hordes of faceless figures caper at the edges of the scene, the dark men who’ve tried to break into my house during countless dreams. Then the image vanishes, and I find myself riding slowly over a grassy pasture with my grandfather, in the round-nosed, old pickup truck that smells of mildew and hand-rolled cigarettes. We grind our way up a hill, toward the pond that lies on the other side. My grandfather is smiling, but the fear in my chest is like a wild animal trying to claw its way out of my body. I don’t want to see what’s on the other side of that hill. This dream began only two weeks ago. Yet each time it recurs, the truck moves farther toward the crest-

“Why do you ask that?”

Malik is watching me with compassion in his face. “I sense needs in certain people. I sense pain. It’s an empathic ability I’ve always had. More a burden than a gift, really.”

“I don’t remember you as particularly empathetic. Or insightful, for that matter. Mostly I remember you as an arrogant smart-ass.”

An understanding smile from the doctor. “You’re still an alcoholic, aren’t you? But you’re not an annoying drunk. No…a secret drinker.” His face wears the sad familiarity of a man for whom life holds no surprises. “Yes, that’s you. Publicly an overachiever, privately a mess.”

I want to pull the microphone from the transmitter on my thigh. John Kaiser and the FBI wire team are the only ones hearing this now, but God only knows how many people will listen to the tape later.

“I mentioned EMDR therapy earlier,” Malik says. “Have you heard of it?”

I shake my head.

“It stands for ‘eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.’ It’s a relatively new therapy that’s worked wonders for PTSD patients. It allows you safely to reexperience your trauma without becoming too distraught to handle the information. You might derive great benefit from that.”

I’m not sure I’ve heard correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve obviously suffered severe trauma in your life, Catherine. You showed clear signs of PTSD when I knew you in Jackson. Similar to the Vietnam vets I was working with at the time. That’s another reason I noticed you.”

I don’t want to let Malik know how close to the bone he’s come, but he has gotten me curious. “What kind of trauma do you think I suffered?”

“The murder of your father, for a start. Beyond that, I have no idea. Merely living with him in the years prior to his death might have constituted severe stress.”

I feel a rush of anxiety, as though my innermost thoughts have suddenly become visible to the man sitting in front of me. “What do you know about my father?”

“I know he was wounded in Vietnam, and that he suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“How do you know that? Did Chris Omartian tell you that?”

Another careworn smile. “Does it matter?”