Greg Iles - Blood Memory

“Do you know why I had to quit?” Kaiser asks.

“I heard you burned out,” Sean says.

“You could say that. I attacked a guy in prison. A child murderer. I was sitting there with the chief of my unit, calmly interviewing this con. Filling out a questionnaire, actually. And the killer was sitting there describing how he’d used his power tools on this little boy. I’ll spare you the details. Anyway, I just snapped. Before I knew what was happening, I’d gone over the table and tried to punch a hole in his windpipe. Broke some bones, put out one of his eyes. My boss had to club me with a coffee mug to get me off the guy.”

Kaiser’s hazel eyes have a faraway look, like he’s recalling a past life. “I got the same feeling when I was listening to Malik. Not relating him to that convict, but to myself. We all have a breaking point, you know? You sit there for years listening to this obscene stuff, being professional, maintaining distance. Then one day, before you even realize it, the veneer cracks. It’s like you said in Malik’s office, Dr. Ferry. If Malik is killing these guys, it’s because he thinks he’s right. It’s a crusade. They’re child molesters, and he’s decided that taking them out is the only meaningful response to the situation.”

“Do you think that’s what’s happening?”

“If it is, I hope the public never finds out.”

“Why not?”

“Because a lot of people would probably agree with him.” Kaiser sighs like a man wrestling with his own inner demons.

Before I can speak again, Kaiser’s cell phone rings. He answers, then faces forward, his mind already back on logistical details.

We’re close to my house now. I let go of Sean’s hand and try to catch sight of it as we round the corner. I see the trees first, the weeping willow that shades the west side of the house, the stand of pines on the other. Though I have neighbors on both sides, the curve of the levee here gives the illusion of seclusion, and that’s one of the main reasons I bought the place. That and the lake view from the second floor. I have to be near water.

The Crown Vic stops before my closed garage door, which has always shielded Sean’s car from prying eyes. Not much point in hiding it anymore. Everyone in the department will know about our affair by tonight.

Sean reaches across me and opens my door. I wait to say good-bye to Kaiser, but his conversation shows no sign of ending, so I get out and start toward my front door. I’m nearly there when I hear a clatter of heels on the sidewalk.

“Dr. Ferry!” It’s Kaiser, trotting after me.

I stop and wait. “You called me Cat back at Malik’s office.”

“That’s how I think of you,” he says. “But it’s good to preserve some professional boundaries in these situations.”

What situations are those? I wonder as Sean walks up behind Kaiser.

“I appreciate what you did today,” Kaiser says. “I’d really like you to come over to the field office later, if you’re feeling better.”

I’m not really listening. “Agent Kaiser, do you think I’m involved with these murders in any way? Or with Nathan Malik?”

Kaiser’s face changes about as much as a rock when the wind blows across it. He’s probably a hell of a poker player. “I think you did everything you could today to help us solve this case,” he says. “And I think the people who matter will see that.”

“Why do you think Malik said ‘Don’t blame yourself’ to me as I left?”

“I don’t know. What do you think he meant?”

This is like talking to a shrink. “I have no idea.”

Kaiser looks at the ground, then back at me. “We’ll just have to try to figure that out together.”

That’s all I’m going to get. I offer him my hand, he shakes it, and then I walk inside my house without looking back.

I’m standing at my picture window, gazing out at the lake. My meeting with Malik profoundly disturbed me, and I’m not sure why. His cryptic comments about my father stirred up a stew of fragmentary memories, but none has told me anything useful. I’m not even sure the images in my mind are real, and not things I’ve pieced together from old photographs and stories. A few things I’m sure of-salvaged from nights I sat in the loft of the barn my father used for his studio, watching him work into the small hours of the morning. The roar of the acetylene cutting torch, the hiss of steam as he dipped red-hot metal into the trough he used to cool it. The smell of acids he used for etching, the sound of the riveter as he linked various pieces of his sculpture into a whole that existed only in his mind. There were no sketches, no plans. Just raw metal and the vision in his head.

Now and then, he would remove his mask and look up into the loft at me. Sometimes he would smile. Other times he just stared, watching me with something like fear in his eyes. Even so young, I sensed that my father saw me as another of his creations, one too fragile to handle with confidence. He seemed afraid that, unlike the metal he shaped with such assurance, I might be damaged by a wrong word or move, and that the damage could never be undone.

I thought of the barn as my father’s studio, but in truth he slept there for the last few years of his life. It was only a couple of hundred yards down the hill from the slave quarters where I slept with my mother, but the separation was absolute. No one was allowed into the barn when he was working. No one, except me. When I asked my mother for an explanation of these sleeping arrangements, she said it was because of the war. She wouldn’t elaborate. My father told me that he had bad dreams at night, and that sometimes when he woke up, he didn’t know where he was. At those times, he said, it was like the war had never ended, like he’d never made it home. When that happened, it was better for me and my mother if we weren’t in the house with him. It was only later that I realized that, for our family, what my father believed during his flashbacks was true. The war hadn’t ended for him. He had never quite made it home.

“What are you thinking?” Sean asks from behind me.

I don’t turn. There aren’t many boats out, but I need to watch them. A sail moving slowly across the horizon gives me something to focus on when my internal moorings start to come loose. Like now. The frantic feeling that awakened in me upon leaving Malik’s office has not abated. “About my dad,” I say softly.

“What about him?”

“Just stuff. Fragments. That’s all I have, really.”

Sean lays his hand on my shoulder and squeezes lightly. I jump at his touch, but I manage not to pull away.

“I need a drink,” I murmur. “I really need it.”

He waits a bit before answering. “What about the baby?”

“It’s a drink or a Valium. At this point I’m not sure which is worse.”

“Would one drink be that bad?”

“It’s not just one drink. It’s the first step off a cliff.”

The grip tightens on my shoulder. “We need to get your mind off it. What can I do?”

“I don’t know.” The sail I was watching has vanished. The boat is tacking, fighting its way back toward shore. “Maybe we should make love.”

Sean’s other hand comes to rest on my other shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“No. I just need something to numb this thing inside me.”

“What is it? Is it the manic feeling?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this before. I felt good before I went in to see Malik. And I was fine while I was with him. But now…it’s like he flipped a switch in my head. All these feelings are flooding through me. Too many feelings.”

Sean turns me around and steps close enough that our chests touch. I look into his eyes, trying to lose myself in them. I’ve done it before, lost myself in those green spheres like a little girl swimming in an emerald sea. Drifting and rolling-