Greg Iles - Blood Memory

I can sleep here.

The bathroom is stocked with towels and toiletries, even a new toothbrush. I strip off the warm-up pants and T-shirt Michael brought me, then lean into the shower to turn the faucet handles. Before I can, the opening notes of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” fill the bathroom. I glance at the screen of my cell phone, and my pulse instantly accelerates. It’s a New Orleans number that I don’t recognize. Nathan Malik?

I press SEND and then hold the phone to my ear.

“Dr. Ferry?” says a man who sounds nothing like Dr. Malik.

“Yes?” I say cautiously.

“This is John Kaiser. I need to talk to you about Nathan Malik.”

“Is he alive?” I ask without any rational reason.

The silence that follows this question seems interminable. I sit on the lid of Michael Wells’s commode and wait for Agent Kaiser to tip me off my precarious mental precipice.

“Why would you ask me that question?” he asks. “Didn’t you speak to Dr. Malik earlier tonight?”

Sean’s warning that Malik might be declared a fugitive from a murder charge comes back to me with all its implications. “Yes,” I confess. “Briefly.”

“You’re aware Dr. Malik purposefully evaded surveillance and will be declared a fugitive if he leaves Louisiana?”

Two things hit me instantly: one, Kaiser is speaking for a tape recorder; two, Sean obviously told Kaiser about our conversation. “Yes. I think you know that.”

“Did Malik give you any idea where he was when you were talking?”

“No, but you must have figured that out by now.”

A brief pause. “He called you from a pay phone on the West Bank in New Orleans. By the time we got a car there, he was gone.”

“Is that right?” I stall, trying to gather my wits. It’s disorienting to deal with this call while naked in the guest bathroom of Michael Wells’s house. I’d do better in my own house, or even in my car. But one thing I know: if Malik was on the West Bank when he called me, he could not have been shooting at me on the island.

“Dr. Ferry,” Kaiser says in a softer voice. “You’ve asked me to call you Cat. May I do that?”

“Sure,” I say, pulling the T-shirt back on.

“I need to cover several things with you quickly. I want you to tell me everything that pops into your head while we talk. Is there any reason you feel you won’t be able to do that?”

“Such as?”

“Some sort of loyalty to Dr. Malik.”

My cheeks burn. “I told you, I don’t even know the guy! You heard every word of our meeting in his office.”

“Yes, I did. But clearly the two of you feel some sort of rapport. An emotional connection. Perhaps it has to do with your similar medical histories.”

I close my eyes, wondering how much Kaiser knows about my personal life. Did Sean tell him about my sexual abuse? “Please go ahead with your questions, Agent Kaiser.”

“All right. Are you absolutely positive that Dr. Malik never treated you as a patient?”

“Yes.”

“Did Sean Regan tell you that we finally found a patient of Malik’s who would talk to us?”

“No.”

“Like his other patients, she feels great loyalty to Malik, but she had to drop out of her therapy group with him. She found it too stressful.”

This piques my interest, as Kaiser must have known it would. “Stressful how?”

“Apparently Malik does delayed-memory-recall work with several patients in the same room. That’s highly unorthodox. The experience of hearing other women relive abusive experiences gave this patient acute anxiety attacks.”

“And?”

“Well…that’s what you’ve been having at our crime scenes.”

“Give me a break. Anything can cause an anxiety attack.”

“Nevertheless. Malik manages several different groups. His treatment protocols vary according to what he thinks each group can tolerate. Drugs with some, not with others. In this woman’s group, Malik encouraged aggressive confrontations with family members who had sexually abused the patients as children. Malik compared these confrontations to the solo flights of student pilots. The final step to freedom and independence. Anyway, this woman couldn’t handle that, and she dropped out. We found her through the psychologist who initially referred her to Malik.”

“That’s all very interesting, but it has nothing to do with me.”

Kaiser’s sigh carries a lot of fatigue in it. “Cat, a lot of people on the task force are very angry with you. I’m not one of them, whether you believe me or not. I think you have some real insight into this case. Maybe insight you don’t even realize you have. I also know that you gave Sean Regan a lot of help on one of the serial murder cases he got credit for solving.”

“Who told you that?”

“Sean did.”

“That’s a shock.”

“He really cares for you, Cat. Extramarital affairs are hard on everybody. But Sean thinks you’re a genius.”

Men always try flattery first to manipulate women. John Kaiser’s no different. The threat will come later. “I’m no genius. I’m just obsessive.”

“Whatever works. Sean told me somebody tried to kill you tonight.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Nope.”

“Is this your Gary Cooper impression?”

I can’t help but smile a little. “Nope.”

“Do you think the attempt on your life was connected to the New Orleans murders in any way? Or to your work on those murders?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m looking into a separate matter up here. A personal matter.”

“A personal matter.” Kaiser seems to mull this over. “Are you sure it’s unrelated to your work in New Orleans?”

“You can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything. But I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

“Did you tell Dr. Malik about the attempt on your life?”

“Yes.”

“Did he suggest there might be a link between that and the New Orleans murders?”

I suddenly have the feeling that Kaiser has every word of my phone conversation with Malik on tape-that he’s just testing my honesty with these questions. “I asked him that exact question. He said yes and no.”

“Cat, I want you back in New Orleans. You’re tied into these murders somehow. Surely you see that?”

There’s an earnestness in Kaiser’s voice that tells me he’s really worried about me. “I concede that Malik has a fixation on me, okay? But if he called me from the West Bank of New Orleans this evening, he couldn’t have shot at me on DeSalle Island thirty minutes before that. That’s physically impossible.”

“I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here,” Kaiser confesses. “But I know Nathan Malik is involved in the murders.”

“He probably knows more than he’s telling. But if you want to know what he knows, I have a lot better chance talking to him on my own than with you listening in.”

“Do you plan to speak to him again?”

“If he calls me.”

“Hm.”

I get the feeling Kaiser would like to run this investigation one way, while his colleagues on the task force would prefer a stricter approach. “Are you listening in on my cell calls?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

If Kaiser is telling the truth, it’s only because he doesn’t yet have a court order or the assets in place to bug my phone. But he soon will.

“Why did you go to DeSalle Island?” he asks. “This personal matter of yours?”

“I’m trying to find out something about my past.”

“About your father?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’m extrapolating from your conversation with Malik in his office. Did you learn anything important?”