Greg Iles - Blood Memory

Kaiser thinks fast, then hands me the phone. “Whatever you do, don’t tell her Malik is dead.”

I nod and press SEND. “Hello?”

“Hey, Cat Woman!”

My heart thumps against my sternum. It’s Ann. I nod quickly to Kaiser, and he tenses on the seat.

“How you doing, baby girl?” Ann’s voice has the brittle quality I’ve learned to associate with her manic episodes. How do I play her?

“Not so good right now, actually,” I say in a tired voice.

“You sound like you need a drink.”

“I wish. I’m on the wagon.”

“Ouch. Your message said you knew something about Dr. Malik and me. What exactly do you know?”

“I know you paid his bail. The FBI knows, too.”

“That’s not against the law, is it?”

Ricochet-quick response. Definitely manic. “Dr. Malik is mixed up in some murders, Ann.”

A pause. Then a craftier voice comes through the phone. “ Mixed up is a pretty vague term, baby girl. Nathan couldn’t do the things they think he did. I know men, honey. He doesn’t have that in him.”

Ann knows men like an arsonist knows fire. “I’ve been talking to him quite a bit lately,” I tell her.

“Do you know where he is?” A hint of anxiety now.

“Yes.” I close my eyes. “He’s been arrested again.”

“Arrested?” The alarm in that one word is shocking. “Where?”

“Here in New Orleans. I think you should drive over and see him. I’d like to talk to you, too. Are you in Biloxi?”

“No.”

“Are you anywhere close?”

Another silence. “Sorry, baby girl. I don’t feel like I can tell you everything at this point. You know how that is. You’ve always kept some secrets yourself.”

“You’re right. But sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I wish all of us would have talked to each other more.”

“Oh, honey…me, too. I wish you could do a group with Nathan. He’s worked miracles for me.”

“I wanted to,” I reply, only half lying. “I just found out some things about my past that really messed me up. I’d like to ask you some questions. To see if some of the same things happened to you.”

“Oh, baby girl,” Ann says in a breathy voice, “I’ve worried about you so much. But you really should talk to Nathan about this, not me.”

Is she telling me she was abused? Why else would she worry about me? “Why have you worried about me so much?”

“You’re a lot like me, Cat. Gwen told me they diagnosed cyclothymia, but that’s just bipolarity under another name. We’ve got it in the blood. Nathan’s the expert, though. I’m not in shape to give anyone advice.”

Kaiser is mouthing words to me. It looks like he’s saying, Group X .

“Dr. Malik told me about something called Group X. It sounded really cool. He told me about the film, everything. Were you part of that?”

Ann starts to reply, then catches herself. In the hiss of the open line, I can feel her listening to me. Listening with the concentration of the manic mind in its focused state. It makes my skin crawl. I know the feeling of hyperconcentration you experience when your mind is on that plateau. If you listen to the grass, you can hear it growing.

“Catherine?” she says, her voice so imperious that it could have come from my grandfather. “What are you not telling me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Kaiser is watching me anxiously. “I don’t. This is me you’re talking to, Ann. And this is a dangerous situation we’re in. Even Dr. Malik knew that.”

“ Knew? ”

I grimace, and Kaiser curses silently.

“You just used the past tense, baby girl.” The crafty voice again.

“Well, Dr. Malik’s in jail now. And for murder this time.”

“I hear your voice, Cat. You’re afraid of something. Or someone. Or for someone.”

“No. You’re reading things into this.”

“I want to talk to Nathan.”

“Come to New Orleans. You can see him at the parish prison.”

This time the silence drags forever. “I can’t come there until you tell me the truth, Cat.”

I grit my teeth and try to keep my voice even. “I’ve told you what I know. I’m worried that you don’t trust-”

The hissing line takes on a deadness like a blanket dropped over my heart. “She hung up on me.”

The FBI field office is a four-story brick fortress on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, between Lakefront Airport and the University of New Orleans. We stop at the heavy-iron gate topped with fleur-de-lis, so Kaiser can show an armed guard his credentials. Once inside, we park and hurry through an entrance adorned with flags, black marble, and the FBI motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.

There’s red tape to be handled in the vestibule, where a woman waits behind bulletproof polycarbonate glass. Afterward, Kaiser ushers me through a metal detector, and we’re on our way to the fourth floor, where the special agent in charge runs the field office and the 150 FBI agents spread across Louisiana.

When we get out of the elevator, Kaiser leads me down a hallway like those in every other corporate headquarters in America. Muted decor, more doors, more hallways. Kaiser knocks on a closed door, then enters and beckons me inside. Beyond the door is an empty office with four cots in it. Two are bare, but two are made up with sheets, blankets, and pillows.

“Best I can do, I’m afraid.”

“It’s better than a cell in the parish prison.”

Kaiser gives me an obligatory chuckle. “I need to go straighten this mess out with the SAC. He may want to talk to you.”

“I’m good. Whatever.”

“Good or not, I’m going to send up a nurse. Her name is Sandy.”

“I’ll be asleep before she gets here.”

He nods, then starts to leave.

“May I have my cell phone back?”

“Can’t do that. Sorry.”

“Nobody’s read me my rights.”

Kaiser’s patience is straining at the seams. “Cat, you’ve obstructed justice and maybe acted as an accessory to multiple murder. If I let you interfere in this case anymore-which your cell phone would make it very easy for you to do-the SAC will throw you out the front gate and give you to the NOPD. And there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it. Okay?”

“Fair enough. But you’ll tell me if Ann calls?”

“Absolutely. I’ll bring your phone in here and have you call her back.”

He looks at me as if he’s sure I have another question, but I don’t. I do, however, have an idea. “I’ve been thinking about the skull, John.”

“What about it?”

“From the very beginning, I figured the bite marks could be staged. Did Sean tell you my theory about the killer using dentures or an articulated model to make the marks?”

A smile touches Kaiser’s lips. “Let’s say he took partial credit for that.”

“Par for the course. Well, my theory proved out. The killer was using the teeth from that skull to make the marks. Next question: Whose DNA have we been testing? Where does the saliva come from? We know it’s not Malik’s.”

Kaiser nods. “Sure, but until we have a suspect, we have nothing to compare our samples to.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking…saliva contains more than DNA, you know. We need to know everything we can about that saliva.”

“Like what? What do you want to do?”

“Some basic nineteenth-century science. Everybody treats DNA analysis as the be-all and end-all of forensics. Fine, great. But the average mouth contains strep bacteria and all kinds of other bugs. Let’s take the fresh saliva out of Quentin Baptiste’s wounds, put it in a petri dish, and see what grows out. Maybe we’ll get a strange germ that can tell us something. Sort of like the way we track where a corpse ate dinner by looking at its stomach contents. Impurities and things, you know?”