Greg Iles - Blood Memory

“I have to find the truth, Hannah. That’s the only thing that will keep me sane now.”

Her gaze doesn’t waver. “Will it?”

“It’s my only hope.”

The door opens, and Kaiser walks in carrying some eight-by-ten photos. Before second thoughts can stop me, I take them from him and shuffle through the stack as I would photos from any crime scene.

Hannah was right. This is not just another case.

The mere sight of the clinic brings on a wave of nausea. A small, tin-roofed building sitting in a sun-scorched field of weeds. A lone fig tree beside it. I can feel splinters being pulled from my hands, tetanus shots being stuck into my shoulder.

The next photo makes me thankful I haven’t eaten. It’s not gross-no blood and brain matter covering a dinner table, no ejected shell casing lying in the blasted wreck of a human face. It’s just my aunt, my once glamorous aunt lying naked on a bare wooden floor, her breasts and thighs sagging like pools of melted wax. Her mouth yaws open in the gape of sleep, eternal sleep this time, and-

“Cat?” Hannah says softly. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a downward-angled shot. It shows the legs of the examining table, a pair of brown feet in sandals-probably Louise’s-and the molding at the bottom of a cabinet. Just behind Ann’s head, there’s something rounded and dark, but I can’t make out what it is. I slide the photo over and move it to the bottom of the pile.

And my heart stops.

In the next photo-shot from a different angle-a stuffed animal lies on the floor about three feet behind Ann’s head. It’s not just any animal. It’s a turtle. And his name is Thomas. Thomas the Timid Turtle.

“Thomas,” I breathe.

“What?” says Kaiser.

I point at the turtle.

Kaiser walks up to see. “Is that turtle important?”

“Thomas was Ann’s favorite toy, ever since she was a child.”

“I had no idea. Apparently there were several stuffed animals in the room. We figured they were there to let kids hold while they got injections or something.”

“They were.” Ivy always kept stuffed animals in the clinic. She would hand you one as you came in. But along with the feeling of comfort came a sense of betrayal, because you knew pain was coming soon. Still, you clung to the animal. The pain wasn’t his fault. “Thomas didn’t live at the clinic. Ann brought him there. I’m surprised she wasn’t holding him when she died.”

“She may have tried. There’s some indication that she started out on the examining table, then fell to the floor after losing consciousness.”

I don’t know I’m crying until the tears fall onto the obscene photograph, one of hundreds I’ve studied in the past few years. I never want to see another one again.

“Cat?” says Kaiser.

I shake my head and try to get control, but the tears keep running down my face like they’re never going to stop.

Hannah gently takes the photographs from my hands and gives them back to Kaiser. “I think that’s enough for now.”

“No,” I say. “We have to keep going.”

“What does the turtle tell you?” asks Kaiser.

I quickly summarize my recurring dream about the pickup truck, the pond, and my father pulling Lena the Leopardess out of his gunshot wound. As I speak, Hannah’s eyes focus on me with absolute concentration.

“Jesus,” Kaiser says when I finish. “From the point of view of your life, I think that’s probably very important. But it’s hard to see how it impacts this murder case. It sounds to me like your aunt was molested as a child-just as you were-and this stuffed-animal angle is part of all that. The only relevance to our case is that the sexual abuse is probably what brought Ann into contact with Malik.”

I take a step toward Kaiser. “I have to get out of here.”

“Why?”

“I have things I need to do.”

He glances at Hannah. “Such as?”

“I want to see the stuffed animal I buried with my father. It was my grandfather who suggested that I put Lena into his coffin. To keep him from being lonely, he said.”

“You want to exhume your father’s body to see a stuffed animal?”

“Yes. It’s too much coincidence. Ann kills herself with her favorite stuffed animal. And my grandfather-after killing my father because he supposedly abused me-tells me to bury my favorite stuffed animal in the coffin? I want to get Lena and Thomas together and give them every test known to forensic science. And I want a new autopsy done on my father. You told me his original autopsy report was lost, right?”

“Yes,” says Kaiser, watching me as he might a psychotic patient. “But I can’t let you leave here. You know that.”

“Because?”

“Cat, there are only two options for you. Stay here, or let the NOPD arrest you and put you in jail. You could raise bail, I’m sure, but it might be tomorrow before you got free.”

An engine is spinning in my chest, building frantic energy that won’t be discharged until I get out of this building and learn what I have to learn. “Can you order the exhumation of my father’s body for a new autopsy?”

Kaiser glances at Hannah again, then looks pointedly at me. “I’m not sure what the law is in Mississippi.”

“Don’t patronize me, John. Is Mississippi law really the point? You’re the FBI.”

“Expediting your aunt’s autopsy is one thing, Cat. She died under suspicious circumstances. She’s a material witness to Malik’s activities at the very least, and at worst an accessory to murder. Your father, on the other hand, was murdered twenty-three years ago. And though his death intrigues me, it has no clear tie to this case. His military record also happens to be sealed for the next fifteen years. If I tell the SAC that my next big idea is exhuming Luke Ferry to look at a stuffed animal, I’m not going to get a lot of traction.”

I look to Hannah for help, but she’s silent.

“If you want to analyze Lena the Leopardess, you’re going to have to find a way to do it on your own. After you get out of here. Okay? The FBI isn’t in the business of psychotherapy.” Kaiser’s tone sounds official, but something in his eyes is speaking to me in a different language.

“Right,” I say. “Okay.”

He moves to the door. “I only mentioned that Mississippi law thing because sometimes it’s not that difficult to get a body exhumed. By the family, I mean.” He opens the door. “I’ve got a lot of balls in the air right now, one of which is keeping you out of jail. If I hear anything I think you need to know, I’ll come tell you. And I’m having some food sent up from the cafeteria. You must be starving.”

I’m not hungry, but I tell him thanks anyway.

And then he’s gone.

Hannah takes my hand and pulls me down beside her on the cot. Then she puts an arm around me and hugs me like the sister I never had. “That was tough,” she says. “You’re a tough cookie.”

“But?” I ask, dreading the inevitable.

“You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’re very close to cracking.”

I put my elbows on my knees. “It’s the same old dilemma. Fall off the cliff into depression or start flying into mania. And I have no control over which it will be.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hannah says gravely. “This time, I’m afraid you’ll do neither. This time you could really crack. I’m talking about total psychological collapse. A rubber room, Cat.”

“Why? Why is this so different?”

“Because losing your aunt isn’t merely an echo of losing your father. It’s more like losing yourself. You’ve always been a sort of shadow of your aunt. Her illness was more extreme than yours, but in essence the same.”