Greg Iles - Blood Memory

Hannah’s right, but what am I supposed to do about it? “I haven’t told you everything.”

Her eyes tell me she knows this already. No patient ever reveals everything.

I recount the dream of seeing my father masturbating in the barn, and the rain hitting the tin roof over my head. She listens impassively until I fall silent.

“Seeing a father masturbating could be traumatic for a little girl,” she says, “but that’s a normal activity. Depending on what he was looking at while he did it, of course.”

“I wonder why I couldn’t see that in my dream?”

She shrugs. “Dreams always bring more questions than answers. So…you still have the same riddle. ‘Who abused me? My father or someone else?’”

“I have to know, Hannah. I have to know whether my father was a hero who died trying to protect me, or a pervert who never really loved me. And the same for my grandfather. On the surface he was the war hero and my father the weirdo, but-”

“It might not be one or the other, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It might have been both of them, dear.”

A fresh layer of fear settles over the dread at the bottom of my soul. “Why do you say that?”

Hannah suddenly seems unsure whether to go on. “Many abuse survivors have been molested by multiple offenders, Cat. If your mother was abused by her father, she may well have married a sexually abusive man. It happens all the time.”

“I don’t think I could take that.”

Hannah squeezes her arm tight around my shoulders. “I hope that’s not the answer. But if you’re going down this road, you should prepare for the worst.”

To keep me from dwelling on this possibility, she changes the subject. “Do you think the green bag from your dream could still be hidden under the barn floor?”

“I don’t see why not. I never saw it anywhere but in that dream. And the barn has apparently been locked up tight for some time.”

“Why didn’t you tell Kaiser about that dream?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I want to see what’s in that bag before he does.” I take Hannah’s hand and squeeze it. “Will you help me get out of here?”

She smiles. “You don’t need my help. You’re not under arrest. Even the FBI can’t detain you without arresting you, unless it’s on some trumped-up terrorism charge. Your problem is the NOPD.”

“They’re not a problem if they can’t find me.”

Hannah’s smile vanishes. “You really want to go back to Mississippi?”

“I have to. And I got the feeling Kaiser wants me to exhume my father’s body on my own. Did you sense that?”

“Actually, I did. He’s very good at nonverbal communication.”

“Yeah.”

Hannah looks at me seriously for a moment, then giggles like a schoolgirl. “I’ll bet he’s good in bed.”

“I knew you were thinking that.”

“No, you didn’t. But I think if you managed to slip out of here, Kaiser wouldn’t look too hard for you.”

“But I can’t just walk out with you. There are cameras all over the place, especially around the entrance. You’ll have to help me.”

“How?”

“I need to use your cell phone.”

She takes a silver Motorola from her pocket and hands it to me. Before she can change her mind, I dial Michael Wells’s cell phone. For a few moments I think he’s not going to answer, but then he does.

“It’s Cat.”

“Christ, it’s about time. Are you all right?”

“Yes and no. My aunt is dead, and things are very crazy right now. I’m in New Orleans, and I need to get back to Natchez. The police aren’t looking for me now, but they will be soon. Would it be completely shameless of me to ask you for help again?”

Michael takes a moment to process all this. “Where in New Orleans are you?”

“FBI headquarters.”

“Where’s that?”

“By the University of New Orleans.”

“UNO is by Lakefront Airport.”

“Yes. You can see the airport from the windows here.” Not from the office I’m in, of course, but from the fourth floor.

“If you can get to Lakefront Airport, I can fly down and get you.”

My pulse rate kicks up. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. I’ve flown in there a dozen times. Last time I watched the Dave Matthews Band at UNO.”

“Michael…are you sure you can get away?”

“What will the police do if they find you?”

“Put me in jail.”

“On what charge?”

“Murder.”

“Did you kill anybody?”

“No.”

“Then I can get away. I’ll have to arrange for coverage, though. Call my cell phone in an hour. I should be airborne and on the way by then. We’ll take it from there. If there’s any problem with the phones, just get your ass to Lakefront and start watching the planes come in. I’ll be in a blue and white Cessna 210. Registry number N324MD.”

By the time I walk into the fourth-floor hallway, Hannah Goldman has been gone for ten minutes. She was to say her good-byes to Kaiser, then slowly make her way down to her car in the parking lot.

My job is to get to the FBI’s motor pool without being seen by anyone who knows who I am. Occupying a large part of the building’s basement level, the motor pool has huge garage doors that open into the parking lot. I’ve been down there a couple of times before, when I rolled out with the FBI forensic team on the serial case where I first met Sean.

The elevator is only thirty feet down the hall, and I’m nearly to it when I hear John Kaiser’s voice.

“Cat? Where are you going?”

I turn and give him a little wave. He’s standing by the office I just left, a tall figure who looks more than anything like a concerned father.

“I feel sick. I need to get to the bathroom.”

“Down past the elevator, on the right.” He starts walking toward me. “Did the food come? Did that make you sick?”

Someone did bring up a tray of sandwiches after Hannah left, but I didn’t touch it. “No, I was about to eat it when I got a wave of nausea.”

“That may be from the blow to your head. I was coming to show you this.” Kaiser has almost reached me. He’s holding something in his hand.

“What is it?”

“Early results on those cultures you asked for. The saliva from the bite marks on Quentin Baptiste.”

The dead homicide detective…victim number six. “Oh, right. What does it show?”

He hands me the lab report. “You tell me.”

I glance over the letters and numbers, trying to pretend that my nerves aren’t shot and that my mind is on the piece of paper in my hand rather than on escaping this building. What I see is a microbiological snapshot of an average human mouth. Except for one thing.

“That’s weird.”

“What?” asks Kaiser.

“Maybe it’s a mistake.”

“What?”

Well, twelve hours is early, but we ought to at least see some Streptococcus mutans growing. You have that particular strep in abundance in any mouth with teeth in it. S. mutans thrives on hard surfaces. It produces the acid that causes cavities.”

“And you don’t have it there?”

“No.”

“Well, if it’s not a mistake, what would that mean?”

“It could mean a couple of things. The saliva may have come from someone taking a course of antibiotics. That would disturb the normal flora of the mouth. I’d look for penicillin, or even more likely, penicillin with gentamicin.” I try to concentrate on the lab report, but all I can keep in my mind is Hannah Goldman waiting for me downstairs.

“Cat?” prompts Kaiser.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking. This saliva could also have come from an edentulous person.”

“What’s that?”

I shrug, thinking the answer self-evident. “Someone without teeth.”