by Greg Iles
“You can slow down, Cat.”
My chest tightens. I can tell from his voice that the news is bad. “What happened?”
“Malik’s teeth don’t match the bite marks on the victims.”
I blink in bewilderment. “Are you sure? Who did the comparison?”
“An FBI guy named Abrams. Says it wasn’t even close.”
“Shit. He knows his business.”
“Looks like the Malik connection wasn’t the break we thought it was.”
I whip into the left lane and pass a rattling Winnebago. “Sean, there’s no way Malik’s connection to the victims could be coincidence. It’s the key to the whole case. We just haven’t figured out how it all fits together yet.”
“You got any ideas?”
I think furiously. “Malik’s DNA may still match the saliva in the bite marks.”
“But his teeth don’t match the marks.”
“He might have used someone else’s teeth.”
“What?”
“It happened in that book, Red Dragon. The Tooth Fairy used his grandmother’s false teeth to bite victims. With him it was part of the murder fantasy, but with Malik it could simply be staging.”
“Where would Malik get false teeth?”
“Anywhere! He could have stolen an articulated model from Dr. Shubb’s office. Just veer into the lab on his way out to the front desk, and boom, he’d have a working set of teeth.”
“And the saliva could still be his? Like he licked the wounds or something?”
“Just like that. Or it could be someone else’s. To throw us off.”
“I’ll check this, but it seems far out. The FBI has given the DNA test on Malik top priority, but you know what that means.”
“Damn.” I gun the Audi around a tractor-trailer. “Does Malik have alibis for the murder nights?”
“Two out of four. He was with patients, or so he says.”
“Did they confirm?”
“Shit, he won’t tell us who they are! He’s stonewalling us.”
“Can he get away with that?”
“Not for long. But he’s one contrary son of a bitch, and so far he’s hanging tough.”
“Huh. Maybe he really is innocent.”
“Why would an innocent man be so stubborn about hiding things? Especially with people’s lives at stake?”
“You’re thinking like a cop, Sean. We all have something to hide. You know that.”
“Yeah, well, I am a cop. And I want to know what the son of a bitch is hiding.”
“He may feel that his patients’ privacy outweighs the risk to their lives. He may feel that even revealing their names could put them at greater risk.”
“I think he’s just an asshole.”
I remember the cold fish I knew as Jonathan Gentry. “You could be right. Look, at this speed I’ll be in New Orleans in forty minutes. Where should I go?”
“I don’t know. Kaiser isn’t sure how he wants to play it yet, and the task force is sort of paralyzed. You’d better just go to your place first.”
“Where will you be?”
Static crackles through the silence. “I’d like to be there waiting for you.”
I close my eyes. If we meet at my house, there will be no way to avoid the subject I’ve been keeping to myself for the past three days. Not without drinking, anyway. “God help me,” I whisper.
“What?” asks Sean. “You’re breaking up.”
Something in my chest lets go. This morning’s events at Malmaison combined with the anticipation of nailing Malik had blotted out almost everything else in my mind. But now reality is crashing in like a dark tide. I am pregnant by a married man. And no matter what kind of spin I try to put on it, the bottom line comes up the same: I’m a fool. A whore. No, worse, a slut…
“Cat? Are you there?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I’ll see you in an hour.”
Chapter
13
I press my garage-door opener and anxiously watch the white panels rise. Sean’s car is parked inside my garage. A dark green Saab turbo, ten years old.
I walk into my house with my purse in one hand and a paper sack in the other. The sack holds a bottle of Grey Goose, already half-empty. I pass through the kitchen and den like an exhausted soldier, then climb the stairs to the living room, which looks out over Lake Pontchartrain. Sean is waiting on the sofa, facing the lake. The picture window is covered with drops of condensation from the air conditioner, but I can still see sails on the horizon.
Sean isn’t watching the sails. He’s watching a golf tournament on ESPN. He points at the paper bag. “The news about Malik’s teeth bum you out that bad?”
I set my purse on a glass-topped table in the corner. Then I take a highball glass from a shelf on the wall, pour two fingers of vodka into it, and take a bittersweet sip.
“I’m not thinking about Malik.”
“Hey.” Sean stands and comes to me. “You need a hug.”
I do, but not the kind he wants to give me. As his arms close around me, I feel the temptation to yield to his embrace. He squeezes gently at first, working his fingers into the muscles of my lower back. A week ago I would have loved this. Now I feel a manic pressure building within me. As predictably as the evening tide, his erection presses into my abdomen. I feel only revulsion.
“Hey,” he says as I pull away. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t want that.”
His green eyes soften. “It’s okay. I can wait awhile.”
“I don’t want it later either.”
Sean leans back to study me but keeps his arms around my waist. “What’s the matter, babe? What’s happening? Another depressive episode?”
His casual use of medical jargon irritates me. “I just don’t want to, okay?”
“But you always want to.”
“No, you always want to. I just never say no.”
He stares at me in disbelief. “You mean you make love to me when you don’t want to?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes? Like how many times?”
“I don’t know. More than a few. I know how important it is to you.”
His hands drop from my waist. “And you waited over a year to tell me this?”
“Looks like it.”
The look of pain in his face is like the look of dumb hurt on an animal when it’s been struck for no apparent reason. God, I think. Is there anything on earth more fragile than male pride?
Sean swallows hard and gazes out toward the lake. After a while, he looks back, his face composed. “You and I have been through some serious shit together. Your mood swings, some bad arguments. I’ve spent the night here and done nothing but hold you all night when you were suicidally depressed.”
This is true, though on most of those nights he tried to make love with me.
“You have to tell me what’s going on,” he says.
I want to. Yet I can’t. I take another sip from my glass.
“Why did you stop drinking? I mean it’s great that you did, but what prompted it? Was it just another crazy tangent, like yoga? And why are you drinking again now?”
It would be so easy to tell him. But why do I have to? He’s a detective, for God’s sake. Why can’t he figure out the situation and just tell me it’s okay, without me having to say it? Is the answer that hard to see? Has anything else ever prompted me to stop drinking?
“Cat,” he says softly. “Please.”
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt, and tears fill my eyes.
Sean blinks. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But…how? I mean, you’re on the pill, right?”
“Yes. I was. But I took those antibiotics for my bladder infection, and that interfered with my pills.”
He nods for a few moments, then stops. “Didn’t you know that could happen?”
Here it comes. The accusation. “I only took three Cipros. I didn
’t think that would make a difference.”
“But you’re a doctor. I mean—”
My composure snaps like brittle glass, and suddenly I’m screaming. “I didn’t do it on purpose, okay? You gave me the goddamn infection! You’re the one who wanted to have nonstop sex for three days!”
Clearly unprepared for this level of anger, Sean takes two steps backward. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, Cat. It’s just…a lot to get my mind around. How long have you known?”
“Three days, I think. Almost four now. I’m not sure anymore. My sense of time isn’t working too well. I’ve been off my meds for three days. I know that for sure.”
“Off your Lexapro?”
“And the Depakote. Depakote can cause spina bifida if you take it in the first twelve weeks.”
“Okay, but shit, you have to get back on the Lex. You know what happens when you skip.”
Yes, I go manic…
“You stopped drinking when you found out you were pregnant,” Sean thinks aloud.
I can’t think of anything to say.
“But you’re drinking again now. Did you lose the baby?”
“No. I couldn’t tell you I was pregnant without a drink. Isn’t that pathetic? I’ve been taking Valium, too.”
His eyes narrow in anger. “What the hell for?”
“To keep from getting the d.t.’s.”
He tries to take the glass of vodka from my hand. When I resist, he grabs my wrist and jerks at the glass with his other hand. I let him take it, but then I get the bottle from the table. “Try to take this away and I’ll brain you with it.”
He starts toward me, then stops. “Jesus, Cat. Think about the baby, will you?”
My laughter rides an undercurrent of hysteria. “Is that what you’re thinking about? Or are you thinking about the wife and kids you already have? And whether you can still keep me a secret through all of this?”
He rubs his forehead with both hands, drags his fingertips back through his hair. I see more gray when he does that. “Look, I just need some time to absorb this. To think about the implications.”
“The implications,” I echo. “Let’s see…they’re pretty straightforward. A: I’m pregnant. B: I’m keeping the baby. C: a baby needs a father as well as a mother. D: this baby either has a father or it doesn’t.”
“It sounds simple,” Sean agrees. “But it’s not. You know that. Look, my honest answer right now is that I’m not sure what to do.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
He gives me a pleading look. “Did you think I’d know in the first five minutes?”
“I hoped you would.”
He tries to come to me again, but I hold up my hands. “Just go, okay? Leave me alone.” The next words spill out almost of their own accord. “And leave your key here when you go.”
“What? Cat—”
“You heard me!”
Sean stares at me in silence for nearly a minute. In his eyes I see a long history of hurt and confusion. He looks away, then pulls his key from his pocket and lays it on the glass table. “I’m going to check on you tomorrow. Even if you don’t want me to.”
Then he goes downstairs.
When I hear his car start in the garage, I feel my chest caving in. But I have the antidote for that. Taking the Grey Goose bottle from the bag, I go down to my bedroom and lie on the duvet. With my free hand, I rub a little circle on my tummy.
“Just you and me now, kid,” I say in a desolate voice. “Just you and me.”
I sip from the bottle, savoring the anesthetic bite as it spreads across my tongue. I hate myself for doing it, but I swallow anyway. Self-hatred is a familiar emotion to me, and familiarity brings comfort. As the chemical warmth diffuses through my veins, I hear the sound of rain again. The rain from my waking dreams. Not the soft hiss of drops falling on my shingles, but the hard percussive patter of rain hitting a tin roof.
I hope oblivion comes soon.
I awaken to the hiss of rain, but this time the sound is real. My bedroom window stands open, and Sean Regan is leaning in through it, his hair and shoulders soaking wet. A corona of gray light shows behind him. I look at my alarm clock: 11:50 A.M. Sixteen hours have disappeared down a hole.
“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Sean says.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I reply, my throat dry and croaking. “That’s not how I wanted to handle it.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
The bottle of Grey Goose spilled during the night, saturating my sheets. Self-loathing fills me like poison. “Why are you here?”
“Our boy hit again this morning.”
“No way.” I rub my eyes, not really believing it. “It’s only been two days. Are you sure?”
“The victim was a fifty-six-year-old white male. Bite marks all over him. No forced entry, body found by the maid. We don’t have a ballistics match yet, but we do have this.”
Sean holds up a piece of paper and extends it toward the bed. It’s a photograph. Even from this distance, I can see that it’s of a window. On the glass above the sill, written in blood, are the words MY WORK IS NEVER DONE.
“Holy shit.”
“We never released that to the media,” he says. “So I’d say the ballistics match is pretty much a formality. Same for the bite marks.”
I roll over and try to rise, but my whole body feels sore. Maybe after three days sober, the vodka was a shock to my system. Still, there was enough left to soak my sheets, so I didn’t drink all of it. “Where was Nathan Malik last night?”
“Home all night. Under surveillance.”
“Are you sure he was in his house the whole time?”
“We didn’t have anybody sleeping with him. But he was there.”
I wave Sean inside and push myself up to a sitting position. “What should I do? I want to do something. I want to help.”
He climbs through the window and sits on the floor, his legs crossed Indian-style. The posture makes him look twenty years younger, but his drawn face betrays his age. From the shadowy circles under his eyes—eyes that carry twice the spiritual burden they did yesterday—I’d guess he’s slept three consecutive hours since I last saw him.
“Do you want to talk about the baby?” he asks.
I close my eyes. “Not right now. Not like this.”
“Then we’ll do what we always do.”
“What?” I ask suspiciously.
“Work the case. Right here.”
I feel relief and a strange spark of excitement. “The kitchen table?”
“It’s worked before.” He picks the television remote off the floor, switches it on, and tunes the set to the local news. The screen shows Captain Carmen Piazza leaving a blue two-story house. Special Agent John Kaiser walks a step behind her.
“That’s the scene,” Sean says. “Old Metairie. The media’s amping up. Story’s going national. Some cops have started calling this guy the Vampire Lestat.”
“Tell me you’re kidding,” I mutter, wishing I’d left a bottle of water by my bed.
Sean laughs darkly. “Hey, this is New Orleans. And it fits, if you think about it. No witnesses, no forced entry, affluent male victims, teeth marks everywhere.”
I wonder what the killer will make of his new appellation. If my past experience with serials is a guide, he’ll love it.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” Sean says. “I’ll give you the details when you get out.”
I roll slowly off the bed and walk to the bathroom, unbuttoning my soiled blouse as I go.
“Hey, Cat?”
I turn back.
Sean’s green eyes focus intently on mine. “When you’re ready to talk about the baby, I am, too.”
There’s a hitch in my heartbeat. “Okay.”
His eyes go back to the television.
Chapter
14
Sean and I sit on opposite sides of my kitchen table, case files and photographs spread out between us. We’ve enac
ted this ritual many times before, but in the past we sat on the same side of the table. Today this new arrangement seems more appropriate.
For the past fifteen months, it’s been Sean’s habit to build a private file on every major murder case assigned to him. He keeps these files in a locked cabinet at my house, selectively adding to them as new evidence comes in. He digitally photographs what he can’t get me access to and dubs audiotapes of most witness interviews and interrogations. He’s broken countless rules and probably some laws by doing this, but the result has been to jail more killers, so he doesn’t struggle with the ethics too much.
Sean brewed coffee while I was in the shower, and by the time I emerged wearing scrub pants and a Pearl Jam sweatshirt, a cup was waiting by my chair. This kind of courtesy grew rare after the first few months of our relationship, but today it doesn’t surprise me. The pregnancy is making him walk on eggshells.
Captain Piazza hasn’t officially suspended Sean from the task force, but she did remove him as lead NOPD detective on the case. She only toured him through the crime scene this morning because his case clearance rate is so high. Piazza doesn’t know that Sean uses a lot of help from me to accomplish this, but after the captain’s little lecture at the LeGendre crime scene, I think she may suspect it.
In any case, Sean’s information flow has not been cut off. His partner is shuttling between police headquarters and the task force headquarters at the FBI building, keeping Sean informed of all new developments by cell phone. Ironically, the fortresslike new FBI field office is situated just five minutes up the shore of Lake Pontchartrain from my house. Inside that building, at least fifty people are studying the same information we’re looking at now.
“James Calhoun,” I read, naming the fifth victim. “What makes him different than the others?”
“Nothing,” says Sean, leaning his chair back on two legs. “He was alone in the house. No sign of forced entry. One paralyzing shot to the spine, then the bite marks, delivered antemortem like the others…”
Delivered is a pretty sterile word to describe the savage act of tearing human flesh with teeth. But that kind of semantic distance creeps into law enforcement work all the time, just as it does in medicine. When thinking about murder, I always try to keep the immediacy of the violence in the forefront of my mind.
