Blood Memory

by Greg Iles

  His steely eyes are riveted on my face. “Are you finished?”

  “No. You’re going to pay for everything you did. For Ann, for Mom, for me. For the children on the island, too.”

  The jaw muscles flex in his impassive face. I know more than he thought possible, and he doesn’t like it.

  “I’m not going to pay for anything,” he says. “I have nothing to pay for.”

  “Do you deny what you did? That’s what child molesters do. They scream they’re innocent all the way to the pen. They’re probably still screaming that when it finally gets done to them in the prison shower. Your kind doesn’t fare too well in Parchman, Grandpapa.”

  William Kirkland has never been talked to this way in his adult life, but he only straightens in his chair and smiles coldly at me. “I’d fare well anywhere in the world, Catherine. You know that. But I’m not going to prison. Your so-called evidence is worthless. A stuffed animal taken from a coffin that’s been in the ground for twenty years? You can’t connect me to that.”

  “I can identify the maxillary arch of Daddy’s teeth in the latent blood on Lena’s coat.”

  He purses his lips in thought. “Luke must have grabbed Lena and bit down on her to fight against the pain after you shot him.”

  “Don’t even try that,” I snap, but I can see Grandpapa selling that story to a jury as smoothly as he’s sold himself all his life.

  “Ann’s body proves that you sterilized her,” I say softly. “You never dreamed she’d be autopsied, did you? Not back in 1958. You shouldn’t have used silk sutures, Grandpapa.”

  He rises calmly from his chair and shoots his cuffs. “Catherine, you’re obviously delusional. Ann was obsessed with becoming pregnant, everyone knows that. She went to all sorts of quacks for fertility treatments. She even went to Mexico. God knows what procedures she had done, or what butchers performed them. You’ll never prove I did anything more than remove her appendix. Even if you did, what’s the crime? Unnecessary surgery?” His eyes brim with confidence. “I’ve been accused of that before, and I came out smelling like a rose.”

  I hate the smell of roses. I have ever since I saw my father lying dead among them—

  “Have you been taking your medication?” he asks in a condescending voice. “Maybe I should review your drug regimen with your psychiatrist. Are you still on the Depakote?”

  I was prepared for extreme reactions when I entered this room—rage, denial, rationalization, even begging—but supreme confidence wasn’t one of them. He hasn’t even denied the abuse. He’s just shooting down my accusations as though he were playing games with a poorly prepared lawyer. I want to shake that confidence. I want to see the worm of fear work its way through his gut and up into that megalomaniacal mind.

  “I’m not the one you have to worry about,” I tell him. “It’s Dr. Malik who’s going to nail you.”

  Grandpapa glances at Billy Neal again. “That would be quite a trick. Since the good doctor happens to be dead.”

  A dry chuckle from Billy. I’m starting to wonder if it was Billy Neal who faked Malik’s suicide in the Thibodeaux Motel.

  “Dead or alive doesn’t matter,” I say with confidence I don’t quite feel. “He’s going to speak from the grave. You’re going to be revealed for what you are on TV screens from coast to coast.”

  Neither Billy nor my grandfather is laughing now, and I thank God for it. If they were, I’d be pretty sure that Dr. Malik’s film had already been destroyed. But it hasn’t—not by them anyway. They don’t even know about it.

  “I see you don’t know about Dr. Malik’s documentary on sexual abuse.”

  In seconds, the threatened wolf is back. I hear a creak to my left. When I look that way, Billy Neal is gone. Did Grandpapa signal him to leave? Whether he did or not, he takes Billy’s exit as a cue to advance toward me, six feet six inches of rage, with blazing eyes and a voice like Moses’ down from the mountaintop.

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me? I’m sweating blood trying to save this town, and you’re working around the clock to sabotage everything I’ve achieved!”

  What the hell? I accuse him of sexual abuse, and he’s screaming at me about a business deal?

  “Federal certification of the Natchez Nation could come any day!” he roars. “The state gaming commission would love an excuse for a federal injunction to stop that. I am deep into this deal, Catherine. I have money on the table. Not other people’s money. Mine. Your inheritance, if you give a goddamn—which you probably don’t.”

  “You’re right,” I say quietly. “I don’t. All I care about is what you did to this family. That’s all you should care about, too. But that was the problem all along, wasn’t it? You didn’t care. We didn’t exist, except to pleasure you when the mood struck you.”

  He takes another step toward me, but I don’t back up. “I remember what you did. It’s taken almost thirty years, but it’s coming back. The pond…the island…the orange pickup…the rain.”

  Something flickers in his eyes, an emotion I can’t read. The fury he displayed only moments ago seems to have been discharged. “Do you remember?” he asks, his voice suddenly much softer. “Do you remember how you felt? You loved being my special girl. My little angel. You loved being better than your mother. You gave me what the others couldn’t, Catherine.”

  He’s very close to me now. The moment has an obscene intimacy that makes my bowels turn to water. “You do remember. They all liked it…but not like you. No one else responded the way you did. You’re just like me.”

  “No,” I moan. “Shut up.”

  Grandpapa squares his broad shoulders and looks down at me. “Has anyone made you feel the way I did? I’ve watched you go from man to man…always searching…None of them are man enough to handle you, are they?”

  I was right not to give Sean the identity of the killer in New Orleans. She and I are sisters. If I had a gun in my hand, I would open fire and keep firing until the gun was empty.

  Grandpapa folds his arms and looks down at me the way he used to look at his patients. “I’m going to speak frankly to you, Catherine. What’s the point of going through life with illusions? Mine were taken away when I was a little boy, and I’m glad for it. It made me strong. It saved me a lot of heartache later on.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Everything you’ve said today is true. I had relations with Ann. Gwen, too.”

  I want to interrupt, but my voice won’t come.

  “Great men have great appetites, darling. It’s that simple. More hunger than one woman can satisfy. Your grandmother knew that. She didn’t like it, but she understood.”

  “Liar!” I shout, finding strength in my grief and outrage. “How do you convince yourself of this shit? Grandmama didn’t understand. She suspected you for years, but she did everything she could not to validate her fears. Just like the rest of us. Because to believe it, we’d have to admit that you never loved us. That you only kept us around to fuck us!”

  “You’re wrong about your grandmother.”

  “No. Somewhere beneath all the lies you tell yourself, you know the truth. When she finally figured out what a monster she’d married, she drowned herself, so she wouldn’t have to live with what she’d let happen to us.”

  Grandpapa’s composure comes apart slowly, like mud cracking in the sun.

  “You say she wasn’t enough for you. Why didn’t you divorce her, then?”

  He walks away from me and stops before a painting of the Battle of Chancellorsville. “It was my destiny to manage the DeSalle fortune. The fact that I’ve quadrupled it in size proves that.”

  “Take a mistress then. Why come to us? Your own children?”

  He shakes his head. “A mistress makes you vulnerable.”

  “And having sex with your own children doesn’t?”

  “Exactly.” When he looks back at me, he reminds me of a math teacher puzzled by kids who can’t grasp the simplest concep
t. “Your grandmother didn’t suspect what I was doing, Catherine. She knew. How could she not? She knew I needed more than she could give me, and she preferred that I get it at home rather than embarrass her in society.”

  A coldness unlike any I’ve ever known envelops me. Could he be right? Could Pearlie be wrong? “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugs. “Cling to your illusions if they make you feel better.”

  “You’re saying you had sex with us for utilitarian reasons? And Grandmama knew that?”

  Exasperation tightens his features. “Damn it, girl, you act like I’m the first man who ever did this. The same thing happened to me when I was a boy. My grandfather was a widower. He used me for sex. I’m not whining about it. But the fact is, that kind of sex does something to you. It gives you a taste for something that nothing else can satisfy. It’s like war. You get a taste for killing, and you have to keep doing it. Only this craving is stronger. I know you’ve felt it, too. That’s the way it works.”

  I shake my head in denial, but I’m not so sure he’s wrong.

  He holds up his big hand and stabs a forefinger at me. “I’m going to tell you a hard fact of life, Catherine. A woman is a life-support system for a pussy. Period.”

  I blink in disbelief.

  “You know I’m right. You’re a scientist. But heredity has given you a chance to rise above that primitive function. You’ve got brains, and you’ve got will. But you’ll never transcend your sex if you blind yourself to the realities of life.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Am I?” He goes to a shelf and pulls out a large black volume, then tosses it at my feet with a bang. It’s a King James Bible. “Take a look at the book of Leviticus. There you’ll find all the biblical proscriptions against incest. All the rules laid down for everyone to see. A man is forbidden by God to have sex with his mother, his wife’s mother, his sister, his aunt, with an animal, with another man, or with a woman having her period. It even mentions the daughter-in-law. But one relationship is specifically not mentioned.”

  I feel like I’m standing on the ledge of a skyscraper in a high wind. “Which is that?”

  “Father and daughter. Old Leviticus skimmed right over that one. Because he knew the reality of life.”

  “Which is?”

  My grandfather’s eyes shine with the conviction of a zealot. “You came from my loins, Catherine. Your mother and Ann, too. You are the issue of my blood. You were mine. To do with as I saw fit.”

  He walks to the gun safe, quickly spins the dial, and opens the heavy door. From it he takes a rifle, which he calmly loads with a cartridge from a box on the shelf. As he walks toward me, I recognize the Remington 700 that killed my father.

  “It’s still true,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re still mine.”

  He works the bolt and chambers the round. “What if this gun were to go off?” He brings the barrel within a foot of my face. “What if it blew your brains all over the wall? What do you think would happen?”

  “You’d be convicted of murder.”

  He smiles. “Would I? I think not. A woman with your psychiatric history? Documented bipolar disorder, unstable past, threats of suicide? No. If I really considered you a threat, you wouldn’t leave this room. But you’re not a threat. Are you, Catherine?”

  I should back down. Show submission. Live to fight another day. But I can’t. I’ve done it all my life for him, and I won’t do it anymore. “Oh, I’m a threat. I’m going to make sure you die in prison. And you should know this: if you kill me now—or before I get back to New Orleans—someone’s going to do the same to you.”

  He looks more interested than afraid. “You mean Detective Regan?”

  I feel the blood drain from my face.

  There’s a hint of humor in his eyes. “Catherine, do you honestly believe I don’t know who you see down there? I own Sean Regan. Do you think he would kill me in revenge when that would result in photographs of the two of you rutting like animals being sent to his wife and children?”

  No…he wouldn’t.

  “If this Malik film you spoke of really exists, you’d do well to get it for me or destroy it. I’d hate to give you something to really be depressed about.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Life’s little tragedies.” He smiles again. “You hate me for being this way, but one day you’ll thank God that you have my blood flowing through your veins. My genes determining your fate.”

  When my voice finally emerges, it’s utterly devoid of emotion. “You’re wrong. I wish I’d never been born. You don’t know this…but I’m pregnant. And for the first time since I found out, I’m wondering whether I should bring that child into this world. I feel contaminated. Like I can never wash your poison out of me.”

  He lowers the rifle and steps closer, his eyes glowing. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He reaches for my arm. I jerk backward.

  “Take it easy, girl. Who’s the father?”

  “You’ll never know.”

  “Don’t be that way. You’ll come around. You’ve got more of me in you than you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A knowing smile now. A man hoarding a secret. “I could be your father, Catherine. Do you realize that?”

  With these words, what’s left of my composure crumbles. My very being is unraveling into nothingness. My grandfather’s face is red, the way it gets when he’s stalking game on the island.

  “Luke spent all his time on the island,” he says, “chasing that nigger girl, Louise. And your mother just lay sleeping in her room here, half-looped on Luke’s medicine.” He nods slowly. “You see now?”

  The triumph in his face is absolute. It’s the triumph of the hunter standing over his dying prey. He’s shoved the steel into my heart and broken off the handle. He revels in the pain in my face, just as he must have all those years ago. The savage joy in his eyes brings me back to the world, and in returning, I feel a horror I never thought imaginable.

  “Is that true?” I ask in a small voice.

  He shrugs. “It’s certainly something to think about while you’re making plans to talk to the district attorney.”

  I’m backing away from him, reaching blindly for the doorknob.

  “And if you’re thinking of Pearlie testifying to anything, forget it. She’ll never do it.”

  My hand closes around the brass knob. “Why not?”

  “Because she knows the order of things. You might get her stirred up with a lot of nonsense, but in the end she won’t say a word against me. Pearlie knows her place, Cat. Same as the niggers on the island. Your ancestors taught them well, and I’ve reinforced the lesson.” He goes to the sideboard and pours some Scotch into a glass. “You know your place, too, honey. Deep down, you do.”

  I drop my shaking hand from the knob, then raise it and point a quivering finger at him. “No. You were too strong for me when I was a baby. But not anymore.”

  With a bemused look on his face, he drinks off the Scotch and wipes his mouth on his cuff.

  I pull open the door, stumble through it, then run down the hallway toward the kitchen. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I have to get away from this house. Sean expects me in New Orleans, but it’s hard to imagine functioning in any normal capacity. Simple linear thought seems beyond me now.

  I crash through the kitchen door and race through the rose garden, toward the parking lot behind the slave quarters. Mom’s Maxima is parked where I left it, a few yards away from the Lincoln and the Cadillac. As I near the cars, I hear a muted banging. Then the passenger door of Pearlie’s Cadillac opens, and Billy Neal climbs out. There’s a pistol in his hand. He aims the barrel at a spot between my breasts.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he says. “Let’s take a ride.”

  “What’s that noise?”

&n
bsp; With a gleeful smile, he opens the trunk of the Cadillac. “Come see.”

  I walk to the back of the car.

  Pearlie lies bound in the trunk, her hands and face covered with blood. Her wig is gone. A grayish white fuzz covers her narrow skull, which is wedged against the spare tire. I’ve never seen her eyes so filled with terror. As I reach down to help her, Billy’s gun pokes the ribs under my left arm. He slams the trunk shut, then shoves me toward the driver’s seat.

  “You’re driving,” he says, pushing me behind the wheel.

  “Did you shoot her?”

  “Don’t worry about that old bitch. Worry about the driving.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where do you think?” He grins so broadly that it makes my cheeks hurt. “The island.”

  Chapter

  60

  My last ride to the island is both dream and nightmare.

  Highway 61.

  A narrow, winding strip of asphalt following the Mississippi River.

  Mythical American highway.

  Escape route for northbound refugees, most of them black, fleeing a place that held no hope but where their hearts remained nonetheless, yearning for the body’s return. I tried to use this highway as an escape route, too, only I never got away. For thirty-one years I’ve driven up and down this road between two lovely, sleepy cities, but always the island lay between them, a dreamworld shrouded in fog and memory, waiting like an empty stage for my life’s final act.

  Today it will be played out.

  The messenger of my fate is Billy Neal.

  It seems wrong, somehow. I never really knew this man. This black-haired, pale-skinned, dime-store-handsome Vegas punk with snakeskin boots and a night-school law degree. What the hell is he doing in my life? Obligingly, he answers me without being asked.

  “You still don’t know who I am, do you?”

  I grip the wheel harder and keep my eyes on the road.

  “Man, I’ve been waiting for this,” he says, his gaze moving over me like a wet tongue. “You’ve had this coming a long time. The nigger, too.”

  If Pearlie weren’t tied in the trunk, I’d take my chances and ram the Cadillac into a tree, just to kill this bastard. That’s probably why he put her in there.