Mortal Fear m-1

by Greg Iles

  “What?” Holly asks, her eyes round.

  “Daddy!” Drewe snaps.

  To prevent bloodshed, I begin the anthem adored by most humans under three and reviled by most above that age. Holly sits entranced. She actually resembles Drewe more than Erin. The Scots-English genes apparently overpowered the Cajun. I give the Barney theme a soul-gospel ending; Holly claps and giggles, and even Margaret lifts the brim of her hat and applauds.

  “Did you hear about Karin Wheat?” my mother-in-law asks me softly.

  While I consider my answer, she takes a sip of half-melted Bloody Mary, shivers, and says, “Gruesome.”

  “I did hear about that,” I say noncommittally, feeling Drewe’s gaze on the back of my neck.

  “I was just reading Isis, ” Margaret goes on. “I’ll bet one of her crazy fans killed her. That book was chock full of perversion.”

  “Didn’t stop you from reading, though, did it?” Bob snickers. “What’s happening on the porno box, Harper?”

  “Porno box” is Bob’s nickname for the EROS computer. “Same old seven and six,” I say, though I would give a lot to know whether the Strobekker account has gone active in the last few hours and, if so, whether the FBI was able to trace the connection.

  Bob shakes his head. “I still don’t get why anybody-even sex maniacs-would pay that much money for a box that won’t even transmit pictures.”

  “Actually, it will now,” I tell him. “There was so much demand for it, Jan Krislov decided to give in.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Erin slips on a terry cloth robe and leads Holly away from this conversation onto the perfectly manicured lawn. Bob keeps all eight acres as immaculate as a golf green and does all the work himself.

  “I heard on A Current Affair that the killer cut off her head, ” Margaret adds.

  I force myself to look disinterested.

  “This is one time I’m gonna surprise you pinko-liberals,” Bob says with good humor. “I’ll guarantee you it was a white man killed that writer woman.”

  Drewe raises her eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

  “ ’Cause a nigger don’t kill that way,” Bob replies seriously. “Oh, they’ll cut you, or shoot you. But it’s an impulse thing. A nigger gets mad quick, kills quick, gets over it quick. He’s likely to be feeling sorry about it five minutes after he did it. White man’s different. A white man can nurse a hate a long time. A white man likes to hate. Gives him a mission, a reason to live. And a murder like that thing in New Orleans-mutilation, I mean-it takes a long time to build up an anger like that.”

  We are all staring intently at Bob Anderson.

  “’Course, it was New Orleans,” he adds philosophically. “God knows anything can happen there.”

  After a thoughtful silence, Margaret asks Drewe about some policy change at one of the Jackson hospitals. Drewe and Patrick both have staff privileges there, and strong opinions about the issue. Every now and then Bob chimes in with an unsolicited expert opinion. While they banter back and forth, my eyes wander back to Erin and Holly. They move like exotic animals over the dappled lawn, Erin graceful as a gazelle, Holly like a sprite risen from the grass. As I watch, I let my eyes take on the thoughtful cast I have practiced so often at this gathering. Everyone assumes I am thinking about bond trades or commodities. Before long, Bob will ask me if I made any killings this week.

  But for now I am granted a dispensation.

  I try to keep my mind clear, but the effort is vain. As always, my secret rises unbidden. It is always there, beating like a second heart within my brain. The ceaseless tattoo grows louder, pulsing in my ears, throbbing in my temples, causing little storms of numbness along my upper forearms. These are parasthesias; I looked up the symptom late one night in one of Drewe’s medical books. Parasthesias are caused by extraordinary levels of stress. Everyone has a different tolerance, I suppose. What would terrify an equestrienne would not faze a bull rider.

  I have carried my secret for a long time, and consequently thought I had learned to live with it, like a benign growth of some sort. Then, three months ago, I discovered that my secret had far more frightful consequences than I ever imagined. That my guilt is far greater than my capacity for rationalization.

  And my skill at deception is crumbling.

  Beyond this, I have an irrational feeling that my secret has taken on a life of its own-that it is trying to get out. It flutters at the edge of Patrick’s consciousness, polishes the fine blade of Drewe’s mistrust. I sometimes wonder whether she knows already but lives in a denial based on fear even greater than mine. Is this possible? No. Drewe could not know this thing and not act. Look at her, sitting in the black iron lawn chair, speaking with calm authority, words precise, back straight, green eyes focused.

  Erin joins hands with Holly as they dance across the grass, now closer, now farther away. They spin like dervishes in the August heat. The drone of medico-political conversation presses against my eardrums, blending with the sound of Bob’s bees in Bob’s bushes. Comparing Drewe and Erin now, I see beyond the physical. Their innermost differences are stark, essential. They can be divided by single words: Drewe is control, Erin chaos. Drewe is achievement, Erin accident. Erin’s eyes catch mine for the briefest instant. I try to blank my mind, to shake my preoccupation and smile.

  But I cannot.

  She spins more slowly, her eyes catching mine each time she turns. What is in those eyes? Compassion? I believe so. In these fleeting moments I sense an intimacy of such painful intensity that it seems almost in danger of arcing between us-of ionizing the air dividing our eyes and bodies and letting that which resides separately in both our souls unite, as someday it inevitably must. What is this power that burns so for unity? That threatens to declare itself without invitation? What is it but the truth? A knowledge that Erin and I alone possess, of things as they really are.

  And what is the truth of things as they really are?

  Holly Graham is my daughter.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Did you sense something wrong with Patrick?” asks Drewe.

  We are already five miles from her parents’ house, rolling down the two-lane blacktop toward our farm, which is still ten miles away. With every mile we cover, my anxiety lessens.

  “No,” I answer. “He seemed like his usual weekend self. Glad to be away from the hospital, wishing he was playing golf instead of sitting at your parents’ house.”

  Drewe clicks her tongue. “I think he and Erin are having problems.”

  “What?” I say a little too sharply. In fact, I know Erin and Patrick are having problems. “They seemed fine to me.”

  Drewe looks at me, but thankfully her gaze is only on half power. “I guess you’re right. Sometimes I just get the feeling that Erin’s new life-her domesticity, I mean-is really just a front. That in her mind she never really left New York and all that other stuff behind.”

  “New life? It’s been three years, Drewe. That’s a lot of commitment just for an act.”

  She smiles. “You’re right. God, Holly gets more beautiful every week, doesn’t she?”

  “She sure does.”

  “And Erin’s so good with her. Did you hear her jump on Daddy about his racism? I think she really embarrassed him.”

  “Impossible.”

  She punches me on the shoulder. “I was pretty impressed with you, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had Holly wrapped around your finger.”

  Here it comes.

  “You know,” she says-and despite her effort to sound as casual as she did a moment ago, I detect the tonal change-“I’ve been off the pill over five months now.”

  I know exactly how long she has been off the pill. I can trace the date by the fight we had when she made this unilateral decision. My wife is not one to equivocate. When she decides on a goal, she takes the shortest path to it. In her mind, the time has come for us to have children. If I am opposed, it must be because I’m nost
algically clinging to my irresponsible youth, which is pointless. Neither of us ever liked using a condom or anything else during sex; thus, she assumed that when she stopped taking the pill it would be only a matter of weeks until she conceived.

  The first four months were the grace period required for the artificial hormones to be purged from her system. At that time she had a vested interest-genetic-in keeping our sexual contact to a minimum. But we are at the five-and-a-half-month mark now, and despite her confidence in my uncontrollable lust, Drewe has yet to conceive. This is not due to a flaw in her judgment of my character. It’s just that she forgot to reckon EROS into her calculations. The computer forums-and certain women on them-have proved to be a vicarious but satisfactory outlet for my sexual energy. I think Drewe suspects this, and it accounts for her bitter resentment of the time I spend sysoping the forum.

  “You love Holly so much,” she says, and I feel her looking right at me. “I can see it. I don’t understand why you don’t want a child of your own.”

  “I do want one,” I say truthfully. “I want two.”

  “But what? Just not yet? Harper, I’m thirty-three. At thirty-five, the odds for Down’s syndrome and a hundred other things go up dramatically.”

  As neutrally as possible, I say, “We’ve had this discussion before, Drewe.”

  The temperature in the car drops ten degrees. “And now we’re having it again.”

  When I don’t respond, she sighs and looks out at the dusty cotton fields drifting by. The ocean of white covers the land as far as the eye can see. “I know I’m pressuring you,” she says in measured tones, “but I just don’t understand your reasoning.”

  And I hope you never will.

  After a silent mile, she says, “Are we ever going to make love again?”

  As if the situation isn’t complicated enough. Five minutes after discussing having children and being off the pill, she makes a sexual overture that by her tone I am supposed to interpret as passion?

  “I do actually miss it, you know,” she says, looking straight through the windshield.

  “Me too,” I murmur. What else can I say?

  “Doubting my motives?”

  I can tell by her voice that she has turned to face me again. Hearing a rustle of cloth, I look across the seat. Drewe has opened her blouse. Her bra attaches at the front, and she opens that too. Twice in the past month, advances like this have led to serious arguments. However, her nipples confirm her tone of voice. Maybe this is an honest approach.

  She turns sideways in her seat, lifts one bare foot over the Explorer’s console, and lets it fall into my lap. She is very good with that foot. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she manages to unfasten the belt, snap, and zipper of my jeans.

  “Obviously you miss it too,” she says.

  “They teach you that in medical school? In case you have a hand injury?”

  “Mmm-hm. We practiced on interns. The young, handsome ones.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  In one smooth motion she hitches up her sundress and climbs over the console. Then, facing me, she plants a foot on either side of my seat and lowers herself between my body and the steering wheel. I glance away from the road long enough to see her pull aside her white cotton panties and slide effortlessly down onto me.

  The sudden grating of gravel under the right front tire tells me we are going off the road. I jerk the wheel left and look up, then floor the accelerator and whip around a mammoth green cotton picker. Drewe is laughing and kissing my neck and pressing down harder.

  “Jesus, you’re ruthless,” I tell her.

  “You can pull out,” she whispers.

  Sure.

  We have been home less than ten minutes when the telephone rings. It is Bob Anderson.

  “Did we leave something over there?” I ask, feeling my back pocket for my wallet.

  “Nothing like that.” Bob falls silent. After ten seconds or so, I ask him if anything’s wrong.

  “I don’t know, Harp,” he drawls. “But fifteen minutes after you left the house, Bill Buckner called.”

  “The Yazoo County sheriff?”

  “Right. He told me-strictly as a favor-that he got several long-distance calls last night and again today. Calls about you.”

  Shit. “Me?”

  Bob gives me more of the silent treatment. I blink first. “Look, Dr. Anderson, I can probably guess what this is about.”

  He offers nothing.

  “We’ve had a little trouble on the EROS network.”

  “Trouble.”

  “There’s been a murder.”

  “More’n one, from what Bill says. Bad, too.”

  Drewe is staring at me inquisitively. “Look, Dr. Anderson, I met with the New Orleans police yesterday, and I’m pretty sure everything’s under control.”

  “Bill said a couple of the calls were from the FBI.”

  “I met with them too.”

  Bob mulls this over. At length he says, “Harper, do you need help, son?”

  “Thanks, Dr. Anderson, but I really think everything’s under control.”

  “I know a lot of people,” he says in a voice that makes it clear he does not like talking this way. “In a lot of places.”

  “I’m sure you do. And if there was real trouble, you’d be the first person I’d call.”

  Bob waits some more, then says, “Well, I guess you know best,” in a tone that says he guesses anything but that. “You keep me posted, son.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And you take care of my little girl.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I hang up.

  “Your dad,” I tell Drewe.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s worried. The Yazoo County sheriff called him. Buckner’s been getting calls from the FBI, asking about me.”

  Drewe shakes her head, her eyes locked on mine. “God. Harper, do they actually think you’re involved in these murders?”

  “I don’t know. Miles and I are two of only nine people who have access to the real identities of EROS subscribers. Anybody who has that access is a suspect until they can prove they’re innocent.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard for you.”

  “For three of the murders, no. And with your help, I hope I can prove it for all of them.”

  “What do you mean? You’re always here with me. When did these murders happen?”

  “I don’t know exactly. They started about a year ago. Most happened within the last nine months. The problem is that for the past few months you and I haven’t been spending that much time together.”

  Drewe looks away quickly. She is an intensely private person, and I know she is wondering what I told the police about our relationship. “Harper, damn you.” She closes her hand around my wrist. “No matter what’s going on between us, I’m your alibi. Don’t you know that?”

  “Thank you. But the cops won’t necessarily believe you.”

  “I’ll make them believe me.”

  This from a woman who has told women her mother’s age that they have less than a year to live, friends that their newborn babies are deformed or dying. The certainty in her voice is powerful enough to resuscitate my flagging confidence, possibly even enough to sway a jury, if not the FBI.

  “Thank you,” I say again, trying to distance my mind from the idea of police questioning Drewe. “Your dad offered to use his connections if we need them.”

  “He must really be upset.”

  “He’s just worried about you. Does he really have connections high enough to help in something like this?”

  She shrugs. “He knows the governor. Can a state governor influence the FBI?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Let’s hope we never have to find out.”

  She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a lemon pie that a churchy Baptist neighbor brought over yesterday. Drewe was raised Methodist, but since she rarely attends church, her Baptist patients never cease trying to pull her into their fol
d. They know I’m a hopeless case. Drewe and I attack the pie for a couple of minutes in silence, more than making up for the calories we burned in the truck.

  “This is sinful,” she mumbles through a huge bite of pale yellow filling. She always scoops out the filling and leaves the crust.

  “Praise God,” I manage to reply in a mocking mushmouth.

  She flicks her fork at me, plopping a piece of meringue onto my cheek. When she laughs, her eyes sparkle like stars, and in that moment I feel the weight of my secret lift from my shoulders just long enough to sense the lightness of peace.

  Then something closes around my heart with suffocating power. It’s like a Chinese torture: the better things are, the worse they are.

  “What’s the matter?” Drewe is studying me as she might a patient having a sudden stroke.

  “Nothing. I just remembered something I need to take care of. A couple of long positions in Singapore. Boring but necessary.”

  “Oh.”

  The realization that tomorrow is a workday instantly manifests itself throughout her frame. Her shoulders hunch slightly, her eyelids fall, she sighs with resignation. But more dispiriting than work is the realization that our unusual moment of closeness is over.

  “I’m whipped,” she says. “You coming to bed?”

  I shake my head, averting my eyes. “I’d better check the Singapore Exchange.”

  She looks long enough to let me know she knows I am at least partially lying. Then she turns and walks toward the bedroom.

  I move quickly toward my office.

  I’ve got to talk to Miles.

  CHAPTER 10

  When I check my e-mail, I find two messages from Miles. I click the mouse and open the first. Seeing the length of the text, I push ALT-V to activate the most unique feature on my EROS computer-its voice.

  The first time I heard EROS speak I felt strange. Then I realized it was not the first time I had heard a computer talk. The telephone company’s computers had been talking to me for years. I had toyed with digital sampling keyboards that could exactly reproduce anything from a thundering bass to a contralto soprano. The voice chip inside the EROS computer is similar. However, it is not voice-recognition technology. Getting a computer to verbalize text displayed on its screen is relatively simple. Getting one to recognize millions of different voices speaking with hundreds of different accents-even in one language-is currently taxing the best brains in the R and D departments of the world’s top high-tech firms.