Blood Memory

Chapter 18

I’m sitting in the backseat of an FBI Crown Victoria, leaning against Sean as the car roars down West Esplanade, skirting Lake Pontchartrain on its way to the FBI field office. John Kaiser sits up front with a Bureau driver, speaking on a large cellular phone that encrypts every word spoken over it.

“Find out everything you can about Malik’s sister and her death,” he orders someone at the field office. “Malik told Dr. Ferry she committed suicide. I want to know about his father, too, everything you can get. And get on the horn to the DOD. I want to know about Malik’s captivity in Cambodia, if he’s telling the truth about it. I didn’t see that mentioned in his record. It’s possible that he met one or more of the victims in a prison camp.”

I tune out Kaiser’s voice and sit up straight on the seat. Throughout the meeting with Malik, I held up fine, but once outside, I began to shake like a soldier after his first battle.

“You’ll be okay soon,” Sean assures me, squeezing my hand. “You did great.”

“Did you hear it all?”

“Every word. I think Malik could be the guy. No shit.”

I close my eyes and grip the door handle. Every nerve feels as though there’s static electricity crackling along it. “I feel strange inside.”

“Strange how?”

“Shaky. I don’t really want to see anybody.”

Sean grimaces. “They want to debrief you, babe. Can you handle that?”

“I don’t know. Right now I feel like jumping out of this car.”

He takes hold of my wrist, hard enough to restrain me if I try to jump. I’ve felt this compulsion before-during depressive episodes-and a couple of times I came close to doing it.

“I’ll do anything you want, Cat. Just tell me.”

Now Kaiser is talking to the chief of the NOPD. In about an hour, there’s going to be a hearing before a district judge, where the FBI will argue that Malik should be compelled to give up the names of his patients. Malik apparently intends to forgo legal representation and argue his own case. Kaiser seems confident that the judge will rule in the Bureau’s favor, but something tells me he may be underestimating his opponent. If not, I wonder if Malik will really go to jail rather than “betray” his patients.

“Everything okay, Dr. Ferry?” Kaiser has hung up and turned in the seat so he can look back at me.

“She can’t go to the field office right now,” Sean says.

Kaiser’s eyes remain on me. “Why not?”

“She’s too shaky. She’s needs some time to regroup.”

The FBI agent nods, but his eyes are all business. “Look, it’s natural to lose it a little bit after something like that. We’ll take some time in my office, decompress before we talk to the SAC or anyone else.”

I want to explain myself to him, but for some reason I can’t. Sean looks at me, then back at Kaiser. “You don’t understand, John. If she says she can’t go right now, she can’t.”

Kaiser’s eyes probe me like a doctor’s hands. Again I’m reminded of the swimming coach I had as a girl. Hard eyes gauging my capacity to continue after sustaining an injury. “Are you saying you can’t do it?”

“I wish the answer were different. I’m sorry. Maybe later on.”

“Your office is only five minutes up the lakeshore from her house,” Sean says, as if Kaiser didn’t just leave my house an hour ago. “I’ll bring her over as soon as she’s feeling better.”

Kaiser studies me a little longer, then glances at the driver. “Take us back to Dr. Ferry’s house.”

I squeeze Sean’s hand in gratitude.

“Do you mind answering a few questions for me now?” Kaiser asks, his eyes back on me.

“No. Go ahead.”

“Was your father ever captured while overseas?”

“I don’t think so. But I can’t be sure. He wouldn’t talk to us about what he went through. I mean, I was only eight when he died. But he never talked to my mother either. Or so she said.”

“Maybe she was just trying to protect you from things she didn’t think you could handle.”

A week ago I would have argued this, but after finding the bloodstains in my bedroom, I’m not sure of anything. For all I know, my mother, my grandfather, and Pearlie have been insulating me for years from realities I never suspected. Starting with the truth about my father’s death.

“Malik still makes the distinction we all made in Nam,” Kaiser says to the agent driving the car. “You notice that?”

“What distinction?” asks Sean.

“Between where he is and the rest of the world. He says back in the World, with a capital W, just like the grunts used to say it. Like he’s in a war now. A free-fire zone. A place where the normal rules are suspended.”

“He was so calm,” I think aloud. “Most of the time, anyway. It was eerie.”

“He wasn’t like that when you knew him before?”

“I don’t think so.”

The driver turns right, and Lake Pontchartrain appears on our left, steely blue and rolling with whitecaps. Not many sails today.

“What’s your gut feeling about him?” Kaiser asks. “You looked him in the eyes, I didn’t. Did Malik kill those men?”

A gull drops low over the road and dives toward the surface of the lake. “If you’re asking me whether I think he could do it, my answer is yes. I think he could kill without blinking an eye. But if you’re asking me whether he did-I can’t say. He seems above these murders somehow. He wouldn’t do it in anger. Not hot anger, anyway. If Malik is our killer, then everything we know about serials so far is going to be useless to us.”

“I agree.”

“What’s your gut feeling?” I ask.

Kaiser looks thoughtful. “I used to be a profiler for the ISU at Quantico. I had a knack for it, but I had to quit. Either of you know that?”

Sean glances at me, then nods slowly.

“Do you know why I had to quit?” Kaiser asks.

“I heard you burned out,” Sean says.

“You could say that. I attacked a guy in prison. A child murderer. I was sitting there with the chief of my unit, calmly interviewing this con. Filling out a questionnaire, actually. And the killer was sitting there describing how he’d used his power tools on this little boy. I’ll spare you the details. Anyway, I just snapped. Before I knew what was happening, I’d gone over the table and tried to punch a hole in his windpipe. Broke some bones, put out one of his eyes. My boss had to club me with a coffee mug to get me off the guy.”

Kaiser’s hazel eyes have a faraway look, like he’s recalling a past life. “I got the same feeling when I was listening to Malik. Not relating him to that convict, but to myself. We all have a breaking point, you know? You sit there for years listening to this obscene stuff, being professional, maintaining distance. Then one day, before you even realize it, the veneer cracks. It’s like you said in Malik’s office, Dr. Ferry. If Malik is killing these guys, it’s because he thinks he’s right. It’s a crusade. They’re child molesters, and he’s decided that taking them out is the only meaningful response to the situation.”

“Do you think that’s what’s happening?”

“If it is, I hope the public never finds out.”

“Why not?”

“Because a lot of people would probably agree with him.” Kaiser sighs like a man wrestling with his own inner demons.

Before I can speak again, Kaiser’s cell phone rings. He answers, then faces forward, his mind already back on logistical details.

We’re close to my house now. I let go of Sean’s hand and try to catch sight of it as we round the corner. I see the trees first, the weeping willow that shades the west side of the house, the stand of pines on the other. Though I have neighbors on both sides, the curve of the levee here gives the illusion of seclusion, and that’s one of the main reasons I bought the place. That and the lake view from the second floor. I have to be near water.

The Crown Vic stops before my closed garage door, which has always shielded Sean’s car from prying eyes. Not much point in hiding it anymore. Everyone in the department will know about our affair by tonight.

Sean reaches across me and opens my door. I wait to say good-bye to Kaiser, but his conversation shows no sign of ending, so I get out and start toward my front door. I’m nearly there when I hear a clatter of heels on the sidewalk.

“Dr. Ferry!” It’s Kaiser, trotting after me.

I stop and wait. “You called me Cat back at Malik’s office.”

“That’s how I think of you,” he says. “But it’s good to preserve some professional boundaries in these situations.”

What situations are those? I wonder as Sean walks up behind Kaiser.

“I appreciate what you did today,” Kaiser says. “I’d really like you to come over to the field office later, if you’re feeling better.”

I’m not really listening. “Agent Kaiser, do you think I’m involved with these murders in any way? Or with Nathan Malik?”

Kaiser’s face changes about as much as a rock when the wind blows across it. He’s probably a hell of a poker player. “I think you did everything you could today to help us solve this case,” he says. “And I think the people who matter will see that.”

“Why do you think Malik said Don’t blame yourself to me as I left?”

“I don’t know. What do you think he meant?”

This is like talking to a shrink. “I have no idea.”

Kaiser looks at the ground, then back at me. “We’ll just have to try to figure that out together.”

That’s all I’m going to get. I offer him my hand, he shakes it, and then I walk inside my house without looking back.