Blood Memory

Chapter 50

Michael Wells and I are sitting on a leather couch in the private office of Dr. Tom Cage, a general practitioner in Natchez for more than forty years. Bookshelves line all four walls, some stuffed with medical treatises, others with histories of the Civil War. There’s a stack of medical charts a foot high on Dr. Cage’s desk, the bane of every physician. A half-painted lead soldier holding a musket stands in the shadow of the charts, a bottle of gray paint beside him. Like us, he seems to be waiting for the doctor to appear.

But what holds my attention now, what I’ve hardly been able to take my eyes off since arriving, is the polished white skull being used as a bookend in the shelf behind Dr. Cage’s desk. The empty eye sockets stare at me with what looks like mockery, reminding me yet again that Nathan Malik is dead, that the murders in New Orleans remain unsolved, and that I am still a suspect.

Since finding the Polaroids of the naked children in my father’s bag, I’ve been unable to think clearly. The voices that tormented me long ago have returned, a susurrant undercurrent of vicious commentary that I cannot silence. More disturbing, something deep within me seems to have cracked, leaving me broken in a way I cannot begin to mend. What is broken, I think, is my faith-my desperate hope that despite what Grandpapa told me, my father could not have done such terrible things to me.

But pictures don’t lie.

Michael has done all he can to ease my anxiety. Though he believes it would be a mistake to exhume my father’s body, he telephoned his attorney during the drive over and asked what was required to accomplish such a thing. There’s no law in Mississippi governing the exhumation of bodies; in fact, not even a permit is required. What is required is the presence of a funeral director as a witness. However, when Michael phoned the funeral director, he was told that the funeral home would oversee no exhumation without a court order. Michael’s lawyer believes such an order can be obtained from the chancery judge ex parte-without a hearing-but to do so will require an affidavit stating the reason for the exhumation from the decedent’s next of kin.

My mother.

“Hi, Michael. Sorry to keep you two waiting.” A tall man with white hair and a white beard marches into the room and pumps Michael’s hand. Then he turns to me and smiles. “So, you’re Catherine Ferry?”

I stand and offer Dr. Cage my hand. “Please call me Cat.”

He takes it and squeezes softly with arthritic fingers. “And I’m Tom.”

He moves behind his desk and takes a seat. A big cigar and several tongue depressors protrude from his white lab coat, and a red stethoscope hangs around his neck. It’s clear that Tom Cage practices the kind of medicine my grandfather hasn’t deigned to practice in many years.

Dr. Cage takes a Diet Coke from a minifridge behind his desk, pops it open, and takes a long pull from the can. After a long exhalation of satisfaction, he sets the can on the desk and fixes his eyes on me.

“Luke Ferry. What do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure. Everything you remember, I suppose.”

“That’s a lot. I treated Luke as a boy, treated his parents before they died, and I treated the uncle who raised him off and on. What are you most interested in?”

I look at the floor where my father’s green bag rests between my feet. “Vietnam,” I say softly. “The White Tigers.”

Dr. Cage’s eyes flicker. “You already know more than I thought you would. Catyour father learned to shoot to put food on his family’s table. He shot better as a boy than most men could after a lifetime of practice. But in the war they made him use that talent for another purpose. They made him a sniper. Luke had mixed feelings about that job. On one hand, he was proud of his professionalism.” Dr. Cage gestures at his bookshelves. “As you can see, I’m a military history buff. I also served in Korea. Did you know that in Vietnam, the average number of rounds expended per dead enemy soldier was fifty thousand?”

“Fifty thousand!” Michael says beside me. “That can’t be right.”

“It is,” says Dr. Cage. “That’s one reason we lost that war. You want to guess how many rounds were expended by army and marine snipers during Vietnam per dead enemy soldier?”

Michael shakes his head. “One?”

“One point three nine. Those boys were very good at their job. But that kind of killing is much more difficult than returning fire at a man who’s trying to kill you. It’s done in cold blood, looking through a scope at a man ten times life-size. You watch him smoke a cigarette or take a piss, and then you blow his head into ragged chunks of gore and bone. Think of John Kennedy’s head exploding in the Zapruder film. That’s what you see every time you shoot. Once you have pictures like that in your head, they never go away.”

Dr. Cage takes another sip of Diet Coke. “My point is, Luke was under great stress even before he was pressed into the White Tigers. And in that unit, things changed for the worse, and damn quick.

“The Tigers were essentially a terror unit, sent into Cambodia to harry and kill NVA forces hiding in a neutral country. These were covert operations carried out behind the lines, under the command of officers who had cast aside the rules of organized warfare. They took few prisoners. When they did, it was to torture them. Rape was used both as an intimidation tactic against the local populace, and also as a reward for the troops. They rarely distinguished between soldiers and noncombatants. Almost everyone they encountered was considered a target.

“When Luke protested against extreme acts of cruelty, he was ridiculed by his fellow soldiers and looked on with suspicion by his superiors. He soon learned that if he failed to go along with the prevailing authority, he’d wind up as dead as the rest of the people who came in contact with the White Tigers.”

While Dr. Cage pauses to think, I rummage through the bag until I find the wire string of “rotten prunes.” Fighting my revulsion, I hold the string out to the doctor.

“Do you know what this is?”

Dr. Cage takes the string from my hands and lays it on his desk. With a magnifying glass from his pocket, he examines one of the blackened chunks.

“Ears,” he says.

“What?” asks Michael.

Dr. Cage looks up at us. “It’s an ear necklace. Never seen one. Where did you get it?”

“Daddy kept it hidden in a bag with some other things.”

“It’s a war trophy. When some soldiers killed an enemy in Vietnam, they cut off one or both ears and strung them on a necklace, much like Indians taking scalps.”

“I’ve heard of that,” says Michael. “But I guess it never seems real until”

Dr. Cage shrugs. “They did it with foreskins, too, but that’s nothing new. They were taking foreskins as trophies back in the Crusades. War has always been barbaric. Only the tools have changed.”

It’s hard for me to visualize the father I knew living in the world Tom Cage is describing. “So, my father cut the ears off his victims?”

“ Victim isn’t the proper word during wartime,” Dr. Cage says, “though it may be fitting in cases like this. But it’s difficult for me to imagine Luke Ferry stooping to mutilation. There aren’t more than twenty ears on this necklace, and Luke had thirty-six confirmed kills as a sniper alone. He probably killed many more without a spotter present to make it official. No, I’d be very surprised if this necklace belonged to Luke.”

“Why?” asks Michael. “Given all that you’ve told us?”

“Because Luke risked his life to bring the men who’d done this kind of thing to justice. As soon as he got back to Vietnam from Cambodia, he went over the head of his CO and reported what he’d seen. Higher authority did exactly what they always do when someone ignores the chain of command. Within a week, Luke was back in action with the White Tigers. That’s when he was wounded-according to Luke, by his fellow soldiers. It’s a miracle he got aboard a medevac chopper alive. He said that if it hadn’t been for one man, he’d have been left to bleed to death in a rice paddy.”

“What happened to him after that?”

“He was never the same. The things he’d witnessed had pushed him beyond his limit. When he learned they were going to send him back to the Tigers again, he lost it. He started yelling about everything he’d seen, and the next thing you know, they were processing him out on some kind of special discharge. They didn’t give him a section eight, but it amounted to the same thing. His post-traumatic stress disorder kicked in even before he made it back to the States. I could tell you about that, but something tells me that’s not what you’re really here for.”

Michael was right: Tom Cage is a perceptive man.

“Go ahead,” Michael says. “Tell him.”

“What do you know about childhood sexual abuse?” I ask.

Dr. Cage looks surprised. “I’ve seen some in my time. I haven’t treated children for years, but in the beginning I did. Treated anybody who walked through the front door.” He takes a sip of Diet Coke and looks over at his bookshelves. “My fear is that I’ve seen a lot more sexual abuse than I realized at the time. That there were kids I could have helped if I’d only had more courage, or better eyes to see.”

“Why more courage?” I ask.

“I think we see what we want to see. Or maybe what we can afford to see. When I started practice here, there was no such thing as Child Protective Services. Just the welfare department. And in those days, men had virtually absolute control over their families.” Dr. Cage’s eyes have focused somewhere in the middle distance. He might as well be alone in the room. I’m about to clear my throat when he snaps out of it and looks up at me. “I was thinking of some particular cases. Particular children. But that was a long time ago. I hope they turned out all right.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence that no one seems inclined to break. For some reason, I feel I can trust this man. Reaching into the bag, I remove the three Polaroid snapshots and pass them across the desk. “I found these in the bag with the other stuff that Daddy kept secret.”

Dr. Cage takes a long look at each Polaroid, then looks up at me. “What’s really going on here, Cat? What are you trying to figure out?”

“I think my father may have molested me.”

“Do you have some reason other than these pictures to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” He glances at the snapshots again. “These pictures look like damning evidence, I know. But taken by themselves, they’re like the ear necklace. Merely possessing them seems like evidence of perversion, but you don’t know the circumstances by which Luke came to have them.”

“Why would he hide them if he had nothing to be ashamed of?”

Dr. Cage shrugs. “We may never know that. Have you gone through everything in that bag?”

“Everything but this,” I reply, holding up the sketchbook.

“Why did you pass over that?”

“I don’t know.” An image of Louise Butler comes into my mind. “Someone already told me what was in it. Sketches of DeSalle Island, stuff like that.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

I pass the sketchbook across the desk, and he begins flipping through it.

“Looks like you’re half right. There are some sketches of a black woman – here's some poetry. A wildflower pressed between two pages. Wait look at this.”

“What?”

“It’s a typed note. Oh yes, listen to this. ‘Private Ferry, It’s come to our attention that you’ve been talking about the time you spent west of the Mekong River. We thought you’d learned your lesson in sixty-nine. Since you didn’t, here’s a little reminder from your old friends who wore the tiger stripes. Keep talking and your ears will wind up on one of these. We might even have to run a night op on that little girl of yours. Remember those? You took an oath, soldier. Never forget it.’”

Dr. Cage sets the sketchbook on his desk. “Well, there’s one answer for you. How Luke came by the necklace.”

“They threatened his life,” I say softly. “They really did.”

“Luke was a stubborn boy,” Dr. Cage says softly. “He tried a couple of times after the war to get an investigation started. He made some headway, but it never came to anything. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the intruder who killed him at Malmaison was sent by the men who wrote this letter.”

I wish he had been, I say silently.

Dr. Cage is watching me closely. “I can see there’s more to this than what you’ve told me. Maybe a lot more. I just hope I’ve helped you a little.”

Though there’s really nothing else he can do to help, I want to tell him more. His opinion has become important to me. “If I asked you whether you think Luke could have sexually abused me or not, what would you say?”

A deep sadness fills Tom Cage’s eyes. “I’d like to say no. I really would. But I’m too old a dog to be offering certainty on a subject like that. The human sex drive is a powerful thing. It dictates to us more than the other way around, often without our realizing it. Freud spent his life trying to understand it and fell far short. Luke was a good boy, but what he did in the dark of the night-or why he did it-I won’t pretend to know. Whatever he did probably had more to do with what was done to him as a child than anything else. And that I don’t know about.”

“You said you treated his parents.”

Dr. Cage turns up his hands. “They were good people, but they died young. I didn’t much care for the uncle who took Luke in. He was a redneck loudmouth who spent most of his time trying to get Social Security disability benefits he didn’t deserve. Of course, that doesn’t make him a child molester. He’s dead now. Lung cancer.”

As I pack my father’s things back into the bag, I say, “If I asked you the same question about my grandfather-whether you think he could have molested me-what would you say?”

Dr. Cage’s eyes lock onto mine with a curious intensity. “I’d have to give you the same answer I gave you about Luke. None of us really knows anybody, and when it comes to sex, anything is possible.”

When I don’t speak, Dr. Cage adds, “You’re looking down a deep, dark hole, Catherine. A lot darker hole than I thought when I walked in that door.” He glances at Michael. “At least you’ve got a good man helping you do it.”

He’s about to speak again when the door beside the couch opens, and a nurse walks in. The doctor’s face darkens. “I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.”

“I’m sorry,” says the nurse. “But Dale Thompson just slid his motorcycle down a hundred yards of pavement. He’s bleeding all over the waiting room.”

“Why didn’t he go to the emergency room?”

“He said you patched him up after his last wreck, and he wants you for this one. Looks like he needs about a hundred stitches, all told.”

Dr. Cage shakes his head. “He needs some sense knocked into him. Put him in the surgery. I’ll be right there.”

The doctor comes around his desk and takes me by the hand. “I’m going to be honest with you, Cat. I never liked your grandfather. I respected his skill, and his work for the city, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about Bill Kirkland. As for what you asked about, I can tell you this: the man’s nearly eighty years old, and he takes as much Viagra as any patient I treat. I know that because he gets it free from one of the drug reps. And so far as I know, he doesn’t see any women in town. But then I don’t know half of what goes on anymore. So, that’s not evidence of anything.”

As I get to my feet, Dr. Cage says, “How’s your aunt Ann? I used to treat her on and off for depression when she was mad at her shrinks.”

“She’s dead.”

Dr. Cage is visibly shaken. “Dead how?”

“Suicide. Last night.”

“Jesus Christ. I hate to hear that.”

“Did Ann ever mention anything to you about sexual abuse?”

He shakes his head. “She was obsessed with having a child, that’s what I remember most. And she had a real love-hate relationship with your grandfather. She depended on him for everything and hated herself for her dependence.”

“Do you know anything about the appendectomy she had on the island?”

Dr. Cage laughs. “Hell, I’ve heard Bill tell that story a dozen times. He acts like he did a heart transplant with nothing but a pocketknife and some rubbing alcohol.”

“Ann was ten when that happened. Do you think she could have been pregnant?”

Dr. Cage’s eyes narrow, but after a while he shakes his head. “No. In over forty years of practicing medicine, I’ve seen one pregnant eleven-year-old. Maybe two. God almighty, you are walking through the abyss, aren’t you?”

I nod. “It feels like it.”

He looks at Michael. “You take care of this girl. She’s tough, but she’s not as tough as she thinks she is.”

“I will.”

Dr. Cage shakes Michael’s hand, and then he’s gone.

“You still want to exhume your father’s body?” Michael asks.

“More than ever.”

He sighs and leads me toward the waiting room. There’s a trail of blood on the white tiles of the corridor, and a bloody footprint near the waiting room door. In an instant, I flash back to the bloody prints on my bedroom floor. The door ahead wavers in my vision, and my knees go weak. Michael braces my arm and leads me past the staring faces in the waiting room.

“I’m taking you to my office and running some tests,” he says.

I blink against the bright sunlight, crazy images flashing in the glare. My father’s tombstone myself as a little girl putting Lena the Leopardess into his coffin.

“No. If I stop, I won’t be able to start again. We keep going.”