Blood Memory (45 page)

I get up and pull the curtains away from the kitchen window. Malmaison stands majestic and silent as a royal sepulchre. “He’s not going to hurt any more children,” I say softly. “That stops today.”

“How you gonna stop him? Even the po-lice afraid of Dr. Kirkland. Lord, this place cost more than all the houses of every cop in this town put together. The mayor’s house, too. Dr. Kirkland got friends all the way up to Washington, D.C.”

“Don’t worry about it. You just promise me that if you have to get up in front of a jury, you’ll tell the truth about what you know.”

“They make you swear on the Bible, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m too old to lie with my right hand on a Bible. But you be careful. Dr. Kirkland ain’t the only sick man around here. That Billy Neal be just as bad, and he’s a lot younger and stronger.”

“Younger, maybe. Not stronger. If you turned those two loose in the woods and only one could come out alive, Grandpapa would eat Billy’s liver for supper.”

Pearlie stands unsteadily and walks to me, then hugs me the way she used to when I was a little girl. The way my mother never quite could. “You remember when I told you I quit smoking?”

I think for a minute. “Twenty-three years ago, you said. That’s when Daddy died.”

She nods, her chin digging into my shoulder. “You know why I quit that year?”

“Why?”

“Because I knew cigarettes was poison. And after Mr. Luke died, I knew you was gonna need me around to look after you. I’m just sorry I didn’t do more, baby. Sorry I couldn’t save you from all the pain you been through.” She pulls back and looks into my eyes. “You’re the strongest of all my girls. I always said that. Dr. Kirkland think you got that strength from him, but I know better. Mr. Luke was a good man, and tough when he had to be. Old Mr. DeSalle, too. Maybe…oh, I don’t know. I’m just gonna pray for you, whatever prayers is worth. Maybe with the Lord’s help, you can come through all right.”

I kiss her gently on the cheek, then unlock the door and walk out into the sunlight.

My grandfather’s Lincoln is still parked beside Pearlie’s Cadillac. As I stare at the two cars, I sense someone watching me. Turning to my right, I see Billy Neal staring down at me from the rear gallery of Malmaison.

He’s smiling.

I turn toward him and start walking, my strides long and resolute. The closer I get, the more his smile fades. By the time I’m within speaking distance, he’s scowling at me. He’s also wearing a sport jacket in the dead of summer. Looking closer, I see the butt of an automatic pistol protruding from a shoulder holster beneath the jacket.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“You’ve hitched your wagon to a falling star,” I say in a flat voice. “You should leave while you can.”

He laughs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Follow me and find out.”

Grandpapa is talking on the telephone at his rolltop desk, his broad back clothed in a custom-tailored shirt of French blue silk. His deep voice fills the room like a finely tuned bass viol.

“Hang up,” I say sharply.

He rotates his leather chair, and his eyes fix upon me.

“I know what you did,” I tell him.

“Just a minute,” he says into the phone. He presses the mouthpiece against his shirt. “What is it, Catherine? I’m very busy right now.”

“I know you murdered my father.”

His only reaction is a slight narrowing of the eyes. Then he glances at Billy Neal, who’s standing by the door. “I told you what happened that night, Catherine.”

“You told me four different times. A different story every time. But I know the truth now. Evidence doesn’t lie. You murdered him, and I can prove it.”

Grandpapa raises the phone to his lips again. “I’ll have to call you back.”

“First you shot him. Then you shoved my favorite stuffed animal into his mouth to keep him quiet. Then I figure you held his nose shut with your fingers while he suffocated.”

In the time it takes Grandpapa to hang up the telephone, his eyes change from the benign blue of a loving grandfather to the cold slits of a wolf sensing threat. The transformation chills my blood. I have never seen this face before, and yet I recognize it. This is his
real face
—the face of the man who put himself inside me when I was a baby.

“Are you wearing a microphone?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He doesn’t believe me. For some reason, this sends a surge of anger through me. “You want me to strip for you?” I start to unbutton my top. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before, is it?”

“Stop that,” he snaps. Then he waves his hand at Billy Neal.

The driver takes something from one of the shelves and walks toward me. It’s a black metal wand like the ones they use in airports to check for concealed weapons. He sweeps it up and down my body, lingering in the crotch area.

“She’s clean,” he says finally. He walks back to the door and stands beside it like a guard dog.

“Do you know anything about this?” Grandpapa asks, pointing at the far wall.

To my amazement, dozens of books lie strewn about the floor, as though someone ripped them off the shelves in a frantic search. Pearlie’s words replay inside my head:
I been looking for more pictures like that…but I ain’t found none yet.

“Mice?” I say in a flat voice.

He starts to respond, then discards the whole subject as not worthy of his attention. “All right. I told you I was busy. Is there anything else?”

I can’t believe his arrogance. “Didn’t you hear me? I can prove that you murdered my father. I can also prove you sexually abused Aunt Ann. And worse.”

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I have evidence.”

“Bloody footprints on a floor? I’ve already explained that.”

“I have a lot more than that.” I’d like to tell him about Pearlie, but I can’t put her at risk. “And I’m remembering more every day. I know what you did to me.”

Grandpapa’s eyes narrow again. “
Remembered
evidence? It sounds to me like you’ve been taking your friend Dr. Malik a little too seriously.”

What the hell is going on here?
I had no idea that he even knew who Malik was.

“Catherine, so-called repressed memories count for exactly nothing in a court of law. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“Ann’s body will count,” I say evenly.

For the first time, I see a shadow of worry cross his face. “What are you talking about?”

“How could you do that to her, Grandpapa?”

“Do what?”

“
Sterilize
her! You cut her fallopian tubes when she was ten years old.
Jesus.
All your life you’ve acted like you’re better than everyone else. The best surgeon, the best businessman, the best hunter, the best father. You’re none of that! You’re a fucking monster. A
freak.
”

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 concept. “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?”