Blood Memory

“Right … you’re right. Shit, I’m getting nervous just talking to you.”

“We’re almost done, Harold. Do you know anything about Malik’s modes of therapy? What he specializes in? Anything?”

“Repressed memories. Physical and sexual abuse of women. Men, too, I think. We’ve had several conversations about it. He’s an expert at helping people recover lost memories. Uses drugs, hypnosis, everything. It’s controversial stuff. Lots of litigation in that area.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I’ll tell you this. If Nathan Malik is your guy, I hope you have some rock-solid evidence on him. He won’t be intimidated by the FBI or anyone else. When it comes to things like patient privacy, he’ll go to jail before he’ll tell you a damn thing. He’s a fanatic about it. Hates the government.”

I jump as the fax machine beside me hums to life. “That rock-solid evidence may be sitting in your X-ray files right now, Harold.”

He whistles again. “I hope so, Cat. I mean—”

“I know what you mean. If it’s him.”

“Exactly.”

“Look, the FBI doesn’t need to know about this conversation.”

“What conversation?”

“Thanks, Harold. I’ll see you at my next seminar?”

“Can’t wait.”

I ring off and watch the paper spool out of the fax machine. Someone has typed a detailed summary of the available information on Dr. Nathan Malik. I have an almost overwhelming urge to go to my grandfather’s sideboard and pour a quick shot of vodka before reading it, but I manage to strangle the impulse. As the second sheet emerges from the fax machine, I glance down, then grip the table to stay on my feet.

At the bottom of the page is a black-and-white photo of Nathan Malik, a bullet-headed, bald man with deep-set black eyes. On some men, baldness conveys an image of weakness or advancing age, but on Nathan Malik the bald pate seems more a challenge than a weakness, the way it did on Yul Brynner. Proud, piercing, and defiant, his eyes silently order you back a step. Malik’s nose was broken at some point in his life, and his lips curl in a wry smile that expresses only contempt for the camera. He has the arrogant disdain of an aristocrat, but that’s not what has taken my breath away. What did that was the eyes. I first saw them—and this face—nearly a decade ago, at the University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.

Grabbing the first page from the fax tray, I scan the psychiatrist’s CV. Born 1951. Two years in the army, a tour of duty as a medical corpsman in Vietnam. Undergraduate education, Tulane University. Graduated Tulane Medical School in 1979. A residency at Ochsner Hospital. Several years of private practice followed, after which—I feel my heart pounding against my sternum—Nathan Malik took a position on the psychiatric faculty at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper.

Malik was at UMC during the two years I was there. I did know him. But something is wrong. I didn’t know the man in this picture as Nathan Malik, but as Dr. Jonathan Gentry. And Gentry wasn’t bald, not even close. Higher up the page, I find what I’m looking for. Nathan Malik was born Jonathan Gentry in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1951. He legally changed his name in 1994, one year after I was asked to leave medical school. I pick up my cell phone and speed-dial Sean, sweat breaking out on my face and neck.

“You got something?” Sean says without preamble.

“Sean, I know him! Knew him, I mean.”

“Who?”

“Malik.”

“What?”

“Only his name wasn’t Malik then. It was Gentry. He was on the faculty at UMC in Jackson when I was there. He had hair then, but it’s the same guy. I couldn’t forget those eyes. He knew that professor I had the affair with. He actually hit on me a few times. I mean—”

“Okay, okay. You need to get—”

“I know. I’ll leave as soon as I can get out of here. I should be there in three hours.”

“Don’t wait for anything, Cat. The task force is going to want to talk to you bad.”

The calm I experienced in the pool has fled me. I can hardly keep a logical thought in my head. “Sean, what does this mean? How could this be?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to call John Kaiser. You call me when you get on the road. We’ll figure it out.”

Though I’m alone in the room, I nod thankfully. “I will. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye, babe. Hang tough. We’ll get this straight.”

I put down the phone and gather the sheets from the fax tray. There are three now. As I turn toward the study door, it suddenly opens as though of its own volition.

Towering in the doorway is my grandfather, Dr. William Kirkland, his angular face lined with care. His pale blue eyes survey me from head to toe, then take in the room.

“Hello, Catherine,” he says, his voice deep and precisely measured. “What are you doing in here?”

“I needed your fax machine, Grandpapa. I was just about to head back to New Orleans.”

A shorter man in his thirties peers around my grandfather’s broad frame. Billy Neal, the unpleasant driver Pearlie complained about. His eyes flick up and down my body, making private judgments that produce a smirk. Grandpapa gently but forcefully pushes his driver backward, then walks into the library and closes the door. He’s wearing a white linen jacket and a necktie. On the island he dresses like a laborer, but in town he is unfailingly formal.

“I’m sure you don’t want to leave before we’ve had a chance to visit,” he says.

“It’s pretty urgent. A murder case.”

He smiles knowingly. “If it was that urgent, you wouldn’t be in Natchez in the first place, would you? Unless someone was murdered here while I was gone?”

I shake my head.

“That’s a relief. Though I can think of a few locals I wouldn’t mind seeing hurried along to their final reward.” He walks to the sideboard. “Sit down, Catherine. What are you drinking?”

“Nothing.”

He raises a curious eyebrow.

“I really have to go.”

“Your mother told me you found some blood in your old bedroom.”

“That’s right. I found it by accident, but it’s definitely blood.”

He pours himself a neat Scotch. “Human?”

“I don’t know yet.” I glance longingly at the door.

Grandpapa removes his jacket, revealing a tailored dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Even at his advanced age, he has the corded forearms of a man who’s worked all his life with his hands. “But you’re assuming that it is.”

“Why do you say that? I never assume anything.”