Blood Memory

“Do you really see a woman ripping these guys up with her teeth?”

I’ve had some pretty violent urges myself. “A sexually abused woman probably carries around a lot of repressed rage, Sean.”

“Yeah, but women turn rage inward. That’s why they commit suicide, not homicide.”

He’s right about that. “What about Colonel Moreland’s daughter? Stacey Lorio? Army brat, tough-looking woman. You said she had alibis for all the murders?”

“Yep, all corroborated. Couple of times with friends, couple of times with her ex-husband. Her ex doesn’t even like her, but he confirmed. Talked to him myself. He said, ‘To tell you the truth, I can’t stand the bitch, but I still like to screw her now and again.’”

“Sounds like a great guy.” Frustration is making me crave alcohol. “Okay then, a male patient of Malik’s. Abused as a boy. A large percentage of convicted serial killers were abused as young boys.”

“Now you’re talking,” Sean says, his tone warming. “The second we get that patient list, I’ll start working that angle.” He bends over and stretches his back, the vertebrae popping like Chinese firecrackers. “You want to take a break?”

My body tenses. Normally, when given an opportunity to be alone for an extended period like this, we would spend much of it in bed. But today the bedroom door is closed, and it’s going to stay that way.

My eyes must have betrayed my thoughts, because Sean quickly says, “I was thinking of running over to R and O’s, getting a couple of oyster po-boys.”

I relax—a little. “That sounds good.”

“I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“Look, you don’t have to stay here all day. I want to read Malik’s book.”

Sean looks at me with calm sincerity. “I want to stay. If that’s all right with you?”

I can’t help but smile. “Okay. Why don’t you get the food, then?”

He gets his keys and heads out to the garage. No kiss good-bye, just a light touch on my forearm.

I go into the bedroom and strip the vodka-soaked sheets, then carry them to the washing machine. The alcohol evaporating from the cotton is enough to ignite a craving that itches in every cell of my body. My mind goes to the Valium in my purse, but it’s time to start weaning myself off that. A birth defect isn’t the first gift I want to give the baby growing inside me.

To take my mind off my craving—as if anything could—I go back to the kitchen table and pick up Nathan Malik’s book, which Sean borrowed from the Tulane Medical School library. Titled The River Lethe: Repressed Memory and Soul Murder, it’s a thin volume, only 130 pages long. Its dark jacket shows an eerie, moonlit scene: an old, robed man standing in a boat in a river, and a frail young woman waiting to board. The image seems unlikely to inspire feelings of well-being in someone who’s been sexually abused. But maybe it presses a button in such victims that prompts them to want to discover what’s between the covers.

The book jacket has the opposite effect on me. Despite my desire to learn more about the inner workings of Nathan Malik’s mind, the prospect of wading through 130 pages on child abuse is too much to handle right now. Maybe it’s the pregnancy. Besides, Sean will be back soon. Better to start the book later, when I can read it in a single sitting.

While I wait for Sean to return, I scan a list of Malik’s professional publications. His earliest articles focused on bipolar disorder, summarizing extensive work he did with manic-depressives. Then came a study analyzing post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. Judging by the abstracts of the articles, Malik’s work on PTSD in veterans is what led him to study the same phenomenon in survivors of sexual abuse. This, in turn, led to groundbreaking research on multiple personality disorder.

“Oysters in the house!” Sean calls from the garage door.

He walks in carrying a brown bag spotted with grease. He’s opening it on the kitchen table when his cell phone rings. Glancing at the screen, he says, “It’s Joey.” Detective Joey Guercio is his partner. “Joey? What you got?”

The smile vanishes from Sean’s face. “No shit? Was Kaiser around when they found this? … Okay. I’ll talk to him later. This could be big, though … I appreciate it … Yeah. They checking all the other vics for the same thing? … Okay. Call me with anything else they find.” He hangs up and looks at me. “There’s another connection between two of the victims. The first one and today’s. Colonel Moreland and Calhoun.”

“Through Malik?” I ask hopefully.

“No.”

“What’s the connection?”

“Vietnam.”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if Sean had said “Harvard.” “What about Vietnam?”

“They both served there. Moreland and Calhoun.”

“At the same time?”

“Their dates of service intersect. Colonel Moreland was career army. He served in-country from 1966 to 1969. James Calhoun was there in sixty-eight and sixty-nine.”