Blood Memory

“Yellow!” I finish, trying to resist a rush of emotion. My cheeks are burning. “Why didn’t you tell Daddy you’d seen good men react like the way he did? You called him yellow to his face. I heard you! I didn’t know what you meant then, but I did later.”

Grandpapa folds his still-powerful hands together and fixes me with an unrepentant gaze. “Listen to me, Catherine. Maybe I was too hard on your father. But at some point it doesn’t matter what you’ve gone through. You have to pull up your bootstraps and get on with living. Because one thing’s for sure, nobody else is going to do it for you. Your father’s job was to provide for you and your mother, and at that job he failed miserably.”

I’m almost speechless with fury. “Did you really want him to succeed?”

“What does that mean? I gave him three different jobs, and he couldn’t handle any of them.”

“How could he? You despised him! And didn’t you just love being the big man, the one who paid for everybody’s food and shelter? Who controlled us all?”

He settles deeper into his chair, his chiseled features hard as the face of a mountain. “You’re distraught, my dear. We’ll continue this at another time. If we must.”

I start to argue, but what’s the point? “I have to get back to New Orleans. Please don’t go into my old bedroom before I get back. You can’t see anything without special chemicals. And please don’t let anyone else go in there. Mom’s liable to try to scrub the place from top to bottom with 409.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep the room secure. Test anything and everything you like.”

I collect my papers and walk to the study door.

“You seeing anybody that looks like a potential husband?” Grandpapa asks.

A wave of heat shoots up my spine.

“I’m wondering if I’m ever going to see some children around here before I die.”

If he knew I was pregnant now, he probably wouldn’t even care that I’m not married. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” I say without turning. “You’re going to live forever, aren’t you?”

I open the door to find Grandpapa’s driver staring at me, an open leer on his face.

“Hey,” he says.

I brush past Billy Neal without a word, but as I walk away, I hear him mutter something that sounds like “Frigid bitch.”

On any other day I would turn back and bite his head off, but todayit’s just not worth it.

Today I keep walking.

Chapter 12

I’m twenty miles south of Natchez when the Valium starts to soothe my frayed nerves. Sean has called twice, but I didn’t answer. I needed a few minutes to decompress after meeting with my grandfather, and to prepare for questioning about Nathan Malik by the FBI. Whatever the reality of the night my father died, I have to put it aside for now and think about my two years in medical school. They will soon be the subject of intense scrutiny by the FBI.

The facts are simple enough. As Michael Wells heard through the grapevine, I had an affair with a married professor and it got out of hand. After four months, I tried to end it. He wouldn’t let me. To emphasize my point, I slept with an ER doctor the professor knew. The professor promptly attempted suicide. He didn’t end his life, but he did end his teaching career, and also my days in medical school. My grandfather could probably have used his influence to get me reinstated, but the truth was, I didn’t want to go back. Certainly not like that.

The FBI will want to know all about Nathan Malik-or Jonathan Gentry, as I knew him then-but I don’t remember much. I was drunk a lot of that time. What I do remember about those years begs a question. Why have I always involved myself with married men? Therapists tell me it’s the impossibility of such relationships that draws me. Single guys always fall in love; they end up possessive and wanting me forever. I don’t want permanence-I didn’t back then, anyway-and married men are a pragmatic solution. They’re romantic, sexually experienced, and committed elsewhere. I’m well aware of the Freudian implications of my lifestyle. I grew up mostly without a father, so I’m attracted to older men. What of it? The moral issue bothers me sometimes, but that’s ultimately the man’s problem. What’s dismayed me more is learning firsthand just how little love there is in many marriages-even those of relatively short duration. Yet here I am now, wanting Sean for myself. For my baby. Forever. The irony is almost too much. And despite my dreams of a blissful future, I’ve always sensed a dark truth in my deepest being: there’s no happily ever after for girls like me.

My cell phone is ringing again. This time I answer.

“Where are you?” Sean asks.

“Halfway to Baton Rouge, doing eighty-five in a forty-five zone. I’ve got my flashers on. If the Highway Patrol stops me, I’m telling them to call you.”

“No problem. Look, the FBI got their court order. They’ll have their odontologist at Dr. Shubb’s office checking Malik’s dental records long before you get here.”

“Damn.” I hate that it won’t be me who makes the comparison, but the point of all this is to stop the killer, as I scolded Sean this morning. “Good. That’s good. But X-rays may not be enough. He should take alginate impressions of Malik’s actual teeth.”

“That’s specified in the court order. If he needs impressions to make the ID, he’ll get them. They’re also going to swab Malik’s mouth for DNA.”

My foot depresses the accelerator, and the Audi zips up to a hundred miles per hour. Even if it’s not me making the comparison, I have to be involved in this. “Do they still want to talk to me?”

“Absolutely. John Kaiser wants to call you right now and ask you about Malik.”

“I’m ready.”

“Be totally honest with him, Cat. He’s FBI, but he’s a good guy. You can trust him. He was in Vietnam, like your dad.”

This admonition angers me. “ Totally honest, you said? So if he asks about you and me?”

“You know what I mean. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Sean cuts the co

“So you only met him a few times,” Kaiser says when I finish. “And never alone?”

“Right. I mean, we were alone in the sense of him cornering me in the next room away from a di

“What specifics do you remember about him?”

“He didn’t drink.”

“Why does that stick in your mind?”

“Because I did. A lot. We all did. But not Malik. He was the observer type. Superior and aloof. Sat back and judged everybody, you know? Sniped. It was when I was drunk that he came on to me. Which surprised me, because until he did, I thought he was gay.”

“Really?” There’s a pause. I picture Kaiser making notes on a pad. “And you’ve never seen him in New Orleans? Not in the supermarket? The mall? Nothing like that?”

“No. And I’d remember.”

“Do you have any idea why he changed his name?”

“No. Where did he get the name Malik?”

“It was his mother’s maiden name.”

“Huh. That’s pretty common, I guess?”

“Not so much with men,” Kaiser replies. “But it happens.”

The FBI agent is silent for a brief period. “So basically, Nathan Malik-then called Gentry-was a friend of this doctor you were having an affair with. So it’s the doctor I need to talk to.”

“Definitely.”

“Can you spell his name for me?”

“Christopher Omartian, MD. He’s an EENT. I think he practices in Alabama now. Mobile.”

“How do you know that?”

“He sent me a letter a couple of years ago.”

“Did you respond?”

“I threw it in the trash.”

Kaiser thanks me for my time, says he might need to call back, then starts to say good-bye.