"Blood Memory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Iles Greg)

Chapter 34

“Is he alive?” I ask without any rational reason.

The silence that follows this question seems interminable. I sit on the lid of Michael Wells’s commode and wait for Agent Kaiser to tip me off my precarious mental precipice.

“Why would you ask me that question?” he asks. “Didn’t you speak to Dr. Malik earlier tonight?”

Sean’s warning that Malik might be declared a fugitive from a murder charge comes back to me with all its implications. “Yes,” I confess. “Briefly.”

“You’re aware Dr. Malik purposefully evaded surveillance and will be declared a fugitive if he leaves Louisiana?”

Two things hit me instantly: one, Kaiser is speaking for a tape recorder; two, Sean obviously told Kaiser about our conversation. “Yes. I think you know that.”

“Did Malik give you any idea where he was when you were talking?”

“No, but you must have figured that out by now.”

A brief pause. “He called you from a pay phone on the West Bank in New Orleans. By the time we got a car there, he was gone.”

“Is that right?” I stall, trying to gather my wits. It’s disorienting to deal with this call while naked in the guest bathroom of Michael Wells’s house. I’d do better in my own house, or even in my car. But one thing I know: if Malik was on the West Bank when he called me, he could not have been shooting at me on the island.

“Dr. Ferry,” Kaiser says in a softer voice. “You’ve asked me to call you Cat. May I do that?”

“Sure,” I say, pulling the T-shirt back on.

“I need to cover several things with you quickly. I want you to tell me everything that pops into your head while we talk. Is there any reason you feel you won’t be able to do that?”

“Such as?”

“Some sort of loyalty to Dr. Malik.”

My cheeks burn. “I told you, I don’t even know the guy! You heard every word of our meeting in his office.”

“Yes, I did. But clearly the two of you feel some sort of rapport. An emotional connection. Perhaps it has to do with your similar medical histories.”

I close my eyes, wondering how much Kaiser knows about my personal life. Did Sean tell him about my sexual abuse? “Please go ahead with your questions, Agent Kaiser.”

“All right. Are you absolutely positive that Dr. Malik never treated you as a patient?”

“Yes.”

“Did Sean Regan tell you that we finally found a patient of Malik’s who would talk to us?”

“No.”

“Like his other patients, she feels great loyalty to Malik, but she had to drop out of her therapy group with him. She found it too stressful.”

This piques my interest, as Kaiser must have known it would. “Stressful how?”

“Apparently Malik does delayed-memory-recall work with several patients in the same room. That’s highly unorthodox. The experience of hearing other women relive abusive experiences gave this patient acute anxiety attacks.”

“And?”

“Wellthat’s what you’ve been having at our crime scenes.”

“Give me a break. Anything can cause an anxiety attack.”

“Nevertheless. Malik manages several different groups. His treatment protocols vary according to what he thinks each group can tolerate. Drugs with some, not with others. In this woman’s group, Malik encouraged aggressive confrontations with family members who had sexually abused the patients as children. Malik compared these confrontations to the solo flights of student pilots. The final step to freedom and independence. Anyway, this woman couldn’t handle that, and she dropped out. We found her through the psychologist who initially referred her to Malik.”

“That’s all very interesting, but it has nothing to do with me.”

Kaiser’s sigh carries a lot of fatigue in it. “Cat, a lot of people on the task force are very angry with you. I’m not one of them, whether you believe me or not. I think you have some real insight into this case. Maybe insight you don’t even realize you have. I also know that you gave Sean Regan a lot of help on one of the serial murder cases he got credit for solving.”

“Who told you that?”

“Sean did.”

“That’s a shock.”

“He really cares for you, Cat. Extramarital affairs are hard on everybody. But Sean thinks you’re a genius.”

Men always try flattery first to manipulate women. John Kaiser’s no different. The threat will come later. “I’m no genius. I’m just obsessive.”

“Whatever works. Sean told me somebody tried to kill you tonight.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Nope.”

“Is this your Gary Cooper impression?”

I can’t help but smile a little. “Nope.”

“Do you think the attempt on your life was connected to the New Orleans murders in any way? Or to your work on those murders?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m looking into a separate matter up here. A personal matter.”

“A personal matter.” Kaiser seems to mull this over. “Are you sure it’s unrelated to your work in New Orleans?”

“You can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything. But I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

“Did you tell Dr. Malik about the attempt on your life?”

“Yes.”

“Did he suggest there might be a link between that and the New Orleans murders?”

I suddenly have the feeling that Kaiser has every word of my phone conversation with Malik on tape-that he’s just testing my honesty with these questions. “I asked him that exact question. He said yes and no.”

“Cat, I want you back in New Orleans. You’re tied into these murders somehow. Surely you see that?”

There’s an earnestness in Kaiser’s voice that tells me he’s really worried about me. “I concede that Malik has a fixation on me, okay? But if he called me from the West Bank of New Orleans this evening, he couldn’t have shot at me on DeSalle Island thirty minutes before that. That’s physically impossible.”

“I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here,” Kaiser confesses. “But I know Nathan Malik is involved in the murders.”

“He probably knows more than he’s telling. But if you want to know what he knows, I have a lot better chance talking to him on my own than with you listening in.”

“Do you plan to speak to him again?”

“If he calls me.”

“Hm.”

I get the feeling Kaiser would like to run this investigation one way, while his colleagues on the task force would prefer a stricter approach. “Are you listening in on my cell calls?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

If Kaiser is telling the truth, it’s only because he doesn’t yet have a court order or the assets in place to bug my phone. But he soon will.

“Why did you go to DeSalle Island?” he asks. “This personal matter of yours?”

“I’m trying to find out something about my past.”

“About your father?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’m extrapolating from your conversation with Malik in his office. Did you learn anything important?”

I’m not about to give Kaiser the sordid history of my childhood. “Nothing relating to your case.”

“Well, the fact that Luke’s military record was sealed bothered me, so I did some digging on my own.”

My heart is tight in my chest. “What did you find out?”

“Luke Ferry was in a unit called the White Tigers. They made an illegal incursion into Cambodia in 1969. Details are tough to come by, but there’s no doubt that the White Tigers committed war crimes during that period. Two major investigations were conducted by the JAG corps, but all charges were ultimately dropped. The whole thing was deemed too embarrassing for the government. However, I did learn that some veterans of the White Tigers were prosecuted for heroin trafficking after the war. Some as recently as the late 1980s. Your father was murdered in 1981, so I’m not ruling out anything.”

I’m tempted to tell Kaiser that my father was shot by my grandfather, but something holds me back. “Have you found any connection between Malik and drugs?”

“Yes. Malik tortured a Vietnamese prisoner with drugs in 1969. He was a medic then, remember? Apparently he did it on the order of his commanding officer. He was also arrested for selling army pharmaceuticals on the black market in Saigon. The charges were later dropped, and he was returned to his unit. No reason given.”

“Was Malik a member of the White Tigers?”

“Not that I can prove. But a large-scale drug operation needs people all over the country. Again, I’m just not sure what we’re dealing with here.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think the murders in New Orleans or my father’s death have anything to do with drugs. I just don’t.”

“Then what?”

Childhood sexual abuse, obviously “I don’t know, John. Is there anything else?”

“Be very careful if you speak to Malik. You could easily cross the line into aiding and abetting.”

I don’t even respond to this.

“I have to say this, Cat. I’d like you to accept round-the-clock FBI protection.”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t even know we were there.”

“Look, no women have died, okay? It’s men who are at risk from this killer.”

“Until you got shot at tonight, I might have agreed with you. We’re very good at this, Cat. No one would know we were guarding you.”

“Malik would know. I don’t know how, but he would. And he wouldn’t come near me.”

A long silence. “Tell me why you want to talk to him.”

“I don’t know why, to tell you the truth. He just knows something I need to know. I sense that.”

“Remember what curiosity did to the cat.”

I groan. “Yeah, but cats have nine lives, remember?”

Kaiser delivers his retort like a valediction. “From what I understand, you’ve used up most of yours.”

“I need to go, John. I’ll let you know if I learn anything vital.”

I click off before he can say more.