by Greg Iles
We’re three blocks away from the motel when a revelation hits me like a body blow. “Turn around!”
“That would be a mistake,” Kaiser says firmly. “For both of you.”
“It’s not Sean! It’s the skull. I need to see that skull.”
“Why?”
I try to rein in my excitement. “The teeth in that skull made the bite marks on the victims. I’d bet anything on it.”
“Turn the car around,” Kaiser orders.
Richard gets us back to the Thibodeaux in less than a minute. Sean’s Saab is already gone. Captain Piazza must have made it clear to him that following us could be a catastrophic career move.
Summoned by Kaiser via radio, a female evidence technician walks out to our car carrying the skull in a large Ziploc bag. Kaiser reaches across me, rolls down my window, and takes the skull from the tech. Then he sets it in my lap.
The polished skull stares up at me with the ironic grin I saw in the motel bathtub. The bone has a slightly yellowish color, probably from aging of the varnish someone put on it.
“I need gloves.”
“Give her your gloves,” Kaiser orders the tech.
My heart pounds as I struggle to put on the technician’s latex gloves, which turned inside out when she removed them. Even without opening the skull’s mouth, I can see that its lateral incisors are slightly pegged, as were those that wounded the flesh of our victims. Once the gloves are on, I open the Ziploc and remove the skull.
I’ve held many of these during my career, some clinically spotless like this one, others dredged out of mass graves in Bosnia by a backhoe. The ones like this you see in dentists’ and doctors’ offices. They’re good for patient education, and they lend a certain macabre severity to a medical office.
The jaw opens easily on the springs screwed to the interior surfaces of the zygoma and mandible. Doing bite-mark comparisons can be long, painstaking work, but sometimes it’s a no-brainer. This is one of those times. The maxillary arch of the bite marks at the murder scenes is engraved upon my mind, and the one in this skull matches it tooth for tooth.
“Well?” says Kaiser.
“It’s a perfect match.”
Chapter
43
As we zoom along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain toward the FBI field office, Kaiser speaks on the phone to someone who obviously has a great deal of power. My head is still pounding, the pain focused behind my eyes. The skull is riding up front on the passenger seat, next to our driver.
At last Kaiser hangs up and turns to me. “The chief of police is going batshit because I wouldn’t let Piazza arrest you. Now that I took you away from the scene, he’s calling my boss. It’s going to be a bureaucratic shitstorm.”
“Am I going to be arrested?”
“The field office is task force headquarters. If you’ll remain there a while without making a fuss, that’s your best bet for staying out of jail.”
“Look, my showing up at that motel was just lagniappe for the killer. It was the killer who tipped you where to find the murder weapon and the video equipment, and the same person gave you the motel and the skull. He’s trying to frame Malik. My showing up was just a bonus. If you figured out the suicide was staged, I was right there to blame for staging it. And with my experience, I’d know just how to do it.”
“It plays,” says Kaiser, “but I can think of a scenario that plays equally well.”
“Not your multiple personality fantasy.”
“No. The women in Group X know Malik is killing abusers, and also that he killed an innocent man. One of them is having a crisis of conscience. Like the woman who tried to kill herself, Margaret Lavigne.”
“Lavigne’s still in a coma?”
“Yes. I was actually thinking our caller might be your aunt.”
“Was the voice female again?”
“Yes.”
I turn toward the lake and watch the gray waves in silence. I suppose Aunt Ann could be making the calls. But for some reason I doubt it. If Ann paid Malik’s bail, what would so quickly turn her against him? Finding out that an innocent man had been murdered? Maybe. But I doubt that would sway her loyalty. “Were there bite marks on the face of the dead cop?”
“The worst yet.”
“These are personal attacks, John. And the bite marks are created antemortem, like torture. But the victims have to be immobilized before they’re bitten.”
“So?”
“The killer’s a woman. I’ve suspected it from the start. It’s probably one of the women in Group X.”
Kaiser blows out a stream of air. “That’s a possibility, but a very remote one given the crime signature. There’s no history of a woman ever committing sexual homicides like this. Not alone.”
“Five minutes ago you practically accused me of doing it!”
“You’re a special case. Your past, your forensic training. And I suggested you were assisting Malik. A male-female-team scenario.”
“Why not two women? We don’t know how many women there were in Group X.”
“Go on.”
“Once we connected Malik to those first two female patients, the killer knew we were getting close, even if we didn’t know it. So she planted the gun at Malik’s apartment and gave it to us. We kept getting closer, so she gave us Malik and the skull wrapped up in a neat package. Our girl is probably feeling pretty safe right now.”
Kaiser is looking expectantly at me. Something is tugging at the back of my mind, but I can’t quite make it out. “Did you get anything at all on Quentin Baptiste’s female relatives?”
“Hang on.” He calls Carmen Piazza. Their conversation is short and to the point. When he hangs up, he says, “Detective Baptiste had six female relatives by blood. A wife, three nieces, two daughters.”
“How old are the daughters?”
“Piazza didn’t have their ages, but one works as a teacher. The other is a day care worker. One of the nieces just graduated from the police academy.”
“She’d know how to shoot,” I think aloud. “So would the first victim’s daughter, I’ll bet. Moreland. An army brat? Daughter of a colonel?”
“We’ve been all over the Moreland daughter, because she was related to the first victim. She’s clean, Cat. But I’ll get the task force on Baptiste’s relatives right away. Still…a female killer is very long odds based on precedent.”
“There was no precedent for Aileen Wuornos either. Forget the past, John. Look at the evidence in front of you.”
A tall white sail appears on the horizon. It soothes me to follow it with my eyes. As my eyelids grow heavy, I remember the Valium I popped before going to the motel.
“How’s your head?” Kaiser asks.
“It hurts. I didn’t sleep well last night, so I took a Valium before I went to the motel.”
“You could have a concussion. Should we get you a CAT scan?”
“Just take me to the field office. I need to lie down.”
“If you lie down, I’m putting a nurse in the room with you.”
“Do whatever you want. I’m going to bed.”
I lean against the window and close my eyes, but my cell phone starts playing “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” I reach into my pocket. It’s empty.
“I’ve got it,” says Kaiser, holding my screen where I can see it. “You know this number?”
“No, but that’s a Gulf Coast area code. It might be Ann. I left a message for her to call me.”
Kaiser thinks fast, then hands me the phone. “Whatever you do, don’t tell her Malik is dead.”
I nod and press SEND. “Hello?”
“Hey, Cat Woman!”
My heart thumps against my sternum. It’s Ann. I nod quickly to Kaiser, and he tenses on the seat.
“How you doing, baby girl?” Ann’s voice has the brittle quality I’ve learned to associate with her manic episodes. How do I play her?
“Not so good right now, actually,” I say in a tired voice.
“You sound
like you need a drink.”
“I wish. I’m on the wagon.”
“Ouch. Your message said you knew something about Dr. Malik and me. What exactly do you know?”
“I know you paid his bail. The FBI knows, too.”
“That’s not against the law, is it?”
Ricochet-quick response. Definitely manic. “Dr. Malik is mixed up in some murders, Ann.”
A pause. Then a craftier voice comes through the phone. “Mixed up is a pretty vague term, baby girl. Nathan couldn’t do the things they think he did. I know men, honey. He doesn’t have that in him.”
Ann knows men like an arsonist knows fire. “I’ve been talking to him quite a bit lately,” I tell her.
“Do you know where he is?” A hint of anxiety now.
“Yes.” I close my eyes. “He’s been arrested again.”
“Arrested?” The alarm in that one word is shocking. “Where?”
“Here in New Orleans. I think you should drive over and see him. I’d like to talk to you, too. Are you in Biloxi?”
“No.”
“Are you anywhere close?”
Another silence. “Sorry, baby girl. I don’t feel like I can tell you everything at this point. You know how that is. You’ve always kept some secrets yourself.”
“You’re right. But sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I wish all of us would have talked to each other more.”
“Oh, honey…me, too. I wish you could do a group with Nathan. He’s worked miracles for me.”
“I wanted to,” I reply, only half lying. “I just found out some things about my past that really messed me up. I’d like to ask you some questions. To see if some of the same things happened to you.”
“Oh, baby girl,” Ann says in a breathy voice, “I’ve worried about you so much. But you really should talk to Nathan about this, not me.”
Is she telling me she was abused? Why else would she worry about me? “Why have you worried about me so much?”
“You’re a lot like me, Cat. Gwen told me they diagnosed cyclothymia, but that’s just bipolarity under another name. We’ve got it in the blood. Nathan’s the expert, though. I’m not in shape to give anyone advice.”
Kaiser is mouthing words to me. It looks like he’s saying, Group X.
“Dr. Malik told me about something called Group X. It sounded really cool. He told me about the film, everything. Were you part of that?”
Ann starts to reply, then catches herself. In the hiss of the open line, I can feel her listening to me. Listening with the concentration of the manic mind in its focused state. It makes my skin crawl. I know the feeling of hyperconcentration you experience when your mind is on that plateau. If you listen to the grass, you can hear it growing.
“Catherine?” she says, her voice so imperious that it could have come from my grandfather. “What are you not telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Kaiser is watching me anxiously. “I don’t. This is me you’re talking to, Ann. And this is a dangerous situation we’re in. Even Dr. Malik knew that.”
“Knew?”
I grimace, and Kaiser curses silently.
“You just used the past tense, baby girl.” The crafty voice again.
“Well, Dr. Malik’s in jail now. And for murder this time.”
“I hear your voice, Cat. You’re afraid of something. Or someone. Or for someone.”
“No. You’re reading things into this.”
“I want to talk to Nathan.”
“Come to New Orleans. You can see him at the parish prison.”
This time the silence drags forever. “I can’t come there until you tell me the truth, Cat.”
I grit my teeth and try to keep my voice even. “I’ve told you what I know. I’m worried that you don’t trust—”
The hissing line takes on a deadness like a blanket dropped over my heart. “She hung up on me.”
Chapter
44
The FBI field office is a four-story brick fortress on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, between Lakefront Airport and the University of New Orleans. We stop at the heavy-iron gate topped with fleur-de-lis, so Kaiser can show an armed guard his credentials. Once inside, we park and hurry through an entrance adorned with flags, black marble, and the FBI motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.
There’s red tape to be handled in the vestibule, where a woman waits behind bulletproof polycarbonate glass. Afterward, Kaiser ushers me through a metal detector, and we’re on our way to the fourth floor, where the special agent in charge runs the field office and the 150 FBI agents spread across Louisiana.
When we get out of the elevator, Kaiser leads me down a hallway like those in every other corporate headquarters in America. Muted decor, more doors, more hallways. Kaiser knocks on a closed door, then enters and beckons me inside. Beyond the door is an empty office with four cots in it. Two are bare, but two are made up with sheets, blankets, and pillows.
“Best I can do, I’m afraid.”
“It’s better than a cell in the parish prison.”
Kaiser gives me an obligatory chuckle. “I need to go straighten this mess out with the SAC. He may want to talk to you.”
“I’m good. Whatever.”
“Good or not, I’m going to send up a nurse. Her name is Sandy.”
“I’ll be asleep before she gets here.”
He nods, then starts to leave.
“May I have my cell phone back?”
“Can’t do that. Sorry.”
“Nobody’s read me my rights.”
Kaiser’s patience is straining at the seams. “Cat, you’ve obstructed justice and maybe acted as an accessory to multiple murder. If I let you interfere in this case anymore—which your cell phone would make it very easy for you to do—the SAC will throw you out the front gate and give you to the NOPD. And there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it. Okay?”
“Fair enough. But you’ll tell me if Ann calls?”
“Absolutely. I’ll bring your phone in here and have you call her back.”
He looks at me as if he’s sure I have another question, but I don’t. I do, however, have an idea. “I’ve been thinking about the skull, John.”
“What about it?”
“From the very beginning, I figured the bite marks could be staged. Did Sean tell you my theory about the killer using dentures or an articulated model to make the marks?”
A smile touches Kaiser’s lips. “Let’s say he took partial credit for that.”
“Par for the course. Well, my theory proved out. The killer was using the teeth from that skull to make the marks. Next question: Whose DNA have we been testing? Where does the saliva come from? We know it’s not Malik’s.”
Kaiser nods. “Sure, but until we have a suspect, we have nothing to compare our samples to.”
“Yeah, but I was thinking…saliva contains more than DNA, you know. We need to know everything we can about that saliva.”
“Like what? What do you want to do?”
“Some basic nineteenth-century science. Everybody treats DNA analysis as the be-all and end-all of forensics. Fine, great. But the average mouth contains strep bacteria and all kinds of other bugs. Let’s take the fresh saliva out of Quentin Baptiste’s wounds, put it in a petri dish, and see what grows out. Maybe we’ll get a strange germ that can tell us something. Sort of like the way we track where a corpse ate dinner by looking at its stomach contents. Impurities and things, you know?”
Kaiser looks skeptical. “What could we really learn?”
“I don’t know. We might find our suspect suffers from a certain disease. We should give it a shot, right? Like Sean calling that bail bondsman back and figuring out that Ann paid Malik’s bail.”
“You’re right. I’ll tell the forensic team to do it.”
“Tell them quick. Baptiste has the only viable saliva for this, and cultures take time.”
“Done.” He goes
to the door, then turns back to me and speaks in an apologetic voice. “Hey. Are you really pregnant?”
I nod silently.
“Sean’s?”
“Yes.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, then looks at me again. “Are you going to have it?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t blink. “Good for you.”
I never saw or heard a nurse come into my room. The Valium carried me away from the waking world like a gentle river of Grey Goose. Maybe my alcohol withdrawal has made me hypersensitive to drugs. Whatever the reason, I slid down the bright coral wall into my dream ocean without interference, and the myriad images of my subconscious surrounded me like children penned up in a house all day.
Time flows forward and backward in my dreams. Not at my whim, of course. If intruders are chasing me and about to grab me from behind with clawed fingers, I can’t reverse time and save myself. But events in my dreams don’t always unroll in a forward sequence. Sometimes I’m getting younger as my dream life progresses—or regresses, I suppose—turning from nine to eight at a birthday party, for example. I’ve never gone back beyond eight, though. The age I was when my father died is like an obsidian wall, an immutable fact of physics laid down by Newton or Einstein or even God. The sign on that wall doesn’t read BEYOND THIS POINT LIE MONSTERS, like the legend on ancient maps. It reads BEYOND THIS POINT LIES NOTHING.
Nothing. Does such a thing exist? I’ve heard children ask this question: Isn’t even “nothing” something? Space is something, isn’t it? Time exists there. And gravity. Invisible things, perhaps, but they’re real enough to kill you. I existed before I was eight, even though I don’t remember it. I know that I existed then the way I know that doctors took out my tonsils while I was under anesthetic. Something happened, even if I wasn’t mentally present.
I have the scars to prove it.
My scars aren’t visible to the naked eye, but they’re there. If a child stops speaking for a year, there’s a reason. Something hurt me, even if it was only something I saw. What did I see? Eight years of lost images. Did they vanish down a well? Not all of them. I’ve always had fragments of that history. Images of animals, particularly, have stuck with me. A dog we had when I was very young. A red fox that Pearlie pointed out to me, running low and fast under the trees at Malmaison. Horses on the island, galloping across the sand as if they meant to swim the river to freedom.