Blood Memory
Page 46
He glares at me. “You stop this car right now, young lady.”
“This is a murder investigation, sir. An FBI matter. Please sit back in your seat.”
I don’t know if Mr. McDonough believes me or not, but he sits back and shuts up. Thank God for small favors.
Chapter
56
Outside McDonough’s Funeral Home, cars are parked along the street for two blocks in all directions. It’s a Natchez tradition: you see the parked cars along here and you know someone has died. Someone white. Blacks have their own funeral homes. Their own cemeteries, too. Some things take a long time to change.
“Turn at the railroad tracks,” says Mr. McDonough. “The prep room’s just inside the garage door.”
I turn left, then left again, and pull into a long vehicle bay. A tall black hearse stands gleaming in the sun, with several expensive sedans parked behind it. They probably belong to the family of the decedent having his service inside.
“This way,” says McDonough.
He walks into an enclosed garage, past a Dodge Caravan fitted with rollers in the back. Beyond that stands the Econoline van that was at the cemetery. A teenager is washing mud out of it with a green garden hose.
“Man from Jackson come yet?” McDonough asks the boy.
“No, sir.”
“Your lucky day,” he says over his shoulder.
Past the garage door, a short corridor lined with upended caskets wrapped in plastic leads to a door marked with a biohazard symbol. McDonough knocks, but no one answers. He pushes open the door.
My father’s coffin lies on the floor of the prep room. The bronze has been wiped down, probably to keep mud out of the prep room rather than from any gesture of respect. This time I don’t wait for McDonough. I go to the coffin and open the lid myself.
“Do you suture the gums shut?” I ask. “Or do you use the needle injector system?”
“You know your business,” he says. “We’ve been using needle injectors since they come out.”
Steeling myself against the emotions boiling in my chest, I don a pair of latex gloves from a box on the counter, then bend over my father and touch the line of his mouth. Gentle pressure does not part his lips.
“Sometimes we have to use Super Glue,” says McDonough. “To keep them closed. Other times Vaseline does the trick.”
Trying not to tear the desiccated skin, I pry a little harder.
The lips part.
The first thing I see is two lengths of silver wire twisted tightly together and folded back under the lips. This is what keeps the teeth together during the viewing of the body. Small screws are fired into the bones of the upper and lower gums by a spring-loaded injector. Each screw has a four-inch length of wire attached. Using forceps, a technician twists the two lengths together, tightening them until the corpse’s teeth come together. Then the technician snips the leftover wire and tucks the twist out of sight.
“Wire cutters?” I ask.
McDonough goes to a drawer and rummages noisily through it. “Here you go.”
Careful not to damage my father’s teeth, I fit the blades around the twisted wires and snip them in half. The mandible sags immediately, mocking the mindless gape of sleep.
“You looking for something in his mouth?” asks the funeral director.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure.”
I tilt my father’s head back a little, then open his mouth wide and insert Lena’s head into it.
“What the hell?” mutters the funeral director.
“Turn off the lights, please.”
He obeys.
A few moments after the lights go out, my pupils dilate sufficiently to see the glow produced by the orthotolidine reacting with the blood on Lena’s fur. As I suspected, the glowing arch on her snout perfectly matches my father’s maxillary arch.
“Lights please,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
I can’t begin to name the feelings swirling through me. It’s a nauseating combination of excitement and dread. I’ve been hunting killers for a long time, but it strikes me in this moment that I’ve been hunting only one killer all my life.
The knock on the prep room door makes me jump. When McDonough opens the door, an elderly man stands there, looking inside with obvious curiosity.
“I’m from the medical examiner’s office,” he says.
McDonough looks at me. “You finished?”
“I need three minutes.”
He closes the door. “Don’t pay that fellow any mind. The ME’s office pays retirees to drive for them. They pay by the mile. Drivers don’t know crap about the business.”
“Flashlight?”
McDonough passes me a yellow penlight from the drawer.
With my heart racing, I systematically probe my father’s mouth with a finger. What am I hoping for? A tuft of fur? Some trace evidence of another person? As my finger slides between the upper gum and cheek, I feel something small and hard, like a kernel of corn. I remove it with my thumb and forefinger.
It’s not corn. It’s a plastic pellet—a gray one—exactly like the ones that were pouring out of my father’s chest in my dream. “My God,” I breathe.
“What is it?” asks McDonough.
“A plastic pellet. It’s from inside this stuffed animal. Originally they were stuffed with rice to make them soft, but after a while the company started using plastic.”
“Is it important?”
“It’s evidence of murder. Do you have a Ziploc bag?”
McDonough gets one, and I place the pellet inside. More probing reveals three more pellets: one behind the cheek, two in the throat.
“You saw me locate these,” I say. “I’m replacing them exactly as I found them. Did you witness that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’ll testify to that in court?”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I’ll say what I saw.”
As I pull off the gloves with a snap, a worrisome thought occurs to me. I should have searched my father’s mouth before inserting Lena’s head into it. The stress is getting to me. I pass Mr. McDonough the stuffed animal. “Please examine this and see if you can find any holes in her coat.”
Surprisingly, he dons a pair of gloves and obliges me. “I don’t see any.”
I’d really like a few moments alone with my father, but if I’m alone with the body, that might cause legal problems later. In full view of the funeral director, I kneel beside the casket, lay my hand over my father’s, and kiss him softly on the lips. A little mold isn’t going to kill me.
“I love you, Daddy,” I whisper. “I know you tried to save me.”
My father says nothing.
“I’m going to save myself now. Mama, too, if I can.”
For a moment I think Daddy is crying. Then I realize it’s my own tears running down his face. The iron veneer of professionalism I’ve managed to maintain up to this point is cracking. It’s no anonymous corpse lying in this box. It’s my daddy. And I don’t want to lose him again. I don’t want him back in the ground. I want him to sit up and hold me and tell me that he loves me.
“Miss Ferry?” says McDonough. “You all right?”
“No, I’m not all right.” I get to my feet and wipe my eyes. “But I’m going to be. For the first time in my life I’m going to be all right. But somebody else isn’t going to be. Somebody else is going to pay.”
McDonough looks embarrassed. “Is it okay to close the casket now?”
“Yes. Thank you for everything. I’ll take you back to your car now.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got people who can do that.”
“Thank you.”
My knees are barely steady enough to carry me out of the prep room, but they do. As I enter the coffin-lined corridor, however, a thought strikes me. I turn around.
“Mr. McDonough?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Have you spoke
n to my grandfather today?”
The funeral director looks quickly at the floor. And that is my answer.
“Mr. McDonough?”
“He called and asked me to let him know what you did at the cemetery.”
I feel the grasp of my grandfather from miles away. “Sir, my grandfather is a powerful man. I know you know that. But you’ve just become involved in an FBI serial murder investigation. My grandfather is also part of that investigation, and not in a positive connection, if you get my meaning. If you interfere by communicating information on these matters to him, the FBI will be crawling up your ass with a two-foot-long halogen flashlight. They will have OSHA down here doing inspections on a daily basis. Do I make myself clear?”
Mr. McDonough looks as if he wishes he’d never set eyes on me. “Ain’t none of this my business,” he says. “I won’t be talking to nobody about it.”
“Good.”
When I step into the sun outside the garage, I find myself facing several men wearing their Sunday best. They all have roses pinned to their lapels. They’re pallbearers, I realize, and they’ve just carried the deceased to the waiting hearse. Soon the family will emerge from the side exit behind me.
I walk quickly down the side of the building, but I can’t escape. A woman about my age rounds the corner with an infant in her arms. As I move aside, her mouth drops open.
“Cat?” she says. “Cat Ferry?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Donna. Donna Reynolds.”
I blink in confusion.
“Used to be Donna Dunaway,” she says.
Recognition comes like a thrown switch. It’s like the day I met Michael Wells. Only Donna hasn’t lost weight in the intervening years like Michael. She’s gained. But somewhere in her plump, rosy cheeks is the outline of a thin-faced girl I knew in junior high school.
“Is this your baby?” I ask.
She nods happily. “My third. Four months old.”
My eyes fix on the baby’s round face as I search for something appropriate to say. Nothing comes. My head is spinning from what I’ve just discovered in the prep room. The baby has huge eyes, a flat nose, and a laughing smile.
“What’s his name, Donna?”
“Britney. She is wearing pink, you know.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
Donna isn’t angry. She’s smiling. “Are you here for the funeral? I didn’t know you knew Uncle Joe.”
“I don’t. I mean…” As my words fade into silence, my gaze settles on the baby’s toothless smile. A long string of drool drops from Britney’s mouth, and the greatest epiphany of my life occurs. There’s no blast of trumpets or bolt of lightning from the heavens—merely a sudden and revelatory flash of absolute certainty.
I know who killed the men in New Orleans.
Chapter
57
“Cat? What’s going on?”
I gasp in relief. I’m almost to Malmaison, and I’ve been trying to reach Sean since I left the funeral home. “I know who the killer is, Sean.”
“Whoa, whoa, which killer are you talking about? Your family stuff, or the New Orleans case?”
“New Orleans!”
“How the hell could you know who the killer is?”
“How do I ever know? Something clicked in my head.”
“What clicked this time?”
I’m tempted to tell him, but if I do, there’ll be no stopping the consequences. And right now I’m not at all sure I want the killer arrested. “I can’t tell you that, Sean. Not yet.”
“Shit. What are you up to, Cat?”
“I’m coming to New Orleans this afternoon. I want you to meet me at my house. Are you still suspended?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you still have your badge and gun?”
“I’ve got a gun. And I have a badge that’ll do in a pinch. What do you have in mind?”
“I want to talk to the killer before we do anything.”
“Talk to him? About what?”
“It’s not a him, Sean. It’s a her.”
I hear a quick rush of air. “Cat, don’t do this to me.”
“It’s only a few hours. I know it’s hard on you, but you’ll understand when I get there.” I turn into the drive of Malmaison and accelerate down the oak-shaded lane. The iron gate stands open. I drive through it and take the sweeping curve toward the main house.
“Why did you call me?” Sean asks in a strange voice. “Why not Kaiser?”
“Because I trust you.” I’m lying. I picked Sean because—to a certain extent—I can control him.
“Okay. Call me thirty minutes before you get here.”
“Be ready.” As I swing into the parking lot behind the slave quarters, I’m shocked to find Pearlie’s blue Cadillac parked beside Grandpapa’s Lincoln. Shocked and glad. “I need one more favor, Sean.”
“What is it?”
“I know who killed my father, too.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“My grandfather. He’s the one who molested me. Not my father. Daddy caught my grandfather abusing me, and Grandpapa killed him to keep him quiet.”
“Fuck.” In that one curse I hear two decades of homicide experience. “I’m sorry, Cat.”
“I know. This isn’t about that. Look, if I don’t make it to New Orleans for some reason—if I’m dead, in other words—I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Kill him.”
There’s a long silence. “Your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious? You mean take him out?”
“Yep. Remove him from the world.”
The phone hisses and crackles. “That’s asking a lot.”
“If I’m dead, he’ll never be convicted. And I think he’s still doing it. You understand? If you love me, you’ll do it. For me, Sean. And for your own kids. I have to go now.”
“Wait! If something happens to you, how will I know who the killer down here is?”
I think for a minute. “I’ll write it on a piece of paper and put it under the floor mat of my mother’s car. Her name is Gwen Ferry. She drives a gold Nissan Maxima. Good enough?”
I hear him breathing. “I guess it’ll have to be.”
I hang up my mother’s cell phone, then open the console and dig through it. About the only piece of paper big enough is a grocery ticket from Wal-Mart. On its long, narrow back, I scrawl the logical basis for my epiphany at the funeral home. As I lift the floor mat beneath my feet to conceal the note, I pray that Sean doesn’t have to drive to Natchez to find it.
Chapter
58
Pearlie doesn’t answer my knock. When I try to go in anyway, I find the door locked. This frightens me. Pearlie’s door is never locked. At least it never was when I lived here. One more sign of how things have changed.
She’s drawn her curtains, too. After trying the front windows on the ground floor, I go around back. One window there is barely latched. By jiggling the frame, I get the latch loose, then slide up the window.
Pearlie’s bedroom is dark, her bed empty. A converted slave quarters like ours, her house has no hallways. I move quickly to the door and pass through to the kitchen.
Like my mother this morning, Pearlie is sitting at her kitchen table without lights, staring blankly ahead. Unlike my mother, she’s smoking a cigarette. I haven’t seen Pearlie smoke since I was a little girl. An ashtray full of butts is beside her, and a bottle of cheap whiskey stands beside her coffee cup.
“Pearlie?”
“I thought you was Billy Neal coming to get me,” she rasps.
“Why would he come get you?”
“’Cause of what I know.” Her voice has a frightening note of fatalism in it.
“What do you know?”
“Same thing you do, I reckon.”
“What’s that?”
A new alertness comes into her eyes. “Don’t play games with me. Tell me what you come here for.”
She blinks once, slowly. “How come?”
“Because you know things I need to know. And I want you to know what I’ve learned about him.”
“What you talking about?”
“Grandpapa murdered Daddy, Pearlie.”
The orange eye of her cigarette glows bright. “You just think that? Or you can prove it?”
“I can prove it. What I want to know is, did you already know it?”
Pearlie exhales a long stream of smoke. “Not to prove, I didn’t. I didn’t see him do it, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Did you suspect it?”
“I had thoughts that night. Later on, too. But there wasn’t nothing I could do about it.”
I knew it. “You think Grandpapa’s invulnerable, Pearlie. But he’s not. I’m going to put him in jail. I’ve got evidence now. Remember Lena the Leopardess?”
A glint of memory passes behind her eyes. “The toy you buried with Mr. Luke?”
“That’s right. Grandpapa suggested I put her in the coffin with him. Do you know why he did that?”
“I know there was blood on her. I know Dr. Kirkland told me to throw that toy away. When I told him it was your favorite, he told me I could wash it off and sew the rip back together.”
“Do you know how Lena got torn?”
She shakes her head.
“Grandpapa stuffed her into Daddy’s mouth so he would suffocate before you got downstairs. He wasn’t dying quickly enough from the bullet.”
Pearlie winces. “Lord Jesus. Don’t tell me that.”
“That’s not the worst of it. You remember the story about Grandpapa cutting out Ann’s appendix by lantern light on the island? How he was the big hero for saving her life?”
“Sure I do. Him and Ivy both.”
“Well, he took out her appendix, all right. But he did a little something extra, too. He cut her fallopian tubes, so she couldn’t get pregnant.”
Pearlie bows her head and begins to pray softly.
“Why did you go to the island yesterday, Pearlie? You hate that place.”
“Don’t want to talk about that.”