Blood Memory (48 page)

I’ve never seen panic like that in Billy Neal’s eyes, but I’m not waiting around to enjoy it. With a wild lunge, I throw my body most of the way out of the car. He makes a halfhearted grab for my feet, but by kicking hard, I manage to get clear.

Scrambling to my feet, I fight the urge to look back as I stagger into the trees. One moment of hesitation might be all he needs to pick up the gun and kill me. I’m still stumbling through the trees when I hear the engine start.

Terrified for Pearlie, I turn and race back toward the car. It’s hard to run with your hands cuffed behind you. I fall several times, and by the time I get back to the clearing, the Cadillac is gone. I hear its motor accelerating up the dirt road.

Naked from the waist down, I struggle down to the old river channel and work my way along it toward the bridge. It’s muddy by the water, but there’s a lot of sand in the soil, so the going isn’t too bad. Soon I am trotting herky-jerky across the bridge to the island like some armless woman running for charity.

On the far side of the bridge I see my grandfather’s orange pickup rusting in the weeds. This time it doesn’t faze me, because a hundred yards to the right of it, a white pickup is rolling down the perimeter road, heading for the bridge.

I can’t wave my arms, but I can scream.

With tears streaming down my face, I shout for help again and again, sucking in great lungfuls of air that Billy Neal only wishes he could inhale right now. I don’t know if it’s my screaming or my nakedness that draws the driver’s attention, but the truck turns onto the bridge and comes straight toward me. For a moment I think he means to run me over, but then the brakes squeal and the truck shudders to a stop. A black man jumps down out of the cab, his eyes wide. His face is a mass of scar tissue.

“Sweet Jesus!” cries Jesse Billups. “What happened to you?”

“Get back in the truck! I’ll tell you on the way!”

“Where are we going?”

“Pearlie Washington’s hurt! She’s locked in the trunk of a car, and the driver’s going to kill her.”

“My aunt Pearlie?”

“Yes!”

Jesse isn’t sure what’s going on, but he gets behind the wheel and throws the truck into gear. When I climb up into the cab beside him, he reaches behind the seat, grabs a dirty Windbreaker, and ties it around my waist.

“Go for the Angola road!” I shout. “I hurt him bad. He’s got to be trying to get to a hospital.”

Jesse steps on the gas and heads for the shore. “Who you talking about? Who did you hurt bad?”

“Billy Neal.”

Jesse wrinkles his lips. “That’s a no-count motherfucker, right there.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, I know him. He the one called me away from the island the night you disappeared. You remember? We was talking at the cabin, and I got that call.”

“I remember.”

“He told me he needed to talk to me down in Baton Rouge. Said it was real important, and for me not to tell you about it. I drove down there to the hotel he said he was at, but he was gone. He never showed.”

“He tried to kill me that night.”

Jesse shakes his scarred head. “Why ain’t you got no pants on?”

“Billy tried to rape me.”

The foreman gives me a quick once-over. “Tried?”

“He was raping me, okay? He was going to kill me. Pearlie, too.”

“How’d you hurt him?”

“You’ll see, if you catch him. Get this damn thing moving!”

When we reach the dirt road, Jesse pushes the truck as fast as it will go in the mud, which is bound to be faster than Pearlie’s Cadillac. I remember the Caddy sliding back and forth on the curves like a heavy boat navigating a bayou.

“Damn,” Jesse mutters. “Ain’t that Aunt Pearlie’s car there?”

Fifty yards ahead of us, a baby blue Cadillac is sitting nose-first against a pecan tree, steam rising from its hood. The driver’s door is open, and a man’s torso and head are lying out of it. The man’s face is covered with bright red blood.

“Hurry!” I shout. “Pearlie’s in the trunk!”

Jesse skids to stop a few yards from the car. Billy Neal isn’t moving, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. The blood on his face could be from nothing more serious than a broken nose.

“Do you have a gun?” I ask.

Jesse reaches behind the seat and brings up a bolt-action deer rifle.

“Cover Billy while I get the trunk key.”

“How you gonna get the key out the ignition with them handcuffs on?”

“You’re right. You do both.”

Jesse gets out of the truck and chambers a bullet with a reassuring snick of metal. I jump down awkwardly from the cab and walk close behind him as he approaches Billy Neal.

“That fucker moves, I’m wasting him,” Jesse says.

“Fine by me.”

He edges up to the Cadillac with the rifle barrel extended toward Billy, the way he might approach a wounded rattlesnake. As he gets closer, I sense the tension in his body easing. And then I see why.

Both of Billy’s hands are empty, and the graying fingers are covered in blood. In the red flag of blood that is his face, two eyes stare skyward, the life in them all but gone. When I get close enough to touch him, I hear a faint whistle. Tiny red bubbles are frothing from the hole in his throat.

“How the fuck did he do that in a car wreck?” Jesse asks.

“He didn’t. I did it.”

“With what?”

“My teeth.”

Jesse leans down closer. “Mother
fucker.
”

“Get the keys, Jesse.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

While Jesse retrieves the key from the ignition, I kneel beside Billy. His eyes widen in fear, and then freeze that way.

The whistling has stopped.

I’ve killed a man. I’ve killed a man, and all I can think is that I’m glad I got my father’s teeth. DeSalle teeth are small and round. Kirkland teeth are large and square but prone to decay. Ferry teeth are hard as stones, the incisors square, the canines sharp. I remember my daddy popping the caps off Coke bottles with his bottom teeth when I was little. He said he learned it from his father. As this memory passes through my mind, an intoxicating current of elation flows through me.
I could not have Ferry teeth if Luke Ferry weren’t my father.
It’s not as conclusive as a DNA test, but I know teeth like I know nothing else.

Luke Ferry was my father.

“Look at
this
shit!” Jesse cries. “Get up out of there, Aunt Pearlie!”

I jump up and go to the back of the Cadillac. Having laid his rifle on the ground, Jesse is now lifting his aunt carefully out of the trunk. Pearlie’s face and hands are still bloody, but compared with Billy Neal’s, her eyes are full of life.

“Are you all right, Pearlie?” I ask.

She points at my naked legs beneath the Windbreaker. “Are
you
?”

“Yes.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I told you…with the Lord’s help, you’d come through.”

I don’t even try to argue. “Yes, you did.”

Jesse sets her gently on her feet and holds her erect while she tests her legs. Then he leaves us alone. Without her wig, Pearlie looks a hundred years old. But she’s not. She has a lot of life left in her.

“What you gonna do now?” she asks, looking down at Billy Neal’s corpse. “What Dr. Kirkland gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t worry about that now. I have to get to New Orleans.”

She looks shocked. “Now?”

“Right now.”

“How come?”

Because I have a killer to talk to, and I need to beat everyone else to her.
“If I don’t, the FBI is going to arrest me.”

Pearlie shakes her head. “Well, you do what you have to do, then. Jesse can take me to the island.”

“You need a hospital, Pearlie.”

She makes a scornful face. “A drink of whiskey is what I need.”

Jesse returns with a small silver key in his hand. “You want those handcuffs off?”

I turn my back to him, and he removes the cuffs. Rubbing my wrists to get the blood flowing, I go to the car and retrieve my jeans from the backseat.

“Aunt Pearlie said you need to get to New Orleans,” Jesse says, walking up to me.

“That’s right.”

“How you plan to get there?”

“I’m going to take one of the island trucks.”

He looks uncomfortable. “Dr. Kirkland know about that?”

“No, he don’t,” Pearlie snaps from behind him. “And he ain’t
gonna
know.”

Jesse turns toward his aunt. She’s standing with her hands on her hips, arms akimbo, glaring at him as she might at a recalcitrant boy of seven.

“Jesse Ford Billups,” she says, “you gonna serve the man who beat you bloody all them years ago? Or you gonna help this girl do what’s right?”

He sighs heavily. “Shit, Aunt Pearlie. I don’t know what—”

“What you say?”
The old woman shakes her finger in Jesse’s face. “You know better than to curse me, boy! If your mama was alive, she’d knock you nekkid. You get your narrow ass in gear.
Now.
”

Jesse Billups, combat veteran and foreman of DeSalle Island, nods in surrender. “What about that one?” he asks, jerking his thumb toward Billy Neal.

Pearlie turns up her nose. “Leave that trash for the buzzards. They got to eat, too.”

“Tell me again about the teeth,” says Sean.

We’re sitting at the kitchen table of my house on Lake Pontchartrain, just as we’ve done so many times before. Spread out in a row on the table before us are eleven photographs. The women in the photos vary in age from nineteen to forty-six—the women we believe most likely to constitute Group X. We culled these from a group of thirty-seven women ranging in age from two to seventy-eight—all the female relatives of the victims of the NOMURS killer. We chose them while talking on the phone during my drive down from DeSalle Island. And lying in the middle of the row, with five women on either side of her, is the woman I believe killed the six victims.

“The teeth,” Sean prompts me. “Are you awake, Cat?”

I turn from the table to the dark blue square of my picture window. Night is falling fast. “We all have large numbers of bacteria in our mouths,” I murmur. The primary one is
Streptococcus mutans,
which produces the acid that causes cavities.”

Sean taps a yellow highlighter against the tabletop. “And the culture of the saliva from the bite marks on Quentin Baptiste had none of this bacteria?”

“Right. At twenty-four hours, no growth. Very unusual.”

“Could someone have made a mistake taking the saliva sample?”

“It wasn’t some flatfoot who swabbed those wounds, Sean. It was the FBI’s forensic expert. We have to assume he did his job right.”

“I don’t like assuming anything.”

I look back at Sean and try to keep my voice even. “Me, either. It was an assumption that kept me from figuring out who the killer was yesterday. When Kaiser first showed me that lab report, the strep thing was a flag. A couple of possibilities hit me—like someone on antibiotics—but I was totally distracted at the time. I’d just learned that my aunt had committed suicide, and I was trying to escape the FBI building. I knew the saliva might have come from someone without teeth, but the possibility of it being a baby…I just automatically ruled it out. I mean, we’re dealing with serial murders here. The image of a six-month-old just doesn’t go with that. I feel like an idiot now. I’ve just been so out of it for the past few days. Alcohol withdrawal, off my meds, Valium—”
Pregnant,
I add silently. “It took me seeing that drooling baby at the funeral home to put it together.”

“And this is what you came up with?” Sean says, tapping the photo at the center of the row. It shows a dark-haired girl of twenty-two. “Evangeline Pitre?”

“It’s her, Sean.” Evangeline Pitre is the daughter of Quentin Baptiste, the murdered homicide detective—victim number six. “That random meeting at the funeral home associated saliva and babies in my mind. After that it was simple elimination. I knew that none of the victims’ female relatives had sons younger than eighteen months old. But Kaiser had told me one of Baptiste’s daughters worked at a day-care center. The only question was whether that day care handled any male children under six months old, the age at which teeth erupt. I confirmed it by phone after I left the island, but I knew, Sean. I just knew.

“You can’t convince me that this girl committed all six murders on her own,” Sean says.

I study the photo, searching for signs of homicidal ability—as if such things were visible. Evangeline Pitre’s eyes are deep set and dark, contrasting sharply with her pasty skin. She has a certain prettiness, but also a guardedness in her face, like the look on a stray cat that expects a kick before a scrap of food.

“Her father was a homicide cop,” I point out. “There’s no telling what kind of skills and knowledge she might have.”

“And you think this girl is killing everyone’s abusers for them? Punishing them?”

“It might be just that simple. Or it might not. Pitre could be killing them without anyone else in the group knowing what she’s doing. But that’s not what my gut tells me.”

Sean makes a wry face. “My gut tells
me
that Nathan Malik developed the whole fucking plan. Pitre may have got the saliva to put into the bite marks. She might even have pulled the trigger, if she knows how to shoot. But where did she get the idea to use a human skull to
make
the marks? No, this chick didn’t come up with the crime signature we’ve been seeing. Hell, she didn’t even finish high school.”

“I agree, okay? But that doesn’t mean Malik was behind it. It could be any one of the other women in the group. One or all.”

“You’re forgetting Margaret Lavigne’s suicide note,” Sean reminds me. “‘May God forgive me. An innocent man is dead. Please tell Dr. Malik to stop it.’ Malik was controlling those women, Cat. Running them like robots, using their emotions to drive them.”

“He probably knew what was happening,” I concede. “That doesn’t mean he planned it or helped carry it out.”

Frustration tightens Sean’s face. “Why are you so hell-bent on defending him?”

“Because Malik was doing all he could to help women in severe pain. Women that nobody else knows how to save.”

Sean sighs. “We can debate this all night. What are we going to
do
?”

“I told you. I want to talk to Pitre.”

“You want to go see this woman alone and—”

“Not alone. With you.”

“Without backup.”

“You’re my backup.”

He groans in exasperation. “You want to go in without backup and talk to a woman you think viciously murdered six men?”

“That’s right. We won’t be in any danger. She’s only interested in killing child abusers, not cops.”

“Margaret Lavigne’s stepfather didn’t abuse anybody, but he’s just as dead as the other five victims.”

“That killing was obviously a mistake, caused by a false memory recalled by Margaret Lavigne.”

Sean nods like I’m making his point for him. “Yeah. And who killed Dr. Malik? Who set that skull on his lap? The Hair Club for Men?”

“I’m hoping Evangeline Pitre can tell us that.”

Sean doesn’t reply. He’s staring at me intently, but he no longer sees me.

“What is it?” I ask, knowing an idea has hit him. “What do you have?”

“Maybe nothing. Hang on.” He picks up his cell phone and punches in a number. He’s calling the Second District police station, where Quentin Baptiste worked as a homicide detective. He asks to speak to O’Neil DeNoux, a detective I’ve never heard of.

“Who’s that?” I whisper.

“Baptiste’s partner. Hello? O’Neil? Sean Regan. I need to know something about Quentin. Cop to cop…Yeah, I know I’m working with the task force. But this isn’t going to the Bureau, okay?…Did Quentin carry a throwdown gun?…Fuck, man, this is serious…. Yeah?…” Sean nods at me, his eyes wide. “What caliber?…Thanks, man. I owe you…. I know you won’t forget it.”

He hangs up, his face pale. “Quentin Baptiste sometimes carried a Charter Arms .32 as a throwdown.”

My cheeks are cold. “Jesus.” I look down at the photo of Evangeline Pitre, suddenly unwilling to accept what I know to be true. She
is
the killer.

“What do you have against bringing in the task force?” Sean asks. “Do you have to be the one who personally breaks this case open?”

I look at him in disbelief. “Can you say
projection,
Sean? Shit. I don’t want this case to break open at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure the person behind these killings should go to prison. Not yet, anyway.”

His mouth drops open. “You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not.”

“Six men are dead!”

“Child molesters. All but one.”

“The punishment for sexual abuse isn’t the death penalty.”

“Maybe it should be. For repeat offenders, anyway.”

He slowly shakes his head. “That’s for the legislature to decide. And a judge and jury after that, if it becomes the law.”

“The legislature doesn’t understand the magnitude of this crime. Look, I killed Billy Neal a few hours ago, and you didn’t have a problem with that.”

“That’s totally different! He was raping you. And he was going to kill you.”

“Granted. But child molesters aren’t just committing rape, Sean. They’re committing murder. The victims keep walking and talking, so we think they’re still alive. But their souls are dead. That’s one thing Dr. Malik had right.”

Sean leans over the table. “You’re too close to this subject to make objective decisions.”

Yet again, Dr. Malik’s words come from my mouth. “You’re right. This isn’t something anyone should be objective about. It’s the worst crime in the world. That’s what Malik told me when I first met him, and now I know he’s right. The victims are innocent children. Totally unable to protect themselves.”

Sean holds up the photo of Evangeline Pitre. “This isn’t a helpless child. She’s twenty-two years old.”

“You’re speaking in chronological terms.”
Still quoting Malik.
“You have no idea what’s going on behind that girl’s eyes. For all you know, she may never have matured past the age of six. Not emotionally.”

With a groan Sean gets up and takes a beer from my refrigerator. When I see the sweating bottle, I crave alcohol for the first time in many hours.

“I’ve almost shitcanned my career,” he says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Over you and me, Cat. If we do what you want now, and we get caught…that’s it for me.”

I just stare at him. “You made your choices freely. You broke the rules on your own. I never asked you to do that. I’m going to talk to Evangeline Pitre tonight, with or without you. But be warned, Sean. If you try to go around me on this—if you call the task force before I’m satisfied that I’ve gotten the truth from Pitre—then I’ll go to your wife and tell her everything we ever did. And everything we ever planned to do.”

He goes pale. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Look at me, Sean. I will.”

He gazes at me as though seeing me for the first time.

“You have no idea of the intensity of emotions we’re dealing with here,” I tell him. “I know what an abused woman is capable of, okay? And before we throw Evangeline Pitre to the wolves, I’ve got to understand what happened.”

He drains his beer in one long swallow, then tosses the bottle in the trash. “No backup,” he says. “Dumb as it gets.”

A surge of relief goes through me. He’s going to come. “At least Malik is dead,” I tell him, getting to my feet. “If he was Pitre’s accomplice, as you believe, you have one less threat to worry about.”

Sean slips his jacket on over his shoulder holster. Then he bends, takes a small revolver from an ankle holster, and checks the cylinder. “And if it’s one of these other women? Or all of them?”

“Pitre lives alone. It’s a weeknight. She has to work tomorrow, and she’s not expecting anything. We go in forcefully, scare her, then show her a way out.”

“And if someone else is there with her?”

“We take the photos with us. If we recognize one of the other women, we still go in. You take your Glock. I’ll carry your throwdown in my purse. We’ll be fine.”

“How do I explain your presence?”

“The same way you always did when you took me on interviews.”

Sean shakes his head, but a hint of a smile animates the corners of his mouth. “Shit, we were crazy, weren’t we?”

“Certifiable. But we stopped some killers.”

He nods. “Yeah. We did that.”

“We’re going to do it again tonight. Just not the way we used to. This time it’s not about thrills or promotions or even personal satisfaction. It’s about justice.”

He raises one eyebrow. “You figure it’s up to you to mete out justice?”

“This time, I do.”

Sean passes me his throwdown gun, a Smith & Wesson featherweight .38. “Four in the cylinder, an empty chamber under the hammer.”

I nod but say nothing.

“Could you use that on Pitre if you had to?” he asks.

As I feel the cold weight of the gun in my hand, an image of Billy Neal’s bloody corpse rises behind my eyes. I can still feel his hot blood spurting into my mouth. Could I do something like that to a woman?

“Cat?”

“It’s not going to come to that.”