Blood Memory

sandaled feet tucked a little behind me. As Malik’s eyes linger on my knees, it strikes me that I’m here to reverse the usual dynamic of the psychiatrist’s office-to extract information from the doctor rather than the other way around. Since Malik is probably an expert at verbal games, I decide to be direct.

“How did you know I was involved with this case, Doctor?”

He waves a hand as if dismissing a triviality. “The FBI wanted a few strands of my hair as well, but alas…” He gestures at his bald pate and laughs.

Malik is testing me. “If the FBI came for hairs, they got them. One way or the other. Unless you’re bald down low as well, which I haven’t run across yet.”

“My, my. You don’t shy away from the earthy realities, do you?”

“Did you expect me to?”

He shrugs with obvious amusement. “I didn’t know. I was curious to see how you turned out. I mean, I’ve followed you in the newspapers, but stories like that never offer any meaningful detail.”

“Well? What do you think?”

“You’re still quite striking. Beyond that, I don’t yet know anything I didn’t know before.”

“Is that really why I’m here? You wanted to see how I turned out?”

“No. You’re here because none of this is accidental.”

“What?”

“Our juxtaposition in space and time. We knew each other years ago, seemingly in passing, and now we’re brought together again. Synchronicity, Jung called it. A seemingly acausal linkage of events which have great meaning or effects in human terms.”

“I call those coincidences. We didn’t actually come together until you asked for this meeting.”

“It would have happened sooner or later.”

I have a sudden urge to ask Malik if he knew my father, but instinct takes me in another direction. “Do you have a thing for me, Dr. Malik?”

“A thing?” Feigned ignorance doesn’t suit the psychiatrist well.

“Come on. An interest. A crush. A jones.”

“Do many men react that way to you?”

“Enough.”

He nods slightly. “I’ll bet they do. You had them eating out of your hand at UMC. All those doctors in their forties salivating over you like a bitch in heat.”

Malik uses the word bitch like a man who breeds dogs, as though referring to a species far down the evolutionary scale. “You were one of them, as I recall.”

“I noticed you. I’ll admit that.”

“Why did you notice me?”

“You were out of the ordinary. Beautiful, highly sexual, you drank like a fish, and you could hold your own in conversation with people twenty years your senior. I was also bored.”

“Are you bored now?”

A thin smile. “No. It’s not often that I speak to someone with a live audience.”

I slide up my skirt and part my knees enough for Malik to see the transmitter pack taped to my inner thigh.

“Hello, everyone,” he says. “Voyeurs one and all.”

“If we’re done strolling down memory lane, I have some questions for you.”

“Fire away. Only I hope they’re your questions. I’d hate to think you volunteered to act as a mouthpiece for the FBI. That would be beneath you.”

“The questions are mine.”

“At your service, then.”

“Do you treat only patients who have repressed memories?”

Malik seems to be debating whether to answer this question. “No,” he says finally. “I specialize in the recovery of lost memories, but I also treat patients for bipolar disorder and for post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“PTSD solely as it relates to sexual abuse?”

Another hesitation. “I also treat some combat veterans.”

“Vietnam veterans?”

“I’d rather not get into specifics about patients.”

I want to ask him about his service in Vietnam, but the time doesn’t yet seem right. “I’m going to ask you this straight out. Why won’t you reveal the names of your patients to the police?”

Whatever good humor was in the psychiatrist’s face vanishes. “Because I owe them my loyalty and my protection. I would never betray my patients in that way.”

“Would merely revealing their names constitute a betrayal?”

“Of course. Their lives would instantly be turned inside out by the police. Many of these patients are very fragile. They live in difficult family situations. For some, violence is a daily reality. For others, an ever-present possibility. I have no intention of putting them at risk to satisfy the whims of the state.”

“The ‘whims of the state’? The police are trying to stop a serial murderer who’s probably choosing his victims from among your patients.”

“None of my patients has died.”

“Their relatives have. Two that we know about, and maybe more.”

Malik looks at the ceiling in a way that’s almost a roll of his eyes. “Perhaps.”

Anger surges within me at his apparent smugness. “It’s not perhaps for you, is it? You know who else is at risk, yet you refuse to tell the police.”

Malik simply stares at me, his dark eyes flat and steady.

“How many of the murder victims were related to people you treat, Doctor?”

“Do you honestly think I’m going to answer that, Catherine?”

“Please call me Dr. Ferry.”

A gleam of bemusement. “Ahh. Are you in fact a doctor?”

“Yes. I’m a forensic odontologist.”

“To clarify-a dentist.” Malik’s eyes have taken on a sheen.

“With highly specialized expertise.”

“Still…that’s not quite a doctor, is it? Have you ever delivered a baby? Shoved your hand into the chest cavity of a gunshot victim to keep his heart in one piece?”

“You know I haven’t.”

“Oh, that’s right. You left medical school in the second year. Before the clinical work really got started.”

Malik is clearly enjoying himself. “Did you bring me here to insult me, Doctor?”

“No. I merely want us to be clear about who we are. I’d like you to call me Nathan, and I’d prefer to call you Catherine.”

“How about I call you Jonathan? That’s what you called yourself when I met you. Jonathan Gentry.”

The psychiatrist’s eyes go flat again. “That is no longer my name.”

“It’s the one you were born with, though, right?”

Malik makes a very European gesture of the head, the sophisticated version of a teenager’s “whatever.” “Call me what you like, Catherine. But before we go on, let’s dispose of this issue of patient confidentiality. I tell you now, I’m quite prepared to spend a year in jail rather than betray my patients’ privacy.”

He sounds sincere, but I don’t believe this refined professional man is willing to do actual jail time for a principle. “You’re prepared to spend a year in the Orleans Parish Prison?”

“I realize that may be difficult for you to understand.”

“Have you ever seen the parish prison?”

Malik turns up his palms on the desk, as though preparing to explain a complex concept to a child. “I spent six weeks as a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. A year in an American jail can only be a vacation.”

Some of my confidence evaporates. There’s more to Nathan Malik than I’ve been led to believe. As I try to decide how to proceed, the psychiatrist puts his elbows on his desk, folds his hands together, and speaks in a voice that carries years of hard-won wisdom.

“Listen to me, Catherine. You walked in here from the world of light. The world of malls and restaurants and