Blood Memory

“Let’s go, then.”

“I can’t now. I have the meeting.”

I shake my head in frustration. “I’m tired of being in the dark, Grandpapa. If you want me to hold off doing this, tell me whatever it is right now.”

Anger flashes briefly in his eyes. But instead of chastising me, he walks slowly around the Audi and climbs into the passenger seat. His desire is clear. I get into the driver’s seat beside him, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring through the windshield with a faraway look in his eyes.

“Listen,” I say, “ever since I found that blood-long before that, really-I’ve had the feeling you guys have been keeping something from me about that night. I’m sure you think you’re protecting me, but I’m not a child anymore, okay? Not even close. So please tell me what this is about.”

His eyes remain on the red sea of rosebushes in the garden. “The rain,” he murmurs. “We were foolish to think we could lie to you and get away with it for long.” His big chest falls with a deep sigh. “You always had finely honed instincts. Even as a child.”

My extremities are tingling. “Please hurry.”

Grandpapa suddenly faces me, his eyes solemn, the eyes of a doctor about to break bad news. “Darling, your father didn’t die where we told you he did.”

A strange numbness seeps outward from my heart. “Where did he die?”

“Luke died in your bedroom.”

My bedroom…The numbness inside me turns cold, the numbness of frostbite. Internal frostbite. I look away, my eyes drawn to the roses I’ve hated for so long. “How did he die?”

“Look at me, Catherine. Look at me, and I’ll tell you all I know.”

I force myself to turn, to focus on the lined patrician face, and he begins to speak in a soft voice.

“I was downstairs reading. I heard a shot. It was muffled, but I knew what it was. It sounded the way our M1s did when we mopped up the Jap bunkers after the flamethrowers went in. When I heard the shot, I ran outside. I saw a man running away from the eastern slave quarters. Your house. I didn’t chase him. I ran straight over to see whether anyone had been hurt.”

“Was the running man black, like you told me before?”

“Yes. When I got inside, I found your mother asleep in her bed. Then I checked your room. Luke was lying on the floor, bleeding from the chest. His rifle was beside him on the floor.”

“Where was I?”

“I don’t know. I examined Luke’s wound, and it was mortal.”

“Did he say anything?”

Grandpapa shakes his head. “He couldn’t speak.”

“Why not?”

“Catherine-”

“Why not?”

“He was drowning in his own blood.”

“From a wound to the side of his chest?”

“Darling, that rifle was loaded with hunting rounds designed to mushroom on impact. The internal damage was devastating.”

I shut out the pain by focusing on details. “Did you touch the gun?”

“I picked it up and smelled the barrel to see if it had been discharged. It had.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Pearlie did. She called down to check on you, just as I told you. The rest happened much the way I told you the other day. Your mother woke up, and you walked into the bedroom moments later.”

“Where had I been? I mean…it happened in my bedroom.”

He takes a moment to consider this. “Outside, I think.”

“Who moved Daddy’s body into the rose garden?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“To protect you, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

Grandpapa shifts on the seat, but his eyes remain on me, deadly earnest and filled with certainty. “You were eight years old, Catherine. Your father had been shot by an intruder in your bedroom. If that story had been printed in the Examiner, there would have been no end to the morbid speculation. What happened to you before Luke arrived? Were you molested in some way? Raped? In this little town, that would have followed you for the rest of your life. I saw no reason to put you through that, and neither did your mother. Luke was dead. It made no difference where the police found his body.”

“Mom knows?”

“Of course.”

“And Pearlie?”

“It was Pearlie who helped me clean Luke’s blood off the bedroom floor and walls before the police arrived. Not that it mattered. They never even checked the slave quarters.”

“Why not?”

He looks at me as though the answer should be self-evident. “They believed what I told them. Luke was lying dead under the dogwood tree in the rose garden. I told them how it happened, and that was that.”

Such a passive police response would be unimaginable in New Orleans, even back in 1981. But in the Natchez of twenty years ago? What local cop was going to question the word of Dr. William Kirkland, especially when his son-in-law had just been murdered?

“Did they do any forensic investigation at all? Did they search the grounds for blood or other evidence?”

“Yes, but as you pointed out, it was raining hard. They didn’t put too much effort into it. It was a sad night, and everybody wanted it over.”

I gaze across the rose garden to the slave quarters that was my home for sixteen years. Then I pan my eyes right, to the dogwood tree where for most of my life I’ve believed my father died. Luke was dead…It made no difference where the police found his body. But of course it does make a difference to me. It makes all the difference in the world.

“But Grandpapa…what if something did happen to me? Did you ever think about that?”

Before he can answer, his Town Car pulls alongside my Audi on the passenger side. Billy Neal gives my grandfather a pointed look.

“What’s his fucking problem?” I snap.

Grandpapa frowns at the expletive, but he motions for Billy to pull away. After about ten seconds, the driver obeys.

“Of course I considered the possibility, dear. I examined you myself, after the police had gone.”

“And?”

“I saw no evidence of assault.”

“You checked me for sexual assault?”

He sighs again, obviously put out by the specifics of my question. “I did a thorough examination. Nothing happened to you. Nothing physical, I mean. The psychological shock was clearly devastating, though. You stopped speaking for a year.”

“What do you think I saw?”

“I don’t know. On the milder side, the prowler might have exposed himself to you. I suppose he might have fondled you or forced you to fondle him. But at the other end of the spectrum…you might have seen your father murdered before your eyes.”

I want to hide my quivering hands-my grandfather despises weakness-but there’s nowhere to put them. Then he closes one of his strong, age-spotted hands around both of mine, stilling my tremors with the force of his grip. “Do you have any memory of that night?”

“Not before I saw his body. I have nightmares, though. I’ve seen Daddy fighting with a faceless man…other things. But nothing that makes any sense.”