man. Reaching into the bag, I remove the three Polaroid snapshots and pass them across the desk. “I found these in the bag with the other stuff that Daddy kept secret.”
Dr. Cage takes a long look at each Polaroid, then looks up at me. “What’s really going on here, Cat? What are you trying to figure out?”
“I think my father may have molested me.”
“Do you have some reason other than these pictures to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” He glances at the snapshots again. “These pictures look like damning evidence, I know. But taken by themselves, they’re like the ear necklace. Merely possessing them seems like evidence of perversion, but you don’t know the circumstances by which Luke came to have them.”
“Why would he hide them if he had nothing to be ashamed of?”
Dr. Cage shrugs. “We may never know that. Have you gone through everything in that bag?”
“Everything but this,” I reply, holding up the sketchbook.
“Why did you pass over that?”
“I don’t know.” An image of Louise Butler comes into my mind. “Someone already told me what was in it. Sketches of DeSalle Island, stuff like that.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
I pass the sketchbook across the desk, and he begins flipping through it.
“Looks like you’re half right. There are some sketches of a black woman here…some poetry. A wildflower pressed between two pages. Wait…look at this.”
“What?”
“It’s a typed note. Oh yes, listen to this. ‘Private Ferry, It’s come to our attention that you’ve been talking about the time you spent west of the Mekong River. We thought you’d learned your lesson in sixty-nine. Since you didn’t, here’s a little reminder from your old friends who wore the tiger stripes. Keep talking and your ears will wind up on one of these. We might even have to run a night op on that little girl of yours. Remember those? You took an oath, soldier. Never forget it.’”
Dr. Cage sets the sketchbook on his desk. “Well, there’s one answer for you. How Luke came by the necklace.”
“They threatened his life,” I say softly. “They really did.”
“Luke was a stubborn boy,” Dr. Cage says softly. “He tried a couple of times after the war to get an investigation started. He made some headway, but it never came to anything. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the intruder who killed him at Malmaison was sent by the men who wrote this letter.”
Dr. Cage is watching me closely. “I can see there’s more to this than what you’ve told me. Maybe a lot more. I just hope I’ve helped you a little.”
Though there’s really nothing else he can do to help, I want to tell him more. His opinion has become important to me. “If I asked you whether you think Luke could have sexually abused me or not, what would you say?”
A deep sadness fills Tom Cage’s eyes. “I’d like to say no. I really would. But I’m too old a dog to be offering certainty on a subject like that. The human sex drive is a powerful thing. It dictates to us more than the other way around, often without our realizing it. Freud spent his life trying to understand it and fell far short. Luke was a good boy, but what he did in the dark of the night-or why he did it-I won’t pretend to know. Whatever he did probably had more to do with what was done to him as a child than anything else. And that I don’t know about.”
“You said you treated his parents.”
Dr. Cage turns up his hands. “They were good people, but they died young. I didn’t much care for the uncle who took Luke in. He was a redneck loudmouth who spent most of his time trying to get Social Security disability benefits he didn’t deserve. Of course, that doesn’t make him a child molester. He’s dead now. Lung cancer.”
As I pack my father’s things back into the bag, I say, “If I asked you the same question about my grandfather-whether you think he could have molested me-what would you say?”
Dr. Cage’s eyes lock onto mine with a curious intensity. “I’d have to give you the same answer I gave you about Luke. None of us really knows anybody, and when it comes to sex, anything is possible.”
When I don’t speak, Dr. Cage adds, “You’re looking down a deep, dark hole, Catherine. A lot darker hole than I thought when I walked in that door.” He glances at Michael. “At least you’ve got a good man helping you do it.”
He’s about to speak again when the door beside the couch opens, and a nurse walks in. The doctor’s face darkens. “I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“I’m sorry,” says the nurse. “But Dale Thompson just slid his motorcycle down a hundred yards of pavement. He’s bleeding all over the waiting room.”
“Why didn’t he go to the emergency room?”
“He said you patched him up after his last wreck, and he wants you for this one. Looks like he needs about a hundred stitches, all told.”
Dr. Cage shakes his head. “He needs some sense knocked into him. Put him in the surgery. I’ll be right there.”
The doctor comes around his desk and takes me by the hand. “I’m going to be honest with you, Cat. I never liked your grandfather. I respected his skill, and his work for the city, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about Bill Kirkland. As for what you asked about, I can tell you this: the man’s nearly eighty years old, and he takes as much Viagra as any patient I treat. I know that because he gets it free from one of the drug reps. And so far as I know, he doesn’t see any women in town. But then I don’t know half of what goes on anymore. So, that’s not evidence of anything.”
As I get to my feet, Dr. Cage says, “How’s your aunt Ann? I used to treat her on and off for depression when she was mad at her shrinks.”
“She’s dead.”
Dr. Cage is visibly shaken. “Dead how?”
“Suicide. Last night.”
“Jesus Christ. I hate to hear that.”
“Did Ann ever mention anything to you about sexual abuse?”
He shakes his head. “She was obsessed with having a child, that’s what I remember most. And she had a real love-hate relationship with your grandfather. She depended on him for everything and hated herself for her dependence.”
“Do you know anything about the appendectomy she had on the island?”
Dr. Cage laughs. “Hell, I’ve heard Bill tell that story a dozen times. He acts like he did a heart transplant with nothing but a pocketknife and some rubbing alcohol.”
“Ann was ten when that happened. Do you think she could have been pregnant?”
Dr. Cage’s eyes narrow, but after a while he shakes his head. “No. In over forty years of practicing medicine, I’ve seen one pregnant eleven-year-old. Maybe two. God almighty, you are walking through the abyss, aren’t you?”
I nod. “It feels like it.”
He looks at Michael. “You take care of this girl. She’s tough, but she’s not as tough as she thinks she is.”
“I will.”
Dr. Cage shakes Michael’s hand, and then he’s gone.
“You still want to exhume your father’s body?” Michael asks.
“More than ever.”
He sighs and leads me toward the waiting room. There’s a trail of blood on the white tiles of the corridor, and a bloody footprint near the waiting room door. In an instant, I flash back to the bloody prints on my bedroom floor. The door ahead wavers in my vision, and my knees go weak. Michael braces my arm and leads me past the staring faces in the waiting room.
“I’m taking you to my office and running some tests,” he says.
I blink against the bright sunlight, crazy images flashing in the glare. My father’s tombstone…myself as a little
