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“Has anyone talked to Dr. Malik yet?”
“No, but he’s under surveillance.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifty-three.”
This is outside the age range of the FBI’s standard serial-killer profile, but well within the bounds of possibility, based on the literature. I can’t believe the adrenaline flowing through my veins. “What happens next?”
“That’s what I’m calling you about. We want you to check Nathan Malik’s dental records. See if they match the bite marks on the bodies.”
“You already have them?”
“No.”
“When will you?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“I don’t get it. What’s going on, Sean?”
“We’ve got the name of Malik’s dentist. And since you know damn near every dentist in the New Orleans area, we were hoping you could have an informal chat with this one. Maybe get a look at some faxed dental records. Just enough to tell if Malik is the killer or not.”
A red flag goes up in my mind. “An ‘informal’ chat? You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“Who wants this, Sean? The task force? Or you?”
The resulting pause is long enough for me to guess the answer. “Are you out of your mind? There’s no way a dentist is going to let me see his records without a court order. Not with all the new HIPAA regulations. When can you get a court order?”
“The task force is debating that now. The problem is, as soon as we ask for those records, we tip Malik to our interest in him.”
“So? If his dental records match the bite marks on the victims, that won’t matter. But if I break the law to get an ‘informal’ look at those records—or Malik’s dentist breaks it—and that’s brought out at trial, couldn’t that get Malik off?”
“If it came out at trial, yes. But you’re part of the old boy network in this town. In dentistry anyway.”
“You’re wrong about that, Sean. I’m tolerated—maybe grudgingly respected. But if I—”
“Cat.” His voice is filled with presumptuousness.
“Do you really want to stop this guy that badly? Or do you just want the glory of catching him?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Bullshit. This killer’s been hitting one victim a week. It’s only been twenty-four hours since his last strike. We have some time. The task force does, I mean.”
Sean doesn’t reply. In the silence, I try to divine his true motivation. He likes glory, but there’s something deeper at work here. He’s speaking again, but I don’t catch what he’s saying, because suddenly I understand.
“You’re trying to save your job.”
I know from the silence that I’m right. “Does Captain Piazza want to fire you because of us?”
“Piazza will never fire me,” he says with bravado. “I make her look too good.”
“Maybe. But she’d damn sure yank you off the task force. And bringing in a positive ID on the killer before the Bureau can would put you back into her good graces, wouldn’t it?”
More silence. “I need this, Cat.”
“Maybe so. But jailing this killer is more important than your job.”
“I know that. I’m just—”
“No way, Sean. I’ve broken a lot of rules for you, but I’ve never put a conviction in jeopardy. I won’t do it now.”
“Okay, okay. But look … at least tell me if you know the dentist. His name is Shubb. Harold Shubb.”
I feel a quick rush of excitement. Harold Shubb is part of the disaster identification unit made up of volunteer dentists across the state of Louisiana. I organized that unit. Shubb took one of my seminars in forensic odontology, and he would love a call from me.
“You know him. I can tell,” Sean says.
“I know him.”
“Is he an okay guy?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t change anything. Get your court order, and Shubb will do you right. You should also be trying to find out if this Malik had any orthodontic work done as an adolescent, or even later. Orthodontists keep their patient models for a very long time, as a defense against future lawsuits.”
Sean sighs heavily. “I’ll tell them that.”
“Kaiser probably knows already.” I picture the former FBI profiler in my mind. I can’t imagine much getting by him.
“I know you won’t make the call,” Sean says in a wheedling tone, “but at least let me fax you what I have on Malik. You want to see that, right?”
I don’t answer. My thoughts have wandered back to the bloody footprints in my bedroom.
“Cat? Are you there?”
“Send me what you’ve got.”
“Give me a fax number.”
I give him the number of my grandfather’s fax machine. I know it because we sometimes have to exchange documents dealing with my trust fund.
“I’ll get it to you as soon as I can,” Sean promises.
“Fine.”
There’s an awkward pause. Then he says, “Are you coming back tonight?”
I actually hear loneliness in his voice. “No.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“I don’t know, Sean.”
“Why not? You hardly ever go home, and when you do, you don’t like it.”
“Something’s happened up here.”
“What? Is somebody sick?”
“I can’t explain now. I have to go.”
“Call me later, then.”
“If I notice anything interesting in the stuff you fax me, I’ll call. Otherwise, it’ll be tomorrow at least before you hear from me.”
Sean is silent. Then, after a few moments, he says, “Good-bye, Cat.”
I hang up and look back at the slave quarters, then up at the rear of Malmaison. I want to talk to my mother, but she’s still twenty minutes away. Suddenly, from the roiling mass of thoughts that is my mind in this moment, a clear image rises. Breaking into a trot, I head into the trees on the east side of the vast lawn, following a path first beaten by my own feet fifteen years ago.
I need to be underwater.
As I jog through the trees, I spy a dark figure standing in the shadows about forty yards ahead. A black man in work clothes. I bear left so that I won’t pass him too closely, but as I near the figure, I recognize Mose, the yardman who has worked at Malmaison since before I was born. Once a strapping giant who could carry railroad ties on his back, Mose now has a bent spine and white stubble that grows almost up to his watery yellow eyes. He lives alone in a small house at the back of the property, but once a week he commands an army of younger men who groom the grounds like a crack army platoon. I wave as I pass to his left. The old man lifts his arm in a vague way. He doesn’t recognize me. Probably thinks I’m one of the suburban housewives from Brookwood. The scary thing is that