Grave Instinct Page 12

  “No, I've kept him under surveillance since his release, up until a few weeks ago. I had a bout with some trouble that put me in the hospital. But the photo's current.” He slid a photo from a file he carried. Jessica looked at the sunken-faced, small man in the picture. He didn't look large enough for the image she'd had of the Skull-digger. His weight, he's got to weigh more, she was thinking of the prints found in Georgia.

  “Height?”

  “Five-ten.”

  She told him of the shoe print find at the latest murder scene. “It's from a guy who's at least 175 to 180, possibly one hundred and ninety pounds, Detective Strand.”

  “Prints at a crime scene can be unreliable.”

  “The officer in charge was very thorough and professional. And Cahil can't have changed his foot size or his height, so . . . Then there's the thing about how leopards don't change their spots.”

  “You mean a ghoul can't graduate to live prey?”

  “He dealt in dead bodies, not live ones, right? Like his height and weight, his MO and his fantasy aren't likely to change.”

  “Unless it has developed into something else. Hell, he had nearly thirteen years to tweek it.”

  “Our current ghoul makes dead bodies; he doesn't dig them up. Other than the brain theft, there's not a lot of similarities here between what Cahil was convicted for, and what the Skull-digger has done.”

  “But that's just it. Cahil lost more than twelve years. He's now making up for lost time. He could well be the Skull-digger, still in search of this 'island' thing, this 'real thing.' “

  She had no idea what he meant, but she asked, “Then why isn't he in custody, Detective?”

  “He will be as soon as we can locate him. Place is under surveillance at the moment and an order for his arrest has been issued. I took the liberty and asked your field operatives in Jersey to haul him in on suspicion, just to see if he was there, but he's not, which tells me he's elsewhere.”

  “Where is 'elsewhere'?” “Possibly in Atlantic City, as your mysterious phone calls suggest.”

  “Santiva told you about the calls?”

  He nodded.

  She knew the way to Deitze's office; it had been Gabe Arnold's before Matisak had hooked him up to a dialysis machine in the infirmary and drained him of every ounce of blood. Jessica hadn't returned here in almost nine years, and she'd forgotten about the constant wail of madmen behind these walls. Fortunately, she needn't go through lockup for her purposes today. Her groundbreaking study on socio-paths, done here back in the early '90s, had become required reading at the FBI Academy.

  Strand struggled to keep pace, a bad leg plaguing him. She slowed in response.

  “Can you verify that he's actually been out of town, and if so do his vacations coincide with the killings?”

  “Neighbors verify that he's been out of town, but no one can say where or for how long. He's a recluse, and he timed his disappearance to coincide with my operation and hospital stay.”

  “Was he living with anyone in Morristown?”

  “I've seen a woman come and go, but it's him . . . one of his personality manifestations.”

  “He's schizophrenic?”

  “Multiple personalities. So, in a sense, yes. A woman resides there with him. I suspect the first call you got, the female caller, was this manifestation. So, you can stop worrying about her safety.”

  “He has no wife? No girlfriend who lives elsewhere, maybe out of town, maybe down the street or in Atlantic City?”

  “None. He has no interest in anything smacking of normal, Dr. Coran.”

  Jessica imagined the pressure Eriq must have been under from both above and from this man to place someone— anyone—in custody for the Skull-digger's heinous crimes. “I want to believe this is the guy as much as you do, Detective—that we're closing in on the bastard, but I have to be careful.”

  “Are you preaching the book to me?” he asked and then laughed.

  “I'm sorry. I've been down a lot of dead ends recently.”

  “I'm sure you have.”

  One of the guards at the greeting desk must have called up to Deitze's office because he stood outside the door, waving her forward while telling Detective Strand that he would speak only to Dr. Coran.

  The two men glared so hard at one another that Jessica feared each would be turned to stone. Obviously, they had some bad history between them. “I'll speak to Dr. Coran alone or not at all, Strand,” declared Deitze.

  Strand whispered in her ear, “Watch him. He's a liar.”

  Jessica had met Deitze at various law-enforcement functions, but they had never spent any time together, and what little she knew of him, she didn't care for. He was an overbearing, self-aggrandizing sort who, she believed, would sell his mother for a chance to be published in a major medical journal.

  The first thing he extended to her was his published paper on Cahil's treatment, and secondly, his sweaty hand. “The paper is on Cahil, although I used a fictitious name. If you will, Dr. Coran, read it thoroughly, you will find Cahil harmless and incapable of the skullduggery and butchery of this so-called Brain Thief who takes human life. If Cahil is involved at all, it is only peripherally and not of his own choosing.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “Let's retire to my office. I have coffee. This will take time.” As she entered his office, she apologized for Santiva's absence. He replied, “Hardly a problem . . . much better for medical people to understand one another before we go off to others with our theories, wouldn't you say?”

  She wondered if what he said was meant as a slap of sorts. She wondered how much Santiva had told him about her suspicions of Cahil. “I suppose so, yes.”

  “Can I pour you coffee?”

  “Black, please.”

  He poured for them both. “Take the time to read the report.”

  She did so, asking questions as she went. “Cahil admitted to why he robbed the graves of five children? Says here it had nothing to do with the tabloid speculations about necrophilia.”

  “Cahil was not sexually motivated whatsoever to attack his dead victims, no. He wasn't in it to create sex objects of his victims, no. All balderdash.”

  “I was within these walls on several occasions while he was incarcerated, doing my own study, as you recall, Dr. Deitze, just before you took over as Chief of Psychiatry here. Neither Dr. Arnold nor you thought him of interest to my study, yet he harbored these antisocial behaviors? Why was he kept from me?”

  “Hardly kept from you. He was kept in isolation.”

  “And you two worked with him.”

  “Yes, before Arnold's unfortunate end . . . yes.”

  “I see.”

  “Cahil was never a candidate for your study because he had not actually murdered anyone.”

  “Necrophilia was the sensationalized story, yes. Page one of the tabloids. So, what's the real story?”

  “He cut off the heads in order to take them to a safe place where he could do what he wanted with them. To take his time.” “The safe place being his basement at home?”

  “With a stopover at his place of work, a butcher's shop, where—”

  “Where he could damn well take his time with the victim's head, I'm sure.”

  “Yes . . . but it was in order to take his time with his true intended prize, the brains of the dead children, Dr. Coran.”

  “Ghoulish, all right. . . and what did he do with the gray stuff? Breakfast, lunch and dinner?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Blended it in the mixer and drank it with his Ovaltine?”

  “If you'll just listen, Doctor.”

  “Bathed in it?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “To gain his freedom, he had to describe his crimes in detail. He had to give a complete elocution.”

  “Dr. Deitze, what the hell did Cahil use the brain matter

  for?”

  Deitze cleared his throat, sip
ped at his now-tepid coffee and replied, “The man sincerely believed it would place him in touch with something he called the eternal cosmic mind.”

  “Then he did consume it?”

  “Not all of it, or so he professed in open court. Said it was just a small island of tissue he really cut the head open for.”

  “Small island of tissue?”

  “Discarded the rest of the brain. But to get at this small dab of brain matter, he had to cut deep into the center to pluck it out.”

  “Island of tissue?”

  “Deep at the center, something of an island. Called it the Real Island at his elocution. No one knew what he was talking about, least of all me.” “You were at the trial?”

  “I found him fascinating; I asked to be put on his case, and Dr. Arnold arranged everything and set me up for the case study. I was not long out of psychiatric study at Stanford.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Deitze had an overlarge face, uncannily wrinkled with worry lines for one so young. Perhaps this single case was meant as his crowning achievement, and it had taken its toll on him. “It was assumed this object Cahil sought was some imaginary prize, part of his warped fantasy. But later on, during incarceration, I began to listen more closely to Cahil. I dug through old texts and esoteric books on the brain, and I made a stunning discovery. This 'Real Island' he spoke of, it was spelled R-h-e-i-1 after its discoverer, a Dr. Rheil in the late eighteenth century. Cahil wasn't talking about some fiction his mind had concocted but a real—that is tangible—piece of brain matter, Dr. Coran.”

  “I've never heard of this Rheil Island, Dr. Deitze. Is there a formal, medical term for this brain part?”

  “Just Rheil. Rheil dissected hundreds of brains during his lifetime, but only stumbled on his so-called island late in his life. Said it was located in the deepest recesses of the medulla oblongata.

  “The midbrain. Cahil claimed in perfect lunatic fashion how the soul resided there, which had been Rheil's eighteenth-century speculation. Cahil said that in consuming this portion of the children's brains, that he meant to consume the souls of these children in order to be more powerful and in touch with something he called the cosmic mind.”

  “Christ save us all.”

  “I'm only telling you what he told the court, and details he filled in later as I worked with him. At any costs, Cahil had stumbled onto the esoteric teachings of the likely demented Dr. Benjamin Artemus Rheil, and he twisted what Dr. Rheil had to say about the Island of Rheil. My own study into Rheil and his work shows there's next to nothing remaining of the man or his theories, and others have simply chalked up his island as a leftover from our primitive brains. But in Cahil's mind, this small portion paradoxically holds all our spiritual being within, and when you die, you go to this island to await your next journey or voyage or incarnation.”

  “You mean purgatory is all in the mind?”

  “Strange thing is that Cahil would draw pictures of it over and over again.”

  “Purgatory?”

  “No, no, the island itself, and it is roughly similar in appearance to a cross that signifies upright man, the horizon, and the godhead.”

  “Do you have any of his drawings?” asked Jessica.

  “I do . . . and it coincides with the etchings you located on the dead women killed by the Skull-digger. Your chief sent me the image and asked if it meant anything to me.”

  “Strange coincidence, I admit, but you said you could prove that Cahil is not the killer. It looks the opposite to me, Doctor.”

  “Cahil is being set up. Someone is using him. He's accepted my therapy as his cure, to replace the object of his desire—which violates human morality and all the laws of decency known to mankind—with something acceptable. He now consumes a symbolic diet like many of us consume the host and the body of Christ with the wine and the wafer.”

  “And you think he's remained on his diet since leaving here, Doctor? We all know how many patients go off their meds after leaving here, and we are speaking of a symbolic gesture here, something far more difficult to absorb than a psychoactive pill.”

  “I know he's remained true to his new path.”

  “You want to bet the lives of more young women on that assumption?”

  “It's not ... I mean, yes.”

  “Tell me, Dr. Deitze, what did this guy do with the children's leftover heads and the portions of brain he didn't want?”

  “Cahil had been a butcher on the outside. After warming to me, he told me that he ground up and fed the rest of the remaining gray matter, along with the heads, to his dogs.”

  “I see . . . mixed it all together with the usual bonemeal from his little chop shop of horrors. I'm sure the animals went mad for it.”

  Deitze stood up and wandered to his window, looking down on the courtyard below where the less dangerous patients were allowed an hour a day.

  Jessica was getting messages from the man's body language. “Has Cahil been in touch with you, Dr. Deitze?”

  He hesitated a hair. “No . . . and I've lost track of him. He's disappeared from the home and job we placed him in.”

  “Morristown? Where did he work?”

  “Baby land Furnishings.”

  “My God . . . you placed him in a job involving children?”

  “He is cured, I tell you, and he is not your killer.”

  “Dr. Deitze . . . Jack . . . it's one thing to do a case study and put forth a theory of rehab never before tried, but it's foolish to maintain that we should not take a close look at this guy, unless you have some irrefutable evidence that he is innocent.”

  Jessica thought of their initial profile of the killer, and she asked, “And if he's disappeared from where he was placed, that only points up the fact he's roving. Possibly roaming the coast from Jersey to Florida.”

  “I know Cahil is cured of feeding on—”

  “On the real thing? Look, we're not excluding other leads, but the mark left on the victims is identical to this man's drawings of his Rheil tissue. You won't mind if I take one or two of his drawings with me, will you?”

  “No ... go right ahead. But I wish to caution you about Maxwell Strand. He only wants one thing: to see Cahil killed.”

  “These drawings are more than coincidence, Doctor. They're quite compelling. As for Strand, I'm sure I understand his biases.”

  “Read the rehabilitation paper in its entirety, Dr. Coran,” he called after her as she left.

  Strand had waited on a hallway bench. He stood and came alongside her. She wanted to get out of this building full of horrors and bad memories.

  “Did he feed you that line about how he's cured Cahil of his cravings for cannibalizing brains?”

  “He told me about it, yes, along with the story of how Cahil only wanted a small portion of the brains of his victims.”

  “Yeah . . . the Rheil tissue.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I was there at his elocution, and I've read Dr. Blowhard's case study. I told you, I'm an expert on Daryl Thomas Cahil.”

  “Then tell me,” she asked, slowing her pace so that he might keep up. “Where do these sickos come up with their fantastic rationalizations?”

  “Adolf Hitler rationalized genocide right along with Osama bin Laden.”

  “So they place him in Morristown and provide him with a job at a kid's store? I can't shake this inconceivable idiocy.”

  He countered sharply. “But it made a warped kind of sense—bureaucratic nonsense.”

  “How crazy is the system?”

  “Has this harmless job by day, and cracking open and feeding on young women's brains by night,” said Strand.

  Jessica felt an urgency to find and put Cahil behind bars for the sake of his next victim. Something about Cahil's working around children convinced her that maybe she ought to be pursuing this man exclusively and full throttle.

  They passed the security check, waved to the guards and were out the door. Jessica breathed in great breat
hs of air. Strand, at her side, said, “Santiva told me about what you found in the victim's heads, that picture of the Rheil cross. It corresponds with the pictures that Cahil drew while in prison, and the one he has up on his website.”

  “Website? Whataya mean, website?”

  “Don't you know? It's all in Deitze's case study, part of his rehab program for poor little misunderstood Cahil. While he was incarcerated, Cahil was set up with a computer and was given access to the Internet as part of his therapy.”

  “You're kidding.”

  “Read the report Deitze gave you. It's all there.”

  “Damn ...” She thought of Lorena combing through the computer trails for any connections between or among the Manning girl and the other victims. Could it be Cahil's website? If so, it was a connection that could not be ignored.

  Still, Jessica heard her father's voice caution her as they left the prison for the parking lot. Careful, Jess, what at first appears suspicious coincidence is often only a disguised version of wishful thinking.

  “You coming back to Morristown with me?”

  “I had no such plans, no.” Jessica was taken aback by the question.

  “Santiva and his agents are closing in on Cahil in Atlantic City. I can feel it. Your boss said something about getting his best forensic people to go over the man's dwelling. Search warrants are in the works. I'm working closely with your field operatives in Jersey.”

  “If you don't mind, Detective Strand, I think I'll wait for orders before I go racing off to Morristown.”

  He nodded, took her hand, shook it firmly and left her at her rental car. Jessica wondered who was stranger, Strand or Deitze, and she opted for the latter. She felt anxious now to get to her hotel room in Philadelphia and look over Deitze's paper for information on this website of Cahil's. She hoped it would be the noose that would slide around the killer's throat. She thought she now knew what Deitze had been holding back. And yet he had handed it to her and asked her to read the paper in its entirety—and she would.

  She opened the door to the rental, a strange feeling coming over her. She looked up to where Deitze's office window reflected the fading sunlight back at her, and the man was standing there in the orange glow, staring out at her. She climbed inside the car, tossing the case study on the seat next to her.