Grave Instinct Read online

  “We were here during daylight hours. Light wasn't a problem,” said Owens. “Electric company must've shut it down.”

  “But the fridge is operating,” replied Jessica, hearing the hum.

  “Maybe on a generator,” suggested Strand.

  A single shaft of light from a streetlamp outside somehow penetrated the kitchen area they walked through. Jessica located her high-intensity penlight, and the others did likewise. The bungalow's floors were completely covered in newspapers, magazines, books and clothing, scattered food containers—pizza and Chinese food boxes everywhere along with filthy towels and linens. Jessica's light explored the kitchen to the humming sound coming from the refrigerator. The small kitchenette reeked of stale odors. Food stains discolored every surface, including walls and ceiling, along with something the color of gray, the color of brain matter, making Jessica gasp. “Owens, your team didn't see this?”

  Everyone stared at the end of her beam. “Looks like brain matter,” said J.T.

  “It's only clay,” explained Owens.

  “This some sort of sick departmental joke, Owens, meant to frighten us?” Jessica touched it with her gloved finger, found it sticky to the touch, clinging to her. Sniffing it, she decided Owens was telling the truth. “Clay,” she repeated.

  “This a joke, Owens?” repeated J.T.

  “No, Dr. Thorpe, no. None of us in the bureau put the clay here. It's all over the place. He makes these weird-assed clay models of the brain, and he stuffs them with noodles. And look here.” He opened a kitchen cabinet and his light revealed it stuffed with bags of green-gray noodles.

  “He sells this shit on his Internet website,” explained Max Strand. “Gets the noodles from a gourmet shop downtown.”

  Jessica ripped open one of the bags. The pasta was shaped in the form of crosses. “Deitze warned us about all this, but seeing it up close is something else.”

  They moved on toward the interior of the house.

  Their lights revealed no furniture in the living room area, only a small TV and VCR, along with a makeshift chair of blankets where one might prop against a wall amid the squalor and stench.

  “I don't get it,” said Strand. “If he's got the fridge on a generator, why aren't the lights hooked up to it?”

  They ventured forward.

  “Damn sure stinks in here,” said J.T.

  “Coming from a coroner, Dr. Thorpe,” said Owens, “it must be true.”

  The few videocassettes Cahil had were copies of TV programs if the labels could be believed—The Learning Channel: Brain Matters. Another was entitled This Is Joe's Brain, and a third read Realms of the Mind.

  Owens looked the titles over as well and muttered, “Looks like our boy is still fixated on one thing.”

  “Put these in an evidence bag for me, will you, Owens?”

  “Sure thing, Dr. Coran.”

  As Owens alternately protected himself with a handkerchief over the nose and stuffed the cassettes into a large evidence bag, Strand returned. “No generator in the basement. Maybe a fuse blew, but I couldn't find any problems in the box.”

  “He must have the fridge on a generator located somewhere here,” said Owens.

  J.T. had wandered off alone, and suddenly he called out from deep in the house, shouting, “In here, Jess!”

  The others instantly located J.T.'s flashlight. He had gone exploring through a hallway that led deeper into the nightmare. Along with streetlights that pierced the transparent newspaper-covered windows, the flashlights created an eerie ghostly glow flooding through the house, even as their eyes became accustomed. Careful of every step over the litter-strewn floor, they inched their way toward J.T.'s light, which led them toward a bedroom.

  Strand slipped, almost lost his footing but righted himself. “Shit,” he complained. “I think I slipped on some damn clay. I found maybe fifty of those clay brains in the basement workshop.” They reached J.T.'s location, and Jessica saw what had so excited him. In the bedroom with a makeshift tent of blankets, a green glowing light filtering through the tent. Cahil had covered over some furniture against the far wall. J.T. stood pointing at the light, saying, “Look, electricity.”

  The others now saw the green light filtering through the weave of the blanket. Removing the blanket, J.T. displayed a chair, a wooden desk and a state-of-the-art computer.

  J.T. sat at the computer and said, “Here's his nerve center you were telling us about, Strand.”

  “Wait a minute, this thing's got juice,” said Owens.

  “Selective electricity,” said Jessica. “Food and communication. From the fridge to the computer. It has to be a generator.”

  “Your earlier search didn't uncover the computer?” asked Strand of Owens.

  “I guess it was missed. I didn't know it was in here.”

  “Don't tell me . . . you didn't get this far.”

  “Agent Donaldson found the credit card bill, and we got out. I just follow orders, and I wasn't in charge.”

  J.T. examined the computer hookup. “This is no wireless. He's got electricity in here from some source.”

  Jessica immediately went to the nearest wall receptacle and with her gloved hand, she stuck a scalpel deep into it. An electrical spark shot out, jabbing at her. “Son of a bitch. Just for the hell of it, Owens, try that lamp beside you.”

  Owens, sniffing at an ammonia stick that Jessica had handed him, tried the lamp with no result.

  Jessica stepped to the lamp and put her hand below the shade, learning there was no bulb. “Hold on . . . wait a minute. Are we stumbling around in the dark because the bastard's too lazy to replace his bulbs?” she asked.

  J.T. suggested, “Maybe he abhors light?” “That would figure,” said Strand, eyeballing Owens.

  Owens, embarrassed by this turn of events, said, “I'll go back to that pantry in the kitchen, see if there're any bulbs.”

  After pushing aside books and papers on the desk J.T., with Strand and Jessica looking over his shoulder, went to work on the computer. “See what I can uncover here.” With that, J.T. got comfortable and began a search. He was locked out; the machine asked for a code word.

  “Three strikes and we're out,” said J.T. “We're going to have to crack it at Quantico if we can't come up with the right code tonight.”

  Owens returned, saying, “No bulbs but cans and cans of this stuff.” He held up a can of Hydar's animal brains and hash.

  “Gets it from a specialty deli downtown, buys it by the case,” said Strand, turning his attention back to J.T. and the computer. “Try 'brain food,' “ said Strand.

  “What?” asked J.T.

  “It's a thing with him, brain food. These people who plug into his site swap brain-food recipes.”

  “Then the password could just as well be brain bran or brain clusters or brain cuisine,” countered J.T.

  “Just try it.”

  “Right . . . right.”

  Jessica stared across the filthy room at Owens. “Local FBI never gave Cahil serious consideration as a candidate for the Digger, right?”

  “Ahhh, correct.”

  “Why not?”

  He whispered, “Well . . . Strand there's been crying wolf for so long about this boob, that, well . . . nobody in the Morristown PD or the local bureau takes Strand seriously anymore. We all thought. . .”

  “Spit it out, Owens.”

  “We thought it'd be a—you know—a kind of embarrassing joke once Chief Santiva was led down the primrose lane by Strand's obsession over Cahil.”

  “Embarrassing for Santiva, you mean. I see. Local joke becomes national headlines. Somebody in your department have it in for us?”

  “Not you. Your boss, Santiva. Our SAC, Fromme. Over some beef a few years back.”

  “A perfect setup. Santiva doles out valuable man-hours, two M.E.'s and field operatives, and God knows how much in currency on a raid your boss believes is a waste of time. Is that about it?”

  The preppy-looking Owens nodded. �
�What can I say? I work for an asshole. Fromme thought he'd let out enough rope for Santiva to hang himself with the bureau heads. The order was to leave everything intact, for your eyes only. Except I was told—ordered—to give Max a call to bring him in.”

  “I get the picture.” Santiva had said on countless occasions that you could never divorce the FBI from politics. Jessica had briefly met Morristown's Special Agent in Charge Marcus Fromme. The man did have the look of a savagely ambitious politician.

  “Fromme doesn't believe Cahil's the Digger. He wants to discredit Santiva, not you, Doctor.”

  “Should be interesting to see who wins this pissing contest.”

  “It was out of my control. When I heard they'd nabbed Cahil, and that you were on your way here, well. . . none of us could muster much enthusiasm . . . consensus was ...”

  “I get it, Owens. The picture comes clear now.”

  “From the get-go, as far as Fromme was concerned, we didn't have enough probable cause—a phone call to you from the girlfriend. That's all we were told. Fromme then told me to”—he brought it down to a whisper again—”rope in Max. We all know how Max feels about Cahil. Fromme even arranged for Strand's trip to see you in Philadelphia— at Quantico's expense. He thinks Max is a lunatic for Cahil, obsessed with him.”

  “So he throws Max in as another wrench in the works?”

  Owens bit his lower lip and nodded. “Fromme was at Quantico when you all began the chase for the Skull-digger. He never looked under this rock because he never believed Cahil a worthwhile lead, you see.”

  Strand, overhearing snatches of the conversation, pulled away from his argument over the possible code word long enough to say, “What're you talking about, Owens? You idiots in the bureau think you're using me? You all know I am the authority on Cahil.”

  Jessica held up a hand to him. “It sounds like your case of the New Jersey Ghoul has taken on a life of its own, Detective Strand,” said Jessica, “and for better or worse— the local field office is playing political hockey with our case.”

  Strand turned all of his glare toward Owens.

  “Look, Max, every lawman in Morristown's got an opinion on the New Jersey Ghoul,” pleaded Owens. “Most want him to go away and stay away, like it never happened. Like Fromme said in his debriefing, some people embrace the story as if it's a cult manifesto.”

  “Is that what Fromme thinks of me?” asked Strand.

  “Hell, Max, first words outta your mouth when they wheeled you from the ICU were 'where's my laptop.' You wanted to check in with this weirdo's Web page.”

  “Does it make me crazy to see a guy get off after decapitating five children in their coffins? Yes, it makes me a little crazy, Owens.” “Just what Fromme counted on,” said Jessica. “He's gambling . . . jockeying for some leverage to gain a better position on the ladder. Likely, he's not working alone. Someone either in D.C. or at Quantico who's after Eriq's head.”

  “I swear, I don't give a damn about any of it,” said Owens. “Most of the men in the department would love nothing better than to be out from under Fromme's so-called leadership.”

  “Well, this setup ought to backfire in his ugly face,” declared Strand, stepping back to J.T., who sat pensive, considering his options regarding the password. Owens slinked off a bit, grateful the confrontation had ended.

  Jessica now flashed her light on articles and stacked books on the subject of the human brain. She lifted two of the titles and read them aloud: “Mind and Universe, In the Likeness of God—A Study of the Spirit of the Brain. The Architecture of the Soul-Brain Conduit''

  Jessica next lifted and opened a huge book entitled Arcania of Mind and Magic to its index and searched for the word “Rheil,” and not finding it, she spelled it aloud, “R-H-E-I-L.” Turning to the page, she found an ancient photograph of a Dr. Benjamin Artemus Rheil and a discussion of the man obsessed with the island of tissue he discovered during an autopsy of the brain of a diseased woman. After his discovery, he sought this phenomena of the brain out in every autopsy he performed to determine that it did indeed exist inside every human brain—a self-contained small sac of tissue, an island within the mind. Rheil found it slightly larger in the female than in the male, and he noted this as a strange paradox.

  “Try this as a password, J.T.,” she told him, holding out the book. Of course,” said Strand. “Rheil. It's staring us in the face.”

  “Real?” asked J.T.

  She spelled it out.

  “Once he cut his deal with the prosecution, Cahil talked about Dr. Rheil during his elocution of the crime to the court.”

  J.T. keyed in the name Rheil.

  Again he was denied access.

  Strand suggested, “Isle of Brain. I-s-l-e-o-f-B-r-a-i-n. Do it.”

  “It's our last chance before a final lockout. Are you sure?” asked J.T.

  “Are you sure, Strand?” Jessica asked, her face creased with doubt.

  “It's how he referred to it back then, again and again.”

  “All right. Go for it, J.T.”

  “If it's wrong, we'll have to take it to the experts at Quantico.” J.T. keyed it in and suddenly erupted. “Bingo! Our friendly neighborhood lunatic's website is coming up on the screen now.”

  J.T. scanned several lines off the master page, and then said, “ Brain Matters—Home of the Soul and the Cosmic Mind'—his banner reads. We gotta confiscate all this, Jess.” A comical character looking like a mad professor blipped on the screen, asking, “Got brains?”

  “This guy's something else,” Jessica said as the cartoon image came up on the screen.

  “Do a search, Dr. Thorpe,” said Max.

  “Of what?”

  “Recipes, you gotta see this.”

  “You're serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  J.T. keyed in the word. After fifteen seconds, he replied, “Here we are. Chat room for brain recipes. Brain Kabob, Shrimp Creole and Brains, the ever-popular Brains and Eggs. And here's Brains and Legs—poultry. Damn, here's Beef Bullion Brains, Creamed Spinach is under a whole list of vegetarian brain casseroles, and it goes on. Someone here even sharing a recipe for Brain Brownies and Chocolate Moose.”

  “Forget about the recipes,” said Jessica. “Key in 'island,' 'isle,' 'Rheil' ... see what we have there.”

  Again J.T. typed into the search box.

  “What is this island of the brain place?” asked Owens.

  Now the ancient brain surgeon, Rheil, was depicted on the computer screen as well, along with the article Jessica had seen in the hefty book, scanned and lifted word for word, down to the photograph of Rheil.

  “So this is what the man was searching for when he dug up all those graves,” commented J.T.

  “A bit of gray matter, real estate deep within the cortex.” Jessica leaned in closer.

  “I give you the Island of Rheil,” Strand said. “Finally, someone is paying attention. Take a walk with a lunatic to an island in his mind.”

  Owens swallowed hard, regretting the odors going down his throat.

  Jessica read aloud from the screen. “Rheil believed that this island of tissue supposedly housed the spirit since it had no apparent physical reason for being—or for being located at the core of the brain, at the geographic center of the cortex. He then concluded that it must have a spiritual reason for being there, since in his words, ‘all things unknowable must then be spiritual’.” Jessica paused and then read the remaining short paragraphs devoted to the man.

  “Daryl conveniently left out that the man's scientific method was questionable to say the least,” said Jessica. “The article he copied this from ended with a good deal of skepticism.”

  “Not included on Cahil's website meanderings,” added Max. “Any disparagement surrounding Dr. Rheil's work and conclusions found no way into Daryl Cahil's thinking.”

  Jessica then lifted the book she'd discovered Rheil in and read on. “ 'The drama and flare of Rheil's conclusions, according to contemporaries and
colleagues, far outweighed any scientific reasoning or study of the Island of Rheil.' “

  “Check out the footnote,” said Strand, pointing. The book footnoted the feet that Rheil's work had been cut short by an untimely death from a brain fever. In his will, he asked that his own island be removed and preserved for scientific investigation. However, no one continued his study, only adding fuel to the mystery of his strange discovery.

  Cahil's own editorializing on Rheil appeared fictitious, that the man not only removed and studied his “finds” but that he consumed them. He pointed out the robustness and content in the man's image at so advanced an age, claiming him more than a hundred years old in the photograph.

  “Daryl fixated on this bogus nonsense,” said Strand, “as he testified at his trial. It's what got to all the shrinks, his telling the court that he actually robbed graves from '89 to '90 for this thing—why he took his dead victim's heads off with him, to dig this sac of tissue out of their brains.”

  “Cahil's courtroom elocution—did it get any press?” asked Jessica.

  “None. Courtroom was sealed from the press. Special arrangement agreed upon by prosecution, the defense and Judge Hiram Skinner. Nobody really wanted this business to fuel headlines for months. It was all so damned bizarre, and the court officials really did want to spare the families any more indignities and harm.” “So it takes on the proportions of a legend, shrouded in mystery,” said Jessica in a near whisper.

  “Hollywood wanted to make a film,” replied Strand. “On any account, no details were released other than a few generalities labeling Cahil as a cannibal, and with the press shut out, all sorts of rampant reporting went on, especially in the tabloids, how he was a sex-lust murderer, which didn't apply, how he was a necrophiliac, you name it.”

  Jessica recalled how Lorena Combs, as a high-school student, had gotten the story.

  Strand went on. “He replaced the boogeyman; hell, he was the boogeyman. Christ, before Cahil's activities, the dead could assume themselves safe in their graves, but not anymore. Imagine the parents of these departed children learning what had happened to their babies? Like I said, Judge Skinner, with the best of intentions, didn't allow cameras or reporters in the courtroom. Nobody but people directly involved in the prosecution and defense of the case, which included Drs. Gabriel Arnold and a young Jack Deitze on one side, me and my partner, along with Newark detectives on the other.”