Grave Instinct Page 18

  She closed her eyes and lay her head on a pillow. “Well, I can see you're fatigued. Get some rest. I'll check back in an hour.”

  “Make it two. And thanks, Eriq.” Jessica had curled up in the fetal position on the couch. Eriq smoothed the blanket over her to encompass her shoeless feet. Then he left, closing the door behind him.

  She was grateful she'd remembered to unplug the phone on her desk.

  A stream of thoughts bombarding its way over rocks of doubt ran through Jessica's restless sleep there in her office. The river of reflection came full circle back to the lunatic Cahil. And the Skull-digger's career had begun only after Cahil had been released. Maybe there was a perfect connection between the two maniacs of 1990 and 2003, the perfect connection being that they were one and the same man— possibly another manifestation of Cahil's multiple-personality syndrome. Spots never change, she told herself.

  Yet her unconscious mind hit a snag on its way to executing Cahil, as her sleep self considered the disparity between a killer's lusting after a dead victim and a live one. World of difference, she told herself.

  Deitze whooshed into her dream state and said, Children are closer to something Daryl calls the eternal cosmic mind residing in us all; said he had tapped into it through his Rheil thing. Dr. Deitze glanced toward the refrigerator in Cahil's house.

  Jessica's dream self asked, So, you think Cahil is at it again?

  No .. . never. I cured him.

  He's just twisted his formula, cooked it differently, said Max Strand, forcing his way into the conversation.

  His prey are now live young female victims to find oneness and wholeness with his warped idea of the universe and how it works? her unconscious asked in a tone of disbelief.

  It's a very real possibility that one of his personalities has branched out, Dr. Coran, added a gray, ashen-looking Max Strand. It's him, all right. I'd stake my career on it. Daryl is the Digger.

  NINE

  Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.

  — PLUTARCH, A.D. 46-120

  Later that morning

  DOESN'T want to talk to anyone, including a lawyer. Just wants you, Jess,” said Eriq, who had awakened her at 11 A.M., allowing her two and a half hours' sleep. They'd come down to the interrogation room together.

  “I know my rights!” shouted Daryl Cahil into the oneway mirror from inside the interrogation room, where he paced like a caged animal. “You can't do this to me. I'm not the Skull guy! Get me Dr. Coran. I want to talk to Coran. Get me Coran.”

  “So, he's not exactly confessing?” asked Jessica, standing on the other side of the mirror as two FBI interrogators were fast becoming frustrated with Cahil and getting nowhere.

  “Goes back and forth. One moment he's confessing, the other he's denying. But he doesn't know enough details about the crimes, the MO,” explained Eriq. “At least that's the game he's playing.”

  The intercom picked him up loud and clear now. “Don't listen to this idiot or his crotchety bitch, Cessie. She lied to you about me. I'm clean. Been cured of all that sickness that once drove me.”

  “Sounds like another voice,” said Dr. Albert Coulongua, an African-born FBI criminal psychiatrist who'd been called down by Eriq to study the suspect's reactions. “He's manifesting different personalities, I'm afraid, and I don't know which one you ought to be interrogating.”

  “Maybe it would be helpful if you were in there with us, Dr. Coulongua,” suggested Eriq. “Kinda as a . . . a . . .”

  “Referee?”

  “Translator.”

  “Problem is, one of his manifestations has really objected to my being on hand.”

  “Then stay close for consult if we need it, all right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jessica studied the man through the mirror. The rattle of chains came so loudly through the intercom that it pierced her ears painfully. Cahil's hands and feet struggled with the shackles. His body appeared a sad, awkward, gaunt skeletal shell. Suffering from malnourishment, he seemed a man almost without shadow. In fact, Jessica found herself having to search for his shadow as he made his way back to a chair and sat dejected at the interrogation table.

  Eriq pulled the interrogation team, leaving Daryl alone for the moment.

  Cahil's head appeared out of sync with the rest of his body. His head dwarfed his shoulders, threatened to pull from its moorings and roll from his bony frame at any given moment. His forehead creased with veins that looked ready to explode. Emaciated and pale, he appeared too frail to overpower anyone, much less a string of victims in a matter of six weeks. His intense green eyes, massive forehead and balding scalp dominated his appearance, making him look like a mad scientist escaped from a bad science-fiction film. Mulling over his obvious physical limitations, Jessica imagined that prison life for his foul cemetery acts had taken its toll. She also had trouble squaring his height and weight with that of the shadowy figure who'd left such deep impressions in the Georgia soil at the death scene there.

  She looked at Dr. Coulongua. “Any suggestions?”

  “I think your plan to use the Rheil tissue you recovered is good. Shock him . . . shake him up. His other selves are a bit too onstage and outraged right now. Knock them off and who knows? The real Daryl may appear. Then work on gaining his trust.”

  Jessica was unhappy about all the multiple-personality talk. “We don't want to set him up for another stint in a hospital, Eriq. We want the real man to stand trial for the real crimes he's committed.”

  “As does Daryl, or so he has been saying,” said Coulongua.

  “Blame it on someone else who possesses him. Nice dodge,” said Jessica.

  “Play back the tape from where I had you dub it, Agent Hanson,” countered Coulongua. Hanson had been called in to guard the prisoner.

  On the videotape, Jessica and Eriq heard a confession. “I'm responsible for those four murders. I did it, and I should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

  On the videotape, Jessica and Eriq saw that it was Cahil, but he had transformed into another person altogether. Every nuance, every inflection and intonation different, yet all emanating from one man.

  “So . . . if we already have Cahil's confession . . .”said Jessica.

  “That confession is from the personality isolated as the star of his own show. He is strong, dominating, but he refers to himself as 'Keyhoe' and he really only seems to want the notoriety of being the Skull-digger, taking responsibility for the killings for the spotlight of it all. His core personality is extremely fragmented, but only the real Daryl seems to know right from wrong in a legal sense.”

  “So he wants to confess, but not really?”

  “Other sides of him won't allow it.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Coulongua.”

  Eriq squinted and nodded. “And if we can say that the confessor is the dominant, true personality—the real Cahil— then that's going to help our case, right?”

  “We've got to be doubly careful now, Eriq, to verify everything he cops to,” cautioned Jessica. “He's got to have prior knowledge of the cross found in the victims' skulls, and whose DNA is inside this vial.” She held up the brain tissue sample that had been returned to her by Jere, who'd taken enough for the DNA analysis. Seeing the item for the first time, Dr. Coulongua's black face took on an ashen hue.

  ON entering the interrogation room, Jessica found Cahil's stare unnerving. He eyed her suspiciously and studied her silently—now and then a glow of amazement lit up his face. She imagined these strange, dark, penetrating eyes pinning his victims.

  “You came . . . you finally came, Dr. Coran. All the way here just to talk to me? I didn't think you would. Will you tell these idiots they've got the wrong man?”

  “I can only determine that after we've had a chance to chat, Mr. Cahil.”

  After several hours of what began to feel like useless interrogation of a lunatic talking in circles as frustrating as any professor of philosophy J
essica had ever had the misfortune of meeting, Jessica displayed the vial bursting full with the brain tissue. “Familiar, Mr. Cahil? We found this in your freezer in Morristown.”

  His eyes widened and his skin shivered like a ripple of fear manifesting itself along every inch of his epidermis. “I knew I should've eaten it. But Keyhoe wanted to keep it for this day.”

  Eriq and Jessica exchanged a look. “Why didn't you consume it?” asked Eriq.

  “Like I said: Keyhoe. He hurts me if I don't do what he

  says.”

  “Keyhoe wanted it for a special occasion like this, huh?” asked Jessica. “Well, Daryl, would you care to tell us who it belonged to at one time?”

  “I don't know. I really don't. Do you?”

  Jessica, determined to corner the elusive Cahil, lied now. “DNA tests tell us it belonged to the Gleason woman, Anna Gleason, killed in Richmond.”

  “I'm no fool. It takes weeks, months sometimes, to get DNA test results back.”

  “Preliminary reports are back, and my lab people've hazarded a guess as to how long this beauty has been on ice. The time frame puts it close to the Gleason slaying. Now, do you want to dispute that?”

  “He sent it to me. The Seeker killed her and sent it to me. I've never lied about that. Defied Keyhoe when I put the fact on my website.”

  “The Seeker? And who is that? One of your multiples?” asked Eriq.

  “The Seeker isn't me; I am not the Seeker. He did this, not me.”

  “Someone else, somebody outside your head sent it to you?” Eriq pressed. “Do you expect us to believe that, Daryl?” “No. I mean yes, a guy who contacts me on the Web, calls himself the Seeker.”

  “It's always somebody else's doing, isn't it, Cahil?” Eriq shouted.

  Jessica dovetailed this with, “Dr. Deitze ever point that out to you, Cahil? That you can't seem to take responsibility for any of your actions?”

  “I served my time for what I did, but I'm not the Digger any more than you are, and I do not advocate murder on my website.”

  Jessica went on the attack with a subtle, calm voice. “But you advocate eating a portion of the brain, the Island of Rheil, and—”

  “You know I do, but it's different now.”

  “—there's no way to get that nourishment, Cahil, without cutting open somebody's head for it.”

  “Read my site, Doctor. With Dr. Deitze's help, I've worked out a solution, a spiritual solution that doesn't rely on ingesting the actual thing. You make replicas of the brain and the Island of Rheil with clay, with pasta hidden inside, and you feed symbolically, you see. Like . . . like the body of the host, the blood of the host, all that. Same difference.”

  Jessica had told Eriq of the strange practice and the clay brains found by Strand in the basement at Cahil's home. “Are you telling me that if I dug around in one of your clay brains, I'd find a pasta replication of the Island of Rheil?”

  “That's right. I've been producing them for people. They order them through my Web page.”

  “Isn't that just swell and hunky-dory,” said Eriq. “That way nobody gets hurt. But people have been hurt—four women murdered now, Cahil, and you killed them!”

  “No, I tell you! I didn't do it. And I'm not talking to you! I'm talking to Dr. Coran.”

  “Killed them for that part of their brains you believe houses their souls,” continued Eriq. “So you could have power over their souls in this life and the afterlife, right? Right?”

  Cahil cringed and physically went into himself, turtle fashion. Jessica feared they were about to lose him.

  “Isn't that right, Daryl! Isn't it!”

  “Chief! Chief Santiva!” Jessica shouted Eriq down. “Can we talk outside?” She picked up the vial containing the oddly shaped frozen scrap of gray matter, fearful Cahil or one of his personalities would throw it down his throat if he got hold of it. She dropped the vial into her lab coat pocket. “While we're outside, Mr. Cahil, I want you to look closely at this.” She laid out a sketch of the cross left etched at the posterior of Amanda Manning's skull in Florida. “And I want to know what it means to you.”

  “That's my symbol for the Island of Rheil.” His words stopped the FBI agents from leaving. “It's the same basic shape you see, that is if you look at it in the right attitude.”

  “Where on the victim's body did you mark this symbol for us to find, Daryl?”

  “Where on the body? I haven't any idea what you mean. How could I? Since I did not kill those girls. I would only be guessing.”

  “Exactly where near or on the bodies of the victims?” Jessica pressed.

  “I'm sure I wouldn't know.” His voice had become so proper and correct now.

  The two FBI people now glared at one another for a moment before Eriq stepped outside and she followed. With the door closed, Jessica said, “Your angry tone of voice and your provoking him will only shut him down, Eriq.”

  “I can't stand this creep.”

  “We can't succeed at getting information out of him if he shuts down. It's as good as if he were to lawyer up.” Coulongua added, “Chief Santiva, he must be handled with a certain compassion and tolerance if—”

  “Compassion and tolerance? Listen to this guy, Jess!” The Skull-digger needs our understanding.”

  Jessica took a deep breath. “We have to go carefully here, Eriq.”

  Coulongua added, “He may well have contacted you, Dr. Coran, to give himself up not because he's guilty, but only to remind the world of his existence, wanting to grab the headlines for himself, while someone else—someone who actually committed the murders—goes free.”

  “My sentiments, exactly,” added Jessica.

  Eriq said, “Of course, I understand that but—”

  “But HQ wants results yesterday, I know,” she said. “And I know that you're on edge. All right. I'm here. Let me talk again to the Ghoul.”

  She and a more-subdued Eriq returned to the interrogation room. Jessica found herself again engaged in another round-robin session with Cahil, who kept changing like a chameleon with every other question.

  “Tell me more about this symbol of yours, Cahil.”

  He took on the mannerisms of a woman before their eyes, and he explained in a distinctly female voice, “The cross represents the eternal within us all, the holy trinity of man, horizon and godhood achieved through contact with the eternal cosmic mind.”

  The female voice sounded familiar to Jessica. She put it together with the phone call she'd received in Jacksonville. “Can you guess where I first saw this representation, Cahil?” She wanted him to hang himself. Only the killer would know the answer to this question.

  “Likely took it off Cahil's Web page,” the female voice replied. “No, the very first time I would have encountered it. You left it for me to find, remember?”

  His head shook slowly from side to side. “Don't know what you're talking about.”

  “All right ... all right, but maybe Cahil does?”

  “Nothing Cahil knows is worth your time,” continued the female persona.

  “OK . . . Listen . . . What's your name?”

  “Cesillia. Name is Cesillia, but he insists on calling me Cessie—when he's not being vulgar.”

  Jessica's tilted her eyes and chin toward the ceiling in exaggerated fashion. “You're the woman who first contacted me, tipping me off to Cahil's being the Skull-digger. Aren't you?”

  “I'm his wife. Got a problem with that? Wife . . . naughty wife, that's me. I did it as a prank, you know.” She got up, the chains rattling, and she seductively made her way toward Jessica. “You like women in chains, Dr. Jessica?” she asked. “We could be so good together.”

  “Sit down!” shouted Eriq, threatening to take Cahil in hand.

  Cesillia looked at him with disdain but did as told. She then continued, “We married the second year of his imprisonment. Surely, Deitze told you about me? I waited for the bastard all this time—a damn decade. But now . . . now that he's free, I ju
st can't deal with all his shit. Hell, I've run away before but always came back, but this . . . this fear that he could be the Skull-digger—the one you're all after— it ... it terrifies me.” Now she was simply being over-dramatic. She didn't sound terrified but rather mocking.

  “How did you get my number?”

  “He gave it to me. Dared me to call you and tell his secrets. He ought to've known I would.”

  “OK, how did he—Cahil—get the number?”

  She paused to dry tears on her sleeve, rattling chains as she did. “I left it with a note begging him to give himself up.”

  “No, how did he originally come by the number?”

  She shrugged in a feminine show of confusion, rising again from her seat and placing her shackled wrists on the table, snaking them toward Jessica. “He's grown bored with me. He wants you, Dr. Coran. He wants to give himself up and over to you.”

  “And is that what you're doing? Giving yourself up?”

  She recoiled, the chain rattling anew. “No! Not me! I could never hurt anyone, including Daryl.”

  “Then why did you call me?”

  “To clear my name.”

  “Cesillia's name?”

  “It's damned crowded living in here,” she replied, pressing a palm against her head. “And in this crowd, it's every woman for herself.”

  Another blinking of his eyes and a slight shake of the head, and Cahil transformed back to his core personality. A masculine voice replaced Cesillia's. “I want you to catch this guy so I can be cleared. I can help you.”

  Eriq shook his head and scratched behind his left ear. “Tell us about the cosmic mind, Daryl. How if you eat enough of these brain pieces, you will build your own soul exponentially.”

  “I tell you I'm past that stuff. I preach that it be done only in the symbolic sense.”

  “Just which one of your personalities is the Skull-digger, Mr. Cahil?” asked Jessica.

  “I believe the Digger is someone who's plugged in to my website, someone who doesn't care for the symbolic but must have the real thing . . . the Island of Rheil. The thing you had in your little plastic jar, that came to my address wrapped in tinfoil. It came from the killer: UPS. “Your fridge, Mr. Cahil, was filled with animal brains, as well. All wrapped in tinfoil and newspaper,” Jessica countered.