Grave Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Owens, can you drive me to the airport?” Jessica asked.

  “Of course.” She detected a note of happy anticipation in his two-word response.

  “I've got to hook up with Eriq Santiva and meet this guy Cahil, face-to-face.”

  “Wish I had ten minutes alone with him,” commented Strand. “Or at very least help in his interrogation, but I'm not feeling so well, and doctors tell me I need another operation, so I'll be sticking close to home.”

  “Sorry to hear it. Your insights have been extremely helpful, Max.”

  “Just get the confession, Dr. Coran.”

  “Do you think you can get a confession out of him?” asked Owens.

  “With this in my possession”—she held up the formaldehyde-filled vial in which the tissue found in Cahil's refrigerator floated—”we might have the leverage needed to shock him into confessing, yes.” Making certain the cap was properly tightened, she placed it again inside her medical bag.

  “Are you sure you can take that without it having been put through the chain of evidence process?” asked Owens.

  “For once, the kid's right,” added Strand. “You break chain of evidence nowadays and you'll get an O.J. result.”

  “I know you're right, Strand, but I need something to scale and gut this guy with, and this . . . this is perfect. So, since we conducted the search and seizure under a federal warrant, I'm officially declaring all evidence goes directly to Quantico. That makes our lab there responsible for the chain of custody. We'll take everything but the dog and cat remains, and should a body be located here, you guys can process it and ship it to Quantico.”

  “Leaving us with an animal-cruelty case against Cahil?” asked Owens. “Thanks a heap.”

  Strand held back a laugh. “Let Fromme choke on that.”

  “Exactly.” Jessica did laugh.

  “A wise move, Dr. Coran. Do an old detective a favor. Put that bastard away forever this time, will you?”

  “I'll certainly do my best.”

  AFTER Jessica Coran got on a flight, leaving New Jersey and the “estate of Rheil” as J.T. had jokingly referred to Cahil's house, Owens and his men canvassed the place another time, while J.T. packed the computer for shipment. Meanwhile, Max Strand oversaw the grid out back to determine if any fresh graves had been dug. Enlisted to help were cadaver dogs. As the dogs worked, Strand wondered again if dogs and other animals had this Island of Rheil in their heads. He asked Owens what he thought of the notion, but Owens said he'd just as soon not give it any more thought.

  Strand felt a pull, a kind of fixation on the question. If animals did not, it might prove interesting; if they did, it might prove there could be some credence to the whole idea of where the soul resided, and if not in this small cross of tissue, then where?

  With the search turning up nothing untoward in the backyard, Strand said his goodbyes to everyone and walked to his car. Earlier, when Owens was busy and J.T. was occupied, Strand had taken one of the cat brains from the refrigerator. He now drove off with it beneath a coat on the passenger seat beside him. When he got to Ash Pine Park, only blocks away, he stopped the car and got out. He reached in and took hold of the cat brain. Discarding the foil wrapping, Strand held the fist-sized walnut-shaped organ over a water fountain, thawing it under the water. He next pulled out his Swiss Army knife and began hacking away at the little brain. He easily opened up the two hemispheres and began searching for the Rheil tissue inside the medulla ob-longata. These many years of chasing Daryl had left him with some knowledge of where to cut.

  He had for many years now monitored Daryl's website. He knew what the man's religion was; and he knew it to be insane. Still, he searched for the island of tissue in the animal brain, curious and wondering.

  It was not a pretty autopsy, he told himself as he now cut deeper into the medulla oblongata and a tiny piece of material fell out and into the dirt and grass at Strand's foot. He tossed the rest of the dead brain into the bushes.

  Slowly, reluctantly, fighting gravity the entire time, Strand went to his knees over where that small bit had fallen, attempting to find it in the grass, but the thing acted as if alive, hiding, camouflaged in the dry, brittle grass.

  Then he saw it, but it wasn't large like the human one, only a fraction of the size. He reached for the thing, and a part of his brain said, Consume it. . . consume it.

  He thought about it, thought how it would taste, how it would feel going down, what it might do to him, whether mad Daryl's claims were true or not. He wondered if it had magical powers or was as magical as one of the blades of grass. Either way, he knew that if he consumed it, the act itself would hold sway over him for the rest of his life. “It's only an animal part,” he said aloud as the wind whipped by and he heard the flutter of trees overhead. The park, an unsavory, broken down piece of real estate the city had for years vowed to clean up, was home to many transients on any given night. Strand searched about himself for his own safety. No one nearby, no one watching him. He didn't see the two figures crouching behind his car.

  Strand now held the slippery item in two fingers and was about to consume it when the lead pipe came crashing down into his skull.

  Two human vultures living in the seedy park had jumped Strand, leaving him bleeding to death as they tore into his pockets. One wanted to take the car, but the other located his ID and threw it at his companion, shouting, “My God, Danny, we've killed a freakin' cop! Forget the car. We gotta run, now!”

  Quantico, Virginia Same morning

  JESSICA, having returned to Quantico, knew she had to immediately log in the evidence she had placed into a vial from Cahil's Morristown home. She hoped after seeing to the chain of evidence protocol that she might take a moment to drop by her office, look over the mail and say some hellos.

  Chief Eriq Santiva met her on the helicopter pad when the FBI chopper landed. It was still early in the morning, and she had gotten little sleep on the chopper, and here he stood, obviously anxious for her to meet with Daryl Thomas Cahil. “Jessica, you look tired. Are you all right? Personally, I couldn't sleep on a chopper if my life depended on it. Was your detour to Morristown helpful?” came Eriq's* volley of questions. “Why isn't Strand with you? He wanted to be here for the kill.” He had watched her climb tiredly from the chopper, her bag at her side. She immediately informed Eriq, “I have to log in evidence gathered at the crime scene in Georgia and at the Morristown location. Did the tire and shoe print casts arrive? Any news from Combs on the victims computer habits?” She finished with a yawn, realizing neither one of them had answers for the other, and then added, “My suitcase is in the chopper.”

  “It's taken care of, Jess. How'd it go in Morristown?” He took hold of her medical bag.

  “That can't be out of my possession, Eriq,” she argued.

  “Can't be out of your sight, and it won't be until we get it inventoried.”

  They found the rooftop door and started down a flight of stairs to the elevator.

  “Actually, it went quite well in both Philly and Morristown,” she informed him. “We learned that Cahil has been operating a website since before leaving prison. One that advocates cannibalizing brains.”

  “Wait a minute, are you telling me that while behind bars, while in an asylum for the criminally insane, that Deitze allowed him to start up a website?”

  “Began as a question-answer thing, information on the workings of the brain—his brain in particular. The brain's magical power and magnificence, all that. People asking him about his crime and him responding, all with Jack Deitze's consent.”

  “Really? Don't tell me, this is Deitze's idea of therapy?” asked an amazed Santiva.

  “Before he left prison he had more than a hundred thousand hits,” she informed Eriq. “Second only to Charlie Man-son's many websites, you know, the ones attracting cult followings on college campuses and high schools across the nation.” They boarded the elevator, and she punched the button for subbasement-one, where evidence an
d lockup were located. Eriq breathed deeply, ending with a sigh. “Yeah . . . I knew about Manson, but not about Cahil on the Web.”

  “Manson's imprisoned for life but set free on the World Wide Web. . . . Jack Deitze thought it a good avenue of release for Cahil, a way to get his reticent patient to open up. Deitze's way was paved by our old friend Dr. Arnold. Deitze characterizes the website as benign.”

  “Benign?”

  “Apparently, he hasn't logged on for a while.” She stepped off the elevator ahead of him, turned and said, “Fact is, the website has been quite informative for our side. It may be enough to nail him. He plastered a photo of a human brain part onto it, and we found the piece he photographed in his freezer.”

  “And you have it with you?”

  She slapped her valise. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then we can nail the bastard—and make no mistake about it, he's a disgusting piece of shit, Jess.”

  They had arrived at the evidence lockup, a huge room of locked cages with shelves floor to ceiling filled with file boxes and all manner of misshapen objects and items. It looked like the secret back rooms of a large museum.

  “Cahil covers his behind with this veneer of symbolic feeding he goes on about,” began Jessica, “but beneath it, he's advocating that people find some sort of immortality by consuming some mysterious swath of tissue inside the human brain. How else to get at it but through cannibalizing a victim? That's advocating murder.”

  Eriq nodded. “If the website is now promoting actually finding and feeding on brain tissue, and we can link him with the Digger killings, then we'll put him away again. This time, we'll get the death penalty.”

  “Yeah . . . now that he's infected countless others with his lunacy. That Jack Deitze had too much of Gabriel Arnold rub off on him. The man doesn't know what the hell he's released on the world. And probably will never acknowledge the harm he's caused.”

  After turning over all the labeled evidence and seeing each officially itemized, she signed off on it all. “I'm keeping hold of this item,” she told the clerk. “It'll need special attention and preservation.”

  The clerk stared at what Jessica showed her but asked no more than the number of the label placed on the vial. “So noted,” the clerk finished.

  “I'm going to want this for interrogating the suspect as well,” Jessica told Eriq. When the clerk held out a pen and a release form, Jessica gave the vial to Etiq. He stared more closely at its contents, his face contracting, his nose contorting a bit as he got a whiff of formaldehyde. Santiva swallowed hard and next held it up to the light and peered through the clear plastic at the island of tissue inside. “Some weird shit, Jess.”

  “It might well lead to a confession.”

  “Well, are you ready for a go at Cahil?”

  “First, I really need a pit stop, Eriq. I need to stop at my office and kick back a moment.”

  “Kick back? This is no time to—”

  “Eriq, I've been up and down the southeast, in and out of airplanes and choppers like a yo-yo for the past week, and I never got to sleep last night. I need to touch base with familiar surroundings, get grounded, OK?”

  “All right. . . OK.”

  “Besides, I want to get an assistant working immediately on DNA from this thing,” she added, taking the vial from him again. “We need to match it to DNA on file for the victims. If it's come from one of them, there's little question that we're on the right track. And I want photos taken of the thing before it deteriorates any further.”

  Reentering the elevator, she pushed the button for the eighteenth floor where her newly renovated offices and labs awaited. “Let me have another look at that thing,” Eriq said, taking the vial and holding it up for another look against the light.

  They rode up in silence, Eriq continuing to stare at the thing in the vial, strangely fascinated by it. When the elevator door opened, and Jessica stepped out ahead of him, he was still staring at the Island of Rheil.

  “I'll take that back for the time being,” she told him.

  “Wonder why Cahil kept it in his freezer,” he replied as he handed it over.

  “Where else would he hoard it?”

  “I mean . . . Why didn't he just eat it, you know? If it's what he pries out of his victim's brain ...”

  “Who knows what goes on inside such a head?” She unlocked her office and stood with the door ajar, the semi-darkness within inviting.

  Eriq added, “But if he's such an addict for this thing?”

  She turned on him, asking, “How the hell should I know, Eriq? We're dealing with a psychotic with a morbid fixation. He doesn't have to make sense, now does he?”

  “Easy, Jess. Just thinking aloud. I'll ask him when we get around to him.”

  Eriq followed her into her office. She had somehow escaped being seen by any of the lab personnel. She wanted to have some peace before any of the others came after her for one thing and another. Still, it felt good to be home. She buzzed Jere Anderson's desk and asked her to come to her office but to tell no one that she was in the building.

  Jere entered, said a quick hello, and got her orders from Jessica. Jessica informed her junior staff member of what she needed done with the strange piece of brain matter in the vial. “Jere, you're in charge.”

  “Thank you for your confidence, Dr. Coran. I won't let you down.”

  “I'm sure you'll handle it in a professional manner, Jere. Now, I'm going to get some much-needed sleep in my office, and I don't want to be disturbed,” she said for Eriq's sake as well as Jere's.

  She skimmed through the messages and mail on her desk while Eriq waited in a high-backed cushioned chair. “That computer is being handled with care, right?” he asked her.

  “J.T.'s seeing to it, along with everything gathered at Cahil's place, except material relative to an animal-cruelty case the field office will develop against the suspect.”

  “Animal case?”

  “He had cat and dog brains in his freezer as well.”

  “Are you saying you stuck Marcus Fromme's people with an animal-cruelty case? That's rich . . . Very good . . . very good.” He laughed and stood. It had been a long time since she'd heard Eriq laugh about anything, and it made her feel good.

  She snatched up a blanket she kept in the office for such occasions and curled up on her couch, thinking Eriq was on his way out. “Give me an hour, maybe two?” she asked.

  “I had copies of the Washington Post and the ever popular Instigator placed on your desk for your return, Jess. They're getting damn nosey and close on our heels.”

  She glanced up to see him holding the two newspapers side by side, photo arrays of all the victims, including Winona Miller in Georgia accompanied screaming headlines in both the tabloid and the legitimate paper. One read:

  BONE SAW, SCALPEL USED BY SKULL-DIGGER WHILE VICTIMS SUFFERED ALIVE

  The other read:

  BRAIN-EATING BONE SAW SLAYER ELUDES FBI, POLICE

  Jessica sat up, scanning the news accounts for any sign that they had knowledge of the cross found on the bodies or anything related to how small a section of the brain had actually been the killer's object. On both counts, the storytellers had nothing. She stood and went to her window, staring out over the Quantico grounds, lush with greenery. “At least the word isn't out on the cross or this Rheil business.”

  “With this kind of sensational case, I'm surprised the other information hasn't leaked,” Eriq replied.

  “In the body of one of the stories, the writer referred to the killer as the 'Brain Snatcher.' The other story referred to him as the 'Brain Cleaver.' Don't they know you have to cleave before you can snatch?” she asked, falling back into the folds of the couch.

  “Cahil had similar news accounts on him when he was brought in. He claims it's the reason he contacted you.”

  “Another reason, you mean? He decided the heat was too much for him.”

  “He claims he's innocent of all charges. That he's not the Digger. That
is, when he's not speaking from other personalities.”

  “Yet he's got a piece of someone's brain at home in the freezer.”

  “There's something you ought to know about his 1990 doings, Jess.”

  “Shoot.”

  “When Cahil was first put away, he copped to using the newspaper obits to select his victims. You find any newspapers accumulating at his residence?”

  “Some, you could say,” she facetiously answered.

  “Too bad you didn't find a bone saw. That's what he used in '90.”

  “Yeah, he sounds good for the Skull-digger, Eriq.”

  “Corroborated now by his own website and that piece of flesh you brought in. I'm hoping for the death penalty this time around.”

  “Yeah, he can do an elocution for us,” she replied. “Hopefully, he'll tell the whole story, beginning with his Richmond victim.” If I tell him what he wants to hear, I can get some sleep, she thought.

  He blew out a long breath of air, his Cuban features darker than ever. “Morristown was good for our side. We match this tissue you found at his place with any of the victims, and we put an end to it.”

  “I'm banking on Cahil, too, Eriq. Still. . . some things don't add up.” Can't help yourself, can you? she reproached herself.

  “Ah, you mean the estimated weight on a shoe print in Georgia that may or may not have been made by Cahil? Not to worry. You have human tissue found in his Morristown home.”

  “What more evidence do we need?” she asked, a mock smile coming over her along with a mock sense of relief. “All the same, we need to check his shoes against the prints taken in Georgia, along with his tire treads, if we ever find his van. As for now, Boss, I gotta get a little sleep.”

  But Eriq was keyed up, not listening to her. “Since he's been incarcerated, no one else has been murdered in his trademark fashion. Like I said, the new killings started up after—after his release—and he's well aware that this time he may go into the general population rather than a safe, private padded room.”