Grave Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  She turned to Sorrento, his gun smoking. How long had he been there? How much of her behavior he had witnessed, she did not know.

  The rains had softened and the sky along with it, a hint of daybreak showing through in the east.

  Mike Sorrento stepped before her, and he stared at the scene: All but Kenyon's head extended from the alligator's mouth, his brain crushed inside the monstrous jaws. “Makes for a fitting metaphor for the man's life.”

  “Going to make one hell of a forensic photo, too,” she replied, standing over the scene.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, one hell of a shot. Good of you to put Kenyon out of his misery.”

  “I shot the gator, not Kenyon.”

  “No, I shot the gator,” he disagreed.

  “Then we both shot the thing.”

  “How long did Kenyon suffer?”

  “All of his life, I'd say.”

  They stared for a moment at one another, each keeping silent. Jessica again wondered how much Mike Sorrento had seen, and how much his remarks were meant to elicit from her. In the distance, they heard Konrath calling out, trying to locate their position. I don't want anyone thinking we just sat here and let the alligator do our job for us,” she said.

  “I can't imagine anyone thinking that, Dr. Coran.”

  “I stopped him with a vine strung across his path. The moment he fell, the gator grabbed him. There was no pulling him to safety.”

  “I know . . . and you didn't have time to react. I saw the whole thing,” he concurred. “And if it becomes necessary, Jessica, I'll back you up.”

  It wasn't lost on her that this was the first time he'd called her Jessica. Now that they shared a secret, he presumed them closer, she imagined.

  Konrath came through the underbrush and stared at the scene. “Jesus,” he said. “Terrible way to go.”

  “No more so than his victims,” Sorrento replied.

  Jessica knew that even dead, the gator's digestive juices would only continue to eat away at Lara Swantor's flesh. “Look around for that brain saw. It's got to be around here someplace.”

  The two men did so, and Sorrento complained, “It's likely in the water, six feet under.”

  “No, here it is!” shouted Konrath holding it up.

  “Let me have it.” Jessica examined the machine and expertly started it. “Good, it's still functioning.”

  “What're you going to do?” asked Sorrento.

  “I'm getting what's left of that woman out of that beast, OK? Now, first thing we need to do is pry open the gator's mouth and get Kenyon's weight off. Then I want you two to help me roll that damned beast on its back. I'm going to cut it open.”

  “Don't you want to wait? Get a CSI team in here, photos, the whole nine yards?” asked Sorrento. “Cover our asses, so to speak?” “Some things can't wait. We couldn't save this woman in life, least we can do is help her in death.”

  “How much of the woman do you hope to recover?” asked Konrath.

  “Gators swallow whole chunks, like sharks. Most of her will be intact.”

  O'Hurley came through the brush on a makeshift splint. He gaped at the scene, and Konrath brought him up to date. Together, the three men pried Kenyon from the monster's jaws. Jessica and the others grimaced at the sight of the crushed skull and oozing gray matter. They then rolled the gator onto its back. In a moment, the alligator's bulk quit shimmying under the blue light of dawn, and it lay now on its back, its green-to-white stomach shimmering like glowing mildew.

  Jessica revved up the bone cutter again and began the incision, unconcerned about precision as the cutter sailed through the tough underbelly of the twelve-foot-long monster.

  Sorrento in a failed attempt to ease the tension said, “Some cesarean section you've got going here, Doc.”

  After the difficult work of the center cut, a visible, odious gas flume expelled from the stomach, sending Jessica back-peddling, the odor too much to bear. When it was safe to return, she cut two flap wings at top and bottom of the original cut.

  With no other instruments to work with, she worked in butcher fashion to open the stomach lining. More gas fumes erupted, and Jessica said, “Think there's something here.” She grabbed hold of a gooey yellow swath of clothing and pulled at it. A large portion of the raincoat. She was finding nothing in the way of flesh and bone.

  Working on, without gloves, she used her blood-smeared hands to pull back the tough, unyielding skin once more. Sorrento lent a hand, holding back one of the massive flaps, the odor of the insides threatening to make him ill when Jessica declared, “There's no Mrs. Swantor here. She's got to be out there somewhere.”

  “In the woods?”

  “In the river?”

  “Someplace other than the gator.”

  “She may've drowned.”

  “Maybe the gator has a hole someplace below the water where he stashes food.”

  “She could be in shock, wandering about in a daze.”

  The theories came fast and furious.

  They began calling her name, their voices wafting through the thickets and out over the river. No answer.

  “We'll get some help from the cutter, do a thorough search of the entire area,” suggested Konrath.

  Jessica searched for her cellular phone but realized it must be in the Mississippi muck that Konrath and Sorrento had pulled her from. “All right,” she said, relenting. Looking down at herself, she saw that she was covered in animal blood and tissue, caked in with mud. Ignoring this, she began to spout orders. “Yeah, we need reinforcements. You're right.”

  “We have some black-water divers aboard the cutter. We'll get them out here, too. We'll find Mrs. Swantor,” Konrath assured her.

  Jessica breathed deeply and rubbed the back of her aching neck. “We've got to grid the house, the backyard and the yacht as well as three additional crime scenes. There's a total of six bodies, seven if Mrs. Swantor is found dead. And we need to confiscate the tapes that Swantor made aboard his—”

  “Jess, I think you need some rest and—” began Sorrento.

  “Rest?”

  “—to step back. Let others handle things from here on,” he suggested.

  “You're cold and shivering, Dr. Coran,” added Konrath. “We could all use some hot food, nourishment, coffee. It's been a rough night.”

  Sorrento took her by the shoulders and firmly said, “I'll stay behind, keep any animals from getting at the bodies until you send in a team, Doctor.”

  “Good news is we've put an end to the Skull-digger. I'll let them know back at headquarters, get the word out.”

  “Come on, O'Hurley,” said Konrath. “You need that ankle taken care of.”

  Jessica again thanked Sorrento for all he'd done, and then she thanked the Coast Guard men. Looking up at the top of the rise, she saw sunlight up there above this backwater hole.

  “Yeah, you're right, Mike. I'll be able to coordinate everything from the ship a lot more efficiently than from here.”

  “Exactly.”

  Along with Konrath and O'Hurley, Jessica made her way up the incline, climbing for the light.

  SORRENTO watched all the others leave. When he felt certain he was alone, he stepped around to Grant Kenyon's shattered head. He easily plucked away large pieces of shattered bone from the skullcap created by the powerful jaws of the dead gator lying nearby. He squatted over the man's exposed gray matter, removing more and more of the fractured pieces from around it. He then, curious, proceeded to dig with his hands, and he liked the texture and feel of the cortical matter on his fingertips. Finally, Sorrento dared taste Kenyon's smashed brain.

  The head was fractured wide, part of the skull easily picked apart like an eggshell. He found pieces, shards, whole chunks easy to prize out, just like feeding on a large walnut. Other parts had to be ripped with some difficulty from the crushed skull. Sorrento was convinced that this man's brain held power after he had cannibalized so many, and that if he now consumed Kenyon's brain, he might quite possibly
have a glimpse at this “cosmic mind” he had read so much about on his computer since he had first logged on to the website run by Cahil, after a high-school kid up in Chimera, Louisiana, had first contacted him about it. Something about Cahil's suggestions were hypnotic, as radical as they sounded. But he had never entertained the idea that Cahil was the real Skull-digger. But rather that Cahil had influenced the Skull-digger.

  Peering in through the cracks of Kenyon's demolished skull, he saw there was more inside he could not get at because his hand was too large to reach inside. He saw the bone saw lying where Jessica had left it, but dared not use it. That would tip his hand. Instead, he grabbed up a rock and smashed it against the cranium, opening the already existing fissures wider still. Using his Swiss Army knife, he managed to dig out more of the brain. He fed on it, not caring for the taste, but devouring it nonetheless for its magical power.

  The situation, the location, it was all so perfect for his needs. No one need ever know. Everyone would simply believe the alligator got at Kenyon's brain before it died. Jessica had been too busy worrying over the woman's remains to pay close attention to the condition of Kenyon's brain.

  No one would be the wiser ... no one but Michael Sorrento.

  Just then he heard a twig snap, and turning, the raw gray matter of what was left of Kenyon's brain in his hand, he saw a naked, shivering woman staring at him, but her eyes didn't register a thing. It was Mrs. Swantor, and she was in complete shock.

  He stood and smiled, stepped toward her and said, “Mrs. Swantor . . . I'm FBI Agent Mike Sorrento. I've been looking for you everywhere.”

  She could not speak—showing only fear and looking like a deer caught in headlights. Frozen. Still, she might bolt. She stared past him at the bodies of the gator and Kenyon. Sorrento wondered how long she'd been standing here, staring; how much she had seen.

  A Coast Guard helicopter began whirring overhead, a deafening sound. Sorrento guided the woman beneath a thicket of trees. “Stay right here, Mrs. Swantor, until I come back.” He went for the bone cutter. The sound it would make was no longer a concern.

  EPILOGUE

  And keeps the palace of the soul

  — EDMUND WALTER, 1606-1687

  Several months later

  DARYL Thomas Cahil was being held on charges that his website instigated a murder spree, and he was being held for observation at the same facility where he had spent thirteen years under the care of Dr. Jack Deitze. A case was being put together that Daryl was a danger to himself and others. Still, Jessica felt certain that charges brought against Daryl would never stick unless a direct link could be drawn between his text and graphics and the two killers, Kenyon and Swantor. The freedom of speech issue regarding dangerous and inflammatory materials spread across the Web would protect Cahil and others like him. Still, the legal team set against him asked for and got full cooperation from Jessica, J.T. and the FBI Cyber Squad. They cooperated in showing how the website had influenced first the kill spree and then the madness unique to Swantor. The trial was set for next month in a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia.

  In the meantime, Daryl had become despondent since he was denied the fame of the Skull-digger—and access to a computer. Still, Jessica feared, the U.S. vs. Cahil would end with his release, unless federal prosecutors could prove conclusively he had intended to incite behavior such as Kenyon's kill spree and Swantor's act committed against Selese Montoya, James Harris, and his ex wife. They must prove beyond reasonable doubt that Daryl's warped ideas were tantamount to criminal intent, that he meant—like a cyber prophet, a modern-day Charlie Manson—to bring about the death of others. Kenyon's audiotapes represented exhibits one through four; Swantor's computer video of Selese Montoya's death number five. Kenyon had killed Sheriff Danby Potter and Jervis Swantor as well, and presumably Mrs. Swantor, whose body had never surfaced. The prosecutors would back their arguments with Swantor's horrible actions, citing that Daryl's website had had a domino effect.

  Daryl might be his own worst enemy at his trial, however, since the stronger the prosecution's case for intent and influence grew, the happier he became with his growing, newfound notoriety. When he heard about Swantor's having filmed Kenyon's last murder, sending it into cyberspace, he became giddy with his power over the two men. Jessica hoped his smugness would hang him in the courtroom.

  It had grown late in the day when John Thorpe entered Jessica's office at Quantico carrying a stack of binders. “Here're the autopsy reports from Grand Isle, all six of them.”

  She indicated a cleared spot to her left. “Right there.”

  He placed the thick bundle of reports in a pile on her desk. “You really need more reading?” he joked.

  Jessica had not looked at the death scenes involving so many at the Swantor estate on Grand Isle. She had decided, once she had returned to the comfort and warmth of the Coast Guard cutter that horrible morning, that she didn't want any more to do with the Skull-digger case. She stayed on long enough to monitor the massive manhunt launched from the air, the ground and underwater for Mrs. Lara Swantor. The woman was never found, dead or alive. After that failed attempt, Jessica had chosen to step back, allowing others to clean up the mess left in Kenyon's and Swantor's wake. With so much devastation, so many lives lost in a single night on the island, six autopsies—seven if she were to count the postmortem on the alligator—it had taken all this time to entirely complete the forensic work, so that every murder scene from the yacht to the house, and Ken-yon's end, could be understood down to the smallest detail. Except for the official reports, only the nightmares created by the work of the Skull-digger lingered on.

  “Everything's in order, Jess,” J.T. assured her. “Damned fitting that alligator should chomp down Kenyon's brain, too.”

  “I thought it a fitting justice,” she agreed.

  “No chance for a Jack Deitze to turn him into a pet project. As for the protocols, trust me, Jess . . . you can rest assured the CSI and M.E. teams sent to Grand Isle did a first-rate analysis of all three crime scenes—the yacht, the house and the backyard—as well as the site where Kenyon was killed.”

  “I'm sure they did a thorough job of it, John. All the same, you know how I operate.”

  He frowned and nodded, going for the coffeepot. “I know ... I know . . . bound to review it.”

  “I'll just give it a quick going over.”

  J.T. poured himself the last of the coffee, sat down across from her and watched her go to work on the files, one for each victim and the two perpetrators. “Like I said,” Thorpe spoke between sips of the acrid coffee. “The team New Orleans put together paints a clear picture of how each died, and by whose hand each had met his or her end.” “You know, John, you don't have to go over them again with me.”

  J.T. smiled. “I'll just hang for a little while, in case you need me to go over any of the fine points with you.” He finished with a yawn.

  She sat back in her chair and drummed a pencil on her desk as she continued to read.

  “You ought to get home to Richard. Leave this for tomorrow, and get that drumming habit fixed.”

  “I'm not planning to review every item and detail to-night. Mostly interested in the Kenyon and Swantor reports, see if there's anything in either or both that might strengthen the case against that other freak, Cahil.”

  She wanted to rush home to Richard. They had made plans for the evening. But looking over the protocol made by the attending FBI medical examiner from field to lab at Grand Island and in New Orleans worried her for some reason. All appeared exactly as Jessica recalled it, and the photos brought back graphic memories of the event, but she felt an obligation to at least peruse the final reports.

  Something caught her eye, and she leaned forward in her chair, causing it to squeal. This got J.T.'s attention. “What is it now?” he asked.

  “What's this about the bone cutter going missing, J.T.?”

  “It was never recovered, so far as I could tell from my reading of it.
”

  “But it was there. I used it on the damned alligator.”

  “I guess someone must've thought it'd make a hell of a souvenir.”

  “That'd figure. Damn, you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.”

  “Ain't it the truth.”

  “I knew I shoulda kept control of the damn scene, John. You know as well as I do that that's no ordinary bone saw. It could speak volumes to a jury.”

  “Kenyon's not on trial, Cahil is. It's unlikely the bone saw would get in, Jess.”

  “We'll never know now, will we?”

  “Jess, they have a strong case against Cahil.”

  “All because I couldn't take any more. Thanks to my turning every goddamn thing over to—”

  “Stop it. Damn it, Jess. We've been over this. You won't be viewed as weak because you stepped away. You chased this guy across what, six, seven states. You'd been through enough hell for three agents down there, and it was time to turn over the reins, that's all.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Who told me what?”

  “That it was time to turn over the reins, that I was exhausted beyond my limit.”

  “Well ... no one put it in those terms.”

  “Who put it in any terms?”

  “Your friend Mike Sorrento for one, that Captain Quarels of the Coast Guard cutter for another.”

  “I see . . .”

  “Jess, you're only human. You did your job, and you did it well.”

  “Yeah ... I did my job. I rushed back here when I should have remained at least as a consult on the postmortems.”

  “You've already had this talk with Eriq. No one's holding it against you.”

  The medical team that had taken over consisted of a small army of men and women who had to autopsy six bodies: Selese Montoya, Sheriff Danby Potter, Petty Officer Nicholas LaPlante, Dr. James Harris, Dr. Jervis Swantor and Dr. Grant Kenyon.