Grave Instinct

NINE

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 Jessica 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 just 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.

Impatient, Santiva stormed at Cahil, shouting, “We have scientific ways of determining your guilt, sir. You left your tire and shoe prints in the mud in Georgia when you killed Winona Miller. You left this representation of your fucking Rheil prize”-he jabbed a finger onto the drawing-”on all your victims.”

Jessica gritted her teeth and muttered to Eriq, “I wanted him to say that, not you, Eriq.”

Cahil lifted his right foot to show off his jailhouse booties. “They stripped me of my shoes. Are they testing my soles?” he asked with a grimacing smile. “Good, because then you'll know it was me. You've got enough to convict me ten times over, so why the hell're we dancing around here?” He ended by screaming. His face had contorted into another personality. “I really liked that one in Georgia. Winona

… Her name was Winona, and she was a tasty young morsel.”

“ To whom am I talking?” asked Jessica.

“ Keyhoe… I'm Keyhoe, aka the Skull-digger.”

“ If you're the killer, where on the bodies did you leave this mark?” she again pressed the picture of the cross with her index finger.

“ On what was left of their heads.”

“ Can you be more precise?”

“ I could be, but I won't. You people bore me.”

“ Again, do you want to tell us the truth about whose brain tissue was found in your freezer?” asked Eriq, his voice evenly controlled now.

Keyhoe replied, “Anna Gleason.”

Jessica realized that Cahil was now simply mimicking what they had already provided him to work with.

“ All the victims had nothing in common, the newspapers said. Said you guys didn't have a clue to connect them. I can tell you what connects them. They all logged on to my website at one time or another. And the killer, me… I fucking hunted them down through cyberspace.”

It was startling to hear this, and Jessica wondered if there could be any truth in it-a theory they had contemplated earlier. That the victims were among the hundreds of thousands who'd logged on out of curiosity over the years. And that Cahil had made physical contact with them.

“ Keyhoe's telling you lies,” said Cahil suddenly. “Look, I'm sure I have likely contributed to this killer's thinking, that perhaps he's a disciple who's gone off the deep end. My website attracts a lot of strange people, weirdos, but I didn't kill anyone-not in 1990 and not now. Somebody's framed me, maybe Keyhoe, and you're too stupid to know that!”

“ Which is it, Cahil? You did it or you didn't?” asked Eriq, tiring of the game.

“ If you're telling us the truth now, Daryl, which of your many cyber disciples do you suspect is the Skull-digger. Who do you believe sent you the brain tissue to frame you?”

“ Maybe the Seeker. He's the one I suspected sent me the Rheil. I said so on the site, in the caption I put on the photo of it.”

Jessica recalled the notation.

“ He's the most outspoken against me, against what I stand for, a symbolic method of glimpsing the eternal mind.”

“ I'm sure of it,” said Eriq sarcastically. “Why don't you let us talk to this Seeker character. Come on, bring him on.”

“ Why didn't you eat it?” asked Jessica. “The Rheil in your possession?”

“ I told you. I only do the symbolic thing now.”

“ Then who would carve your symbol on the victims?” “I told you already, the Seeker.”

“ Why didn't you just eat the evidence?” she pressed again.

“ I saved it for you, as evidence. I read that you were investigating the case, the FBI's most famous.” He paused to study the reaction he'd gotten from them both. Eriq had remained stolid and silent for a moment but now he stood and said, “We're going to book you for all four murders, Cahil! What do you have to say to that?”

“ You've got the right man, but you've also got the wrong man.”

“ Take this piece of human waste back to holding,” Eriq said into the two-way mirror.

Hanson came in and escorted Cahil out, Daryl protesting his innocence while Keyhoe asked for the death penalty.

Again they had ended where they had begun, and the day's long interrogation had come to a grinding halt.

“ Listen, Eriq, we have to match the DNA we took from the brain tissue to one victim's DNA. That single test alone may be enough to bury Cahil if it's a match. And I think we should follow up on what he said about all the victims having made contact with his site. Another nail in his coffin. And we need to look at this guy he calls Seeker that-”

“ This Seeker guy is likely another of his personalities. But you're right about checking on the computer habits of the victims.”

“ Lorena Combs is doing just that from her jurisdiction. She's got the cooperation of the Manning family and the Miller family. I'll call and ask how it's going with her. Meanwhile, I'll ask the Cyber Squad to do the same from here as soon as J.T. gets back with Cahil's computer. But I have to tell you, I have reservations about Daryl being our guy. I pictured a larger man with more strength.”

“ How much strength does it take to pump a syringe of Demoral into a woman's arm?”

“ I just don't want us jumping the gun on this, Eriq. We lock down on this guy as the Skull-digger, and maybe the real guy goes free and starts up someplace else-the West Coast or another country even.”

“ You mean this phantom Seeker that Daryl just made up? Jess, we need the Digger in custody, and we need it now.”

“ You have someone in custody. Patience, Eriq. Give us time at least to develop the evidence we have against Cahil.”

“ I guarantee you, as long as we hold him, Jess, the killings will end. I can promise you that much.”

“ Hold him on the animal-cruelty charges. That will keep him in limbo for weeks if not months.”

“ Animal cruelty. The press will laugh in our faces.”

“ You go ahead and charge him as the Digger then, Eriq. Go right ahead. I suspect that's what's going to happen whatever I say or do.”

“ I want you to back me on this, Jess.”

“ I have to exhaust all leads, Eriq, and I have my doubts about this guy being the Digger. You're a gambler by nature, Eriq, always have been. You want to gamble that at least one of his personalities is guilty, but suppose you're wrong?”

“ One of his personalities did it, Jess.”

“ My instincts are screaming otherwise.”

“ I need your backing on this, Jess.”

“ And you'll have it, as soon as I can give it in good conscience.”

He stormed away from her, obviously as frustrated as she over the direction the case had taken. Cahil had not been shaken by the Rheil tissue in their possession, confusing enough, but he also had given them no real indication he knew where on the bodies the mark had been left by the killer.

“ We both want the same thing, Eriq,” Jessica shouted after his fleeting figure, “to put an end to-” but he was gone.

A gut-gnawing intuition told her that Daryl simply didn't complete the picture, that he was possibly part of it, but not the whole. Cahil had shown little surprise when they put the sketch in front of him. And, if he truly wanted to confess, why didn't he take full advantage and divulge where on the skull the symbol was left. Why hadn't he known the location? Aside from this, his physical size was wrong. The shoe prints hadn't matched, and no weapon or van had been located. She knew she'd have to put all this in a formal report, and that by tomorrow Eriq would have to sober up and get off this addiction he had for Cahil as the Digger.

Although she harbored doubts from the moment she'd met him, Jessica had not completely given up on Cahil as a serious contender for the Digger. She reserved judgment, and after Eriq had left the interrogation area, she went back at Daryl later in the day and again asked him tough and uncompromising questions. After this, in spite of Eriq's lust for Daryl as the killer and what they had found in Morristown, she felt even more certain that if Cahil were involved it was not as the Digger but as an accomplice of some sort. Perhaps he arranged to set the victims up. She went over everything Cahil had said, and what he'd failed to say about the details of the killings. He had been unable to get the calendar straight, which victim came first, second, third and fourth. Dates were confused. Nothing added up.

She left headquarters for home, picking up a takeout meal from a Quantico restaurant called Mia's Place. Arriving at her silent house, she placed the food on hold and put in a call to Richard. They had a long conversation, both keeping to light subjects. When he brought up the case she was working on, she changed the subject to his own mission there in China. Everything was going well, he told her and changed the subject to a sporting event he was scheduled to see there. After exchanging words of love, they said goodbye.

She then called Lorena Combs, asking if she had any news on the computer habits of the Georgia and Florida victims. “Examine the E-mails for this E-address,” suggested Jessica, giving her Cahil's website address. “See if they ever logged on to the site.”

“ So, you're still fixed on the New Jersey Ghoul?” Lorena asked.

“ Not a hundred percent, but if we can make a connection with one of his victims having been in contact, we might more easily get a federal warrant to open and scrutinize all the subscribers to Cahil's site.”

“ I'll see what comes of it,” Combs replied and then said good night.

Jessica next located J.T. by phone. He finally had gotten back from New Jersey with Cahil's computer. She updated him on their interrogations of Daryl. “I doubt he's our primary target, and I'm beginning to doubt if he's involved at all, other than as a ready patsy.”

“ Funny, Eriq says it went well and that you guys nailed his ass to the wall.”

“ When did you talk to Eriq?”

“ Got a call from him while on the plane back.”

“ Cahil claims that all the victims had at one time or another logged on to his website.”

“ I assure, you, Jess,” he replied, “Cahil could not know that unless the individuals chose to reveal themselves to him by name. He's likely blowing smoke.”

“ Still, there's the possibility, right? Given the sheer numbers logging on, I must assume some foolish people find his computer persona somehow charismatic.”

“ Fact is, anyone can project a charismatic image over the Net. Still, it's unlikely he'd leave word in his correspondence with a victim's actual name for us to find. And like I said, he'd have to convince them to give him personal information, address, meeting place. We'll do best to get our cyber experts to help out here, Jess.”

“ And as for this Seeker guy?”

“ Well, code names can only be traced with help from the server, unless our experts can find a way to hack into the guy's computer.”

“ How likely is that?”

“ Fifty-fifty, depending on what kind of firewalls he's put up.”

“ Give it a try.”

“ Could be this Seeker is just another of Cahil's other selves, you know. If he's as multiple as Eriq says he is, he likely has more than one computer persona as well.”

“ You have been talking to Eriq.”

“ Yeah, I have.”

“ All right, get the computer search underway. Let me know where it leads,” she said.

“ Like Max Strand said, there'll be roadblocks.”

“ Who knows, maybe the server will be cooperative.”

“ Like they were after Nine-Eleven?” J.T. facetiously asked.

“ Maybe they've learned something since then.”

“ I won't hold my breath, Jess. This company in particular guards its subscriber list with a vengeance.”

They said their goodbyes and Jessica sat upright in bed and ate. While using the remote, flipping through TV land, she picked at her meal. She then took a shower to the sound of argument and laughter on the late-night TV talk show Real Time with Bill Maker. The soothing hot shower eased the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders, and she trusted this would help her to sleep soundly.

Donning a terry-cloth robe, she returned to the bed, where a second plate, filled with vegetables and fruits, awaited her. Suddenly the TV chatter turned to the Digger. Bill Maher made a grim joke about the Digger, asking why the Skull-digger hadn't gone after the Dolphins in Discovery Cove if he wanted brains. “What's so brainy about the average American woman?” he asked the audience, garnering a wave of groans instead of laughs. Everyone on the show was critical of how the police was handling the case. The public had learned many of the shocking details, except those withheld by authorities. Everyone feared it was the beginning of a long nightmare. “News of FBI involvement,” according to Maher, “has not calmed anyone's brain.”

Jessica lay her head down and in a moment the TV talk show was replaced by the interrogation room, but it had clouds all around its periphery. She was again grilling Daryl, who wore a Cheshire cat's grin during the entire interview.

“ What's this we found in your house in Newark, Daryl?” she demanded, holding out a small bag filled with seeds.

“ Birdseed,” Cahil announced. “I feed the birds out back of the house.”

“ Other than the house in Morristown, Daryl, is there someplace else you spend time?” asked Jessica.

“ One place else, yes.”

“ And where is it located?”

Cahil pointed to his head.

Jessica gritted her teeth, feeling horribly uncomfortable in such proximity to the man. She felt his horrible hot breath on her.

“ Any other physical place outside your head, that we might search?” she pressed.

He looked absolutely befuddled by this, losing the grin, concentrating on her words to the point she thought his head would explode.

“ Do you reside anywhere else, say in a van, for instance?” asked Jessica.

“ Nah, no other space or place. This is it…”

Jessica studied the man's off-center features and his black-bean pupils to determine if he were lying or not. But there was no life in his eyes, so no reading them. She watched his hands for signs of clenching or cutting himself with his nails. She watched his breathing and his movements for any sign of telltale lying. But there was nothing to read in this man, nothing in his body language, eyes, tone or stance. The system had taught him well. He was as zombielike in this dream as he had been in the actual interrogation.

“ I was very popular when I was in prison,” Daryl said. “Three women wanted to marry me.”

“ Really?”

“ Started out as pen pals. They all proposed marriage. They wanted me to impregnate them, to have my child.”

I can see why, Jessica thought. “Daryl, have you been in contact with any of these women since leaving prison?”

“ Of course, the ones who're alive.” His grin proved satanically grim.

“ One of them died in Richmond, one in Winston-Salem, the third in Jacksonville, Florida.”

Jessica started in her sleep, her body involuntarily tensing and releasing, waking her in the process. She knew on awakening that her every instinct insisted that Cahil's confessions-both in real time and in dream time-were lies. Cahil was indeed not the Skull-digger. Some part of him wanted to be the Skull-digger, but that hardly qualified him as the killer.

That left one of his Web-page visitors, one who had forwarded the brain piece to Daryl. His contributors literally numbered in the hundreds of thousands over a decade. It would be a grueling and time-consuming search, necessitating cooperation among hundreds of agents and from Cahil's Internet server.

If Combs could find a link between the Manning girl from her computer in Florida to Cahil's website, Jessica felt hopeful that they could get a court order to open up the Internet server's records. Short of that, as J.T. said, they'd have to rely on the hacking skills of their Cyber Squad. She tried to fall back asleep on that hopeful thought, but a phone call awakened her.

“ Dr. Coran… Agent Owens in Morristown.”

“ Agent, what is it?” She glanced at the clock which read 11:43 P.M.

“ Thought you'd like to hear it from us first.”

“ Don't tell me. They found a woman's body at Cahil's place?”

“ No… sorry… bad news about Max Strand.”

“ What? What's that?”

“ Max was… he was killed sometime yesterday in a park a few blocks from Cahil's house. He… he was bludgeoned to death by a pair of homeless guys in the park. They're in custody, ratting each other out.”

“ Oh, my God.”

“ But Max did something strange just before he died. Thought you ought to know about it.”

“ What's that?”

“ He made off with one of the cat brains from Cahil's freezer.” “Made off with it? What the hell do you mean? Made off with it?”

“ Took it with him… to the park. He cut it open there and kinda

… kinda, I don't know, threw it around. All of the brain pieces were scattered, as if…”

Jessica tried to picture it. “As if he were searching for something?”

“ Yeah… yeah, that's what it looked like. Strange as hell.”

Searching for something like the Island of Rheil in humans? she wondered.

Jessica further wondered what this might mean. How many people are to be infected in one manner or another with Cahil's dangerous notions? She thanked Owens and said good night, and somehow the aloneness and the night became larger tenfold.