Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

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.