Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

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.”