Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

“ 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!”