Jessica and Lorena had coffee while awaiting a waiter to find them in Sal's more formal dining section. Jessica rested her head in her hands, complaining of her lack of sleep.
“ I know what you mean,” agreed Lorena.
Jessica excused herself and snatched out her cell phone and contacted J.T. back in Jacksonville. She informed him, “We've got an identical killing up here, John, down to the skull etching on the inside. But he left tracks this time.”
“ Foot prints?”
“ Shoe prints and tire marks.” Jessica quickly brought J.T. up to date on both the Cahil angle and that she had to be in Pennsylvania the following day to meet with Jack Deitze. “I need you to get all the evidence gathered on the Manning girl, including the bone fragment, up to Quantico ASAP.”
Their drinks arrived with hot rolls and butter. “Thanks, John. I gotta go now.”
For a brief time, the two women remained quiet, each trying to cut the edge of her hunger. Combs broke the silence. “So, anything else you can tell me about this Cahil guy?”
“ He hit a number of cemeteries in New Jersey as a modern-day grave robber, a ghoul-the old expression aptly fits here, Lorena. Hasn't been a recorded case of actual grave robbery-as opposed to grave vandalism-in the U.S. since.” “The New Jersey Ghoul, yeah, I remember now. Saw a segment on Ripley's Believe It or Not that highlighted his questionable accomplishment as the last of the ghouls.”
“ Apprehended in 1990 in a Morristown cemetery with a bone saw. He cut the heads off and took them with him. Left the graves wide open.”
“ 1990, yeah… I was still in high school at the time, but I recall the case. Something about necrophilia, that he robbed the graves of their heads and used them as sex objects. A real sick freak.”
“ I don't know too much about the man's motivations.” Jessica wanted to change the subject, so she asked, “How old are you, Lorena? You must be the youngest female sheriff in the South, or the country for that matter.”
“ Democrats thought a woman running for office would fail, but we surprised them. I got the black vote and the Indian vote and a good chunk of the white vote.” Lorena stirred back to the case. “So, how does grave robbing and brain snatching go together?”
“ I'm not sure, and I'm not sure that Cahil won't lead to another dead end. If I hadn't gotten those two calls, we probably wouldn't even be looking at the guy.”
“ So, you don't think anything'll come of it?”
“ Maybe, maybe not. I'll know more after I talk with Dr. Deitze.”
“ The clown who authorized Cahil's release? Good luck.”
The waiter returned with two hot steaming plates, Jessica's a roast beef dinner and Lorena's a vegetarian lasagna. Jessica glanced at the decor as she ate, studying the walls covered with historical items supposedly out of old Savannah's past: old soda pop and cigar signs, buckets, milk pails, rusty traps, harnesses, an entire plowshare heavy enough to kill someone should it fall. Combs, following Jessica's gaze, said, “All items no one in his right mind would hang above a plate of food anywhere but in a restaurant.”
Jessica laughed in response, and Combs joined her.
“ I still have no idea how someone like Cahil could get my private number.”
Combs said, “Doesn't take much these days with computer access to everyone you know on the planet, Jess. Remember the Theresa Saldana stalking murder attempt?”
“ The actress who survived-what was it? — seven or eight knife wounds?”
“ Yeah, that's it. Her attacker told police that a hundred dollars to a private eye gave him the family address.” Combs allowed the fact to sink in. “And nowadays with the damn Internet it's easy enough to get information on your own. Cut out the middleman to get names, addresses, phone numbers.”
“ But I'm very careful with that number.”
“ The celebrity stalker told Saldana that he was a production assistant for Martin Scorsese, and wanted to know if she would look at a script for 'Marty.' Now, maybe you didn't get a call from Scorsese, Jess, but you did get one from a resourceful lady in a day and age when you don't have to be all that resourceful to electronically get reams of information on what you want.”
“ I know you're right. I guess I just want to hold on to the illusion that I have some privacy left.”
They continued their meal. Then Combs asked, “What next?”
“ I want to be on hand at the Miller girl's autopsy. From there, I find a bed, get a good night's sleep and tomorrow get myself up to Philadelphia and the penitentiary.”
“ I'll be heading back to Jax-town, but I'll keep you apprised of anything useful we might find on the Net searches, if you'll part with that number of yours.” “Why don't you steal it, if it's so damned easy to do?” Jessica joked.
“ How do you know I haven't already?”
Jessica wrote out the number on a pad and gave it to Combs. “I want to thank you, Lorena, for all your help and hospitality. Sorry you've got that long drive alone.”
“ Not in the least. Just doing my job.”
Pennsylvania Federal Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane, outskirts of Philadelphia 4:15 P.M., July 13, 2003
Eric had failed to show up, leaving Jessica on her own to deal with Dr. Johnathan “Jack” Deitze. Furious, she had telephoned Santiva only to learn that he'd gone to Atlantic City, New Jersey, on a lead in the Skull-digger case. She pictured his search there motivated out of a sense of desperation. He must have a great deal of pressure on his back at the moment to stand her up and leave her alone with Deitze. She told Henrietta in no uncertain terms that her boss was to get in touch with her as soon as possible. Henrietta conveyed the last of Eriq's message to Jessica: “You are to meet a Detective Maxwell Strand at the penitentiary. The two of you can interview Dr. Deitze.”
“ Strand? I don't know any Strand.”
“ He'll be looking for you.”
The facility was a gleaming new and sleek structure back in the '70s when it'd been built, but its age was beginning to show in small ways, from poor windows to cracks in the tiled floors leading through the massive lobby where a pair of security guards walked her through a tired metal detector. A man in a suit watched her give up her two guns and come through the detector with unusual interest, and he asked, “Dr. Coran? Dr. Jessica Coran?”
“ Yes.”
The tall, stout man with thin gray hair looked too old to be a working police detective. “I'm Strand.”
“ Are you with the Philly police?”
“ No… Retiring Morristown PD in a couple of months. I worked the Cahil case with my partner. We apprehended Cahil in the act.”
“ What more can you tell me about our target?”
“ Nobody knows more about him than I do, but Deitze will tell you he does.”
She sensed there was no love lost between the cop and the shrink. “So, fill me in.”
“ Full name is Daryl Thomas Cahil, aka the Ghoul, age thirty-six. Apprehended in Morristown after things became too hot in Newark for him. Caught red-handed in the disinterred grave of a child named Amiee Lee Pheiffer by my partner, Reed, and me. Cahil was only twenty-three at the time.”
“ How much does he weigh?”
“ Kinda slight from his photo, which I've sent copies of to your boss, who's likely forwarded it on to every law-enforcement agency in the southeast by now. Weighs maybe 155 maybe 160.”
“ Did you send a picture of him at twenty-three years of age?”
“ No, I've kept him under surveillance since his release, up until a few weeks ago. I had a bout with some trouble that put me in the hospital. But the photo's current.” He slid a photo from a file he carried. Jessica looked at the sunken-faced, small man in the picture. He didn't look large enough for the image she'd had of the Skull-digger. His weight, he's got to weigh more, she was thinking of the prints found in Georgia.