He scrolled back to where he'd left off and read:
I've served my time, paid my debt to society, and now I seek that higher mind through the use of hunting and killing fair game, and consuming the Island of Rheil of the animal (deer, rabbit, etc.). A noble calling inherited from our ancestors, who were ignorant of the Island of Rheil, and so they barbarically consumed the entire brain. No, to consume the entire brain dulls the impact of what can be found in consuming only the island of the soul…
Byrd keyed in the order to print the pages he'd just read. As his printer worked, he reached for his telephone. After being left on hold for fifteen minutes on a phone tree, frustrated, he told his story to a field agent in Syracuse, New York, the closest federal agency. The agent said he would look into it and get back to Byrd, that he and every agent in the FBI appreciated such tips in locating the Skull-digger.
“ You misunderstand me. This guy is applauding the Skull-digger and spreading unsafe and insane information to children all over this and other countries through the Internet. It's sick propaganda directed at our children, Agent. No telling how long it's been going on, or how much irreparable damage has already been done. It's a kind of insidious, demoralizing-”
“ We'll make it a priority, sir. I have the dot-com address you've supplied, sir.”
“ It's like nothing we've seen before. Likely a terrorist group behind it, I tell you. We must put an end to it for the sake of America's youth.” “I'll make it a priority, sir, I promise.” The agent hung up.
Byrd stared at the phone and listened to the dial tone. He wondered if he ought to call the mayor's office, who would in turn call the governor, and maybe then he could get some assurances.
The wee hours of July 14, 2003
The phone awakened Jessica from a sound sleep in her Philadelphia hotel room. It was just past midnight. She had somehow avoided any nightmares, willing herself to find comforting dreams instead. She'd gotten back to the room in Philly early, had eaten room-service food, showered and gone to bed with Jack Deitze's case study of Cahil. She found Deitze's rehabilitation effort and theories questionable, but she focused on what she could learn of Cahil. Amazingly, Strand was right; the former grave robber had begun a website from his isolation ward. Dr. Gabriel Arnold had given Deitze complete authority over Cahil's treatment, and Deitze believed Cahil would benefit greatly from communicating to the world about why he had done what he had and to seek alternative ways to reach the pinnacle of “faith” he so craved.
The hotel phone continued to ring. She hesitated lifting it off the cradle. As far as she knew, only Eriq and J.T. had the hotel number, and she had turned off her cell phone.
When she lifted the receiver, Eriq Santiva launched right in with, “We've apprehended Daryl Cahil.”
“ Where?”
“ Where he called you from, Atlantic City, a phone booth near a motel he was at. Traced his whereabouts through a credit card number found in his house in Morristown.” She mentally calculated how long it would have taken Cahil to travel from southern Georgia to Atlantic City and back again to make those two calls. He could not have easily made it in the time allotted. “And the woman? His wife or girlfriend?”
“ Negative. I'm ready to believe what Strand told us, that the female caller was Cahil himself. That part of him that wants to be caught, Jess. We've seen the syndrome before.”
“ All the same, maybe we should alert Atlantic City authorities that we'd be interested in any recent Jane Doe's.”
“ Count on it.”
“ Did they do a search of his van, the beach motel room, along with his Morristown house?”
“ Nothing came of the room search. A quick search of his house was done by our men in Morristown, which turned up the credit card number. He wasn't driving a van-a rental sedan instead. No restraints or cutting tools found either.”
“ We need the tools, Eriq. We need the van.”
“ So far nothing of the sort. The searches have turned up nothing, but I'm still hopeful that a full forensic treatment will turn up something.”
“ How much time do we have on the search-and-seizure order at the Morristown location?”
“ Another twelve hours and it's history.”
“ I want to see how this guy lives, what he surrounds himself with.”
“ We're having him transported to Quantico for interrogation, but Jess, the creep… he won't talk to anyone but you.”
“ Me? Why the… why me?”
“ That's what he wants. Second to you, he'll only talk to Deitze,*nd none of us wants that, right?”
“ Damn it, why me?” she repeated. “Liked your whiskey voice, I guess. Come on, Jess, he knows your reputation, so he's going to play to that, and he knows you understand his kind.”
“ Lucky me. He's just yanking our chain. He wants another fifteen minutes of fame and publicity, Eriq, could be he's just cashing in on our case.”
“ He's the guy. The Ghoul is the Skull-digger.”
“ Eriq, you sound like Strand. You've already got this guy guilty without the evidence to back it.”
“ All right, just supposing Cahil isn't the Skull guy, he still may well give you some insight into what this latest ghoul is up to, why he's fixated on brain matter. Face it, Jess, with VICAP unable to provide us with anything, Cahil is a go.”
She didn't care for the sound of so much missing-the van, the restraints, the murderous tools, the height and weight problem-yet the sign left at the crime scenes and the drawings done in prison pointed to Cahil. “Do you really think this could lead to a conviction, Eriq?”
“ It's our best shot so far. I've arranged for a chopper to pick you up at the airport in Philly… to bring you home.”
“ With a detour to Morristown, have a look-see at what this creep calls home.”
“ All right. I'll meet you when you arrive at HQ. By the way, Jere Anderson asked me to pass along word that yes, the two earlier victims were tattooed with that cross you found in the skull. Only a small portion came up on the slides, but it's unmistakable under the microscope. Good work!”
“ I've gotten hold of a pair of prison drawings that Cahil did. I'm going to forward them. Have our documents experts compare them to the bone etchings.”
“ We'll arrange it.”
“ Is Cahil left-handed?” Matter of fact, yes.”
They said their goodbyes and Jessica stared up at the ceiling of the hotel room, the fan whirring overhead. She had earlier telephoned Lorena Combs and had left word about Daryl Cahil's website, asking if she could find any evidence that Manning or Miller had ever browsed or used the site. She dared hope they had found the monster, but not even a confession would put him away if they could not prove it.
EIGHT
If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell.
Home of Daryl Thomas Cahil, Morristown, New Jersey July 14, 2003, several hours later
J.T. had flown in from Quantico to meet here there on Santiva's order. She also learned of an incident report coming out of New Bern, North Carolina, involving a white male in a dark blue van attacking a woman outside a movie theater. The victim had been stabbed with a syringe and her system showed signs of drugs administered to sedate her. The MO sounded eerily similar. Jessica had contacted New Bern police for any information on the type of drug used. Too soon to tell, she was told. She asked for a copy of any sketch of the attacker that might come out of the witness testimony. They promised to forward anything but were doubtful. With Cahil in custody, she again wondered if he had anything at all to do with the Skull-digger murders.
Now she was on the street where Daryl Thomas Cahil lived, staring at his house. From the outside, the small house at 153 Orchard Row in Morristown defied anyone to say it was any different from any other along the ragtag street, where even the trees looked in ill repair. Surrounded by a broken-down chain-link fence with a gate resting on a single hinge, the house was penned in on each side by identical houses. Approaching close, Jessica and J.T. saw the dilapidated shingles, and the peeling paint, and the weathered boards. A rusted out lawn mower had been tucked-motor under-beneath the stairwell of a modest little porch area where two mildew-covered plastic chairs acted as obstacles before the doorway.