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.
“ Are you sure, Strand?” Jessica asked, her face creased with doubt.
“ It's how he referred to it back then, again and again.”
“ All right. Go for it, J.T.”
“ If it's wrong, we'll have to take it to the experts at Quantico.” J.T. keyed it in and suddenly erupted. “Bingo! Our friendly neighborhood lunatic's website is coming up on the screen now.”
J.T. scanned several lines off the master page, and then said, “ Brain Matters-Home of the Soul and the Cosmic Mind'-his banner reads. We gotta confiscate all this, Jess.” A comical character looking like a mad professor blipped on the screen, asking, “Got brains?”
“ This guy's something else,” Jessica said as the cartoon image came up on the screen.
“ Do a search, Dr. Thorpe,” said Max.
“ Of what?”
“ Recipes, you gotta see this.”
“ You're serious?”
“ Absolutely.”
J.T. keyed in the word. After fifteen seconds, he replied, “Here we are. Chat room for brain recipes. Brain Kabob, Shrimp Creole and Brains, the ever-popular Brains and Eggs. And here's Brains and Legs-poultry. Damn, here's Beef Bullion Brains, Creamed Spinach is under a whole list of vegetarian brain casseroles, and it goes on. Someone here even sharing a recipe for Brain Brownies and Chocolate Moose.”
“ Forget about the recipes,” said Jessica. “Key in 'island,' 'isle,' 'Rheil'… see what we have there.”
Again J.T. typed into the search box.
“ What is this island of the brain place?” asked Owens.
Now the ancient brain surgeon, Rheil, was depicted on the computer screen as well, along with the article Jessica had seen in the hefty book, scanned and lifted word for word, down to the photograph of Rheil.
“ So this is what the man was searching for when he dug up all those graves,” commented J.T.
“ A bit of gray matter, real estate deep within the cortex.” Jessica leaned in closer.
“ I give you the Island of Rheil,” Strand said. “Finally, someone is paying attention. Take a walk with a lunatic to an island in his mind.”
Owens swallowed hard, regretting the odors going down his throat.
Jessica read aloud from the screen. “Rheil believed that this island of tissue supposedly housed the spirit since it had no apparent physical reason for being-or for being located at the core of the brain, at the geographic center of the cortex. He then concluded that it must have a spiritual reason for being there, since in his words, ‘all things unknowable must then be spiritual’.” Jessica paused and then read the remaining short paragraphs devoted to the man.
“ Daryl conveniently left out that the man's scientific method was questionable to say the least,” said Jessica. “The article he copied this from ended with a good deal of skepticism.”
“ Not included on Cahil's website meanderings,” added Max. “Any disparagement surrounding Dr. Rheil's work and conclusions found no way into Daryl Cahil's thinking.”
Jessica then lifted the book she'd discovered Rheil in and read on. “ 'The drama and flare of Rheil's conclusions, according to contemporaries and colleagues, far outweighed any scientific reasoning or study of the Island of Rheil.' “
“ Check out the footnote,” said Strand, pointing. The book footnoted the feet that Rheil's work had been cut short by an untimely death from a brain fever. In his will, he asked that his own island be removed and preserved for scientific investigation. However, no one continued his study, only adding fuel to the mystery of his strange discovery.
Cahil's own editorializing on Rheil appeared fictitious, that the man not only removed and studied his “finds” but that he consumed them. He pointed out the robustness and content in the man's image at so advanced an age, claiming him more than a hundred years old in the photograph.
“ Daryl fixated on this bogus nonsense,” said Strand, “as he testified at his trial. It's what got to all the shrinks, his telling the court that he actually robbed graves from '89 to '90 for this thing-why he took his dead victim's heads off with him, to dig this sac of tissue out of their brains.”
“ Cahil's courtroom elocution-did it get any press?” asked Jessica.
“ None. Courtroom was sealed from the press. Special arrangement agreed upon by prosecution, the defense and Judge Hiram Skinner. Nobody really wanted this business to fuel headlines for months. It was all so damned bizarre, and the court officials really did want to spare the families any more indignities and harm.” “So it takes on the proportions of a legend, shrouded in mystery,” said Jessica in a near whisper.
“ Hollywood wanted to make a film,” replied Strand. “On any account, no details were released other than a few generalities labeling Cahil as a cannibal, and with the press shut out, all sorts of rampant reporting went on, especially in the tabloids, how he was a sex-lust murderer, which didn't apply, how he was a necrophiliac, you name it.”