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.
Max Strand accompanied Jessica and J.T. along with local FBI field agent Sam Owens. On their second meeting, Jessica found Strand a hefty, muscular man, round, rough-looking, not in the least frail for a man his age only recently out of surgery. Strand's face was a mask of experience, his eyes clearly having seen a lot of gruesome events in his years as a police detective. He appeared stoic and sad at the same time. Owens appeared Strand's opposite in every way. Cahil's residence had been kept a secret by the FBI who had moved him here from Newark. Strand had pulled a lot of strings to learn where in the city of Morristown the man resided.
After introductions were made, Jessica asked, “So, Strand, how do you like having Cahil back on your turf?”
“ You don't understand. When he was relocated initially to Newark, I put in for a job there to be close by in the event he should resume his former habits. So, when he was relocated here, that solved the problem.”
“ If you were on him, how'd he disappear?”
“ He was my obsession, not the department's. Like I told you in Philly, I've been in the hospital. Bypass operation.”
She bit her lower lip and said, “Sorry. Hope all is-”
“ He must've known I was down,” Strand said of Cahil. “We're old adversaries. Frankly, I thought he was done with his old habits, since he's done absolutely nothing after being released other than play games on his computer.”
“ His computer?” asked J.T.
Strand told Thorpe about the computer site, ending with, “And while he goes on about his crimes as if they were the work of a Lord God doing what a god does, there's nothing he can be charged with, even if he is encouraging people to worship as he does.”
“ How do you mean 'worship'?” asked J.T.
“ He's got some strange notions about gaining a glimpse of the cosmic mind-God-through feeding on brains.”
“ He's advocating cannibalizing other people to reach God?” asked J.T. “And he's free to do that?”
“ I haven't plugged in to his site recently, but he's been careful not to be too specific about what kinds of brains his audience should be chewing on. He's opted for meat products in the local grocery freezer and canned goods for a while, but now he's into pasta.”
“ So he's untouchable?”
“ The law has a long way to go to control the Web.” Strand took a deep breath as they walked toward the house together. “Like I said, I'd begun to believe Cahil through with it, until I got word of the murders. They occurred just as I was incapacitated, and I had no access to a computer. No one but a lunatic who might log on could possibly find some sort of 'truth' in Daryl's rantings.”. “How do you feel about him being on the loose now?”
Strand, stretching the full-length of his tall, rugged ex-marine frame, replied with squinting eyes and gnashing teeth. “How do you think I feel? This guy should've been put away for life. I knew he'd be at it again. Just figured it would be in another cemetery, not killing young people outright. That nuthouse they sent him to only graduated the lunatic to the real thing.” The absence of yellow police caution tape indicated that this was no crime scene, and that Owens was moving on the place with a light hand, likely having anticipated Cahil's return-before he had been apprehended in Atlantic City.
“ We kinda tiptoed into the house carefully from the rear. Went in and got out quickly when we located an active credit card number,” Owens said.
“ Didn't trip over any bodies?” asked J.T.
“ Found nothing extreme except the filth. Place is a pigsty, so we decided we'd leave it until you experts arrived. Our guys wanted him apprehended. We thought he might just be down the block at a bar or store. Then we got word you were on your way, so we waited.”
“ And you drew straws to pull this return duty, Sam?” she asked.
His face told her it was true. No one wanted to revisit this horrible place. “Like I said, after we located the credit card number, we got out, hoping to surprise him on his return. When we got news he was picked up in another town, we ceased the stake out, had the lock repaired, gave the landlord a key and kept one for you.”
She squinted, wondering what Owens and the earlier team had accomplished here. He must have read the question in her face.
Owens added, “Sorry, but we found no smoking gun to link him to the Digger killings.”
“ So, what you're saying is you were in and out. No evidence techs or high-tech searches done?” asked Jessica.
“ That's about it. We didn't confiscate any of his belongings, nor did we disturb anything.”
