Jessica dovetailed this with, “Dr. Deitze ever point that out to you, Cahil? That you can't seem to take responsibility for any of your actions?”
“ I served my time for what I did, but I'm not the Digger any more than you are, and I do not advocate murder on my website.”
Jessica went on the attack with a subtle, calm voice. “But you advocate eating a portion of the brain, the Island of Rheil, and-”
“ You know I do, but it's different now.”
“- there's no way to get that nourishment, Cahil, without cutting open somebody's head for it.”
“ Read my site, Doctor. With Dr. Deitze's help, I've worked out a solution, a spiritual solution that doesn't rely on ingesting the actual thing. You make replicas of the brain and the Island of Rheil with clay, with pasta hidden inside, and you feed symbolically, you see. Like… like the body of the host, the blood of the host, all that. Same difference.”
Jessica had told Eriq of the strange practice and the clay brains found by Strand in the basement at Cahil's home. “Are you telling me that if I dug around in one of your clay brains, I'd find a pasta replication of the Island of Rheil?”
“ That's right. I've been producing them for people. They order them through my Web page.”
“ Isn't that just swell and hunky-dory,” said Eriq. “That way nobody gets hurt. But people have been hurt-four women murdered now, Cahil, and you killed them!”
“ No, I tell you! I didn't do it. And I'm not talking to you! I'm talking to Dr. Coran.”
“ Killed them for that part of their brains you believe houses their souls,” continued Eriq. “So you could have power over their souls in this life and the afterlife, right? Right?”
Cahil cringed and physically went into himself, turtle fashion. Jessica feared they were about to lose him.
“ Isn't that right, Daryl! Isn't it!”
“ Chief! Chief Santiva!” Jessica shouted Eriq down. “Can we talk outside?” She picked up the vial containing the oddly shaped frozen scrap of gray matter, fearful Cahil or one of his personalities would throw it down his throat if he got hold of it. She dropped the vial into her lab coat pocket. “While we're outside, Mr. Cahil, I want you to look closely at this.” She laid out a sketch of the cross left etched at the posterior of Amanda Manning's skull in Florida. “And I want to know what it means to you.”
“ That's my symbol for the Island of Rheil.” His words stopped the FBI agents from leaving. “It's the same basic shape you see, that is if you look at it in the right attitude.”
“ Where on the victim's body did you mark this symbol for us to find, Daryl?”
“ Where on the body? I haven't any idea what you mean. How could I? Since I did not kill those girls. I would only be guessing.”
“ Exactly where near or on the bodies of the victims?” Jessica pressed.
“ I'm sure I wouldn't know.” His voice had become so proper and correct now.
The two FBI people now glared at one another for a moment before Eriq stepped outside and she followed. With the door closed, Jessica said, “Your angry tone of voice and your provoking him will only shut him down, Eriq.”
“ 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.”
