“ I tell you I'm past that stuff. I preach that it be done only in the symbolic sense.”
“ Just which one of your personalities is the Skull-digger, Mr. Cahil?” asked Jessica.
“ I believe the Digger is someone who's plugged in to my website, someone who doesn't care for the symbolic but must have the real thing
… the Island of Rheil. The thing you had in your little plastic jar, that came to my address wrapped in tinfoil. It came from the killer: UPS. “Your fridge, Mr. Cahil, was filled with animal brains, as well. All wrapped in tinfoil and newspaper,” Jessica countered.
Impatient, Santiva stormed at Cahil, shouting, “We have scientific ways of determining your guilt, sir. You left your tire and shoe prints in the mud in Georgia when you killed Winona Miller. You left this representation of your fucking Rheil prize”-he jabbed a finger onto the drawing-”on all your victims.”
Jessica gritted her teeth and muttered to Eriq, “I wanted him to say that, not you, Eriq.”
Cahil lifted his right foot to show off his jailhouse booties. “They stripped me of my shoes. Are they testing my soles?” he asked with a grimacing smile. “Good, because then you'll know it was me. You've got enough to convict me ten times over, so why the hell're we dancing around here?” He ended by screaming. His face had contorted into another personality. “I really liked that one in Georgia. Winona
… Her name was Winona, and she was a tasty young morsel.”
“ To whom am I talking?” asked Jessica.
“ Keyhoe… I'm Keyhoe, aka the Skull-digger.”
“ If you're the killer, where on the bodies did you leave this mark?” she again pressed the picture of the cross with her index finger.
“ On what was left of their heads.”
“ Can you be more precise?”
“ I could be, but I won't. You people bore me.”
“ Again, do you want to tell us the truth about whose brain tissue was found in your freezer?” asked Eriq, his voice evenly controlled now.
Keyhoe replied, “Anna Gleason.”
Jessica realized that Cahil was now simply mimicking what they had already provided him to work with.
“ All the victims had nothing in common, the newspapers said. Said you guys didn't have a clue to connect them. I can tell you what connects them. They all logged on to my website at one time or another. And the killer, me… I fucking hunted them down through cyberspace.”
It was startling to hear this, and Jessica wondered if there could be any truth in it-a theory they had contemplated earlier. That the victims were among the hundreds of thousands who'd logged on out of curiosity over the years. And that Cahil had made physical contact with them.
“ Keyhoe's telling you lies,” said Cahil suddenly. “Look, I'm sure I have likely contributed to this killer's thinking, that perhaps he's a disciple who's gone off the deep end. My website attracts a lot of strange people, weirdos, but I didn't kill anyone-not in 1990 and not now. Somebody's framed me, maybe Keyhoe, and you're too stupid to know that!”
“ Which is it, Cahil? You did it or you didn't?” asked Eriq, tiring of the game.
“ If you're telling us the truth now, Daryl, which of your many cyber disciples do you suspect is the Skull- digger. Who do you believe sent you the brain tissue to frame you?”
“ Maybe the Seeker. He's the one I suspected sent me the Rheil. I said so on the site, in the caption I put on the photo of it.”
Jessica recalled the notation.
“ He's the most outspoken against me, against what I stand for, a symbolic method of glimpsing the eternal mind.”
“ I'm sure of it,” said Eriq sarcastically. “Why don't you let us talk to this Seeker character. Come on, bring him on.”
“ Why didn't you eat it?” asked Jessica. “The Rheil in your possession?”
“ I told you. I only do the symbolic thing now.”
“ Then who would carve your symbol on the victims?” “I told you already, the Seeker.”
“ Why didn't you just eat the evidence?” she pressed again.
“ I saved it for you, as evidence. I read that you were investigating the case, the FBI's most famous.” He paused to study the reaction he'd gotten from them both. Eriq had remained stolid and silent for a moment but now he stood and said, “We're going to book you for all four murders, Cahil! What do you have to say to that?”
“ You've got the right man, but you've also got the wrong man.”
“ Take this piece of human waste back to holding,” Eriq said into the two-way mirror.
Hanson came in and escorted Cahil out, Daryl protesting his innocence while Keyhoe asked for the death penalty.
Again they had ended where they had begun, and the day's long interrogation had come to a grinding halt.
“ Listen, Eriq, we have to match the DNA we took from the brain tissue to one victim's DNA. That single test alone may be enough to bury Cahil if it's a match. And I think we should follow up on what he said about all the victims having made contact with his site. Another nail in his coffin. And we need to look at this guy he calls Seeker that-”
“ This Seeker guy is likely another of his personalities. But you're right about checking on the computer habits of the victims.”
“ Lorena Combs is doing just that from her jurisdiction. She's got the cooperation of the Manning family and the Miller family. I'll call and ask how it's going with her. Meanwhile, I'll ask the Cyber Squad to do the same from here as soon as J.T. gets back with Cahil's computer. But I have to tell you, I have reservations about Daryl being our guy. I pictured a larger man with more strength.”
“ How much strength does it take to pump a syringe of Demoral into a woman's arm?”
“ I just don't want us jumping the gun on this, Eriq. We lock down on this guy as the Skull-digger, and maybe the real guy goes free and starts up someplace else-the West Coast or another country even.”
“ You mean this phantom Seeker that Daryl just made up? Jess, we need the Digger in custody, and we need it now.”
“ You have someone in custody. Patience, Eriq. Give us time at least to develop the evidence we have against Cahil.”
“ I guarantee you, as long as we hold him, Jess, the killings will end. I can promise you that much.”
“ Hold him on the animal-cruelty charges. That will keep him in limbo for weeks if not months.”
“ Animal cruelty. The press will laugh in our faces.”
“ You go ahead and charge him as the Digger then, Eriq. Go right ahead. I suspect that's what's going to happen whatever I say or do.”
“ I want you to back me on this, Jess.”
“ I have to exhaust all leads, Eriq, and I have my doubts about this guy being the Digger. You're a gambler by nature, Eriq, always have been. You want to gamble that at least one of his personalities is guilty, but suppose you're wrong?”
“ One of his personalities did it, Jess.”
“ My instincts are screaming otherwise.”
“ I need your backing on this, Jess.”
“ And you'll have it, as soon as I can give it in good conscience.”
He stormed away from her, obviously as frustrated as she over the direction the case had taken. Cahil had not been shaken by the Rheil tissue in their possession, confusing enough, but he also had given them no real indication he knew where on the bodies the mark had been left by the killer.
“ We both want the same thing, Eriq,” Jessica shouted after his fleeting figure, “to put an end to-” but he was gone.
A gut-gnawing intuition told her that Daryl simply didn't complete the picture, that he was possibly part of it, but not the whole. Cahil had shown little surprise when they put the sketch in front of him. And, if he truly wanted to confess, why didn't he take full advantage and divulge where on the skull the symbol was left. Why hadn't he
