Reliving it here over coffee and the remnants of his late breakfast, Grant tried to recall the moment of touching that cosmic universal soul that Phillip had so guaranteed him. Phillip described it in beatific terms and was filled with excruciating happiness over it, but Grant had to be told about it, as by then he was no longer in the van. The operation was Dr. Grant Kenyon's doing, but the feeding and subsequent feelings of power and ecstasy belonged to Phillip.
Before leaving Mobile, Jessica had been assured by Agent Douglas that an alert on their killer there would go out. Unfortunately, the description of the van he used was a match for millions like it. Still, Douglas assured her that he would ask cities and towns dotting the map along I-10 west of Mobile, Alabama, to be on heightened alert for anything looking suspicious.
She and J.T. had talked about their next strategy during the plane trip back to Quantico.
“ Listen, J.T., before Daryl Thomas Cahil was labeled the Skull-digger, the FBI had amassed 6,511 tips from the public as to the identity and whereabouts of the Skull-digger.” Jessica spoke over the hum of the plane.
J.T. nodded. “Several of those tips pointed to Daryl. We had an army of agents across the nation looking into each tip, but since word Cahil got out… sorry, but all such tips were put in a holding pattern.”
“ According to Jere Anderson we now have a positive DNA match between Daryl's delicacy found in Morristown and Anna Gleanson from Richmond.” Jessica had checked in with the Quantico lab just before boarding.
“ Which implicates Daryl even more than ever. This fact alone will be enough to cement the case against Cahil in most minds.”
“ Most minds haven't seen what we've seen in Mobile, Alabama. We never had the Skull-digger in custody, John. He's still at large, a lunatic who likely took cues from Cahil.”
“ So what's next?”
“ We concentrate on the civilian tips,” she told J. T.
“ That's a lot of tips,” replied J. T. “We'll need a miracle to jump-start this case.”
Every instinct and desire was to close a case, and once closed, minds shut down as well. No one back at Quantico would welcome the news that the FBI still had no clue as to the identity of the Digger.
“ I think Cahil's records-his database-are still very use-fill. We have to proceed under the assumption that whoever sent him that small portion of Anna Gleason is our killer. Daryl believes it to be the man who logs on as Seeker.”
“ I ran it through VICAP as a possible alias, Jess. Got nowhere.”
“ Then we run all the code names we've culled as possible leads through VICAP. See if it spits any back at us.”
“ We can do that, sure… good idea.”
“ I was thinking that we can do the same against all the crime tips that have gone uninvestigated because the FBI grapevine had the case, quote: 'winding to a close.' “
“ Great idea… we'll run cross-checks on both lists.”
In fact, the tips that still remained in an uninvestigated status numbered well over five thousand, with more coming in every day. Most of these unchecked tips would prove a waste of time, but somewhere in the slush pile of tips, someone somewhere may have information vital to locating the real Skull-digger.
“ Earlier we asked VICAP for similar crimes. This time we go back to the unsolicited tips, pursuing each only in the event of matching key words and phrases that we'll program the computer to locate, such as 'doctor,' 'brain removal,' 'cannibalism' and 'Rheil.' “
Jessica telephoned Eriq and, after greetings, she said, “We need to divert all the tips on the Digger case from every field office electronically to our Quantico computer.”
“ To consolidate them all in one place. Should've been done a long time ago, I agree.”
Jessica suggested to Eriq, “We can then cross-reference them with other lists, like VICAP.”
“ It will take you months to run down every one of them,” he countered.
“ I have an idea that might save us months.”
“ Really?”
“ Once we finally get AOC to release information on the users on Cahil's website, we cross-reference them with names provided by VICAP and the tipsters.”
“ That's not bad… not bad at all, if we can get the AOC to release the goddamn subscriber names, make a three-way match, the list can't be so long.”
Jessica was speaking over him. “Then we look very closely at any three-way matchups, and-”
“ We take only those crisscrossing people, and we investigate each thoroughly.” Eriq had a knack for making any good idea sound like his own. “Set it up. Let's do it.”
Now the jet carrying them back to Quantico was circling for a landing, and Jessica could see the airport tower and the buildings of Quantico in the near distance. She saw the pleasant small town of Quantico, the comings and goings of cars in and out of store lots, people busy with their lives, the marching training cadets in the FBI compound, the place looking like a cross between a military barracks and a college campus.
The sight always reminded her of the first time she'd come to Quantico as a cadet, recruited from her medical examiner job in Washington, D.C.
The little stopover at the Mississippi grill had reminded Grant Kenyon of his childhood, devoid of color or charm, when his name had been Corey Lyttle. He had legally changed his name when he'd gone off to college, never seeing or speaking to his parents again. Growing up as the son of a farmer in rural upstate New York, his life had been filled with the raising and slaughtering of animals-chickens, sheep, goats, hogs and cattle, and the seasonal deer kill. The slaughters were always detailed and time-consuming, involving getting at the intestines and organs- the vitals and vittles as his father had called them. The process involved salvaging every item of the carcass, from hoof to head, including the brain.
He had grown up watching and learning and taking part in those slaughters, so as to become a man, as his father had put it. He recalled his callous and heavy-handed father's wielding of an ax to open the skulls of slaughtered cows, and his equally callous words: “Waste nothing, from an animal, boy.”
His father had had no finesse when it came to going into the cranium for the brains of the animals. He simply shoved his gloveless hands inside the cavity created by two strokes of the ax, and then he wrenched the brain free. Inside the old house, his mother chopped the animal brains into mincemeat to be used like hamburger.
When they slaughtered an animal for their own use, they fed on its every pan, including the brains. His mother had recipes for cornbread and brains, brain potatoes, brain soup, brains and eggs, brain brownies even. It had started young Corey Lyttle on a lifelong taste for brains. How many times did his father repeat the words, “Listen close, boy. Them animal brains'll make you smart, and we both know you need all the smarts you can rustle up. Besides, they fill you up when nothing else will.”
Now Grant had gotten back on the road, heading west, going toward New Orleans on 1-10. He recalled how, as a child, he had become sick to death of brains, and once he left home he had vowed to never touch them again. He held on to that promise for many years, until he learned of the crimes committed by Daryl Thomas Cahil, and his motive for committing those grave robbings. That was the first time he'd ever heard of a physical connection between brain and soul, and it brought about the growth, development and metamorphosis of Phillip the Seeker.
He'd left home with two overwhelming urges: to become his father's opposite, and to feed his thirst for knowledge, which would keep him from ever having to return to Stark, New York. He finished high school at the top of his class and earned a scholarship to college at NYU in New York City. Far from endearing himself to his mother and father, his education only worked to further their estrangement.
Traffic now buzzed by and around Grant, while the sameness of the divided highway all around him induced boredom. A look into the rearview mirror reminded him how similar in features he was, at middle age, to his father. The same large brow, the same wrinkles in exactly the same places, along his jaw, about the neck, the same ears, eyes, nose even. It felt like staring at a ghost.
“ Some things you can't escape from, Corey,” said Phillip, the voice in his head.
“ What the hell do you want?” he replied.
“ What do I always want?”
