Grave Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “We can replace the piece with a Bonemide,” he suggested. Bonemide was the newest product in a line of concretelike, yet elastic, molding materials designed to replace bone parts. The white finish of earlier products was now replaced by a bone-gray that could easily be cosmetically enhanced to match any cadaver's bone coloration perfectly. It had first found use in dental offices for making casts of teeth.

  J.T. added, “I've already created a replacement part for both the forehead and scalp.” He held the cast up for her appraisal.

  “You're a genius, John. Do whatever you can to patch her up.”

  “Working on a latex skin covering. She won't look beautiful, but she'll at least look intact, if no one looks too closely.”

  “As for the interior cut, no one should be looking for it. . . whereas the wound to the forehead, by the time her parents arrange a funeral, will likely be front-page news.”

  “And how long before the cross inside the skull is front-page news?”

  “We've got to swear everyone here to secrecy. We need this kept in-house, John.”

  “Between us and the killer.”

  They both knew the value of that detail being kept under wraps. Anyone apprehended or confessing to the crime would have to know of the strange cross left behind and in what location on the body. That way, they could quickly dispense with any of the hundreds of false confessions bound to come from across the nation.

  Jessica lifted the bone saw and was taking a deep breath when Dr. Ira Koening appeared. “Put the saw down,” he said.

  Jessica expected a fight, but instead, the quiet little white-haired man examined the find he'd heard news of. “Combs told me about it. This is extraordinary indeed, Dr. Coran . . . Dr. Thorpe.” He saw that they had readied surgical scissors and shaving equipment, a red marker and a set of scalpels and sponges. A Bonemide kit sat prepared nearby. “I see you've already decided to go ahead with the procedure, Dr. Coran,” said the Jacksonville M.E. “But you know, Doctors,” Koening continued, “the best way to proceed is with a guided laser cutter.”

  “It would take days to get one down here from Quantico,” said J.T.

  Such precision instruments were extremely expensive and rarely available. “Are you saying that you have one available, sir?” asked Jessica.

  “My office does not, but the FDLE has recently acquired one, state-of-the-art.”

  “With a precision guided laser, we can calculate the depth of the cut to encompass only the bone, and we can do it straight through the already existing hole in the forehead,” said Ira Koening.

  “That way we remove only the bone, no skin ... no hair loss at the site,” added J.T., “and I can reconstruct the bone loss from the inside wall.”

  “Nobody would ever know it was ever tampered with, whereas with your primitive bone saw, there's no hiding the fact,” added Koening.

  “Where is it? Do we need a damned requisition form?” asked Jessica.

  “I've already taken the liberty of ordering the laser be brought to you, Dr. Coran, but it will take ten or fifteen minutes. Paper and tape, you know. So . . . shall we find a cup of coffee? Take a break while awaiting the instrument?”

  AS they relaxed over pastries and coffee in the office turned over to Jessica, Dr. Koening said, “I'll do the cutting, Dr. Coran. That way no one can blame you. It is, after all, my jurisdiction, and I agree with you that it needs to come out for close microscopic inspection.”

  “I think I speak for both of us,” J.T. said, raising his cup as a toast, “when I say that we happily concede the chore, and our sincere thanks.”

  Koening returned the gesture and drank from his cup.

  Jessica sighed. “I really didn't want to use that awful bone cutter on her or go through the same ritual her killer followed, Dr. Koening. Thanks for alerting us. It didn't occur to me that a laser cutter would be within reach.”

  “It's not every city the size of Jacksonville that has a precision guided laser. It came with a new influx of governmental dollars since Nine-Eleven.”

  They then returned to the autopsy room where Amanda's remains awaited them alongside the laser, a robotic-looking tool chest on wheels, a square version of R2D2 from Star Wars, with multiple swivel arms. Dr. Ira, as he asked them to call him, went immediately to work, as the other two suited-up doctors looked on. Ira had obviously handled the laser before. In a matter of minutes, with no noise whatsoever, no markers or scalpels, he had removed the silver dollar—shaped bone fragment with the design etched in it. The laser mechanism had a long needlelike arm with a catch basin at its tip, which Ira had positioned to catch the thick chip of bone, and the procedure was complete. It had taken only two and a quarter minutes. It would take J.T. an hour to reconstruct the inner wall.

  “An excellent job . . . perfectly done. My compliments, Dr. Ira,” said Jessica.

  “It's hardly my accomplishment. Our thanks to science, Dr. Coran. With the explosion in medical technology, I imagine a time when someone will invent a mechanism that will record and play back our dreams!”

  “I've never heard of that one, Doctor,” replied Jessica, “but you're probably right.”

  “They'll turn the human mind into a DVD player.” He laughed lightly at his own words. “Of course, we won't be around to see the day . . . but perhaps that's as it should be. . . .”

  Jessica looked overhead. In the viewing gallery, she saw Combs and Cutter. The two appeared all right with the compromise that Dr. Ira had worked out by using the laser.

  Later in the day, with the bone chip secured in a polyethylene bag, Jessica had arranged for print copies of the sign left by the killer to be made and distributed. The information was also sent to Quantico for dissemination there. The unusual symbol and its placement might lead to something tangible.

  She still had to await toxicology and serology reports, but she imagined they would find the same as in the earlier cases—high levels of Demoral, nothing more.

  How many people in the state were using Demoral as a sleep aid, she wondered. The killer used it to induce compliance until his victim's own shock mechanisms kicked in. Shock as a merciful savior come to rescue her with the first screaming touch of the bone saw, and the smell of her own skull being cut as she lay helplessly strapped down, her head, hands and legs in restraints.

  Jessica must get her thoughts off the awful details of the case for a time, to ease her mind and rest her brain. Easier said than done at nightfall in the Ocean View Inn, she quietly determined. Still, she willed the case away and continued willing it away, searching the eternal blue-green sea in her mind's eye for peace and comfort from where she stood on the fourteenth floor balcony.

  When the phone rang, she came in from the pleasingly warm, salt-filled ocean breeze, lifted the phone and brought it onto the bed with her, but she couldn't bring herself to lift the receiver. Instead, she closed her eyes and allowed it to ring on while her thoughts continued where she and Richard languidly existed among stars lying amid the depths of the ocean in a dream world, until consciousness suddenly told her that a telephone wasn't part of her dream state. The phone remained insistent, floating just above her lap in the ocean water, and just out of Richard's reach. It continued to ring, and still her eyes remained closed, yet she saw all the coral colors of the sea and the beautiful creatures of the deep.

  Eyes still closed, wondering how many precious minutes she'd been asleep, it occurred to her that the call might be from Richard in China—in the real world. She bolted upright and lifted the receiver, saying into the phone, “Yes? Yes? Who is it?”

  The phone kept ringing but no one was on the other end. She abruptly hung up, but the ringing continued. She finally realized it was her cell phone, tucked in her pocket. She tore it out and again asked, “Who is it?”

  A woman's voice answered. “Never mind who it is. I have information regarding the Skull-digger.” The voice proved grating on Jessica's nerves, running the length of her spine like fingernails against a chalkboard. />
  “Who is this?” she repeated. “How did you get this number?”

  “Shut up and listen.”

  Jessica caught her breath and did as told.

  “I know who the Skull-digger is, and he will not stop until you people put him away again.”

  “Again?” Crank call, Jessica thought. She checked the time. Just after midnight. Must be a full moon. But how did the woman get her cell number?

  “I owe a debt, and I want to pay it in full,” said the strident voice on the other end. “I know it's him.”

  “You can file a formal complaint with your local law-enforcement—” “Shut up, you stupid bitch! His name is Daryl Cahil. He lives in Morristown, New Jersey, after being run out of Newark—nobody wants a ghoul in their town, and that's what Daryl is, a ghoul. He was put away as the New Jersey Ghoul by the local authorities but they're working with him now! They arranged for his release just this year!”

  “The Jersey Ghoul?”

  “The son of a bitch once tried to cut my head open for my brain, so I should know he's the one you're after.”

  “He threatened to cut out your brain? Is he your husband or your boyfriend?”

  Jessica remained calm and skeptical, having heard this scenario many times now from confessors and accusers who'd come forth for official absolution of their sins—the usual crowd that only wanted to make something of themselves, even if it was a reputation for mass murder or for having shared a bed with one. Both accusers and confessors had shown up at Jacksonville PD, at the FDLE, at the Sheriff s Office, as well as at the doorstep of every law-enforcement agency in the southeast and across the nation. And now somehow one had gotten hold of her private number.

  “He used to do children, for God's sake!” shouted the woman. “I was at his trial, which they closed to the press and cameras out of respect for the grieving parents. I know he took their heads in order to eat their brains.”

  “He murdered children?”

  “Robbed them of their brains, I tell you. He dug up dead children out of their graves ... for their brains.”

  Jessica tried to picture the image, but it was too awful to contemplate. “Look, ma'am, the Skull-digger kills young women in their early twenties, and he hasn't robbed any graves so far as we know, so perhaps—”

  The woman's cracking voice interrupted. “I once thought him innocent by reason of insanity, you know? Morbid obsession, you know? And that he was redeemed, cured, after all, when . . . when they released him.”

  “Who are they and from where did they release this man—what did you say his name was? And while we're at it, do you have a name and an address?”

  “Never mind me. My name's to be kept out of it. I'm of no consequence, and besides, I don't intend on becoming tomorrow's deadline. . . . Get it, 'deadline' instead of 'headline'?”

  Jessica imagined the caller would like nothing better than notoriety, that this alone prompted her call. She must have worked extremely hard and acted extremely well to have gotten Jessica's cell number. Still, Jessica decided it was best to placate the woman, get her off the phone, get back to sleep and change her number tomorrow.

  “All right, does he have a name and address where we can find him, ma'am?”

  “Daryl Thomas Cahil, 153 Orchard Row, Morristown, New Jersey. Now, what're you people going to do about it— him, I mean?”

  Jessica gave the woman a final shot at her fifteen minutes of fame. “And what is your name and current address, ma'am?”

  “No way . . . he'll find me.”

  Jessica took a deep breath, blinked sleepily and asked, “Do you have a place to go? To get away from him tonight?” She assumed it was a case of battered-woman syndrome.

  “I left him when he threatened me, and no sooner'n I left, he did it to somebody else! I read about the killings in Virginia and North Carolina, and then I saw the news coming out of Florida about that poor girl down there. I tell you,-it's Daryl's work.”

  “OK, all right... if you know this man's secrets ... if you know he's the killer, what private message has he sent to us, Ms. Ahhh . . . ?”

  “Private message?” She sounded utterly confused.

  “Can you tell me what it is and where it's located on the Florida victim's body?”

  The caller, faced with this question, abruptly hung up, and Jessica said, “Just as I suspected.” She knew her phone had logged the caller's number, and a glance showed it to be a New Jersey exchange. She'd look into it further tomorrow, she told herself. While statistics and common sense told her it was just a nuisance call, a small portion of her mind asked “What if? The killer profile did have him living with a woman, maintaining a semblance of normalcy, while undergoing some recent traumatic event in his life. Still, with so many “sightings” of the Brain Thief across the southeast, why go looking for the killer in New Jersey? It was sometimes impossible to separate those tips worthy of attention and those merely hallucinatory, or separating outright fantasy and lies from legitimate leads.

  Since the voice on the phone had not proven her case well, Jessica returned to her night's sleep. However, as she lay there, she wondered about the grave-robbing remarks, how this Cahil character had supposedly stolen brain matter from the graves of children. She thought it just ghoulish enough to be true as opposed to some macabre film or horror novel. Maybe it did bear some looking into . . .

  UNABLE to sleep, the strange phone call reverberating in her head, despite her attempts to dislodge it, Jessica rang Chief Eriq Santiva at home. “What've we got in the way of interesting hits on VICAP, Chief ? Anything we might like to investigate in connection with the brain takings?”

  “What time is it?” “Just past one A.M. Sorry to bother you so late, but I'm afraid this creep is only going to escalate his attacks.” She looked down at her rumpled clothing and realized she hadn't eaten since lunch. She'd been asleep for several hours when the strange call had disturbed her. “What do we have, Eriq?”

  “Nothing strong or I would've called you.”

  “Yeah, of course you would have. Sorry.”

  “Something bothering you, Jess? Aside from what you found on the inside of the Manning girl's head today?”

  She described the unusual call, and he listened attentively. Eriq then said, “I do recall something about a guy on a yearlong grave-robbing spree. Nineteen eighty-nine to ninety, I believe. They called him 'the Ghoul' or 'the New Jersey Ghoul.' Caught digging up kids and making off with their heads.”

  “How many graves did he disturb?”

  “Four, I think . . . Yeah, four graves, four heads . . . never recovered ... A fifth one, he was caught in a seven-year-old's desecrated grave. Sick sonofabitch was put away in an asylum as I recall. All handled by the Jersey authorities with local bureau help, but Quantico was never involved, either directly or indirectly.”

  “I suppose there's a logical reason as to why it didn't come up on the VICAP search?”

  “Nature of the search question, maybe. We were looking for brain thefts, brain consumptions, brain batterings, not decapitated kids. A lot depends on what the locals did with the information, and as I said, Jersey wasn't keen on our involvement at the time. Consequently, even the local bureau wasn't kept abreast, so maybe it never got to VICAP at all, and if it did . . . like I say, likely under beheadings or grave robberies.”

  “Thirteen years ago I had my hands full with being the new medical examiner in Washington, D.C.”

  Long before I became Division Chief. Look, I'll find out more about the case, get back to you.”

  “The caller wouldn't give any identification on herself, but here's the name and address of the guy she informed on: Daryl Thomas Cahil at 153 Orchard Row, Morristown, New Jersey. That might help you.”

  “You mean this nutcase is on the outside?”

  “The woman claimed he'd been released from someplace.”

  “Yeah, well, I know he was put away, but I didn't know he was out on the street. I'll look into it. You think there could b
e some connection with the brain thefts?” Eriq's voice gave way to a hope. “I mean, can we get so lucky? As it is, we have zip.”

  “Let's just say it's a rock that bears looking under. And if he is located, I want to interrogate him about the sign left inside Amanda Manning's skull.”

  “Excellent find, Jess. It will help us separate the wheat from the chaff.” Santiva yawned into the phone. “I'll look under that rock first thing tomorrow.”

  Pittsburgh Pennsylvania University, dorm room Same night

  THE Net user, Washington Williams, was caught up in the sheer detail of information and photos of the brain provided by the website he was on. A medical student, he had a great deal to learn, and he had to memorize it by yesterday. His weary, swollen eyes scanned the information as his pen and pad began to create what was beginning to take shape as a self-directed quiz.

  The page before him was from Encarta and it read:

  Included in the limbic (border) system are the amygdale (almond-shaped), associated with the primitive emotions of fear and aggressiveness, or fight and attack necessary for survival; and the hippocampus, also in the temporal lobe, having to do with memory formation.

  The extension of the upper end of the spinal cord, about the size of the little finger, is the brain stem, lying at the base of the skull cavity. Regarded as part of the midbrain, it is some five hundred million years old. It is here that the switchover of nerves takes place, giving control of the right side of the body to the left side of the brain and vice versa.

  The upper end of the spinal cord passes through the foramen magnum (large opening), the hole in the floor of the skull, and ends in the medulla oblongata, a prolongation of the spinal cord. The medulla oblongata is . . .

  The medical student's pen slid from his fingers as he lolled into sleep.

  July 11, 2003