Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

This is Porter Funeral Home, the largest white-framed building on Potter Street in Porter City, West Virginia, which serves as the Rankin County morgue.The coroner was a family doctor named Arkin.If he says the cause of death is suspicious, the body will then be sent to Clarkston Regional Medical Center in the neighboring county, where they have a specially trained pathologist. Clarice Starling entered Porter from the airport in a sheriff's department police patrol car.She sat in the backseat and had to lean forward and up to the prisoner stalls in the car to hear the driving representative explain the situation to Jack Crawford.

The funeral is about to take place in the morgue.Mourners, dressed in their best local attire, file up the sidewalk in single file.On both sides of the road are slender boxwoods.Everyone gathered on the steps, waiting to enter the mortuary.The house and the steps had just been painted, and each went its own way, so they were slightly out of tune with each other. There was a hearse waiting in the secluded parking lot behind the house.Under a bare elm stood two young deputies, one old, and two state troopers.It wasn't cold enough for their breath to form a mist. Starling took a look at the men as the patrol car pulled into the parking lot, and she recognized them instantly.She knew they came from a family that had no closets but a dual-purpose wardrobe, and she knew quite well what was in that closet.She knew that relatives and friends of these people also hung their clothes in garment bags on the walls of their mobile homes.She knew that the older representative had grown up guarding a water machine on the porch; that in the spring he bore muddy water and walked down the road to catch the school bus, his shoes hanging around his neck by laces; That's what my father used to do.She knew that they brought their lunches to school in paper bags, grease-stained from being used over and over again; after lunch, the paper bags were folded and stuffed into the back pockets of their jeans.

How much did Crawford know about them, she wondered? The driver and Crawford got out of the car and started walking toward the back of the funeral home when Starling noticed that there were no handles on either side of the rear doors in the patrol car.She had to knock on the glass, and finally a representative under the tree saw it, and the driver ran back with a red face and let her out of the car. The deputies watched her from the sidelines as she walked by.One said, "Miss!" She nodded at them, and smiled, faintly and modestly.She walked over and followed Crawford on the back porch.

When she was too far away to hear them, one of the young, newly married representatives scratched her chin and said, "She thinks she's big, and she doesn't look like half of it." "Hey, if she just thinks she looks fucking awesome, I'll have to agree. I say myself," said another young representative. "I'd wear her like a Type 5 gas mask." "I'd rather get a big watermelon to eat, as long as it's cold." The older representative said, half talking to himself. Crawford was already talking to the principal representative.He was a stern, tense little man with wire-rimmed spectacles and double-sided elastic boots called "Romeo" boots in the mail-order catalogue.

They were already in the dim corridor at the back of the funeral home.Here's a Coca-Cola machine with a humming motor.Against the wall lay some miscellaneous odds and ends—a pedal-driven sewing machine, a tricycle, a roll of artificial grass, a striped canvas weather awning wrapped around poles.On the wall is a print of a sepia sepia painting of Saint Cecilia playing the harp.Her hair was coiled round her head; roses bent out of nowhere and touched the keys of the piano. "Thank you for notifying us so soon, Sheriff," Crawford said.Li had a brief consultation with the pathologist at Claxton.In the end, he had no problem with everything.

And so, in one of the embalming rooms of a house she understood to be a white frame, Clarice Starling and the direct evidence of Buffalo Bill's crimes met for the first time.The wallpaper in the room was patterned with rosebushes, and under the high ceiling was a moldy painting. The bright green body bag, zipped tight, was the only modern thing in the room, resting on an old-fashioned porcelain embalming workbench, mirrored in layers on the grids of the storage cabinets. in the glass.Inside the cupboard were trocars and bags of coelomic fluid that had become hard as rock. Crawford got in the car to get the fingerprint transmitter, and Starling unpacked her instruments on the drip tray of a large double sink against the wall.

There are too many people in the room.Several delegates, and the main delegate, swung in to join them, and had no intention of leaving.This is not acceptable.Why didn't Crawford come along and take them all away? The doctor turned on the big gray fan, and a gust of wind blew the wallpaper inside. Clarice Starling stood at the sink.At this point she needs a courage, a more powerful example of courage than any parachuting training for Marine Corps cadets requires quick reflexes.Such a scene appeared in front of her eyes and helped her, but at the same time it hurt her heart. Her mother, standing at the sink with cold water running blood from her father's hat, said, "We'll be fine, Clarice. Tell your brothers and sisters to wash their hands and face over here at the table." Come, we'll have a talk, and then we'll have dinner."

Starling took off the scarf and tied it in her hair like a midwife in the mountains.She took a pair of surgical gloves from the box.When she spoke for the first time at Potter, the earthy accent in her voice was heavier than usual, so forceful that Crawford stood at the door to listen. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Officials and gentlemen! Please listen to me for a few words. Please listen. Now let me deal with her." She put her hand in front of them as she put on her gloves. "There are some things we need to deal with her. You have brought her here so far, and I know her family will thank you as long as they have the opportunity. Now please go out first, and I will deal with her."

Seeing that they suddenly became quiet and polite, Crawford urged each other to go out in low voices: "Come on, Jess, let's go to the yard." And Crawford also found that there was a dead man present And the mood of the place has changed: no matter where this victim came from, or who she is, now that the river has brought her to this area, to see her lying helpless in this room in this area, Clarice— Starling felt a special relationship with her.In this one place, Crawford found, Starling inherited the tradition and character of those who were granny women, wise women, men who could heal people with herbs, men who could always take care of everything. The strong country women to be dealt with are the ones who keep vigil for the dead in the country, and it is they who wash and dress the dead after the vigil.

Then, the only ones in the room with the victim were Crawford, Starling, and the doctor.Dr. Arkin and Starling looked at each other as if they knew each other.They were both strangely delighted and strangely embarrassed. Crawford pulled a bottle of Vickers liniment from his pocket and passed it on to the other two.Starling watched to see what it was for, and when she saw both Crawford and the doctor apply it to the sides of her nostrils, she followed suit. She reached in and groped the camera out of the kit on the dripboard.She turned her back to the room.She heard the zipper of the body bag on the back unzip.

Starling blinked at the rosebush on the wall, took a breath and let it out.She turned around and looked at the corpse on the stage. "They should have put her gloves up in a paper bag," she said. "I'll put them on when we're done." Starling cautiously manipulated her automatic camera with the manual controls, surveying the naked body. Shooting like a fork shot. The victim was a plump young woman whose length Starling measured with a tape measure was sixty-six inches.Where there was no skin was gray with water, but the water was cold and she had obviously not been in it for a few days.The skin of the corpse was neatly stripped from a line below the breasts to the knees, which is roughly the part of the matador's trousers and belt. Her breasts were small, and above the sternum between her breasts was the obvious reason—a star-shaped wound with ragged edges, the width of a hand. Her round head was stripped from above the eyebrows to the skull, from the ears to the nape of the neck. "Dr. Lecter said he'd scalp people," Starling said. Crawford stood with his arms folded as she was photographed, and all he said was "Polaroids for her ears." He pursed his lips as he walked around the body.Starling peeled off a glove and ran a finger up the corpse's leg to the calf.A length of trolling line and three-pronged gaff were still wrapped around the lower part of the leg, and it was this line and hook that had caught up and held the body in the running water. "What did you see, Starling?" "Well, she's not from here - she's got three piercings in each ear, and she's got shiny nail polish on, looks like a city guy to me. New growths on both legs maybe two weeks or so Hair. See how soft it grows? I think she hot waxes her legs, and her armpits. See how she fades the down on her upper lip. She takes good care of herself, but already Haven't been able to take care of myself for a while." "What about the wound?" "I don't know," Starling said. "I was going to say it was a fatal gunshot wound, but it looked like a frayed collar with another muzzle mark on the top over there." "Very well, Starling, it was a contact injection wound above the breastbone. The blast of the bullet exploded between the skin and bone, creating that star around the hole." On the other side of the wall, the funeral was taking place in the front of the funeral home, whistling and whistling an organ. "I died unjustly." Doctor Ajin nodded his hair and commented, "I have to go there, I have to attend at least a little bit of this funeral. The family has always hoped that I can send this last journey. As soon as Lama finished playing the funeral Music will be here to help you. I will take your word for it, and you will protect the evidence for the Claxton pathologist, Mr. Crawford." "There are two broken nails here on her left hand," Starling said after the doctor left. "They were pulled back and broke at the base of the nails, and the other nails looked like they were squeezed by dirt or some hard debris. It's inside. Do you want evidence?" "Take a sample of grit, and a few flakes of nail polish," Crawford said. "We'll know what they are when we get the results." Rama, a thin, funeral worker, came in smelling of whiskey while Starling was doing the work. "You must have been a manicure man for a while?" he said. They were pleased to see that the young woman had no nail marks in her palms—showing that she, like everyone else, died without suffering other sins. "Would you like her to fingerprint you face down, Starling?" Crawford said. "It's easier that way." "Put the teeth first, and then Rama can turn her over for us." "Do you want a photo, or do you want to make a chart?" Starling put a set of dental components on the front of the fingerprinting camera, secretly relieved, thankful that all the components were in the bag. "We need pictures," Crawford said. "Without looking at the x-rays, the charts will lead us to draw wrong conclusions. With the pictures, we can rule out a few missing women first." Rama was very gentle and careful with his organ-playing hands.He parted the young woman's mouth toward Starling and curled her lips inward so that Starling could stick the instant Polaroid up to her face to capture details of the front teeth.This part is not difficult, but she still has to use a palatal mirror to take pictures of the molars, to see if the light passes through the inner cheek from the side, and the flash around the lens flashes to ensure that it shines into the mouth.She had only seen this kind of shooting in a forensic science class. Starling watched the first molar photo from the Polaroid slowly develop. She adjusted the brightness control and tried another one.This one is better.This one is great! "There's something in her throat!" Starling said. Crawford looked at the photo, which showed a dark cylindrical object just behind the soft crotch. "Give me the light." "When the body is pulled out of the water, many times there will be something like a leaf in the mouth," said Lamarr, helping Crawford to watch. Starling took a pair of tweezers from her bag.She looked across from the body to Crawford.He nodded.In just a second, she clipped the thing out. "What? A pod of what?" said Crawford. "No, sir, that's a bug's cocoon," said Rama.He was right. Starling put it in a bottle. "You might as well have the county's agricultural advisor take a look," Lamarr said. With the body face down, fingerprinting is easy.Starling had prepared for the worst—but none of the annoying, delicate injections, or the rubber finger guards, were going to work.She takes fingerprints on thin card pads held in place by a device shaped like a shoehorn.She extracted another pair of footprints, just in case they only had the baby footprints in the hospital for reference. Where the shoulders were high, two pieces of skin were gone, leaving two triangles.Starling took the picture. "Measure the size again," said Crawford. "When he cut open the clothes of the Icken girl, he cut her too, just a little bit of a bruise, but when they found her by the roadside I found a cut in the upper back of the shirt that coincided with the cut. This is a new situation, I have not seen it before." "It looked like she had a burn on the back of her calf," Starling said. "There's a lot of that in older people," Rama said. "What?" said Crawford. "I-say-old-year-people-on-body-the-like-things-things-a lot." "I heard it very clearly just now, I want you to explain, what's wrong with the elderly?" "When the elderly passed away, they were covered with a heating pad. Even though they were not that hot, they were still burned after death. As long as a person died with a heating pad on his body, he would be burned. There is no circulation underneath." "We've got the pathologist in Claxton to verify it's postmortem," Crawford told Starling. "Car mufflers, probably," Rama said. "what?" "Car-car-muff-muffler. Billy Petrie got shot once and they dumped him in the trunk of his car. His wife was driving around Been looking for him for two or three days. When they got him here, the muffler under the trunk of the car got hot and burned him like that, but on the backside." Lamar said, "I can't Put groceries in the boot of the car, it melts ice cream." "That's a good idea, Lamar, and I'd like you to work for me," said Crawford. "You know the guys who found her in the river?" "It's Gabe Franklin and his brother Bubba." "What are they for?" "Fighting in the Friendship and Mutual Aid Club, looking for people to make fun of, and they don't mess with them-someone watches those who have just lost their loved ones all day long, and they are tired of watching, and come to this Friendship and Mutual Aid Club after a little drink, and he will give you Come 'sit down, Rama, play Filipino Kid'. Always have 'Philippine Kid' being played over and over on that old bar piano, that's what Gabo loves to do.' Hey, don't you If you know the words, just make up some goddamn words,' he said, 'this time you rhyme the hell out of it.' He got a check from an old member, went to the Veteran's Administration around Christmas The hospital went into sobriety. I've been waiting fifteen years for him to be on this coroner's table." "We're going to do a serum test on the fishhook hole," said Crawford. "I'll send a note to the pathologist." "Those hooks were too close to each other," Rama said. "What did you say?" "Brother Franklin got those hooks too close on the trolling line, which was a foul, and that's probably why they didn't call the police until this morning." "The sheriff said they were hunting ducks." "That's what I expected them to say to him," Lamarr said. "They'll tell you that they were on a wheel wrestling team with Satellite Monroe in a pro wrestling match and wrestled Duke Kenwood Benka of Honolulu." Oh! You can believe that if you want. Grab a totoaba bag and they'll take you to snipe shooting, if you like snipe. And even bring you a glass of marbles .” "What do you think of the situation, Rama?" "The Franklin Brothers are in control of the trolling line, these illegal hooks on their trolling line, and they're pulling the line up to see if they've caught a fish." "Why do you see it that way?" "The lady is not yet ready to surface." "yes." "Then they would never have found her if they hadn't been pulling the line. They probably walked away in fear and called for someone at last. I wish you'd get the Fish and Game Sheriff to look at it." "I hope so too," Crawford said. "A lot of the time they get a crank phone to put behind the seat of their Lamb Chaj, and that's a hefty fine if not jail time!" Crawford raised an eyebrow in bewilderment. "It's for electric fish," Starling said. "Drop the wire into the water, crank the handle, and the current will stun the fish, and the fish will float to the surface. Just scoop it up." "Yes," said Rama. "Are you from around here?" "People do it in a lot of places," Starling said. Before they zipped up the body bag, Starling felt the urge to say something, make a gesture, or make some kind of commitment, and finally, she just shook her head and busily packed the samples into the box. It's one thing to be with a dead body, and quite another to have problems without it.At this moment, she relaxed, and everything she had just done came back to her mind.Starling took off her gloves and turned on the sink tap.She turned her back to the room, letting the water wash over her wrists.The water in the pipes is not that cool.While watching her, Lama went out of the room to the corridor. He got a can of cold soda from the Coke machine and brought it to her without opening it. "No thanks," Starling said, "I don't want to drink." "No, put it under your neck," Lamarr said, "and on that little bump at the back of your head. Cold stuff makes you feel better, and that's what I do." By the time Starling tied up the memo for the pathologist through the zipped body bag, Crawford's fingerprint transmitter on the desk was already clicking. It was luck that the victim was found so soon after committing the crime.Determined to find out her identity quickly, Crawford began scouring around her home for witnesses to the kidnapping.His approach caused everyone a lot of trouble, but the speed was fast. Crawford was carrying a Litton police fingerprint fax machine.Unlike the FBI-issued fax machines, this police fax machine is compatible with most major-city police systems.The fingerprint cards Starling had put together were barely dry. "Put it on, Starling, you have nimble fingers." What he really meant was: don't get dirty.Starling didn't get dirty.Gluing the mixed cards together and rolling them onto that little roll was no easy feat.There are six communication rooms across the country waiting at this time. Crawford made calls to the FBI switchboard and to the communications room in Washington. "Dorothy, are you all there? Well, gentlemen, down to a hundred and two, to make the lines sharp and clear—look it up, everybody, is it a hundred and twelve? How about Atlanta? Well, here My image channel...give it now." The fax machine then spun slowly to ensure clarity, simultaneously transmitting the dead woman's fingerprints to the communications rooms of the FBI and several major police departments in the East.If anyone in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, or any other city matched that fingerprint, a search would begin within minutes. Crawford then circulated pictures of the victim's teeth and face; Starling wrapped the head in a towel in case the tabloids got their hands on the pictures again. They were leaving when three officers from the West Virginia Department of Criminal Investigation arrived from Charleston.Crawford shook hands with many, handing out cards with the National Criminal Intelligence Center hotline number on them.Starling found it amusing to see him get these guys into a male camaraderie mode so quickly.They're sure to call as soon as they get some information, for sure.You can bet you thank them too.Her judgment might or might not have been masculine friendship: it worked on her, too. As Crawford and Starling drove to the Elk River with the representative, Lamarr waved to them from the porch.The can of Coke was still quite cold, so Lama took it into the material room and prepared a refreshing drink for himself.