Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen

"Let me drop off at the lab, Jeff," Lawford said to the driver. "Afterwards I want you to wait for Officer Starling at the Smithsonian, and she'll go back to Quintico from there." "Yes, sir." They were crossing the Potomac River against the after-dinner traffic and entering downtown Washington from National Airport. Starling thought, the young man driving was in awe of Crawford, so he was driving too carefully.She didn't blame him; there was a detective in front of Crawford's team who had made a whole mess of things once, and was now off to the long-distance warning line in the Arctic Circle to investigate petty theft and the like. As a result it has become an article of faith in the Academy.

Crawford was in a bad mood.Nine hours have passed since he sent the victim's fingerprints and photos, and her identity is still unknown.With Starling and the West Virginia State Troopers, he worked on the bridge and the river bank until dark without success. Starling also heard him on the phone on the plane, arranging for a nurse to come to his house at night. Stepping out of the Blue Canoe and into the unassuming FBI limousine seemed eerily quieter and easier to talk to. "After sending your extracted fingerprints to the intelligence service, I will notify the hotline and latent fingerprint descriptor index department." Crawford said, "You draft something for me to put in the file. The folder is fine, not 302." That—do you know how to do it?"

"Know." "For example, I am the index department. Tell me what's new." It didn't take long for her to gather the material—she was glad that Crawford seemed interested in the scaffolding on the Jefferson Monument as they passed it. On the computer of the identification team, the Latent Fingerprint Descriptor Index compares the characteristics of the criminal activities under investigation with some known characteristics of the criminals on the files. When obvious similarities are found, the computer will Present an opinion as to who the suspects are and provide their fingerprints.Then, a human operator compares the fingerprints in the file with latent fingerprints found at the crime scene.Buffalo Bill's fingerprints hadn't been taken yet, but Crawford wanted to get ready.

The system requires concise and clear statements.Starling tried to write a few words like this. "Caucasian female, late teens or early twenties, shot, lower torso and thighs skinned—" "Starling, he kills young white women and flays their torsos, all this is known to the Index - by the way, 'skinned' for 'skinned', 'flayed' is not common, other officers Probably not, and you can't tell if the damn thing recognizes synonyms. The computer already knows he dumped the body in the river, and it doesn't know what's new about you. Is there anything new here, Starling?"

"This is the sixth victim. The first one was scalped, the first one had two triangles of skin removed from the back of the shoulders, the first one was shot in the chest, and the first one had a cocoon in the throat." "You forgot that you still have broken nails." "No, sir, she's the second to have a broken nail." "You're right. Look, in the pages you added to the dossier, note that the cocoons are classified, and we can use that to rule out false confessions." "I wonder if he's done this before—putting a cocoon or an insect," Starling said. "It's easy to miss in an autopsy, especially a float. You know, the medical examiners only see the obvious." The cause of death, and the climate over there is hot, they just want to finish reading it... Can we go back and look it up again?"

"It's okay to check. You can expect the pathologists to say that they haven't neglected anything. This is also natural. Zhang San and Li Si in Cincinnati are still in the freezer. I asked them to take a look. But the other four are dead. Ordering an exhumation would disturb everybody. We exhumed four patients who died during their visit to Dr. Lecter, and had to be exhumed in order to find out the cause of death. I tell you, This matter is very troublesome, and it makes their relatives and friends very painful. If it must be dug, I can order it, but let's see what you can find out after you go to the Smithsonian Museum, and then I will make a decision."

"Scalping... is really rare, isn't it?" "No, not often," said Crawford. "But Dr. Lecter said Buffalo Bill could scalp people. How did he know?" "he does not know." "But he said so." "It wasn't a big deal, Starling. I wasn't surprised when I saw it. I should have said it was rare, but then there was the Mungle case, remember that? The woman Being scalped? After that, two or three people imitated blindly. As for the newspapers, as long as they played with the news with the label of Buffalo Bill, they emphasized more than once that this murderer did not take scalps. What happened later was not Odd—he probably did what the newspapers said. Lecter was guessing. He didn't say when it was going to happen, so he could never be wrong. If we caught Bill and he didn't strip Scalp, Lecter could say, and we got him just before he was going to be scalped."

"Dr. Lecter also said Buffalo Bill lived in a two-story house. We haven't checked that yet. Why do you think he said that?" "It's not a guess. He's probably right, and he can tell you why. But he's trying to tease you a little bit. That's the only weakness I see in him—he has to make people Think he's smarter than anybody. He's been doing that for years." "You said that if you don't understand, you can ask—er, I have to ask you to explain this point." "Okay. Two of the victims were hanged, weren't they? High rope marks, dislocated necks, definitely hanged. Dr. Lecter knows from his own experience, Starling, that it takes a man to disobey It's hard to hang another person's will forcibly. People can hang on the doorknob, that's their own hanging, it's easy, just sit down, but it's hard to hang someone else - even if they're bound, they'll find a way to get their feet to the ground as long as they touch something. Ladders are scary. Victims don't just climb up blindly. If you see a noose Definitely won't climb. The achievement is to go up the stairwell. Stairs are common, tell them you take them upstairs to use the bathroom, whatever; take a mask over their face and go up, quickly Noose over the head and kick him down the top flight of stairs; the end of the rope is tied to the railing at the top landing. That's the only good way to do it indoors. California Kid They popularized it. If Bill didn't have a stairwell, he'd kill them some other way. Now you give me those names, the chief representative of Porter, and the state trooper guy, who High-ranking official."

Starling found their names in her notebook, held a penlight between her teeth, and read them. "Great!" Crawford said. "When you talk to the hotline, Starling, it's an honor to call the police by their first name every time. They'll be nicer to the hotline when they hear their name. A sense of honor helps them remember to call us if there's a problem. What does that burn on her leg indicate in your opinion?" "It depends on whether it was caused after death." "What if?" "Then he'd have a truck or a van or a wagon that could be enclosed, some kind of long vehicle."

"why?" "Because the back of her calf was burned." They came to Tenth and Pennsylvania Avenues in front of the new FBI headquarters;Edgar Hoover House. "Jeff, you just let me out of the car here," Crawford said, "right here, don't drive in. Stay in the car, Jeff, just open the trunk. Come and tell me Listen, Starling." She got out of the car with Crawford.He took it from the luggage room.Go back to your data fax machine and briefcase. "He dragged the body into something big enough for it to lie on its back," Starling said. "The only way the back of her calf was going to be flat on the floor above the exhaust. In the trunk of a car like this, you can only put her body on its side, so—"

"Yeah, that's how I see it," Crawford said. Only then did she realize that she had been asked to get out of the car so that she could talk to her in private. "I told the representative that he and I shouldn't talk in front of a woman, so that pissed you off, didn't it?" "of course." "That's just a smoke screen. I want to have some private contact with him." "Then I know." "Okay." Crawford slammed the suitcase shut and turned to leave. Starling couldn't let it go just yet. "That's what matters, Mr. Crawford." He turned around and walked towards her again, his hands full, another fax machine and another briefcase.He waited intently for her to speak. "Those cops know who you are," she said. "They're watching you." She stood still, shrugged her shoulders, spread her hands, and that's what happened, yes. Crawford weighed it, and it was still his cold look. "A timely reminder, Starling. Now go and check that bug." "Yes, sir." She watched him walk away.A middle-aged man, his body is full of cases; he flew around and made his appearance untidy; he was handling cases on the river bank and made his cuffs full of mud; he was going home at this time, going home to do what he was doing everything. For him, she is willing to risk her life at this moment.One of Crawford's great talents lies here.