The network news on Sunday night showed Starling’s scrap with the television cameramen and she felt sure she was deep in the glue. Through it all, no word from Crawford or from the Baltimore field office. It was as though she had dropped her report down a hole.
The casino where she now stood was small—it had operated in a moving trailer truck until the FBI seized it and installed it in the school as a teaching aid. The narrow room was crowded with police from many jurisdictions; Starling had declined with thanks the chairs of two Texas Rangers and a Scotland Yard detective.
The rest of her class were down the hall in the Academy building, searching for hairs in the genuine motel carpet of the “Sex-Crime Bedroom” and dusting the “Anytown Bank” for fingerprints. Starling had spent so many hours on searches and fingerprints as a Forensic Fellow that she was sent instead to this lecture, part of a series for visiting lawmen.
She wondered if there was another reason she had been sepa
rated from the class: maybe they isolate you before you get the ax.
Starling rested her elbows on the pass line of the dice table and tried to concentrate on money-laundering in gambling. What she thought about instead was how much the FBI hates to see its agents on television, outside of official news conferences.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter was catnip to the media, and the Baltimore police had happily supplied Starling’s name to reporters. Over and over she saw herself on the Sunday-night network news. There was “Starling of the FBI” in Baltimore, banging the jack handle against the garage door as the cameraman tried to slither under it. And here was “Federal Agent Starling” turning on the assistant with the jack handle in her hand.
On the rival network, station WPIK, lacking film of its own, had announced a personal-injury lawsuit against “Starling of the FBI” and the Bureau itself because the cameraman got dirt and rust particles in his eyes when Starling banged the door.
Jonetta Johnson of WPIK was on coast-to-coast with the revelation that Starling had found the remains in the garage through an “eerie bonding with a man authorities have branded … a monster!” Clearly, WPIK had a source at the hospital.
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!! screamed the National Tattler from its supermarket racks.
There was no public comment from the FBI, but there was plenty inside the Bureau, Starling was sure.
At breakfast, one of her classmates, a young man who wore a lot of Canoe after-shave, had referred to Starling as “Melvin Pelvis,” a stupid play on the name of Melvin Purvis, Hoover’s number-one G-man in the thirties. What Ardelia Mapp said to the young man made his face turn white, and he left his breakfast uneaten on the table.
Now Starling found herself in a curious state in which she could not be surprised. For a day and a night she’d felt suspended in a diver’s ringing silence. She intended to defend herself, if she got the chance.
The lecturer spun the roulette wheel as he talked, but he never let the ball drop. Looking at him, Starling was convinced that he had never let the ball drop in his life. He was saying something now: “Clarice Starling.” Why was he saying “Clarice Starling?” That’s me.
“Yes,” she said.
The lecturer pointed with his chin at the door behind her. Here it came. Her fate shied under her as she turned to see. But it was Brigham, the gunnery instructor, leaning into the room to point to her across the crowd. When she saw him, he beckoned.
For a second she thought they were throwing her out, but that wouldn’t be Brigham’s job.
“Saddle up, Starling. Where’s your field gear?” he said in the hall.
“My room—C Wing.”
She had to walk fast then to keep up with him.
He was carrying the big fingerprint kit from the property room—the good one, not the play-school kit—and a small canvas bag.
“You go with Jack Crawford today. Take stuff for overnight. You may be back, but take it.”
“Where?”
“Some duck hunters in West Virginia found a body in the Elk River around daylight. In a Buffalo Bill-type situation. Deputies are bringing it out. It’s real boonies, and Jack’s not inclined to wait on those guys for details.” Brigham stopped at the door to C Wing. “He needs somebody to help him that can print a floater, among other things. You were a grunt in the lab—you can do that, right?”
“Yeee, let me check the stuff.”
Brigham held the fingerprint kit open while Starling lifted out the trays. The fine hypodermics and the vials were there, but the camera wasn’t.
“I need the one-to-one Polaroid, the CU-5, Mr. Brigham, and film packs and batteries for it.”
“From property? You got it.”
He handed her the small canvas bag, and when she felt its weight, she realized why it was Brigham who had come for her.
“You don’t have a duty piece yet, right?”