Red Dragon - Thomas Harris [48]
“We might appeal to the ad manager's citizenship and all and get a look, request him to be quiet, but I don't want to chance it and risk the Tattler slobbering all over us. It would take a warrant to go in there and Bogart the mail. I'm thinking about it.”
“If Chicago turns up nothing, we could put an ad in anyway. If we're wrong about the Tattler, we wouldn't lose anything,” Graham said.
“And if we're right that the Tattler is the medium and we make up a reply based on what we have in this note and screw it up - if it doesn't look right to him - we're down the tubes. I didn't ask you about Birmingham. Anything?”
“Birmingham's shut down and over with. The Jacobi house has been painted and redecorated and it's on the market. Their stuff is in storage waiting for probate. I went through the crates. The people I talked to didn't know the Jacobis very well. The one thing they al?ways mentioned was how affectionate the Jacobis were to each other. Always patting. Nothing left of them now but five pallet loads of stuff in a warehouse. I wish I had-”
“Quit wishing, you're on it now.”
“What about the mark on the tree?”
“'You hit it on the head'? Means nothing to me,” Crawford said. “The Red Dragon either. Beverly knows MahJongg. She's sharp, and she can't see it. We know from his hair he's not Chinese.”
“He cut the limb with a bolt cutter. I don't see-”
Crawford's telephone rang. He spoke into it briefly.
“Lab's ready on the note, Will. Let's go up to Zeller's office. It's bigger and not so gray.”
Lloyd Bowman, dry as a document in spite of the heat, caught up with them in the corridor. He was flapping damp photographs in each hand and held a sheaf of Datafax sheets under his arm. “Jack, I have to be in court at fourfifteen,” he said as he flapped ahead. “It's that paper hanger Nilton Eskew and his sweetheart, Nan. She could draw a Treasury note freehand. They've been driving me crazy for two years making their own traveler's checks on a color Xerox. Won't leave home without them. Will I make it in time, or should I call the prosecutor?”
“You'll make it,” Crawford said. “Here we are.”
Beverly Katz smiled at Graham from the couch in Zeller's office, making up for the scowl of Price beside her.
Scientific Analysis Section Chief Brian Zeller was young for his job, but already his hair was thinning and he wore bifocals. On the shelf behind Zeller's desk Graham saw H. J. Walls's forensic science text, Tedeschi's great Forensic Medicine in three volumes, and an antique edition of Hopkins' The Wreck of the Deutschland.
“Will, we met once at GWU I think,” he said. “Do you know ev?erybody? . . . Fine.”
Crawford leaned against the corner of Zeller's desk, his arans folded. “Anybody got a blockbuster? Okay, does anything you found indicate the note did not come from the Tooth Fairy?”
“No,” Bowman said. “I talked to Chicago a few minutes ago to give them some numerals I picked up from an impression on the back of the note. Sixsixsix. I'll show you when we get to it. Chicago has over two hundred personal ads so far.” He handed Graham a sheaf of Datafax copies. “I've read them and they're all the usual stuff -marriage offers, appeals to runaways. I'm not sure how we'd recognize the ad if it's here.”
Crawford shook his head. “I don't know either. Let's break down the physical. Now, Jimmy Price did everything we could do and there was no print. What about you, Bev?”
“I got one whisker. Scale count and core size match samples from Hannibal Lecter. So does color. The color's markedly different from samples taken in Birmingham and Atlanta. Three blue grains and some dark flecks went to Brian's end.” She raised her eyebrows at Brian Zeller.
“The grains were commercial granulated cleaner with chlorine,” he said. “It