The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [18]
Now she could see through the dusty glass of the front passenger's side window into the chauffeur's compartment. A spider had spun between the big steering wheel and the gearshift. The partition between the front and back compartments was closed.
She wished she had thought to oil the Packard key before she came under the door, but when she stuck it the lock, it worked.
There was hardly room to open the door more than a third of the way in the narrow passage. It swung against the boxes with a thump that sent the mice scratching and brought additional notes from the piano. A stale smell of decay and chemical came out of the car. It jogged her memory in a place she couldn't name.
She leaned inside, opened the partition behind the chauffeur's seat, and shined her flashlight into the rear compartment of the car. A formal shirt with studs was the bright thing the light found first, quickly up the shirtfront to the face, no face to see, and down again, over glittering shirt studs and satin lapels to a lap with zipper open, and up again to the neat bow tie and the collar, where the white stub neck of a mannequin pro?truded. But above the neck, something, else that re?flected little light. Cloth, a black hood where the head should be, big, as though it covered a parrot's cage. Velvet, Starling thought. It sat on a plywood shelf ex?tending over the neck of the mannequin from the par?cel shelf behind.
She took several pictures from the front seat, focus?ing with the flashlight and closing her eyes against the flash of the strobe. Then she straightened up outside the car. Standing in the dark, wet, with cobwebs on her, she considered what to do.
What she was not going to do was summon the spe?cial agent in charge of the Baltimore field office to look at a mannequin with its fly open and a book of Valen?tines.
Once she decided to get in the backseat and take the hood off the thing, she didn't want to think about it very long. She reached through the chauffeur's parti?tion, unlocked the rear door, and rearranged some boxes to get it open. It all seemed to take a long time. The smell from the rear compartment was much stronger when she opened the door. She reached in and, carefully lifting the Valentine album by the corners, moved it onto an evidence bag on top of the car. She spread another evidence bag on the seat.
The car springs groaned as she got inside and the figure shifted a little when she sat down beside it. The right hand in its white glove slid off the thigh and lay on the seat. She touched the glove with her finger. The hand inside was hard. Gingerly she pushed the glove down from the wrist. The wrist was some white syn?thetic material. There was a lump in the trousers that for a silly instant reminded her of certain events in high school.
Small scrambling noises came from under the seat.
Gentle as a caress, her hand touching the hood. The cloth moved easily over something hard and slick be?neath. When she felt the round knob on the top, she knew. She knew that it was a big laboratory specimen jar and she knew what would be in it. With dread, but little doubt, she pulled off the cover.
The head inside the jar had been severed neatly close beneath the jaw. It faced her, the eyes long burned milky by the alcohol that preserved it. The mouth was open and the tongue protruded slightly, very gray. Over the years, the alcohol had evaporated to the point that the head rested on the bottom of the jar, its crown protruding through the surface of the fluid in a cap of decay. Turned at an owlish angle to the body beneath, it gaped stupidly at Starling. Even in the play of light over the features, it remained dumb and dead.
Starling, in this moment, examined herself. She was pleased. She was exhilarated. She wondered for a sec?ond if those were worthy feelings. Now, at this mo?ment, sitting in this old car with a head and some mice, she could think clearly, and she was proud of that.
“Well, Toto,” she said, “we're not in Kansas any?more.” She'd always wanted to say that under stress, but doing