The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [19]
She sat back gingerly and looked around.
This was somebody's environment, chosen and cre?ated, a thousand lightyears across the mind from the traffic crawling down Route 301.
Dried blossoms dropped from the cutcrystal bud vases on the pillars. The limousine's table was folded down and covered with a linen cloth. On it, a decanter gleamed through dust. A spider had built between the decanter and the short candlestick beside it.
She tried to picture Lecter, or someone, sitting here with her present companion and having a drink and trying to show him the Valentines. And what else? Working carefully, disturbing the figure as little as pos?sible, she frisked it for identification. There was none. In a jacket pocket she found the bands of material left over from adjusting the length of the trousers--- the dinner clothes were probably new when they were put on the figure.
Starling poked the lump in the trousers. Too hard, even for high school, she reflected. She spread the fly with her fingers and shined her light inside, on dildo of polished, inlaid wood. Goodsized one, too. She wondered if she was depraved.
Carefully she turned the jar and examined the sides and back of the head for wounds. There were none visible. The name of a laboratory supply company was cast in the glass.
Considering the face again, she believed she learned something that would last her. Looking with purpose at this face, with its tongue changing color where it touched the glass, was not as bad as Miggs swallowing his tongue in her dreams. She felt she could look at anything, if she had something positive to do about it. Starling was young.
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In the ten seconds after her WPIKTV mobile news unit slid to a stop, Jonetta Johnson put in her earrings, powdered her beautiful brown face, and cased the situ?ation. She and her news crew, monitoring the Baltimore County police radio, had arrived at Split City ahead of the patrol cars.
All the news crew saw in their headlights was Clarice Starling, standing in front of the garage door with her flashlight and her little laminated ID card, her hair plas?tered down by the drizzle.
Jonetta Johnson could spot a rookie every time. She climbed out with the camera crew behind her and ap?proached Starling. The bright lights came on.
Mr. Yow sank so far down in his Buick that only his hat was visible above the window sill.
“Jonetta Johnson, WPIK news, did you report a homicide?”
Starling did not look like very much law and she knew it. “I'm a federal officer, this is a crime scene. I have to secure it until the Baltimore authorities---”
The assistant cameraman had grabbed the bottom of the garage door and was trying to lift it.
“Hold it,” Starling said. “I'm talking to you, sir. Hold it. Back off, please. I'm not kidding with you. Help me out here.” She wished hard for a badge, a uniform, anything.
“Okay, Harry,” the newswoman said. “Ah, officer, we want to cooperate in every way. Frankly, this crew costs money and I just want to know whether to even keep them here until the other authorities arrive. Will you tell me if there's a body in there? Camera's off, just between us. Tell me and we'll wait. We'll be good, I promise. How about it?”
“I'd wait if I were you,” Starling said.
“Thanks, you won't be sorry,” Jonetta Johnson said. “Look, I've got some information on Split City Mini-?Storage that you could probably use. Would you shine your light on the clipboard? Let's see if I can find it here.”
“WEYE mobile unit just turned in at the gate, Joney,” the man, Harry, said.
“Let's see if I can find it here, Officer, here it is. There was a scandal about two years ago when they tried to prove this place was trucking and storing--- was it fireworks?” Jonetta Johnson glanced over Starling's shoulder once too often.
Starling turned to see the cameraman on his back, his head and shoulders in the garage, the assistant squat?ting beside him, ready to pass the minicam under the door.
“Hey!” Starling said. She dropped to her knees on