The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [26]
She stared at the back of Crawford's head. If she wanted to stop Buffalo Bill she was in the right crowd. Crawford had organized successful hunts for three se?rial murderers. But not without casualties. Will Gra?ham, the keenest hound ever to run in Crawford's pack, was a legend at the Academy; he was also a drunk in Florida now with a face that was hard to look at, they said.
Maybe Crawford felt her staring at the back of his head. He climbed out of the copilot's seat. The pilot touched the trim wheel as Crawford came back to her and buckled in beside her. When he folded his sun?glasses and put on his bifocals, she felt she knew him again.
When he looked from her face to the report and back again, something passed behind his face and was quickly gone. A more animated mug than Crawford's would have shown regret.
“I'm hot, are you hot?” he said. “Bobby, it's too damned hot in here,” he called to the pilot. Bobby adjusted something and cold air came in. A few snow?flakes formed in the moist cabin air and settled in Star?ling's hair.
Then it was Jack Crawford hunting, his eyes like a bright winter day.
He opened the file to a map of the Central and East?ern United States. Locations where bodies had been found were marked on the map--- a scattering of dots as mute and crooked as Orion.
Crawford took a pen from his pocket and marked the newest location, their objective.
“Elk River, about six miles below U.S. 79,” he said. “We're lucky on this one. The body was snagged on a trotline--- a fishing line set out in the river. They don't think she's been in the water all that long. They're bringing her to Potter, the county seat. I want to know who she is in a hurry so we can sweep for witnesses to the abduction. We'll send the prints back on a land line as soon as we get 'em.” Crawford tilted his head to look at Starling through the bottoms of his glasses. “Jimmy Price says you can do a floater.”
“Actually, I never had an entire floater,” Starling said. “I fingerprinted the hands Mr. Price got in his mail every day. A good many of them were from floaters, though.”
Those who have 'never been under Jimmy Price's supervision believe him to be a lovable curmudgeon. Like most curmudgeons, he is really a mean old man. Jimmy Price is a supervisor in Latent Prints at the Washington lab. Starling did time with him as a Foren?sic Fellow.
“That Jimmy,” Crawford said fondly. “What is it they call that job...”
“The position is called 'lab wretch,' or some people prefer 'Igor'--- that's what's printed on the rubber apron they give you.”
“That's it.”
“They tell you to pretend you're dissecting a frog.”
“I see---”
“Then they bring you a package from UPS. They're all watching--- some of them hurry back from coffee, hoping you'll barf. I can print a floater very well. In fact---”
"Good, now look at this. His first victim that we know of was found in the Blackwater River in Mis?souri, outside of Lone Jack, last June. The Bimmel girl, she'd been reported missing in Belvedere, Ohio, on April 15, two months before. We couldn't tell a lot about it--- it took another three months just to get her identified. The next one he grabbed in Chicago the third week in April. She was found in the Wabash in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, just ten days after she was taken, so we could tell what had happened to her. Next we've got a white female, early twenties, dumped in the Rolling Fork near I-65, about thirtyeight miles south of Louisville, Kentucky. She's never been identi?fied. And the Varner woman, grabbed in Evansville, Indiana, and dropped in the Embarras just below Inter?state 70 in eastern Illinois.
“Then he moved south and dumped one in the Conasauga below Damascus, Georgia, down from In?terstate 75, that was this Kittridge girl from Pitts?burgh--- here's her graduation picture. His luck's ungodly--- nobody's ever seen him make a snatch. Ex?cept for the dumps being near an Interstate, we haven't seen any pattern.”
“If you trace heaviesttraffic routes backward from the dump