The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [32]
“What do you think happened, Lamar?”
“The Franklins was running this trotline, it's their trotline with these unlawful hooks, and they was pull?ing it up to see if they had any fish.”
“Why do you think so?”
“This lady's not near ready to float.”
“No.”
“Then if they hadna been pulling up on the trotline they never would have found her. They prob'ly went off scared and finally called in. I expect you'll want the game warden in on this.”
“I expect so,” Crawford said.
“Lots of times they've got a crank telephone behind the seat in their Ramcharger, that's a big fine right there, if you don't have to go to the pen.”
Crawford raised his eyebrows.
“To telephone fish with,” Starling said. “Stun the fish with electric current when you hang the wires in the water and turn the crank. They come to the top and you just dip 'em out.”
“Right,” Lamar said, “are you from around here?”
“They do it lots of places,” Starling said.
Starling felt the urge to say something before they zipped up the bag, to make a gesture or express some kind of commitment. In the end, she just shook her head and got busy packing the samples into her case.
It was different with the body and problem out of sight. In this slack moment, what she'd been doing came in on her. Starling stripped off her gloves and turned the water on in the sink. With her back to the room, she ran water over her wrists. The water in the pipes wasn't all that cool. Lamar, watching, disap?peared into the hall. He came back from the Coke ma?chine with an icecold can of soda, unopened, and offered it to her.
“No, thanks,” Starling said. “I don't believe I'll have one.”
“No, hold it under your neck there,” Lamar said, “and on that little bump at the back of your head. Cold'll make you feel better. It does me.”
By the time Starling had finished taping the memo to the pathologist across the zipper of the body bag, Crawford's fingerprint transmitter was clicking on the office desk.
Finding this victim so soon after the crime was a lucky break. Crawford was determined to identify her quickly and start a sweep around her home for wit?nesses to the abduction. His method was a lot of trou?ble to everyone, but it was fast.
Crawford carried a Litton Policefax fingerprint trans?mitter. Unlike federalissue facsimile machines, the Policefax is compatible with most bigcity police de?partment systems. The fingerprint card Starling had assembled was barely dry.
“Load it, Starling, you've got the nimble fingers.”
Don't smear it was what he meant, and Starling didn't. It was hard, wrapping the gluedtogether composite card around the little drum while six wire rooms waited around the country.
Crawford was on the telephone to the FBI switch?board and wire room in Washington. “Dorothy, is ev?erybody on? Okay, gentlemen, we'll turn it down to onetwenty to keep it nice and sharp--- check one-?twenty, everybody? Atlanta, how about it? Okay, give me the picture wire... now.”
Then it was spinning at slow speed for clarity, send?ing the dead woman's prints simultaneously to the FBI wire room and major police department wire rooms in the East. If Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, or any of the others got a hit on the fingerprints, a sweep would begin in minutes.
Next Crawford sent pictures of the victim's teeth and photos of her face, the head draped by Starling with a towel in the event the supermarket press got hold of the photographs.
Three officers of the West Virginia State Police Criminal Investigation Section arrived from Charleston as they were leaving. Crawford did a lot of handshaking, passing out cards with the National Crime Information Center hotline number. Starling was interested to see how fast he got them into a male bonding mode. They sure would call up with anything they got, they sure would. You betcha and much oblige. Maybe it wasn't male bonding, she decided; it worked on her too.
Lamar waved with his fingers from the porch as Crawford and Starling rode away with the deputy to?ward the Elk River. The Coke was still pretty cold. Lamar