The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [46]
“Entomology's the other way, Mr. Crawford.”
“I know,” he said.
They rounded the corner to the door of Anthropol?ogy. Light and voices came through the frosted glass. She went in.
Three men in laboratory coats worked at a table in the center of the room beneath a brilliant light. Starling couldn't see what they were doing. Jerry Burroughs from Behavioral Science was looking over their shoul?ders taking notes on a clipboard. There was a familiar odor in the room.
Then one of the men in white moved to put some?thing in the sink and she could see all right.
In a stainlesssteel, tray on the workbench was “Klaus,” the head she had found in the Split City Mini?Storage.
“Klaus had the bug in his throat,” Crawford said. “Hold on a minute, Starling. Jerry, are you talking to the wire room?”
Burroughs was reading from his clipboard into the telephone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Yeah, Jack, they're drying the art on Klaus.”
Crawford took the receiver from him. “Bobby, don't wait for the Interpol split. Get a picture wire and trans?mit the photographs now, along with the medical. Scandinavian countries, West Germany, the Nether?lands. Be sure to say Klaus could be a merchant sailor that jumped ship. Mention that their National Health may have a claim for the cheekbone fracture. Call it the what, the zygomatic arch. Make sure you move both dental charts, the universal and the Federation Dentaire. They're coming with an age, but emphasize that it's a rough estimate--- you can't depend on skull su?tures for that.” He gave the phone back to Burroughs. “Where's your gear, Starling?”
“The guard office downstairs.”
“Johns Hopkins found the insect,” Crawford said as they waited for the elevator. “They were doing the head for the Baltimore County police. It was in the throat, just like the girl in West Virginia.”
“Just like West Virginia.”
“You clucked. Johns Hopkins found it about seven tonight. The Baltimore district attorney called me on the plane. They sent the whole thing over, Klaus and all, so we could see it in situ. They also wanted an opinion from Dr. Angel on Klaus' age and how old he was when he fractured his cheekbone. They consult the Smithsonian just like we do.”
“I have to deal with this a second. You're saying maybe Buffalo Bill killed Klaus? Years ago?”
“Does it seem farfetched, too much of a coinci?dence?”
“Right this second it does.”
“Let it cook a minute.”
“Dr. Lecter told me where to find Klaus,” Starling said.
“Yes, he did.”
“Dr. Lecter told me his patient, Benjamin Raspail, claimed to have killed Klaus. But Lecter said he be?lieved it was probably accidental erotic asphyxia.”
“That's what he said.”
“You think maybe Dr. Lecter knows exactly how Klaus died, and it wasn't Raspail, and it wasn't erotic asphyxia?”
“Klaus had a bug in his throat, the girl in West Vir?ginia had a bug in her throat. I never saw that anywhere else. Never read about it, never heard of it. What do you think?”
“I think you told me to pack for two days. You want me to ask Dr. Letter, don't you.”
“You're the one he talks to, Starling.” Crawford looked so sad when he said, “I figure you're game.”
She nodded.
“We'll talk on the way to the asylum,” he said.
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 19
“Dr. Lecter had a big psy?chiatric practice for years before we caught him for the murders,” Crawford said. “He did a slew of psychiatric evaluations for the Maryland and Virginia courts and some others up and down the East Coast. He's seen a lot of the criminally insane. Who knows what he turned loose, just for fun? That's one way he could know. Also, he knew Raspail socially and Raspail told him things in therapy. Maybe Raspail told him who killed Klaus.”
Crawford and Starling faced each other in swivel chairs in the back of the surveillance van, whizzing north on U.S. 95 toward Baltimore, thirtyseven miles away. Jeff, in the driver's compartment, clearly had orders to step on it.
"Lecter offered to help, and I had no part of him. I've had his help before. He gave us nothing useful and he helped Will