The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [75]
“Good, I'll look around then.”
“Okay.” The young policeman retrieved the news?paper he had stuffed beneath the couch and resumed his seat.
Starling wanted to concentrate. She wished she were alone in the apartment, but she knew she was lucky the place wasn't full of cops.
She started in the kitchen. It was not equipped by a serious cook. Catherine had come for popcorn, the boy?friend had told police. Starling opened the freezer. There were two boxes of microwave popcorn. You couldn't see the parking lot from the kitchen.
“Where you from?”
Starling didn't register the question the first time.
“Where you from?”
The trooper on the couch was watching her over his newspaper.
“Washington,” she said.
Under the sink--- yep, scratches on the pipe joint, they'd taken the trap out and examined it. Good for the TBI. The knives were not sharp. The dishwasher had been run, but not emptied. The refrigerator was de?voted to cottage cheese and deli fruit salad. Catherine Martin shopped for fastfood groceries, probably had a regular place, a drivein she used close by. Maybe somebody cruised the store. That's worth checking.
“You with the Attorney General?”
“No, the FBI.”
“The Attorney General's coming. That's what I heard at turnout. How long you been in the FBI?”
There was a rubber cabbage in the vegetable drawer. Starling rolled it over and checked the jewelry com?partment inside. Empty.
“How long you been in the FBI?”
Starling looked at the young policeman.
“Officer, tell you what. I'll probably need to ask you a couple of things after I've finished looking around here. Maybe you could help me out then.”
“Sure. If I can---”
“Good, okay. Let's wait and talk then. I have to think about this right now.”
“No problem, there.”
The bedroom was bright, with a sunny, drowsy qual?ity Starling liked. It was done with better fabrics and better furnishings than most young women could af?ford. There was a Coromandel screen, two pieces of cloisonné on the shelves, and a good secretary in burled walnut. Twin beds. Starling lifted the edge of the cov?erlets. Rollers were locked on the left bed, but not on the righthand one. Catherine must push them together when it suits her. May have a lover the boyfriend doesn't know about. Or maybe they stay over here sometimes. There's no remote beeper on her answering machine. She may need to be here when her mom calls.
The answering machine was like her own, the basic PhoneMate. She opened the top panel. Both incoming and outgoing tapes were gone. In their place was a note, TAPES TBI PROPERTY #6.
The room was reasonably neat but it had the ruffled appearance left by searchers with big hands, men who try to put things back exactly, but miss just a little bit. Starling would have known the place had been searched even without the traces of fingerprint power on all the smooth surfaces.
Starling didn't believe that any part of the crime had happened in the bedroom. Crawford probably was right, Catherine had been grabbed in the parking lot. But Starling wanted to know her, and this is where she lived. Lives, Starling corrected herself. She lives here.
In the cabinet of the nightstand were a telephone book, Kleenex, a box of grooming items and, behind the box, a Polaroid SX-70 camera with a cable release and a short tripod folded beside it. Ummmm. Intent as a lizard, Starling looked at the camera. She blinked as a lizard blinks and didn't touch it.
The closet interested Starling most. Catherine Baker Martin, laundry mark CBM, had a lot of clothes and some of them were very good. Starling recognized many of the labels, including Garfinkel's and Britches in Washington. Presents from Mommy, Starling said to herself. Catherine had fine, classic clothes in two sizes, made to fit her at about 145 and 165 pounds, Starling guessed, and there were a few pairs of crisis fat pants and pullovers from the Statuesque Shop. In a hanging rack were twentythree pairs of shoes. Seven pairs were Ferragamos in 10C, and there were some Reeboks and runover loafers.