The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [93]
The phone in Crawford's pocket buzzed. The one on the desk purred and blinked. He listened for a few moments, said “Okay,” and hung up.
“They found the ambulance in the underground ga?rage at the Memphis airport.” He shook his head. “No good. Crew was in the back. Dead, both of them.”
Crawford took off his glasses, rummaged for his handkerchief to polish them.
“Starling, the Smithsonian called Burroughs asking for you. The Pilcher fellow: They're pretty close to finishing up on the bug. I want you to write a 302 on that and sign it for the permanent file. You found the bug and followed up on it and I want the record to say so. You up to it?”
Starling was as tired as she had ever been. “Sure,” she said.
“Leave your car at the garage, and Jeff'll drive you back to Quantico when you're through.”
On the steps she turned her face toward the lighted, curtained windows where the nurse kept watch, and then looked back at Crawford.
“I'm thinking about you both, Mr. Crawford.”
“Thank you, Starling,” he said.
The Silence of the Lambsr
CHAPTER 40
“Officer Starling, Dr. Pilcher said he'd meet you in the Insect Zoo. I'll take you over there,” the guard said.
To reach the Insect Zoo from the Constitution Ave?nue side of the museum, you must take the elevator one level above the great stuffed elephant and cross a vast floor devoted to the study of man.
Tiers of skulls were first, rising and spreading, repre?senting the explosion of human population since the time of Christ.
Starling and the guard moved in a dim landscape peopled with figures illustrating human origin and var?iation. Here were displays of ritual--- tattoos, bound feet, tooth modification, Peruvian surgery, mummifi?cation.
“Did you ever see Wilhelm von Ellenbogen?” the guard asked, shining his light into a case.
“I don't believe I have,” Starling said without slow?ing her pace.
“You should come sometime when the lights are up and take a look at him. Buried him in Philadelphia in the eighteenth century? Turned right to soap when the ground water hit him.”
The Insect Zoo is a large room, dim now and loud with chirps and whirs. Cages and cases of live insects fill it. Children particularly like the zoo and troop through it all day. At night, left to themselves, the insects are busy. A few of the cases were lit with red, and the fire exit signs burned fiercely red in the dim room.
“Dr. Pilcher?” the guard called from the door.
“Here,” Pilcher said, holding a penlight up as a bea?con.
“Will you bring this lady out?”
“Yes, thank you, Officer.”
Starling took her own small flashlight out of her purse and found the switch already on, the batteries dead. The flash of anger she felt reminded her that she was tired and she had to bear down.
“Hello, Officer Starling.”
“Dr. Pilcher.”
“How about 'Professor Pilcher'?”
“Are you a professor?”
“No, but I'm not a doctor either. What I am is glad to see you. Want to look at some bugs?”
“Sure. Where's Dr. Roden?”
“He made most of the progress over the last two nights with chaetaxy and finally he had to crash. Did you see the bug before we started on it?”
“No.”
“It was just mush, really.”
“But you got it, you figured it out.”
“Yep. Just now.” He stopped at a mesh cage. “First let me show you a moth like the one you brought in Monday. This is not exactly the same as yours, but the same family, an owlet.” The beam of his flashlight found the large sheeny blue moth sitting on a small branch, its wings folded, Pilcher blew air at it and instantly the fierce face of an owl appeared as the moth flared the undersides of its wings at them, the eyespots on the wings glaring like the last sight a rat ever sees. “This one's Caligo beltrao--- fairly common. But with this Klaus specimen, you're talking some heavy moths. Come on.”
At the end of the room was a case set back in a niche with a rail in front of it. The case was beyond the reach of children and it was covered with a cloth. A small humidifier hummed beside it.