This story will be posted in two parts; this section with 5 chapters and the next significantly longer. The stories are based primarily on two films' canon, Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, although I snag a detail or two from the books. The stories are set post-Hannibal, and as much as I loathe to call anything a fix-it fic, I found Thomas Harris' choices unrewarding for this fan of Clarice Starling. I actually started this just as Hannibal Rising came out and that really blocked what I wanted to do. Finally, I have slapped down my inner canon whore, made the choice to just use the two films as my fanon, and have moved forward.
Warning: If you're looking for a Starling/Lecter 'ship', I doubt this fic will be it. I've been fascinated by their relationship since first seeing Silence of the Lambs in in 1991 but I find it conflicted and complex, not rose petal strewn beds and gentle laughter over wine. Although that may happen too. (These author's notes are no help at all, are they?)
Chapter One:
Location-Fairfax County Jail: Fairfax, Virginia
April 4, 2001
"Do not touch the prisoner, or allow him to touch you," the perspiring sheriff's deputy warned. "If he tries to give you anything, do not accept it. Do you understand?"
Trying not to fixate on the dark stains under the squat man's armpits, Shirley Russell nodded impatiently, breathing through her mouth against the associated odor.
"Ma'am?" he prompted.
"Yes, sir, I get you," Russell said. "Now can I see my client?"
He demanded to search her briefcase. Shifting from foot to foot, Russell handed over the worn leather case. She'd been up most of the night reviewing files. Now she was running on eleven cups of coffee flavored with nebulous fear. When she'd agreed to defend Hannibal Lecter, it had been with only a vague knowledge of his crimes. Her normal clients were the mundane and overlooked, not admitted serial killers whose yearly wine bills cost more than her car.
Doctor Lecter had refused to hire an attorney or even respond to the charges against him. When the bank accounts associated with the credit cards in his wallet were checked, they contained no funds. Technically indigent, he was finally assigned a public defender.
The lawyer, a nervous young man in his first year, 'fell ill' before the preliminary hearing. A call had gone out to the practices willing to take pro bono cases. Harry Shriner, head of the Justice for All Foundation, saw this as an important opportunity. If the Foundation defended the infamous Lecter against the death penalty, their credo-all life was sacred and deserved defense-would be played out nightly on the cable news shows.
Harry had shown up the night before as Shirley and her husband, fellow attorney Abe Leonard, were finishing supper. Pushing clear a spot on their cluttered dining room table, he thumped down the stack of files. After Harry had explained his mission, Abe had immediately offered to head the case. Russell was touched by her husband's bout of gallantry, but she had said, "No, it's got to be a woman, and a woman like me."
As the guard's fat white fingers left grease stains on her papers, Shirley slipped her right foot loose from its broken down pump. Her shoes were killing her. She really needed to find some time to get a new pair, and time to get her untidy long hair cut and colored, and some time for-but there was never time. She resented this particular situation and the time it would consume, although on the intellectual level, she understood Harry's objectives for accepting the assignment.
The name 'Hannibal Lecter' was familiar, in the way Harry Houdini's was; she knew it, she knew why she knew it, and that was about it. She didn't spend much time concerning herself with nefarious murderers. There were too many painfully ordinary cases that needed her attention: women behind bars for killing their abusive husbands, or young black men railroaded for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She had barely registered the news that Lecter had been captured in the most ironic of manners, discovered as an unconscious John Doe after being blindsided by a drunk driver in Florida. As soon as he had recovered from his injuries, he was immediately extradited to Virginia for the murder of Paul Krendler.
"The Justice Department obviously chose to turn him over a Virginia county circuit court so he'll get the death penalty," Abe had said with disgust as he reviewed the files. "Convicted in a Fed court, he'd just end up in a Super Max prison for life." He had tossed aside the folder. "Nope, they want him to fry and Jim Gilmore will get another feather in his cap; the most feared man in the world killed."
"Okay," said the guard, snapping shut the briefcase, and Shirley Russell prepared to meet her newest client-alone. She followed the waddling man to a reinforced door. It swung open and she entered the cool cell, bright from light bouncing off the steel-plated walls. Shirley had wondered how a county jail thought it could hold one of the most dangerous men in the world,and now she saw.
In the center of the room, a heavy steel straight-backed chair on locked wheels held the prisoner, his back to the doorway. His ankles, wrists and neck were fastened snugly to the chair by padded metal bands. A motor under the seat breathed, keeping even pressure in cuffs built into the restraints. Any movement was countered and Lecter was held firmly yet without injury.
The guard gave her one more warning, "He doesn't have much range of movement, but he'll try to bite if you get close; remember," and the first sound she heard from her client was a rich, deep chuckle.
A sink and seatless toilet hung on the wall and a mattress, draped with a blanket, lay on the floor. She walked on numb legs towards the only other seat in the room, an empty folding chair, coming closer to Lecter with each step.
His lank hair, the color of watered-down urine from a color rinse, was combed close to his head. His thick neck, widely-collared like a pit bull's, rose out of broad shoulders. She knew he had been a psychiatrist and cultured member of society with a capital 'S', but from the back, he looked like one of her sullen thug defendants, hulking and ready for explosion.
She continued past him and sank onto her chair. They looked each other over. She'd seen his photograph in the files, but no one looks good in a psych ward mug shot. From this view, he was compact and poised, with large still hands and feet and a triangular, pursed mouth. Somehow, she'd expected his mouth to be wide with large teeth...a voice whispered at the back of her mind, Better to eat you with, my dear. She stifled a hysterical laugh by gulping for air.
Only a slight pink line remained from his head injury, and that was being swallowed back into his sallow forehead. Dressed in white shirt and pants, with his monochromatic skin, he blended into the walls. She'd met a few professional con men and they all looked like this: blank.
Then his hooded lids lifted and she was caught in the snake's gaze. His eyes were blue, a shade as clear and lovely as the glaze on her mother's best china. Those eyes roamed quickly over her, as though he were flipping through a book to see if it were worth reading. His words dropped out like pearls falling from a broken strand: "I won't be defended by a woman with feet like those of a pig's trotters."
She controlled the urge to tuck her offensive appendages under the chair. "Well, you're a right little fucker, aren't you?" she said.
He cast his gaze away in dismay. "And another Southerner. Haven't all you people been shoved up into the hills, replaced by Yuppie carpetbaggers?"
"There's a few of us left." She snapped her briefcase open. "There's not much time, Dr. Lecter. We need to start immediately."
"There's no need for your services. I choose to ignore the charges against me."
"I'm here to tell you, that tactic ain't gonna work." She aggressively ground her words out with a harsh dialect and enjoyed his repulsion. "They got you over a barrel, my good man. They gonna fry you."
"Don't I have the option of the needle in Virginia?" He tried to move his arms and was restrained. "Then again, with this chair, all they'd have to do is plug me in, and I shall be fried like one of your tasty carnival treats."
"I'm being figurative, hoping to get you to see the gravity of your situation." He remained impassive. She hated getting a sociopathic defendant. Experience had taught her these made the worse clients. "They're not gonna play along with your games this time, Doctor. They gonna parade you around like a prize pony. You've killed one of their own-"
"Aren't you supposed to assume my innocence?"
"You gonna claim self-defense?"
He smiled and she found it a very nice one that warmed those cool eyes. "This pony won't prance, regardless of the tune," he murmured.
"I know the state prosecutor and he's not one to waste his time. He's got political aspirations-"
"So did Paul."
She ignored his interruption. "He took this case because he was certain of victory and more to the point, a guaranteed spot on the evening news. None of this bodes well for you."
"They can't force me to face the charges."
"They can if they've got the right judge, and they've made sure they have that."
"I have only experienced death as the provider," he said, "it may be interesting to try it as the recipient."
"Don't you have anything...anyone, to fight for?"
"It would appear not," he said, pursing his mouth again and Russell decided that expression was going to become very annoying before this case ended.
"We're looking at the arraignment to enter a plea in three days," she said, "you won't need to be present for that, which may be for the best, if they're gonna keep you in that chair-" She flipped through her files. "We'll enter an insanity plea, as your attorney has in the past. The hard part will be finding some psychologists willing to testify...or rather, finding one you're willing to speak with-"
"Who's on my case from the FBI?" he asked casually, and the air suddenly hummed off the steel walls.
Russell had done a lot of reading last night. "Clarice Starling's not working on this; she's going to be the prosecution's number one witness-" and that's as far as she got before he exploded.
He became large, very large, struggling. "I will not allow her to testify." His statement was insane on so many levels. Russell, normally verbose, was struck dumb as he ranted on. "She cannot be put on the stand." Only then did she realize that he'd never raised his voice at all.
As the doctor thrashed against his restraints, she stumbled forward, almost grabbing his arm, but stopped herself. She said in a rush: "I wish the defense could eliminate any witness they deem, but it doesn't work that way, particularly when they're government employees."
Somehow, her words calmed him. He regained his breath immediately. "She's not an employee; she's a corpse left hanging on the gallows as a warning to those who come next. And her...Watch how she prostrates daily before the altar of her shame."
"I really can't say," Russell heard some lame Southern woman say and realized it was she. She tried again, but got no further than, "Doctor-" before running out of steam. He breathed through his nose like a bull and she noted all the deep crevices that crisscrossed his strong features. Somewhere in life, he'd been cut into a thousand pieces and carefully put back together.
"She won't lie, Mrs. Russell, certainly not for me and sadly, not even for herself. Once that pack of drooling dogs knows the truth, they'll leap upon her. Maybe it'll be a drug raid gone wrong, or a shadowy alley-which figure is the suspect? Clarice Starling will die and they'll lap up her blood with relish."
He whispered, "I won't allow it," and she believed him.
His eyes were on her again, and his low voice washed over her. She stumbled back to her chair, but he remained close. She had sudden insight carried with self-revulsion: Intimidation could be sensual, even in the case of a cannibal. "Mrs. Russell, you shall speak with Clarice," he said. "Express my concerns. Make her see that for once, she must back down."
"I don't know how-"
"You can," he urged. "I'm sure you can do it."
"I need to speak with her anyway."
"Yes," he said. "Speak to her."
Rapping on the heavy door made Russell jump but Lecter was now calm. "I will allow you to defend me if you speak to Clarice."
"Are you trying to bribe me, Dr. Lecter?"
"No, I'm offering you a deal," he said with a gentle smile. "You need this case and you have something I need; the ability to communicate with Clarice." Without answering, Shirley collected her briefcase, muttered a garbled parting, and left, yearning for the heat of her stuffy car.
Abe was waiting right inside their front door, and asked how things went in his high, tense, New York accent. Burying her flushed face in his sweatered chest, she said, "Pretty good, all things considered."
"I've made supper. Kick off your shoes, drop your bags-" He tugged her into the living room and gently pushed her onto the sofa. "All the news channels have been going crazy. There's Lecter and the Miguel Torres trial. They don't know which way to turn."
On the television, old footage played of blood-splattered bodies. The newscaster explained, "Torres was spirited into the United States three months ago to stand trial for ordering the 1999 death of DEA officer Blaine Hollis, but he's also believed to have killed scores as a leader of the Marian drug cartel."
Sipping the whiskey Abe gave her, Shirley said, "Now which is the real monster? There's a man who kills countless folks every day through drug-trafficking. He's ordered hundreds, even thousands of deaths, and Lecter done, what, a dozen? Eighteen, I think, is the last count. Nineteen?" She frowned. She better figure that number out before the trial.
Abe balanced on the couch arm. "Uh, oh, sounds like your client's turned you to the dark side after just one meeting." His tone was light, but he rubbed the back of her neck with a supportive hand.
"Nah, not this good Baptist. But somehow...it seems worse to kill someone for money than being driven by some psychological disturbance."
"You believe Lecter's disturbed?" he asked.
She thought on it. She'd represented plenty of mentally ill clients. She copped out with, "I'm going for the insanity defense," and her husband let it go with a chuckle. "What's the other option?" she asked, "he's the devil?"
Abe snatched up the remote and turned the volume higher. "Oh, this is the best part."
Earlier in the day, John Ashcroft had given a press conference, mainly to crow about the Torres capture. Watching the re-broadcast, Russell could see that she wasn't playing in Single-A ball anymore. After covering the Torres case, the dour-faced official was asked about Lecter. Pursing his mouth, eerily similar to the doctor, he said, "This sort of depravity will be punished. Unspeakable acts performed on a government servant, simply for the crime of giving news conferences."
"Turn that thing off, Abe," Russell said. "I don't want to lose my appetite."
As they sat at the table, Abe said, "I can't believe they're going to have two high profile cases at the county courthouse at the same time. I know Ashcroft and Scott like the theater of the absurd, but this is crazy."
Before Shirley could respond, their youngest son, Casper, came home and joined them for dinner. As his parents pestered him rapid fire about coming home late from school, he stuffed an entire roll into his mouth and it slipped through his long neck like a deer into a python.
He ignored their grilling. "The weirdest thing happened at school," he told them. "Some kid, only I don't think he really was a teenager-I hadn't seen him on campus before-tried to give me money to steal stuff out of your files about that Lecter guy."
"What?" exclaimed Shirley and Abe in unison.
"Yeah, he said some newspaper would pay a lot of money for dirt on the trial," the boy said, enjoying the dramatic attention. He chugged down milk before giving them the most amazing news. "And, he said, if Mom can get a picture of Lecter in his cell, $100,000."
"Wow, there's our retirement fund," his father said.
"Abe!" Shirley scolded and he shrugged.
"But he said that deal's only available for a day or two," Casper told them.
"I bet that sweaty guard's trying to figure out how to hide his Instamatic down in his boxer shorts at this moment," she said.
"This is getting crazy and it's only day one," noted Abe.
Thumping her briefcase up by her plate, Shirley said: "What were you saying about the theater of the absurd? I better get to work."
~end Chapter 1