3
It was somehow shocking, how very much the same the garage looked. Obviously there was the difference that it was under the glow of broad daylight, but beyond that... it was the same. The door was still slightly bent upwards, from where she had jammed her carjack beneath, in order to get it to open on its rusty tracks.
Clarice sighed from where she sat in her car, and briefly considered just leaving and telling them she hadn't found anything. But... she knew she couldn't, and so swung open the door to allow her to stand, pant-legs already tucked securely into her socks. Not, perhaps, the most sophisticated look, but the protection from the rats more than made up for looking like an imbecile.
She'd already gotten the key from the caretaker, a different one this time. The man had been replaced by a red-haired woman, who was surrounded by such a thick cloud of cigarette smoke it was impossible to tell what else she looked like. She'd sent Starling on alone to the garage, claiming to be far too busy to spare a moment to escort her... just in case.
Now, as Clarice slowly turned the key in the padlock keeping the cluttered room secure, she wished that she had brought someone along. Anyone. The redheaded chain smoker, another agent, even the drunken slob that lived in the apartment next to her in her building.
The door rolled up nice and smoothly this time. It had been well oiled in recent history, and glided up into the ceiling with nary a sound, revealing the same cobwebbed and dusty room from her memory.
Obviously it wasn't the same, it couldn't be the same. The F.B.I. had tramped through it so much after her discovery of Raspail's head that things had been shifted, moved and sorted through until nothing was where it had been. However, enough time had passed since then that the general ambience, the feeling of abandonment, it all came back acutely.
Snapping on her flashlight didn't help much, it was just a narrow beam of light that pronounced, rather than dissolved, the surrounding darkness. All the dust particles in the air reflected it back at her, until she almost thought she could see better with no light at all.
"Where do I need to start, Dr. Lecter?" she murmured, as she slowly walks further through the cluttered pathways, junk in piles on either side of her. Then she saw it.
The car.
Of course the car. It had been brought back to this garage at the family's request, once the Jame Gumb case had been successfully solved. It was where it had all began, her career, her odd relationship with Dr. Lecter. Now once again she was reduced the same state of uncertainty that she'd felt that day, as though she'd lost all the years of experience she'd had since then.
The driver's side door was unlocked, but stiff. It had gone a long time without being opened. A first sweep of her narrow flashlight beam around the front area of the car revealed nothing, and she felt sure that she was going to have to search the back... probably the last thing in the world she wanted to do. But then her light gleamed off of something, in the ignition. The keys, possibly, but she leaned in to take a closer look.
Not keys. A tie pin. A tie pin, jammed carefully into the ignition, a simple silver square with the imprint of a boat in the middle. It would seem strange, a tie pin in the ignition of a car, but not sinister... except Clarice recognized it. She'd seen it before.
She'd seen it in Paul Krendler's tie.
Clarice reached out to pull the pin from where it had been lodged, and her finger brushed against a piece of paper taped just beneath the ignition. A note, as she'd expected to find, but not nearly as helpful as she had hoped.
Clarice,
Having fun? Don't forget, #54.
Tick-tock,
H.
*********
The second she stepped out of the garage she turned on her cellular phone and dialed Pearsall's number, as she'd been required to do. He answered with an expectant "Yes?"
"Hello, sir. This is Special Agent Starling."
She must have sounded dejected, because the man's next comment caught her completely by surprise. "No luck, Starling? Don't worry about it, we didn't expect you'd find anything. Just thought we'd oblige you while we figured out what to do."
Starling was silent for a minute, staring at the silver pin in her hand. "No luck, sir? Just the opposite," she finally spoke. "He left me another clue, sir, and he may have implied that there's a deadline on this investigation."
"Pardon me, Starling?"
"A deadline. He signed off with 'tick-tock'. We may only have a limited period of time to find him, Mr. Pearsall. I think I ought to get started on the next clue right away."
"What is the... ah... 'clue', then, Agent?"
"A tie pin, sir."
"A tie pin."
"Paul Krendler's tie pin, to be exact. I think he wants me to go to the lake house," she elaborated, trying not to notice how her heart started beating faster with the mere mention of that place from her past.
There was a dead silence on the other end of the line for several moments, before Pearsall replied. "Already. I'm giving you authorization to move on the house tomorrow morning. Good job, Agent Starling."
"I think it would be better if I moved on it now."
"Agent, I'm giving you a direct order here. You will not move on the house until tomorrow, understood?"
She sighed. "Understood, Mr. Pearsall."
Just before hanging up, he remembered one last thing he wanted to say. "Oh, and Agent Starling?"
"Yes?"
"I thought you might be interested to know, the old caretaker of that storage facility that you're at right now, the one that told you to tuck in your pants... he turned up missing about two months after Lecter escaped."
Ah. That's how Lecter knew. "Thank you sir."
**********
Starling sat in her car with Lecter's file spread out over her knees, rereading all the known 'facts', while she waited for the numbers on her watch to turn to 12:00 AM. She had sworn to wait until tomorrow to move on the house, so she would... technically. The numbers were glowing at 11:59, and she decided to start walking towards the house. It would surely take her at least a minute to get there.
Just as she snapped the folder shut her eyes fell on Dr. Lecter's kill count. She paused for a minute... and then slowly scratched out the current number and wrote a new one in over it.
Eighteen. That they knew about, anyway, though he had undoubtedly killed more. Many many more.
Starling swallowed hard, then slid from her car to walk up to the lake house. It was just as she remembered it, just as it had been on that night, dark. Of course, there were no fireworks... and the people that had bought it after Krendler's death had painted the trim a dreadful shade of yellow, but it still brought back the feelings. The memories. They hit her hard in the stomach, nearly a physical force that succeeded in making her stumble.
"I don't think I can do this," she whispered beneath her breath, but her feet carried her faithfully closer regardless of her doubts.
She reached the door all too fast, it seems, though a glance at her watch revealed that it was five past midnight. She knew the new owners of the house weren't there, that they only used it only on vacation, but still was not very surprised to find the front door unlocked.
Dr. Lecter would have left it open, for her convenience.
Then there were the stairs... the hallways, all of it painfully familiar. Enough so that she felt a red hot flash of pain in the scar crossing her shoulder, as though it were still as fresh as it had been then. She made her way down the hall, into the room she knew would be next. The dining room. Though there was a different table, it was set up the same... and the same grandfather clock ticked away against the wall.
She didn't dwell long there, the image of Paul Krendler was too burned into her mind, and she escaped into the kitchen.
Some escape.
There the memories, though of a different nature, were just as intense. Just as real. The agony as he slammed her back into the refrigerator, her heart beating so fast as he posed his question, 'Would you every say to me... stop?' The ache in her as he leaned closer, and...
A sudden noise broke her thought process. Though it scared her half out of her wits, it was still a welcome distraction from those memories that could lead to nothing but trouble. It took a moment to identify the sound, it was a cell phone. Ringing at top volume. She groped automatically at her pocket, but her own phone had been left behind in the car... and her mind's eye flashed to the note that he'd left her with the tie pin.
'Tick-tock'.
The grandfather clock.
Clarice didn't think further than that, but turned and dashed back through the doorway. She knocked over a chair and severely scraped up her leg in the process, but she managed to get to the grandfather clock and throw open the glass door in front, where the pendulum swung back and forth... and a phone was sitting at the bottom.
She answered it before the next ring was through, and spoke not a word.
She didn't have to.
He spoke first.
"Well hello, Clarice."
**********
Author's Note: Thank you to SJ, chameleon, Steel, DianaLecter, Nanci, and Raven the Dark Angel for reviewing! I love you all. You're darling to be keeping up with my story like this, it brings me... well, further obsession ^.- But joy, too! And that's just as important.
It was somehow shocking, how very much the same the garage looked. Obviously there was the difference that it was under the glow of broad daylight, but beyond that... it was the same. The door was still slightly bent upwards, from where she had jammed her carjack beneath, in order to get it to open on its rusty tracks.
Clarice sighed from where she sat in her car, and briefly considered just leaving and telling them she hadn't found anything. But... she knew she couldn't, and so swung open the door to allow her to stand, pant-legs already tucked securely into her socks. Not, perhaps, the most sophisticated look, but the protection from the rats more than made up for looking like an imbecile.
She'd already gotten the key from the caretaker, a different one this time. The man had been replaced by a red-haired woman, who was surrounded by such a thick cloud of cigarette smoke it was impossible to tell what else she looked like. She'd sent Starling on alone to the garage, claiming to be far too busy to spare a moment to escort her... just in case.
Now, as Clarice slowly turned the key in the padlock keeping the cluttered room secure, she wished that she had brought someone along. Anyone. The redheaded chain smoker, another agent, even the drunken slob that lived in the apartment next to her in her building.
The door rolled up nice and smoothly this time. It had been well oiled in recent history, and glided up into the ceiling with nary a sound, revealing the same cobwebbed and dusty room from her memory.
Obviously it wasn't the same, it couldn't be the same. The F.B.I. had tramped through it so much after her discovery of Raspail's head that things had been shifted, moved and sorted through until nothing was where it had been. However, enough time had passed since then that the general ambience, the feeling of abandonment, it all came back acutely.
Snapping on her flashlight didn't help much, it was just a narrow beam of light that pronounced, rather than dissolved, the surrounding darkness. All the dust particles in the air reflected it back at her, until she almost thought she could see better with no light at all.
"Where do I need to start, Dr. Lecter?" she murmured, as she slowly walks further through the cluttered pathways, junk in piles on either side of her. Then she saw it.
The car.
Of course the car. It had been brought back to this garage at the family's request, once the Jame Gumb case had been successfully solved. It was where it had all began, her career, her odd relationship with Dr. Lecter. Now once again she was reduced the same state of uncertainty that she'd felt that day, as though she'd lost all the years of experience she'd had since then.
The driver's side door was unlocked, but stiff. It had gone a long time without being opened. A first sweep of her narrow flashlight beam around the front area of the car revealed nothing, and she felt sure that she was going to have to search the back... probably the last thing in the world she wanted to do. But then her light gleamed off of something, in the ignition. The keys, possibly, but she leaned in to take a closer look.
Not keys. A tie pin. A tie pin, jammed carefully into the ignition, a simple silver square with the imprint of a boat in the middle. It would seem strange, a tie pin in the ignition of a car, but not sinister... except Clarice recognized it. She'd seen it before.
She'd seen it in Paul Krendler's tie.
Clarice reached out to pull the pin from where it had been lodged, and her finger brushed against a piece of paper taped just beneath the ignition. A note, as she'd expected to find, but not nearly as helpful as she had hoped.
Clarice,
Having fun? Don't forget, #54.
Tick-tock,
H.
*********
The second she stepped out of the garage she turned on her cellular phone and dialed Pearsall's number, as she'd been required to do. He answered with an expectant "Yes?"
"Hello, sir. This is Special Agent Starling."
She must have sounded dejected, because the man's next comment caught her completely by surprise. "No luck, Starling? Don't worry about it, we didn't expect you'd find anything. Just thought we'd oblige you while we figured out what to do."
Starling was silent for a minute, staring at the silver pin in her hand. "No luck, sir? Just the opposite," she finally spoke. "He left me another clue, sir, and he may have implied that there's a deadline on this investigation."
"Pardon me, Starling?"
"A deadline. He signed off with 'tick-tock'. We may only have a limited period of time to find him, Mr. Pearsall. I think I ought to get started on the next clue right away."
"What is the... ah... 'clue', then, Agent?"
"A tie pin, sir."
"A tie pin."
"Paul Krendler's tie pin, to be exact. I think he wants me to go to the lake house," she elaborated, trying not to notice how her heart started beating faster with the mere mention of that place from her past.
There was a dead silence on the other end of the line for several moments, before Pearsall replied. "Already. I'm giving you authorization to move on the house tomorrow morning. Good job, Agent Starling."
"I think it would be better if I moved on it now."
"Agent, I'm giving you a direct order here. You will not move on the house until tomorrow, understood?"
She sighed. "Understood, Mr. Pearsall."
Just before hanging up, he remembered one last thing he wanted to say. "Oh, and Agent Starling?"
"Yes?"
"I thought you might be interested to know, the old caretaker of that storage facility that you're at right now, the one that told you to tuck in your pants... he turned up missing about two months after Lecter escaped."
Ah. That's how Lecter knew. "Thank you sir."
**********
Starling sat in her car with Lecter's file spread out over her knees, rereading all the known 'facts', while she waited for the numbers on her watch to turn to 12:00 AM. She had sworn to wait until tomorrow to move on the house, so she would... technically. The numbers were glowing at 11:59, and she decided to start walking towards the house. It would surely take her at least a minute to get there.
Just as she snapped the folder shut her eyes fell on Dr. Lecter's kill count. She paused for a minute... and then slowly scratched out the current number and wrote a new one in over it.
Eighteen. That they knew about, anyway, though he had undoubtedly killed more. Many many more.
Starling swallowed hard, then slid from her car to walk up to the lake house. It was just as she remembered it, just as it had been on that night, dark. Of course, there were no fireworks... and the people that had bought it after Krendler's death had painted the trim a dreadful shade of yellow, but it still brought back the feelings. The memories. They hit her hard in the stomach, nearly a physical force that succeeded in making her stumble.
"I don't think I can do this," she whispered beneath her breath, but her feet carried her faithfully closer regardless of her doubts.
She reached the door all too fast, it seems, though a glance at her watch revealed that it was five past midnight. She knew the new owners of the house weren't there, that they only used it only on vacation, but still was not very surprised to find the front door unlocked.
Dr. Lecter would have left it open, for her convenience.
Then there were the stairs... the hallways, all of it painfully familiar. Enough so that she felt a red hot flash of pain in the scar crossing her shoulder, as though it were still as fresh as it had been then. She made her way down the hall, into the room she knew would be next. The dining room. Though there was a different table, it was set up the same... and the same grandfather clock ticked away against the wall.
She didn't dwell long there, the image of Paul Krendler was too burned into her mind, and she escaped into the kitchen.
Some escape.
There the memories, though of a different nature, were just as intense. Just as real. The agony as he slammed her back into the refrigerator, her heart beating so fast as he posed his question, 'Would you every say to me... stop?' The ache in her as he leaned closer, and...
A sudden noise broke her thought process. Though it scared her half out of her wits, it was still a welcome distraction from those memories that could lead to nothing but trouble. It took a moment to identify the sound, it was a cell phone. Ringing at top volume. She groped automatically at her pocket, but her own phone had been left behind in the car... and her mind's eye flashed to the note that he'd left her with the tie pin.
'Tick-tock'.
The grandfather clock.
Clarice didn't think further than that, but turned and dashed back through the doorway. She knocked over a chair and severely scraped up her leg in the process, but she managed to get to the grandfather clock and throw open the glass door in front, where the pendulum swung back and forth... and a phone was sitting at the bottom.
She answered it before the next ring was through, and spoke not a word.
She didn't have to.
He spoke first.
"Well hello, Clarice."
**********
Author's Note: Thank you to SJ, chameleon, Steel, DianaLecter, Nanci, and Raven the Dark Angel for reviewing! I love you all. You're darling to be keeping up with my story like this, it brings me... well, further obsession ^.- But joy, too! And that's just as important.