Lisa Starling walked from the jail and walked out to her car. An observer might have noticed that her stride was strained, the way a person walks when she is trying to keep herself from running. The Trans Am was a comforting cocoon, the padded seat a wealth of comfort compared to the heavy wooden chairs and concrete walls of the jail. She took a deep breath.
Lisa rested her hands on the leather-wrapped steering wheel and closed her eyes. Her pulse was racing. Her mind was whirling. She didn't know what to think. It occurred to her what she had just done: gone to see a woman who had murdered her friends and co-workers. Why? What on God's green earth did she owe Susana Alvarez?
The answer to the question was tangled into a knot that would make the Gordians jealous. The first skein in the knot was simply sympathy: Susana had lost her mother now. She was facing her trials alone. Lisa was really all she had as far as blood relatives went. Lisa knew her cousin would probably require close custody arrangements for her entire life, but she could not bring herself to abandon Susana entirely, no more than she could have abandoned Peter DeGraff when Susana kidnapped him.
The second skein was the inverse of the first. Lisa had never been in jail herself, and could not imagine what her cousin must be going through. Losing her mother, however, was something Lisa knew all about. In the intervening year since she had last met with her cousin, Lisa's own mother had passed on after a short, painful fight with cancer. It was inescapable: Special Agent Lisa Starling's only living relative was Susana Alvarez Lecter. Without her cousin, she was entirely alone.
The third and most confusing was her knowledge of her cousin. Lisa had thrown herself into trying to study Susana just as her first cousin had once studied Susana's father. Lisa was, in fact, the best resource any law enforcement agency had on Hannibal Lecter's daughter. She knew where Susana had gone to school – high school, college, medical school. She knew Susana's tastes. She had copies of every bit of evidence any police agency had ever found on her. Receipts, crime scene photos, weapons. She knew that Susana had been briefly held captive at sixteen by an Argentine killer named the Skinner, and the profiler in her would have given her eyeteeth to discuss that. All worthless now that Susana was in custody, but it had meaning to her.
And this in turn led to the fourth. Lisa Starling owed her life to Susana Alvarez. There was no doubt that Susana had done some horrible things, and done them solely because she enjoyed them. She had even done them to Lisa: forcing her to eat DeGraff's intestines, inserting a cardiac catheter into her chest to control her. But none of that could quite negate the fact that Susana had pulled Ardelia Mapp's bullet from Lisa's chest. Susana could have killed her them, or simply left her. But she hadn't. It was hard to get over the fact that she, a special agent of the FBI, owed her life to a dangerous killer like Susana Alvarez, but there it was.
Lisa knew that visiting her cousin wasn't the brightest career move. She was considered to be the bete noire of the FBI: the popular opinion was that Susana should either be taken out back and shot or preferably tortured to death. Lisa had dealt with the stigma that came with bearing the last name of Susana's mother for her entire career: the fact that Starling blood ran in the veins of the FBI's most hated enemy had not helped, either. If not for the fact that she was already at Quantico and had a sterling record, she would have ended up in Alaska, most likely. Most people in her position would have simply turned away from her cousin, kept her head down, and hoped for the best.
But Lisa was not most people. Like Clarice before her, she believed in the oath she had taken, and took it a step further. Her duty was to keep order, to protect. To save the lambs, Clarice might have said. Free, Susana would prey on the lambs; in jail, she was one, much as her father had been subject to Chilton's petty torments. Lisa Starling could not turn her back on her cousin without some ethical qualms. Some might view it as weakness, but to Lisa it was a strength. It is all well and good to have principles, but the truest test of those principles is when complying with them costs you personally.
Lisa Starling let out a long sigh. She started her engine and headed back to Quantico.
…
Lt. McNeely did not much care for her prisoner's behavior after the visit. It wasn't entirely Susana's fault, and the lieutenant realized that. Nor was Susana's behavior a violation of the rules, strictly speaking. Lisa Starling's news had not boded well. Shortly after she had told her cousin, Susana had called the lieutenant in and asked to be taken back to her cell.
During the two months of Susana's confinement, Lt. McNeely had never seen her in anything other than a state of complete control. To some extent, this had been welcome. Lt. McNeely had dealt with much more tears and tantrums than she would have liked. Susana's equanimity was a welcome break. But when she had been taken from the visiting room, she did not speak a word, and her mouth had trembled noticeably as she was escorted back to her cell. She did not cry, but she wouldn't talk either. Silently, the entourage had returned her to her cell.
She had accepted the radio with a muttered thank you completely unlike her, her head down. Once locked in, she had simply sat on her bunk, facing away from the door, brooding like a raven. Kelly McNeely was not quite sure what to do: the Academy had neglected to teach her much about dealing with a depressed sociopath. So far, she allowed, nothing that was a violation. But everyone has his or her limits, and Lt. McNeely had to wonder if the news of her mother's death had overshot Susana Alvarez Lecter's.
But she knew her duties, and so she tried. Standard procedure was to try and get someone from the jail ministry to talk to a prisoner who'd just gotten bad news. She knew before she tried that Susana would not be interested in talking to a jail minister, but she wasn't about to leave Susana to brood in her cell. That was partially sympathy and partially good correctional management: she had to let Susana out of her cell eventually, and it would be better for all involved if Susana was coping. Besides, the typical ad-seg inmate would have jumped at the chance to talk to someone, anyone, just to break the mindless boredom.
But Susana was not typical. The first three people Lt. McNeely rounded up simply stood at the door to Susana's cell, trying to get her attention. She refused to talk to them or even acknowledge their presence. The lieutenant did not know that Susana had retreated to her memory palace, where she was reading The Count of Monte Cristo and Chekhov's The Bet, tales that resonated with her these days. Nor did she know what else Susana was doing or what was on her mind.
The fourth person, a thin, cadaverous man she barely knew, managed to actually gain acknowledgement from Susana and managed to keep her talking for all of fifteen minutes. Lt. McNeely did not know exactly what had happened, but she saw him leaving the cellblock slumped in defeat, shaking his head. She cornered him as he left.
"Any luck?" she asked hopefully.
The man sighed mournfully. "She talked to me for a bit," he said, "but when I offered her a Bible she said she was putting out better books than that."
Lt. McNeely sighed. "So no luck."
"Unfortunately, no. But I'll pray for her."
Kelly McNeely was tempted to point out what a fat lot of good that would do, but this man was only trying to help. "I'm sorry," she said.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see, Lieutenant," the man said, and turned to leave. She watched him depart the cellblock and sighed. She hadn't expected the jail ministers to do much anyway, but striking out still bugged her.
She glanced into the dayroom, where a gaggle of inmates were gathered around the TV watching soap operas. Ana Castillo was among them, rapt in the pictures flickering across the screen. McNeely eyed her and considered. Susana had at least talked to her, but she would need to be closely watched. The image of tiny Ana slowly being pulled through the narrow tray slot of Susana's cell door arose in her mind, like something out of a grade-B horror flick. But no, wait, Susana had seemed to take pity on her. "Castillo," she said. "Over here. Now."
Ana Castillo could understand enough English to understand her own name pronounced American-style, and she knew what over here and now meant. With big, wide eyes she approached the cellblock's queen. She smiled uncertainly.
"Yes, ma'am?" Ana said politely.
"Castillo, I want you to try talking to Susana again," Lt. McNeely told her. "Quietly."
"Yes, ma'am," Ana said, and turned to leave. Heading the wrong way. Lt. McNeely sighed and took her arm.
"No…there. Go talk to Susana Alvarez. Like you did before. When I told you not to," she said.
Ana eyed her nervously for a moment. Her smile faltered. "Eh…no, ma'am?" she said, more a query than an answer.
"Did you hear me?" Lt. McNeely asked.
"Yes, ma'am," came the expected response.
Kelly McNeely sighed. Then she smiled brightly at Ana. When she spoke again her voice was bright and cheery, like the kindergarten teacher she often found herself being. Ana smiled back tentatively.
"Ana, would you like it if a few of the other guards and I beat you with batons and pepper-sprayed you?" A few inmates craned their necks when they heard that. Kelly ignored them for the time being.
"Yes, ma'am," Ana chirped, smile bright as ever.
Lt. McNeely didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed. Susana had been correct. She didn't know English at all. How long has she been here? Four months? And no one noticed this? She took the younger woman's arm and led her down the hall. As they neared Susana's cell and Ana realized where they were going, she stopped.
"No," she said, the o clipped, but perfectly understandable. "No se permite. No quiero billete."
McNeely closed her eyes and counted mentally to 10. Her one Spanish-speaking CO wasn't on duty until three. "Permite," she said. "I permite. I don't know, just go do it, will you? No…no disciplinario." What was the word she had used? Now she had it. "No billete."
"No billete?" Ana looked unconvinced, but trudged a few unwilling steps forward, looking for all the world like a little girl forced to eat her vegetables. She gave McNeely a look that suggested she was being thrown into the lion's den for no wrongdoing of her own and stopped hesitantly at the door.
Oh, go on and do it, you had no problem doing it when I didn't want you to, Kelly McNeely thought exasperatedly.
Ana bent and opened the food slot of Susana's cell. She whispered inside conspiratorially. Lt. McNeely watched and waited. She could hear Susana's voice float back through the slot, two or three short, clipped sentences. Then she fell silent, despite Ana's attempts to restart the conversation. Whatever she had said rattled the young drug mule: Ana called her name several times and banged on the door in frustration before giving up. She walked back long-faced, failure written large across her face in any language.
"No habla conmigo," she said mournfully. Lt. McNeely didn't need a dictionary to figure out what she meant. She watched Ana open her mouth and close it again and bounce from foot to foot. She seemed agitated and frustrated. Finally, Ana released a flood of Spanish. Lt. McNeely sighed.
"I can't understand you," she said. "Officer Hernandez will be on duty soon, you can ask her."
"Officer Hernandez, si," Ana said.
"Not here. Soon. Three o'clock. Tres." Kelly tossed around the idea of calling up to the men's block and seeing if they had a Spanish speaker. Ana seemed rattled enough.
Ana babbled something more. Lt. McNeely sighed and spoke soothingly.
"I can't understand you, Ana. Officer Hernandez will be here soon, and, --"
"No, no, no," Ana said and grabbed the lieutenant's sleeve. Normally, this was strictly forbidden. But Kelly McNeely could have shot-putted Ana with one hand if so she chose, so she let it slide. Ana tried to lead her over to the picket. There, Ana pointed at some forms on the inside.
"You want a grievance form?" Lt. McNeely asked calmly.
Ana nodded.
Lt. McNeely was slightly put off by this: grievances were prisoner complaints, and she didn't think it was right that Ana file a grievance on her. But she entered the picket and gave the chattering woman the form anyway. Ana scurried into the dayroom with the form and sought out another inmate.
Well, that was random, but it doesn't really help me too much, Lt. McNeely thought. She entered the picket and briefed her officers on the news. She checked her watch. Two through four was Susana's time out of her cell, and it was one-thirty. She would try to get her talking then, she decided. She checked over the reports of the day and tried to think about something else.
Perhaps five minutes later, Ana Castillo came scurrying back from the dayroom, grievance in hand. She saw Lt. McNeely in the picket, fenced away from her by metal and Plexiglas. She banged on the door to get her attention.
"I'll get your damn grievance form," Kelly McNeely muttered under her breath. "Hold your water, will you?"
She opened the drawer of the document carrier, which allowed inmates to pass paperwork into the picket without actually contacting the officers therein. The document carrier was not appreciably different from the one installed years before in Hannibal Lecter's cell. The goal, of course, was the same – to enable two people to trade small items back and forth without being in physical contact. Lt. McNeely shoved it out towards the young woman outside. Ana put her paper inside and pushed it back. Lt. McNeely opened the metal box and took out the paper.
As she scanned it, she sighed. Ana had not filled out her name, number, or anything else. She was about to put it back in the carrier and tell her to fill it out correctly when she saw it. In the blank portion of the paper in which the inmates were expected to fill out the specifics of their complaint were two sentences. One was in Spanish, and Lt. McNeely could make neither heads nor tails of it. Under it, written in a different hand, was an English sentence. Kelly McNeely had suspected that other inmates were providing Ana with translation services, and here it was.
She said Dont talk to me your not allouwed go away you wont see me no more after tonite any ways.
Lieutenant Kelly McNeely sighed. Great. Just great. Susana had refused anyone else, so it fell to her to try and get her pet sociopath talking. She'd never thought of Susana Alvarez as the suicidal type, but there it was. She got up from her desk and left the picket, heading towards Susana's cell. At the door, she stopped. Regulations forbade her from opening the door without other officers present. She could see Susana through the door. She hadn't moved. Still on the bunk, still facing away from the door. She did not move when McNeely approached.
Lt. McNeely considered. She didn't think Susana would attack her: she'd behaved so far. But one never knew. She was well aware of what Susana was capable of. But the alternative could be very, very ugly. Lt. McNeely knew from painful experience that a determined prisoner could often find myriad ways of ending their lives.
She gritted her teeth, bolstered her courage, and radioed the picket officer to open Susana's cell. The mechanical buzz sounded and the door swung open on its hinges. Kelly McNeely took a deep breath and stepped into the cell.
Susana appeared not to notice her entry. She simply sat, staring at the concrete wall in front of her, arms clasped around her knees. Lt. McNeely cleared her throat.
"Lieutenant," Susana said finally. "You're still early. And it can't be another visitor."
Lt. Kelly McNeely eyed the placid monster in front of her. "I…wanted to see how you were doing," she said neutrally.
"About as well as can be expected, Lieutenant." It was Susana's stock answer to the question.
"Seems you weren't interested in talking to the jail ministers," Kelly observed.
Susana shrugged. "I wasn't." She fell silent for a moment before starting again. Her voice grew bitterer as she spoke. "I'm not interested in a pleasant lie about how my mother is wearing wings and playing a harp on a fluffy cloud somewhere. Up with Jeeee-zus."
"I take it you're not a Christian," Lt. McNeely said calmly.
"Not in the least," Susana said, and gave the lieutenant a calm look. "Are you? Do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?"
McNeely, a long-lapsed Catholic, shrugged.
"It's all claptrap anyway," Susana said, seeming disappointed.
"Well, you know," McNeely said calmly, "you shook up Ana Castillo a bit."
"Did I? I was simply informing her of your order that she not speak with me."
"She's worried about you."
"How nice of her," Susana said distantly. "I'd thank her, but I'm not allowed to speak with her anymore."
Lt. McNeely crossed forward and took Susana's arm. A bright copper spring of fear jumped up into her throat and settled on her tongue. It occurred to her that this was the longest time she had ever been in Susana's presence without Susana being restrained. But Susana did nothing, simply turned her head and looked at her.
"She says you told her she wouldn't see you after tonight," McNeely said. "Care to tell me what that means?"
"She told you that? Well, I'm impressed. Her English must have taken a quantum leap forward," Susana said drily. "An hour ago she only knew 'Yes, ma'am'. How do you think she mastered the language so quickly?"
"You know what I mean," Lt. McNeely said, exasperated. She swallowed and forced herself to calm down. "Susana…I don't know what you're feeling or what you're thinking right now, but if you're…you're thinking of doing something to yourself, you shouldn't."
Susana turned back to the wall in front of her and tilted her head. Her eyes were focused on nothing in front of her. She smiled slightly. It creeped the lieutenant out.
"Kill myself, you mean? Oh no, lieutenant, I know that's not permitted. The federal government would be so horribly jealous. They want to be the ones to kill me."
Kelly McNeely was forced to admit, at least to herself, that she really had no idea how Susana Alvarez was dealing with the news of her mother's death. She could not tell if the expression on her face was real or a mask. The functioning of the mind behind that face was alien, as unfathomable to her as the inner workings of a VCR would be to a caveman. For the first time, she wondered if Susana belonged in an asylum for the criminally insane.
"I can get a psychologist in here, if you'd prefer to talk to one of them," she offered. "They don't work for the jail. They work for the county."
"How nice," Susana observed. "Separation of power is vital to prevent tyranny. The framers of your Constitution thought so."
"If I do, will you talk to them?"
Susana chuckled. "No," she said promptly. "You might as well get a witch doctor in here, lieutenant. Psychology is a pseudo-science."
At least she's honest. "I thought your father was a psychologist," Lt. McNeely said archly.
"No. He was a psychiatrist. And he stopped practicing long before I was born." She saw Susana's cheek twitch at mentioning her father. Smooth move there, Miss Counselor.
Lt. McNeely sighed. "All right. Psychiatrist. Look, it's about time for your time out, so come on. I'll let you have the extra fifteen minutes."
Susana shook her head. "Thank you," she said, "but I'd prefer to stay here."
Kelly McNeely fought to avoid goggling. Most inmates regarded their out time as sacred. For inmates in ad seg, that was doubly so. Locked down for as long as they were, the few hours out of their cell were treasured privileges. No one ever turned down out time, unless they were forcibly restricted to their cell.
"You what?" she asked, stunned.
"I'd prefer to stay here," Susana said mildly. "My stomach doesn't agree with me, so I'm not in the mood to exercise. I spoke with my attorney two days ago, and nothing has changed. There's no reason to go out."
Lt. McNeely worked her jaw in surprise for a few moments. "I don't think that's the best thing for you," she said finally.
"I do," Susana replied. "I appreciate your concern, Lieutenant, but I'd prefer you left me to deal with this myself."
Lt. McNeely nodded. She knew the balance between sympathy and harshness that all prison guards had to walk. "If that's what you'd rather, Susana, that's fine," she said calmly. Her tone became firmer as she continued.
"But if I walk out that door and you're on this side of it, you're staying here until 2:00 tomorrow. No changing your mind."
Susana nodded, seeming bored. "Of course," she said.
"And if you are considering doing anything to yourself, come get me."
"I'm not," Susana repeated. She eyed the lieutenant with the same sort of bored, patronizing mien that her father had treated his jailers with.
"Good. Because if you do, Susana, then I'll have to put you on suicide watch. Know what that means?"
"I'm afraid not. I rarely get the chance to see much of the pod."
Lt. McNeely shrugged. "It means an isolation cell, for one thing."
Susana seemed to take an interest in the conversation for the first time. She smiled sardonically. "Which is different from this…how?"
"Well," Lt. McNeely said calmly, "no personal property. Those books and that radio wouldn't go with you. That's for one. You'd also be monitored constantly. That's for two. No toilet in the isolation cells either, so you'd have to convince whoever was watching you to let you go. That's three. And fourthly, I'd have to take your clothes away. You'd get a paper gown. Can't hang yourself with a paper gown, you know. And once you're on suicide watch, you'd stay on it until I was satisfied."
The slow melting of Susana's sardonic expression was a sweet reward. Lt. McNeely would have prized it more had she known how rarely Susana ever let anyone get to her. But even so, it was quite welcome. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd won, but won she had. McNeely decided to be a little magnanimous in her victory. She rose to leave.
"I tell you what, Susana," she said pleasantly. "How about you take fifteen minutes to think about it, tell me if you still want your out time." The heavy metal door closed behind her, and she busied herself with running the rest of her cellblock. There was plenty to do that didn't involve Susana Alvarez Lecter. So she went out, talked with her people, saw to her inmates, listened to their problems, helped if she could, told them no when she couldn't. It made the time go by quickly.
One of her sergeants told her that Susana had stuck to her guns and stayed in her cell. That wasn't what she had expected. Well, perhaps she was just trying to prove a point. That was fine, let her, it was her damn out time anyway. There was still plenty of other things to do.
Shortly after dinner, Lt. McNeely was settling an argument between two of her inmates and wondering why she'd ever taken the job here in this giant baby-sitting farm. She was down on the side of the cellblock where Susana was kept. As she listened to the two bickering women argue over the ownership of a pillow (Good Christ, she thought, a pillow, these two are almost in tears over a pillow,) she noticed Susana's dinner tray was left outside her cell. It was untouched. Her face clouded over and the first intuitions that something might be actually wrong probed her stomach.
She settled the argument by confiscating the pillow in question. As she returned it to the laundry room, she heard one of her guards radio out the code that meant 'sick inmate'. Typical, someone's got a runny nose. Well, someone else can wipe it this time.
The radio buzzed again. "Lieutenant, you there?"
She sighed and took the mike attached to the epaulet of her uniform blouse. "Yes, I'm here," she said. "Whatcha got?"
"On that 230 that just got called out? You might want to come check it out…,"
"Why?" she asked, knowing in the pit of her stomach why already.
"It's…it's Sally," the voice said, using the code name the guards used on the radio to refer to Susana Alvarez Lecter.
Shit. "Be down there in a minute," she said. "What's up?"
"Umm…it looks bad, lieutenant."
Aw jeez. As she headed back down to that end of the cellblock, she tried to think. Susana had seemed all right when she'd talked to her before. Had things gotten worse that quickly? Should she have forced Susana out of her cell? What the hell could her pet killer have done anyway? Her entire personal property consisted of five paperback books, some paper, two soft-tip pens, and the radio her cousin had given her.
Susana's cell door was open when she arrived. Lt. McNeely ducked around the door and glanced in. Two guards were standing in the cell. Susana was sitting on the floor, leaning against the far wall. Her hands were already behind her back. The lieutenant realized at once what they had meant by 'it looks bad'.
Susana's face was flushed and sweaty. Her hair clung together in sweaty strands. Her breathing seemed labored. Her eyes flicked up to Kelly's when she saw her enter, but she said nothing. She was trembling. There was an unfamiliar look on her face, and it took Lt. McNeely a moment to place it. She'd seen it a million times, but never on Susana's face before. The unpleasant look of pain and fear.
"OK, what's going on here?" Lt. McNeely asked authoritatively. "Susana? What are you doing?"
A semblance of the usual sardonic mien crossed over Susana's face. McNeely got the idea that she would have said more, but it hurt to speak.
"Dying, lieutenant," she said in a dry, cracked voice. "I'm dying."