Clarice Starling hovered over the sink in her cell. Her toothbrush was in her hand. Frantically, she scrubbed at her teeth. Maybe, if she brushed and brushed enough, she would be able to rid herself of the stink that she fancied had contaminated her mouth. Her two cellmates largely ignored her, both curled up with books from the prison library.
She'd made her way back into the cell, her clothing slightly askew. She'd tried to rearrange it as best she could. She would've liked a shower, but even if they were running showers she'd have to strip in front of a guard. Right now, that was the last thing she wanted. Now, she found herself feeling a way she personally despised. Weak, helpless, defenseless, and violated.
And yet it could have been so much worse, she knew that. Objectively, it hadn't been that bad. He'd just kissed her and groped her a bit. Stuff like that had happened to her in high school, it wasn't any big deal.
But it bothered her a great deal. She could've written off her high-school fumblings in the back seats of cars as merely the high jinks of two kids. None of her high school boyfriends had really been malicious or forceful. That had largely been a matter of two equally hormone-crazed teenagers who simply wanted to be together. Here, it was different. She felt degraded and objectified, as if she was only a meat puppet there for him to play with.
She spat again into the steel sink and went over to sit on her bunk with her head in her hands. An unpleasant silence hung in the cell. Finally, Brittany cleared her throat and spoke.
"You okay, Claire?"
Clarice shook her head.
"Guess Beck tried something," Brittany said, as calmly as if Lieutenant Beck had simply stepped on her toe.
Clarice shook her head slowly. Not to indicate that Brittany was wrong. It was more her own sense of shock that this sort of thing was treated so cavalierly.
"Yeah," she said acidly. "I…I can't believe it."
Brittany waited a few moments before speaking. "Too bad that happened," she said.
"It's wrong," Clarice said. "None of us…we weren't sentenced to that."
Brittany shrugged and looked up from her book. "Nothing to be done about it," she said. "Did he…?" Her question trailed off.
Clarice shook her head again, firmer this time. "No," she said finally, and oddly found herself thinking of Dr. Lecter asking if her foster father had raped her. "He just kissed me and..well, grabbed me is all."
"So you said no?"
The conversation seemed downright bizarre to Clarice, but she continued. "Yes," she said. "I don't…I can't do those sorts of things." She waited a moment, remembering the younger woman's outburst before. "I don't judge you for it, but I just…not for me."
"Well," Brittany said nonchalantly, "you just blew your second parole hearing."
Clarice looked up and stared at her blankly.
"No one gets their first parole hearing," Brittany explained. "Well, sometimes you might if you're an absolute saint. But hardly anybody does. The guards have a grapevine. The ones here talk to the ones at Albion and other places. You play along and people get to know it. You don't and they get to know it too. They'll make sure you have enough tickets and such to blow the second. They'll try to make you change your mind, you know."
Clarice blinked her eyes. On one level, she could understand what Brittany was saying. This was prison. She'd always thought criminals in prison ought to do some hard time. On another level, though, she was aghast. This sort of punishment was simply unheard of, beyond her pale. No one had the right to do what these guards were doing. Even a caged lamb was still a lamb.
"Jesus," she whispered. "This is wrong. They can't do this."
Brittany chuckled bitterly. "Oh, yes, they can," she said. Her tone was neutral, as if discussing the weather. "What did you think you were going to do? Complain to the captain? You think he gives a shit?"
"There's laws about that," Clarice said.
"Yeah, right," Brittany said. "You think a judge is gonna care? You're a prison inmate now, Claire. They don't care. They'll all just say you're lying. End of story." Her voice turned bitterer. "Trust me. I know. I didn't do what got me in here."
Clarice had heard of Brittany Tollman's crime spree with her boyfriend – several armed robberies across ten states. Several clerks and one cop shot dead. She gave the younger woman a level look. Surprisingly, it helped to have something other to talk about than the experiences she had just had and what they meant.
"I heard about you on the news," Clarice said.
"I ain't saying I'm an angel," Brittany said. "I am saying I didn't kill anyone. Danny did all the killings. I didn't shoot anybody, I just helped stick em up, and I only did that cause Danny whomped on me until I did what he wanted." She sighed bitterly.
Clarice shrugged. "So why did you plea bargain?" It occurred to her that Brittany might be suspicious that Clarice knew so much about her. After all, she was supposed to be a simple identity thief from New York City, not the Deputy Chief of Behavioral Sciences.
Fortunately, Brittany didn't pick up on it. "Asshole lawyer," she said. She tilted her head and spoke mockingly. "'Oh Brittany, they've got you dead to rights, if you don't take this plea deal you'll go to jail and never get out. At least this way you'll get out of jail sometime.' I thought OK, don't panic, I'll try and appeal once everyone's calmed down. Then I find out I can't appeal. I'm stuck here for twenty-five years, no second chances. 'Screw you Brittany, we don't care if you didn't kill anyone, you pleaded and that's all there is to it'." She shook her head. "You'll be out and back in your house with the white picket fence for fifteen years before I ever get out. Don't expect the law to help you. They don't care. Just suck it up and deal the best you can. Cause as long as you got an inmate number you're a liar. The guards are right and you're wrong. End of story."
Clarice pondered for a moment on what the younger woman had said. It was entirely possible that Brittany was lying about not having killed anyone. That wouldn't surprise her; criminals did lie, plenty. What got to her more was the entire worldview Brittany seemed to espouse. Clarice believed in order and justice. Order was important, but justice was equally so. The slaughter of the spring lambs that she remembered so ardently had been orderly, but it seemed then – and still seemed – unjust. She had devoted her life to ensuring that fairness and justice ruled.
Yet for Brittany, the system existed not to provide justice to even the weakest lamb, but to oppress. Justice and equal treatment were a cynical joke, a phrase mouthed by a system that had utterly no interest in providing it. Clarice could tell liars fairly well, and she didn't think Brittany was lying, per se. She might have convinced herself it was the truth. She believed what she was saying, that was clear enough. The idea of everything Clarice had striven for being a cynical lie made her shiver.
What was worse was that in this cell, in this prison – hell, in this world – Brittany seemed to be right.
…
Detective Isabelle Pierce sat behind the wheel of her Holden and adjusted her sunglasses. She was keeping a firm eye on her prey. On the passenger seat of the car were the files she'd obtained from Immigrations. That had given her some food for thought.
Immigrations had no file on an immigrant named Elaine Litton. They did have a file on her husband Hamilton. Nothing too interesting, though, just your standard spouse visa. A bit of sifting had turned up the fact that Elaine Litton had been born Elaine Banfield in Sydney to an Australian mother and an American father. US Navy man, according to her birth certificate. Her mum must've had a taste for Yank sailors. At age three she'd been taken to America with her family. From that point, the Commonwealth had largely lost track of her for thirty years.
Three years ago, Elaine Banfield Litton had apparently strolled into the Australian embassy in Austria and asked for a passport for herself and her newborn son and a spouse visa for her husband. After giving her the standard lecture that she should've notified the embassy before marrying they gave her the paperwork she'd sought.
Nothing untoward; nothing that would raise any eyebrows. Except those of the detective. She opened the file and stared at the photographs for Elaine Litton's passport and Hamilton Litton's visa application. She compared them with the mugshots taken of Hannibal Lecter and Erin Lander when they had respectively fallen into the hands of law enforcement.
Erin Lander had once fraudulently obtained German citizenship. Had she fraudulently obtained Australian citizenship as well? After a phone call to a chatty, bored Immigrations bureaucrat, Isabelle thought there was a very likely reason. Erin had a dual kidney transplant, and the only doctor who had ever done that was Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Like many countries, Australia required prospective immigrants to undergo a medical examination. A dual kidney transplant would've been a red flag to the FBI, who still sought the pair. As a citizen, Elaine Litton had no such obligation.
If she was Erin Lander, she'd have had some experience with that, from her time in Germany, and it would have been forefront in her mind.
She'd tried to inquire discreetly about what Elaine Litton might have done between moving to America at three and showing up in her city of birth three decades later. Nothing too big; she was loath to attract attention. The Yanks refused to give her Elaine Litton's American Social Security number, but armed with name and date of birth had gotten her some information.
No criminal record. Oddly, no driver's license either, in any state. Fifty bloody states, how did they ever get driver's license checks done? She seemed to have simply gone to the States and vanished.
Isabelle steered the Holden to the side of the road and kept a close eye on her prey. Ahead, Elaine Litton got out of her small, sporty Mercedes and began unstrapping her son from his car seat. They were at one of the prettier parks of Sydney. Lush grass grew along one part; the water lapped at the shores of the other. Detective Pierce removed her sunglasses and raised a set of binoculars to her eyes.
Part of her thought this was silly. She ought to be shadowing the other Dr. Litton. He was the dangerous one…if her suspicion was right. For that matter, she could simply detain him long enough to fingerprint him. But if she were wrong, she could see career apocalypse heading her way. The mayor of Sydney had been a guest at the Littons' dinner party; if a mere detective detained one of his friends there would be consequences. None of them good. Detective Pierce liked her job. She wanted more to go on than a single doped-up moment in a hospital. And she couldn't help but have the feeling that Elaine Litton was the key. If Hamilton Litton were Hannibal Lecter, he would know better than his wife how to hide.
The surgeon was bending over her struggling son as she freed him from his car seat. Was the back of her blouse rucked up? At this angle she couldn't tell. Were there scars there, perhaps? If there were, that would be enough probable cause to detain her long enough to see if she was the woman the FBI still sought.
Elaine Litton stood up and placed her son on the ground near the car. Like most three-year-olds, Michael Litton was a bit the capricious tyrant. He wanted to walk like a big boy rather than be carried. Detective Pierce watched the small boy walk with his mother's hand in his. Ahead lay a large play area dominated by a large fort-like structure. Slides and bridges provided ample things for a small child to do. Michael Litton saw it and squealed, running for it as fast as his small feet would carry him. He clambered eagerly up the ladder, merging into the mass of other children occupying the structure.
Isabelle Pierce felt foolish as she watched Elaine Litton walk around the structure, keeping her offspring in close view. So far, she had simply shadowed her far enough to tell that she was simply bringing her child to a park after checking in at the office. Hardly an unreasonable thing for a mother to do, really, and it didn't give her anything to detain the surgeon for.
Get the proof, a voice whispered at her.
She was the only woman on the playground without a child, but it was easy enough to approach the large structure without drawing much attention. Did the boy have a link to Hannibal Lecter, perhaps? He was too far away and moving too rapidly for her to tell for sure how many fingers he had.
She decided to try and get closer to the boy. Perhaps he did have six fingers after all. Confidently she strode forward, as if ready to scoop up her own young.
"Patrick!" she said stridently, for the benefit of the mums around her. "Come on, Patrick, come with me now and we'll get some ice cream." She looked around as if searching for her own nonexistent progeny. There was the Litton boy, happily running under a 'cave' of sorts in the play structure. Excellent. Detective Pierce walked towards the overhang and stuck her head inside. All she wanted to see was if he had six fingers or not, or perhaps those eerie maroon eyes.
The inside of the cave was dark and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. A few random holes in the wall offered the kiddies playing therein the chance to either see out or exit in a way much more fun than a boring, workaday door. She was incensed by the sight of two small white sneakers wriggling through a hole in the wall, accompanied by happy giggles. Blast!
Isabelle Pierce stepped out of the play structure and turned around. She meant to sigh and call again for her imaginary child. She did not. Instead, she froze, rooted to the spot with fear.
Dr. Hamilton Litton stood not five feet away from her, looking at her with preternatural calm. Behind his spectacles, his eyes bored into her, as if easily divining what she meant to do. His hands were calmly behind his back. He let her hang for a few seconds before speaking. His expression was completely inscrutable; she couldn't tell whether he meant to kill her immediately or honestly didn't know who she was.
"I believe that's my son who just ran out of here," he said calmly. "Is there something I can help you with, Detective Pierce?"
…
Rebecca DeGould was quite satisfied with herself. Things were moving along just splendidly. Starling was still messing around in her prison cell. That project had worked out better than she ever could have hoped. In any other circumstance, constructing her revenge would have been much harder; Starling still outranked her and would've been able to keep an eye on her. DeGould didn't need a lot of support in the Bureau or Justice. Sneed would do just fine for that. But with Starling safely shunted off to prison on some pinko Senator's pet project, DeGould could work unencumbered. Made things much easier.
Now it was time to get the ball rolling. She'd worked out plans for revenge against Starling before. Multiple plans, parallel means of getting back at the woman who had masterminded the attack that had crippled Rebecca DeGould for some time. After getting over the initial horror of the attack, DeGould had set herself to understanding her foe and what had gone on.
She'd falsely testified that Clarice Starling had tortured Dr. Lecter's wife. Starling could have broken her with that, once she got the affidavit from Lecter's wife. She hadn't. Instead, she'd simply said that DeGould had suffered enough.
It took Rebecca DeGould some time to understand why it was that Starling hadn't delivered the killing blow. It made no sense at all. Her father had taught her well. When you had the other guy on the ropes, you finished him off so that he wouldn't come back after you. Alone in her hospital bed, trying to avoid thinking about the horrors that Gregory Lynch had done to her, DeGould had tried to figure out what Starling's motivations had been.
Eventually, she had come to this conclusion: that Starling had spared her out of politics and contempt. Starling didn't want to look like the big bad bully, kicking her foe when she was down. At that time, Gregory Lynch had attacked her with a crowbar and then raped her. Starling had probably been trying to forestall any sympathy backlash for DeGould. That was the politics part.
The contempt part was more galling. Starling had thought that Rebecca DeGould would never recover. That she was finished, shattered, destroyed. Starling had thought she could turn her back on the broken woman in the hospital bed. After all, Starling had probably thought no one could prove that she had gotten Dr. Lecter to sic Gregory Lynch on her like some sort of mad dog.
Unfortunately for Starling, she was wrong on two counts. Once on medication Lynch had snapped right back into lucidity. He'd actually seemed sorry, DeGould thought. She'd visited him once in the asylum. He'd burst into tears and implored her forgiveness. Once he had admitted it was Dr. Lecter who had told him to go after her, that was all DeGould needed. He'd been willing to face trial. Damned weird, DeGould thought. He'd pled guilty, even.
It hadn't stopped her from seeing what she would have to do in order to have him killed, though. He'd raped her and beaten her with a crowbar. An apology didn't cut it, to be perfectly blunt. She wondered if he'd thought of her in his final moments, when a burly prisoner hired by a few ranks of go-betweens had drowned him in a tubful of the laundry's caustic chemicals. They said his face had been so horrible they'd had to ID him by his fingerprints.
DeGould knew. She'd seen the autopsy photos. She wasn't quite so angry at him anymore. Whenever she was, she brought out the photo, reminded herself what had happened to him, and felt better in her mind.
Vengeance against Dr. Lecter was also something Rebecca DeGould wanted. But she knew she'd have to wait on that. He would slip up eventually. If he happened to croak before they ever caught him, they would eventually catch up to his wife and the kid, and DeGould could take her revenge against them and be satisfied. Starling, however, was another matter.
Rebecca DeGould suspected very strongly that Clarice Starling had acted to protect Dr. Lecter and his wife shortly after the escape that had gone so horribly wrong. She couldn't prove it, though. If she had, Starling would have been out on her ear. But this revenge…ahhh, this was so fitting.
It was time for the first phase. The groundwork, if you will. Her plan involved a few other people; she would take down Mapp too. Mapp was an ally of Starling, and she had to go. The prior plan against Starling had failed because DeGould hadn't counted on Starling having allies.
Once DeGould was done, she wouldn't, either. Some of it was dumb luck; Starling and Mapp had put themselves in stupid positions. DeGould was smart enough to move in on Starling's mistake and capitalize on it. She knew exactly what to do and how to do it.
Now it was time for the initial bombing raid. The first onset of hostilities against her secondary targets. She was clearing the path so that she could concentrate on wiping her primary foe off the map. The groundwork for the first strike was already laid; now all she had to do was carry on with it. Sneed had gotten her the credit card number, and that was all she needed. But he deserved a reward for helping her.
She picked up the phone and dialed Sneed's number. A few moments later, he answered.
"Hi, Bob," she said. "It's Rebecca. Listen…you've helped me out a bit, so I've got a sample of my gratitude for you. I want you to be at the Adam's Mark hotel in an hour. Go to the front desk and identify yourself as Conway. Everything's all set."
Sneed halted for a moment or two. "Rebecca,..um….,what do you have in mind?"
Did he think she was going to meet him there? She rolled her eyes. Men.
"A little reward," she said. "Oh, and our initial move too. You just benefit from it, that's all. Show up, say you're Conway, get your room key, and wait."
"Umm…okay," Bob Sneed said.
"Good man," Rebecca said, meaning good boy. "Have fun."
She hung up the phone, laced her fingers, and rested her chin on her hands. Things were going very well indeed.
