Ardelia Mapp did not feel good today. There was this gnawing sensation in her stomach that she could only attribute to nerves, having just eaten lunch. Why would Will Graham, of all people, want to see me, in his office? Ardelia had not spoken to the man since two years ago when he had showed up at her house, hours after she had seen Clarice drive away, and after calling incessantly, to question her non-stop about the all of two minutes she had spent with Clarice between the time of her return from Florence to the moment she had sped away.
Ardelia smirked at her own thoughts. His office. Only Will Graham would ever consider Hannibal's House to be his office. She walked, none too quickly, down towards the basement room that Graham had taken over after Clarice's disappearance. What could he possibly want to talk to me about, now, two years after, it's not like I might have remembered anything moreā¦
Ardelia cautiously pushed the curtain aside. She smiled wryly. Everything was just as she remembered it from her lunchtime visits to Clarice. The dim room, lit only by that glowing wall that paid homage to one of the FBI's most wanted, the scattered papers, and the cassette tapes of the dungeon conversations strewn about. Ardelia smiled again. No one but Clarice ever referred to the Baltimore Asylum as the dungeon. Even the television screen remained lit on the input channel, just the way Clarice had always left it, so engrossed in her thoughts as she always was.
The smell was a little different, though. No trace of Clarice's expensive perfume or leather shoes and handbag were present in the room any longer. It smelled vaguely masculine now, with traces of aftershave, cologne, and strangely enough, pork rinds. The room smelled of dust, now, something Clarice would never have stood for. And yet, there was a heat in the air; an electricity that refused to fade. As though part of Clarice still lingered there.
"Good Afternoon, Agent Mapp," Will Graham spoke from the darkness.
Ardelia immediately focused her eyes on where she had been accustomed to seeing Clarice sitting during her visits. Graham was not there. Her eyes wandered to find him sitting at a small card table a distance away from Clarice's chair. Ardelia managed to keep the sneer in her eyes from asserting itself on her lips. His office, indeed.
"Good Afternoon, Mr. Graham," her voice betrayed her lack of respect for a man with no real position in the organization.
"Would you mind sitting down?" he asked, gesturing to a chair near his desk. Ardelia moved around to sit facing Will, but said nothing. Will seemed unsure of himself now that he had her in front of him. "Agent Mapp, I know, I, uh, asked you a lot of questions on the night that Clarice disappeared, but, uh, I didn't ask you about Clarice herself, really." He seemed to be searching the glowing display for some sort of support. Ardelia waited expectantly. Whatever Graham wanted from her, she certainly wasn't going to give it freely. Graham finally steeled himself to ask what he had really been wondering for two years. "Um, what would you say was Clarice's relationship with Hannibal Lecter?"
Ardelia didn't manage to catch the sneer. "Relationship? Uh, I'm sorry, Mr. Graham, are you suggesting Clarice had a personal relationship with Lecter?" Even Ardelia didn't believe the confused look on her face looked genuine, but it didn't matter. Her emphasis on the word "personal" didn't make Will's follow up question any easier.
"Well, no, not exactly. I just mean," Will paused for a long moment, opening and closing his mouth as though just on the verge of saying something, but not quite being able to say it. Finally he said, "Yes, that is what I'm suggesting."
"Mr. Graham," Ardelia put on the mask of a mother consoling a silly child about adult things he couldn't possibly understand. "Clarice spent much of her career hiding from the demons her conversations with Lecter gave rise to. Besides the obvious fact that she is, was a special agent for the FBI and he is a wanted murderer, I should think you would realize that Clarice's interests with Dr. Lecter were purely professional, no matter what his designs for her were."
Will didn't miss the chance. He jumped in. "So, you believe that Lecter had, for lack of a better word, a thing for Clarice?"
"I don't know if it was a thing, Mr. Graham. After all, two letters in the course of ten years doesn't really speak of a burning crush on someone."
"But what about the incident on the Chesapeake? Surely, you don't think he only wanted to make Krendler into a dinner for her?"
"Mr. Graham, I really have no idea what runs through the mind of a cannibal. The only person who might have had a chance of knowing left without a single word two years ago - "
"You believe, then, that Clarice had an insight as to how his mind worked?" Will interrupted.
Ardelia exhaled loudly through her nose. "Look at this place, Mr. Graham," she said, indicating the whole of Hannibal's House. "This was entirely set up for the purpose of her getting into his mind. Whether she succeeded or not, I don't know. I do know that she was the only person that Lecter ever had a civil conversation with, let alone was allowed back in on several occasions."
"You believe Lecter showed her a favoritism?"
Ardelia laughed outright, but said nothing.
"Fair enough," Will conceded. "Do you believe she would go looking for him, without the pull of the FBI behind her?"
"I really don't know. I wouldn't put it past her."
"Do you think she would search him out for personal reasons or for - "
Will was cut short by another bark of laughter. "The man both started and ended her career with the FBI. She would never have gotten anywhere without him, and probably would still be here if not for him. If she came face to face with him, I couldn't tell you what she'd do. Try to capture him? Shoot him? Or maybe she really has gone nuts. Maybe she's looking for Lecter so that she can have one last standoff with him before he kills her."
They were silent for many long moments, lost in thoughts of how that very strange reunion might turn out. Finally Ardelia said, "Is that all, Mr. Graham?"
"Actually, no. I didn't ask you down here just to chat. I wanted to show you something."
A whole list of perverted ideas ran through Ardelia's mind at this statement, and she bit her lip. She nodded, not trusting herself to contain a giggle if she spoke her agreement.
Will got up and walked over to the small television set still stationed on input. He pushed a vhs tape into the player and waited while it loaded. Ardelia's brows furrowed as she saw the fashion show spring up in bright color and sound. Will pointed the control at the player and suddenly paused it, in the middle of a tall Asian woman spinning in something that contained way too many feathers to be tasteful.
"There," Will said, his finger pressing against the screen, just below the face of a woman in a fashionable hat and glasses. The light from flashing cameras made it impossible to see her eyes, but Ardelia squinted closely at the face that Will pointed to. Will watched her face carefully. Ardelia's eyes moved over the face, and he saw only the smallest flash of recognition when she noticed the gunpowder burn across the right cheek.
"You think that's Clarice, Mr. Graham?"
"The thought had crossed my mind."
"Aren't you supposed to be looking for Hannibal Lecter, Mr. Graham?" Ardelia asked pointedly.
Will shrugged. "I have the fleeting suspicion that where you find one, you'll find the other."
"Well, keep looking Mr. Graham. First of all, if Clarice didn't want to be found, I don't think she would be stupid enough to change her appearance, but keep the most identifying mark. And the second thing is, play back the tape again, the mark moves. It's a shadow, Mr. Graham. And you're grasping at it." She smiled consolingly at him, and turned to leave.
Outside the curtain, Ardelia breathed a silent sigh of relief and then moved briskly up the stairs, hoping beyond hope that Graham actually believed her.
On the other side of the curtain, Will Graham pondered the impossible loyalty that Ardelia Mapp showed Clarice Starling, all the while watching the tape over and over again, and seeing the mark upon the woman's right cheek, which remained constant no matter how the light changed.
