Title: "The Blood of a Cannibal"
Chapter 3 "First Encounter of a Different Nature"
Author: Jerome Mullins
Rating: R, although I am well aware that this is still extremely mild. But hey, a lot of good horror movies start off slow before you get to the good stuff.
Disclaimer and Summary: See previous chapters.
Author's Notes: Starling comes to meet the flesh and blood of Dr. Lecter, how different will their first encounter be?
* * *
Clarice Starling arrived at the quiet Boston College campus. It had not snowed yet, but the weather had been threatening a start to a long season all afternoon. Normally the campus would be buzzing with life and activity from the students, but with Christmas around the corner and the semester on break until the following month, the campus seemed dead.
Checking with the residence board, Starling found that Jerome Lecter was still on campus but was all ready signed out and ready to go to his uncle's house for Christmas. After checking with several of the students who lived on his floor, she was directed to find him at the practice football field. There she saw him sitting at the top of the bleachers with a sketch pad in hand. At one point he stood to stretch his back and legs and sat down again to resume his sketching.
He was tall with a well-built figure. Athletic, broad shouldered, square-jawed. He looked more like his uncle Luke than his father. Starling crossed the field in her black turtle neck, blue jeans, denim jacket and nice sneakers. Her auburn hair hung limply draped over her shoulder. She stood at the bottom of the bleachers and looked up at him. He didn't seem to notice her and continued to sketch.
"Howdy up there." She waved. "You Jerome Lecter?"
"Baltimore PD or FBI?" he asked without looking up.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"I'm trying to guess which badge you're going to show me. You're either Baltimore PD or an FBI agent." He gave her a brief glance.
Starling smiled and took out her FBI badge and held it up.
"FBI." She said.
"You're here to ask me questions about my father." He closed his sketch pad and leaned forward, his hands laid neatly in his lap.
He had the same aloofness and eerie calmness as his father. Definitely a Lecter.
"Yes, I am." She nodded. "I'm sure you all ready know that he was in the country a while back, he killed one more person-"
"I read that he killed two people."
"We need to know where he is." She avoided his comment.
"To catch him or to kill him?"
"To catch of course."
"Of course." He smiled. His smile was like his father's as well. "I should have known you weren't a police officer, you're too casual."
She looked down to her clothing and then back up to him.
"I could have been undercover."
"No." He shook his head. "You're too casual. Undercover cops who come here at night try too hard to look normal. One can easily see they are wolves among the cattle. You're too natural."
A compliment from a Lecter.
"Cattle?"
"The free range so-called students, many are here to learn and leave the herd, others are here to take a few down with them. Most are bulls in heat." He shrugged.
"Which are you?"
"The cowboy holding the cattle prod." He smiled.
Starling couldn't help but laugh.
"If only there were more like you." She said to him.
It was his turn to laugh.
"If only Hollywood would depict their FBI agents half as charming as you, there would be no need to fear the good agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations."
He picked up his sketch book and descended down the bleachers. Starling was able to get a good look at him now. He was over six foot, she could tell he was well built, very strong under his black oxford polo shirt, khaki pants and brown leather jacket. He was wearing brown leather shoes, very neat and clean. Just like his father. Both were neat and clean with an air of strength that one should know better not to cross.
His eyes were hazel, greener than anything. His hair was brown and shortly cropped. His jaw line was neatly shaven, she could smell his aftershave, something very nice and hand selected.
"Jerome Lecter," he stretched out his hand to her.
"Clarice Starling." She shook it firmly.
His eyes glazed over a bit, and then he smiled with the sudden recognition.
"Starling, Clarice M." He let go of her hand.
"A fan?"
"Very much so, I've followed your career since your trainee days when you first met my father." He leaned back on his heels a bit. "I'm assuming that's what you've come for."
"As a matter of fact, I have. You don't mind talking about your father do you?"
"Does it bother you that I address him as such?"
Starling smiled. It did.
"In all my time talking with him, he never mentioned that he had a family. It's just something different to adjust to. A different way of seeing Dr. Lecter."
Jerome smiled, he was amused. "Dr. Lecter." He said quietly to himself. "Hard to picture that he is actually capable of being happily married? Being a father for two years while secretly murdering nine people? You should try seeing it from my perspective sometime."
"I meant no offense."
"None taken."
He walked back towards the resident building with Starling at his side. He kept his hands behind his back, clutching the sketch pad and pencils tightly. His pace was relaxed and steady, Starling was glad that both he and his uncle were very casual and pleasant towards the idea of talking about America's most feared and notorious serial killer.
"How well did you know your father?"
"Not at all. He was incarcerated before my second birthday. Even before that I spent more time with my uncles and my grandmother. My mother died shortly after my birth, but you knew that all ready." He smiled at her briefly.
"I'm very sorry about your mother, my mother died when I was young too. I was raised by my father, an only child."
"We're gators of the same swamp, Agent Starling." He nodded. "How did you find out about me?"
"You're father's personal files were opened. No one but your lawyer knew about them."
"He mostly likely never told anyone."
"Any idea why he wouldn't?"
"You're asking the wrong Lecter I'm afraid." He looked over to her. "It's part of his humor, I doubt he would explain it to anyone. He is a man of many mysteries."
"I'll say, we've never been able to figure out a clear reason why he would choose to dine on his victims."
Jerome stopped in his tracks. Starling instantly noticed.
"You never figured it out? Even after having him in custody for eight years?"
"No, why, do you know something?"
"Nothing more than what I can imagine." He shrugged and continued walking.
"I once figured it was to show his contempt for those exasperated him, or to act as a public service."
"You're probably right." He nodded. "My father isn't fond of those he considered rude and boorish."
"You ever visit him? While he was in the Baltimore hospital?"
"Never. My uncles didn't approve, they thought that it would be better for me if I stayed away. I knew very little about him and his crimes."
"Did you ever want to see him?"
"He's my father."
In his dormitory, Jerome finished his packing as he prepared to return home for Christmas. Starling looked around, read the binders of the neatly piled textbooks above his desk. His desk was clean and neatly filed with all his previous semester notes put away in his folder bin. His private library was filled with books of classic literature containing the works of Virgil, Ovid and Homer with a special shelf dedicated to Dante with at least six different translations of the _Inferno_. He also had a vast collection of philosophy books, Marcus Arillius, Aristotle and Socrates to name a few. Starling looked over to him as his was finishing his packing.
"What are you studying?"
"Classical Literature and Theology, I'm also working on a minor in classical music." He didn't look over to her.
Starling went back to looking around, his bed was neatly made. Above the headboard was a large Irish flag that had been pinned to the wall, smoothed to avoid wrinkling. A television set was placed at the opposite side of the bedroom with a small video collection along side in a second book shelf that was a mixture of books, movies and a small collection of DVDs. On the back side of the front door was a British flag stapled with the same care as the Irish one.
"How patriotic of you." She muttered.
"My second home is in Ireland. My uncle Luke and his wife, Dana, and I always going on a yearly vacation to visit the family in Dublin."
Now that they were in doors, Starling could clearly hear a faint Irish accent to his voice, Harrington's was thick and smooth and could easily be mistaken as British.
"Do you think your father could be in Europe?" she looked over to him.
"Possibly." He shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know. I've seen some of the coverage done after the massacre at Muskrat Farms, heard a few theories that he was in Asia."
"Do you think they're viable?"
"He's not wanted in Asia." He said simply.
"He's not wanted in Ireland either."
Jerome stopped his packing and smiled at her. "Very good," his tone was exactly like his father's when he had called her the morning of his abduction by Mason Verger's goons.
"Do you think he's in Ireland?"
He didn't answer, only a faint smile.
Starling smiled back. "You wouldn't be holding something back from me now would you?"
"Not at all." He shook his head.
Starling offered him a ride back to his uncle's house two hours from the campus, Jerome graciously accepted. This would make her job easier, ask him more questions and she could be home in time for Christmas. Although, she suspected she wouldn't be completely disappointed if she wasn't home to celebrate another holiday all by herself.
The car ride had been quiet for sometime now. He was fixed on watching the traffic driving by her Mustang, many were in a rush while others were just rude. She glanced over to him and kept her gaze on him longer than she had intended. She looked away before he caught her staring at him. Several moments later, she turned to do it again when he was already waiting for her. He smiled softly, she blushed and looked away.
"See something, Agent Starling?"
"I'm sorry. I just couldn't help thinking-"
"What were you thinking?" she kept her eyes forward. "I can't imagine the answer is written on that bumper sticker in front of you." His tone was just a strong and direct as his father's.
Starling didn't take any offense.
"You look nothing like your father." She looked back to him. "The eyes-"
"Are my mother's." He smiled brightly. "I'm unsure of the rest, I never asked."
The car in the left lane suddenly swerved over in front of Starling almost causing her to run into his rear bumper. The car skidded and then regained control while swerving back into his original lane and sped up. Starling honked her horn angrily as did the other drivers around her. Jerome calmly reached into his inner jacket pocket and removed his pen, he copied down the license plate numbers on the back of his hand and replaced the pen to its rightful pocket.
She smiled at him. "Good idea," she nodded.
"I can call the police when I reach my uncle's house. It's so tragic to think that if he keeps it up, he'll make someone's family less merry this Christmas."
"I'll be damned, a law-biding Lecter." She laughed.
"Not so much for the sake of the law, Agent Starling. I hate rude people, more than that, I hate rude people who get away with their behavior."
Starling looked away. "You may not look like your father, but you sure do sound like him."
"I didn't get that from my father," he shook his head. "Matthew tells me that I'm my mother's son, she hated people too."
"Hated people." She repeated to herself.
"Dad keeps telling me-"
"Your father?" she looked at him.
"My uncle Luke," he paused. "Keeps telling me about my mother's favorite quote," he cleared his throat before imitating a thick Irish accent. "'If I ate every person that either was rude to me or I just out and out despised, I'd be a great big fat woman living in a world with half the population missing.'" He laughed out loud, revealing his sharp white teeth.
Starling didn't smile. "Your uncles tell you a lot about your mother?"
"All that I have of my mother are their memories. You could say that I have to feed off the memories of others for my own."
"They tell you about your father too?"
"Depends on which side you mean."
"Side?"
"You don't really believe that my father has been a serial killer all his life do you? How would he ever have got himself a wife or a son?"
There was a faint trace of a smile across his lips.
"Do you have any memories of your father? That are your own I mean."
"No." He leaned back in his seat. "Like the memories of my mother, the memories I have of my father are dependant upon others."
"Must have been hard, growing up as the son of a-" She decided to keep her thoughts to herself.
"You're just dying to know what it was like for me, aren't you?" he smiled.
"Yes." She nodded.
"You're very frank, Agent Starling."
"Does that bother you?"
"Not at all. In fact, I'd like to be just as blunt if you'll permit me." She nodded. "When you were growing up, could you ever imagine your father doing any wrong?"
"No. My father was my whole world."
"Your hero?"
"Nothing wrong with that."
"Nothing at all, my father was my hero too when I was growing up." She glanced over to him. "You see, when I was growing up, my uncles and aunts never once said anything against my father. Not once. I grew up as the son of a good doctor. Doctors help people, they save lives. Did you know he once saved the life of an eight-year-old girl who almost drowned in her own bathtub? My father was a hero."
"But he was in prison, how did they explain that?"
"They never mentioned anything about a prison, Agent Starling. He was just gone. Like Mom."
"You know about your father now."
"Do you know what my first memory is? I woke up in the middle of the night to a woman screaming, crying hysterically. I snuck out of my crib, came down stairs and found my grandmother wailing in the living room. Luke was there, so were Dana and Matthew, they were all trying to console her. They had just received a phone call, my father had been convicted of murdering nine people. I was three-years-old."
"How old were you when you learned the truth about your father?"
Jerome smiled.
"Ten. I was up late one night watching a monster movie when the news interrupted. They announced that Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter had just escaped from his prison in Memphis, Tennessee. That was the first time I had ever heard anyone refer to my father as Hannibal 'the Cannibal.'
The worst part was that I found out everything about my father while sitting in a library all by myself. I had no family or friends there to comfort me. To explain to me why. I had to read about it in old newsprint."
His demeanor had now changed from amused by Starling's candor to depressed by his father's atrocities.
"But you still love him." She said softly.
"He's my father." He replied flatly. "No matter the evil he is capable of committing, he's still my father."
"Forgive as Christ forgave?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Something like that," he nodded. "After all, Agent Starling, if we can't forgive our fathers, who is worthy of redemption?"
Starling pulled up in front of Luke Harrington's house. Jerome glanced quickly to the house and then to Starling.
"Thank you, you've been most kind." He shook her hand.
"I'll most likely be back, I have more questions, if that's all right with you?"
"Fine by me, Agent Starling. Anything to help the FBI." He said slowly.
"Clarice." She smiled. "It's Clarice."
Jerome paused and smiled back. He reached into his suitcase and pulled out his sketch pad. He ripped out the page he had been working on when they first met. He looked at it, smiled, and handed it to her before getting out of the car.
"Merry Christmas, Clarice." He smiled and walked to the house where his uncle Luke was waiting for him.
The sketch was of her standing at the bottom of the bleachers. She was clad in a long flowing gown and had the faintest hint of a halo surrounding her head. Her hair flowing along in the wind. At the bottom was inscribed "la bella ragazza."
* * *
Thus concludes Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is on the way (sorry no hints). Hope you like it so far, I've finally introduced Jerome Dante. Keep the feedback coming, criticisms also welcome. See something glaring that you think I could improve? Let me know, it's the only way I'll learn.
Chapter 3 "First Encounter of a Different Nature"
Author: Jerome Mullins
Rating: R, although I am well aware that this is still extremely mild. But hey, a lot of good horror movies start off slow before you get to the good stuff.
Disclaimer and Summary: See previous chapters.
Author's Notes: Starling comes to meet the flesh and blood of Dr. Lecter, how different will their first encounter be?
* * *
Clarice Starling arrived at the quiet Boston College campus. It had not snowed yet, but the weather had been threatening a start to a long season all afternoon. Normally the campus would be buzzing with life and activity from the students, but with Christmas around the corner and the semester on break until the following month, the campus seemed dead.
Checking with the residence board, Starling found that Jerome Lecter was still on campus but was all ready signed out and ready to go to his uncle's house for Christmas. After checking with several of the students who lived on his floor, she was directed to find him at the practice football field. There she saw him sitting at the top of the bleachers with a sketch pad in hand. At one point he stood to stretch his back and legs and sat down again to resume his sketching.
He was tall with a well-built figure. Athletic, broad shouldered, square-jawed. He looked more like his uncle Luke than his father. Starling crossed the field in her black turtle neck, blue jeans, denim jacket and nice sneakers. Her auburn hair hung limply draped over her shoulder. She stood at the bottom of the bleachers and looked up at him. He didn't seem to notice her and continued to sketch.
"Howdy up there." She waved. "You Jerome Lecter?"
"Baltimore PD or FBI?" he asked without looking up.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"I'm trying to guess which badge you're going to show me. You're either Baltimore PD or an FBI agent." He gave her a brief glance.
Starling smiled and took out her FBI badge and held it up.
"FBI." She said.
"You're here to ask me questions about my father." He closed his sketch pad and leaned forward, his hands laid neatly in his lap.
He had the same aloofness and eerie calmness as his father. Definitely a Lecter.
"Yes, I am." She nodded. "I'm sure you all ready know that he was in the country a while back, he killed one more person-"
"I read that he killed two people."
"We need to know where he is." She avoided his comment.
"To catch him or to kill him?"
"To catch of course."
"Of course." He smiled. His smile was like his father's as well. "I should have known you weren't a police officer, you're too casual."
She looked down to her clothing and then back up to him.
"I could have been undercover."
"No." He shook his head. "You're too casual. Undercover cops who come here at night try too hard to look normal. One can easily see they are wolves among the cattle. You're too natural."
A compliment from a Lecter.
"Cattle?"
"The free range so-called students, many are here to learn and leave the herd, others are here to take a few down with them. Most are bulls in heat." He shrugged.
"Which are you?"
"The cowboy holding the cattle prod." He smiled.
Starling couldn't help but laugh.
"If only there were more like you." She said to him.
It was his turn to laugh.
"If only Hollywood would depict their FBI agents half as charming as you, there would be no need to fear the good agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations."
He picked up his sketch book and descended down the bleachers. Starling was able to get a good look at him now. He was over six foot, she could tell he was well built, very strong under his black oxford polo shirt, khaki pants and brown leather jacket. He was wearing brown leather shoes, very neat and clean. Just like his father. Both were neat and clean with an air of strength that one should know better not to cross.
His eyes were hazel, greener than anything. His hair was brown and shortly cropped. His jaw line was neatly shaven, she could smell his aftershave, something very nice and hand selected.
"Jerome Lecter," he stretched out his hand to her.
"Clarice Starling." She shook it firmly.
His eyes glazed over a bit, and then he smiled with the sudden recognition.
"Starling, Clarice M." He let go of her hand.
"A fan?"
"Very much so, I've followed your career since your trainee days when you first met my father." He leaned back on his heels a bit. "I'm assuming that's what you've come for."
"As a matter of fact, I have. You don't mind talking about your father do you?"
"Does it bother you that I address him as such?"
Starling smiled. It did.
"In all my time talking with him, he never mentioned that he had a family. It's just something different to adjust to. A different way of seeing Dr. Lecter."
Jerome smiled, he was amused. "Dr. Lecter." He said quietly to himself. "Hard to picture that he is actually capable of being happily married? Being a father for two years while secretly murdering nine people? You should try seeing it from my perspective sometime."
"I meant no offense."
"None taken."
He walked back towards the resident building with Starling at his side. He kept his hands behind his back, clutching the sketch pad and pencils tightly. His pace was relaxed and steady, Starling was glad that both he and his uncle were very casual and pleasant towards the idea of talking about America's most feared and notorious serial killer.
"How well did you know your father?"
"Not at all. He was incarcerated before my second birthday. Even before that I spent more time with my uncles and my grandmother. My mother died shortly after my birth, but you knew that all ready." He smiled at her briefly.
"I'm very sorry about your mother, my mother died when I was young too. I was raised by my father, an only child."
"We're gators of the same swamp, Agent Starling." He nodded. "How did you find out about me?"
"You're father's personal files were opened. No one but your lawyer knew about them."
"He mostly likely never told anyone."
"Any idea why he wouldn't?"
"You're asking the wrong Lecter I'm afraid." He looked over to her. "It's part of his humor, I doubt he would explain it to anyone. He is a man of many mysteries."
"I'll say, we've never been able to figure out a clear reason why he would choose to dine on his victims."
Jerome stopped in his tracks. Starling instantly noticed.
"You never figured it out? Even after having him in custody for eight years?"
"No, why, do you know something?"
"Nothing more than what I can imagine." He shrugged and continued walking.
"I once figured it was to show his contempt for those exasperated him, or to act as a public service."
"You're probably right." He nodded. "My father isn't fond of those he considered rude and boorish."
"You ever visit him? While he was in the Baltimore hospital?"
"Never. My uncles didn't approve, they thought that it would be better for me if I stayed away. I knew very little about him and his crimes."
"Did you ever want to see him?"
"He's my father."
In his dormitory, Jerome finished his packing as he prepared to return home for Christmas. Starling looked around, read the binders of the neatly piled textbooks above his desk. His desk was clean and neatly filed with all his previous semester notes put away in his folder bin. His private library was filled with books of classic literature containing the works of Virgil, Ovid and Homer with a special shelf dedicated to Dante with at least six different translations of the _Inferno_. He also had a vast collection of philosophy books, Marcus Arillius, Aristotle and Socrates to name a few. Starling looked over to him as his was finishing his packing.
"What are you studying?"
"Classical Literature and Theology, I'm also working on a minor in classical music." He didn't look over to her.
Starling went back to looking around, his bed was neatly made. Above the headboard was a large Irish flag that had been pinned to the wall, smoothed to avoid wrinkling. A television set was placed at the opposite side of the bedroom with a small video collection along side in a second book shelf that was a mixture of books, movies and a small collection of DVDs. On the back side of the front door was a British flag stapled with the same care as the Irish one.
"How patriotic of you." She muttered.
"My second home is in Ireland. My uncle Luke and his wife, Dana, and I always going on a yearly vacation to visit the family in Dublin."
Now that they were in doors, Starling could clearly hear a faint Irish accent to his voice, Harrington's was thick and smooth and could easily be mistaken as British.
"Do you think your father could be in Europe?" she looked over to him.
"Possibly." He shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know. I've seen some of the coverage done after the massacre at Muskrat Farms, heard a few theories that he was in Asia."
"Do you think they're viable?"
"He's not wanted in Asia." He said simply.
"He's not wanted in Ireland either."
Jerome stopped his packing and smiled at her. "Very good," his tone was exactly like his father's when he had called her the morning of his abduction by Mason Verger's goons.
"Do you think he's in Ireland?"
He didn't answer, only a faint smile.
Starling smiled back. "You wouldn't be holding something back from me now would you?"
"Not at all." He shook his head.
Starling offered him a ride back to his uncle's house two hours from the campus, Jerome graciously accepted. This would make her job easier, ask him more questions and she could be home in time for Christmas. Although, she suspected she wouldn't be completely disappointed if she wasn't home to celebrate another holiday all by herself.
The car ride had been quiet for sometime now. He was fixed on watching the traffic driving by her Mustang, many were in a rush while others were just rude. She glanced over to him and kept her gaze on him longer than she had intended. She looked away before he caught her staring at him. Several moments later, she turned to do it again when he was already waiting for her. He smiled softly, she blushed and looked away.
"See something, Agent Starling?"
"I'm sorry. I just couldn't help thinking-"
"What were you thinking?" she kept her eyes forward. "I can't imagine the answer is written on that bumper sticker in front of you." His tone was just a strong and direct as his father's.
Starling didn't take any offense.
"You look nothing like your father." She looked back to him. "The eyes-"
"Are my mother's." He smiled brightly. "I'm unsure of the rest, I never asked."
The car in the left lane suddenly swerved over in front of Starling almost causing her to run into his rear bumper. The car skidded and then regained control while swerving back into his original lane and sped up. Starling honked her horn angrily as did the other drivers around her. Jerome calmly reached into his inner jacket pocket and removed his pen, he copied down the license plate numbers on the back of his hand and replaced the pen to its rightful pocket.
She smiled at him. "Good idea," she nodded.
"I can call the police when I reach my uncle's house. It's so tragic to think that if he keeps it up, he'll make someone's family less merry this Christmas."
"I'll be damned, a law-biding Lecter." She laughed.
"Not so much for the sake of the law, Agent Starling. I hate rude people, more than that, I hate rude people who get away with their behavior."
Starling looked away. "You may not look like your father, but you sure do sound like him."
"I didn't get that from my father," he shook his head. "Matthew tells me that I'm my mother's son, she hated people too."
"Hated people." She repeated to herself.
"Dad keeps telling me-"
"Your father?" she looked at him.
"My uncle Luke," he paused. "Keeps telling me about my mother's favorite quote," he cleared his throat before imitating a thick Irish accent. "'If I ate every person that either was rude to me or I just out and out despised, I'd be a great big fat woman living in a world with half the population missing.'" He laughed out loud, revealing his sharp white teeth.
Starling didn't smile. "Your uncles tell you a lot about your mother?"
"All that I have of my mother are their memories. You could say that I have to feed off the memories of others for my own."
"They tell you about your father too?"
"Depends on which side you mean."
"Side?"
"You don't really believe that my father has been a serial killer all his life do you? How would he ever have got himself a wife or a son?"
There was a faint trace of a smile across his lips.
"Do you have any memories of your father? That are your own I mean."
"No." He leaned back in his seat. "Like the memories of my mother, the memories I have of my father are dependant upon others."
"Must have been hard, growing up as the son of a-" She decided to keep her thoughts to herself.
"You're just dying to know what it was like for me, aren't you?" he smiled.
"Yes." She nodded.
"You're very frank, Agent Starling."
"Does that bother you?"
"Not at all. In fact, I'd like to be just as blunt if you'll permit me." She nodded. "When you were growing up, could you ever imagine your father doing any wrong?"
"No. My father was my whole world."
"Your hero?"
"Nothing wrong with that."
"Nothing at all, my father was my hero too when I was growing up." She glanced over to him. "You see, when I was growing up, my uncles and aunts never once said anything against my father. Not once. I grew up as the son of a good doctor. Doctors help people, they save lives. Did you know he once saved the life of an eight-year-old girl who almost drowned in her own bathtub? My father was a hero."
"But he was in prison, how did they explain that?"
"They never mentioned anything about a prison, Agent Starling. He was just gone. Like Mom."
"You know about your father now."
"Do you know what my first memory is? I woke up in the middle of the night to a woman screaming, crying hysterically. I snuck out of my crib, came down stairs and found my grandmother wailing in the living room. Luke was there, so were Dana and Matthew, they were all trying to console her. They had just received a phone call, my father had been convicted of murdering nine people. I was three-years-old."
"How old were you when you learned the truth about your father?"
Jerome smiled.
"Ten. I was up late one night watching a monster movie when the news interrupted. They announced that Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter had just escaped from his prison in Memphis, Tennessee. That was the first time I had ever heard anyone refer to my father as Hannibal 'the Cannibal.'
The worst part was that I found out everything about my father while sitting in a library all by myself. I had no family or friends there to comfort me. To explain to me why. I had to read about it in old newsprint."
His demeanor had now changed from amused by Starling's candor to depressed by his father's atrocities.
"But you still love him." She said softly.
"He's my father." He replied flatly. "No matter the evil he is capable of committing, he's still my father."
"Forgive as Christ forgave?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Something like that," he nodded. "After all, Agent Starling, if we can't forgive our fathers, who is worthy of redemption?"
Starling pulled up in front of Luke Harrington's house. Jerome glanced quickly to the house and then to Starling.
"Thank you, you've been most kind." He shook her hand.
"I'll most likely be back, I have more questions, if that's all right with you?"
"Fine by me, Agent Starling. Anything to help the FBI." He said slowly.
"Clarice." She smiled. "It's Clarice."
Jerome paused and smiled back. He reached into his suitcase and pulled out his sketch pad. He ripped out the page he had been working on when they first met. He looked at it, smiled, and handed it to her before getting out of the car.
"Merry Christmas, Clarice." He smiled and walked to the house where his uncle Luke was waiting for him.
The sketch was of her standing at the bottom of the bleachers. She was clad in a long flowing gown and had the faintest hint of a halo surrounding her head. Her hair flowing along in the wind. At the bottom was inscribed "la bella ragazza."
* * *
Thus concludes Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is on the way (sorry no hints). Hope you like it so far, I've finally introduced Jerome Dante. Keep the feedback coming, criticisms also welcome. See something glaring that you think I could improve? Let me know, it's the only way I'll learn.