Labyrinth of the Burning Heart
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By Jstarz927 and Aine Deande
Chapter 11
Ariadne's Thread
Friday, August 30, 2001
The first thought that tumbled into Ardelia's mind upon entering Helen LaReine's house was: This is what it must have been like for Clarice at Fredrica Bimmel's. She had loitered for a moment on the brick steps before the entrance to the old mansion covered in ivy and dust for a moment, her body poised beneath the doorframe. The scent of mothballs and dried blood had drifted from the house on a little current of air. An uncharacteristic incertitude took hold of her.
Ardelia had served her fair share of search warrants in her career and she had always been able to dismiss her feelings of trespassing then in the line of duty. Not now. She was suddenly very aware of her surroundings and the fact that she was intruding upon a dead woman's home. Despite the fact that she had flashed her credentials at the local agents guarding the place from onlookers and therefore had a lawful right to be here, she still felt like she was breaking and entering. She had had a chance to cool down since last week.
After all, this wasn't some case she was working on. This wasn't business; this was personal. It was her last chance at finding out where Clarice might be. After this, there was nothing. No hunch. Not a clue. She needed to believe that she had done everything possible to find her friend. And though this reasoning steeled her resolution and determination, it also made her more susceptible to those nagging doubts that her conscience had never tired of dishing out despite how often she ignored them.
But she had swallowed the bile in her throat and stepped resolutely over the threshold. Stepping into Clarice's shoes, am I... They seemed a little too tight. Just like the air in the antechamber seemed too difficult to breathe. Just beyond the foyer, beyond the living room, was where it had all happened. Where they had found LaReine's body... where...
Stop it. You're not gonna get anywhere if you keep thinking like that. Focus on the task at hand. Okay…where would the murderer have left any marks?
The most logical evidence would be on the body itself. But since the corpse had been removed from the crime scene quite some time ago, all that was left for Ardelia to do was to search the entire house, basement to upper floor, starting with the room she was standing in right now. No longer thinking of death and only of Clarice, she started searching.
The breeze carried the sound of the weeping windchime through the open front door into every room of the house. She could still hear it when she entered the foyer, still hear it when she set foot in the living room, the kitchen. It seemed to accompany her everywhere. She found she quite liked the sound. The pureness of the sound steadied her on some primal level, and assured her even more that she was doing what she had to.
Exactly what she was looking for, she didn't know. Clarice's profile of the killer had been sketchy at best, telling only who the killer wasn't and not who he was. And over the past few weeks, self-important examiners had taken the opportunity to alter the description until Clarice's original words were irrevocably lost. But that had not stopped Ardelia Mapp from trying to make up her own profile. This one, though he did not yet have a face to her, was obviously a show-off. It showed in his meticulous planning and choice of victims. This one was proud: he would have wanted to leave his mark on his work.
And so Ardelia went looking for the signature.
Helen LaReine's house had her presence embedded into every room, every piece of furniture, every scratch on the walls carefully painted over. Though anything but tidy, the arrangement of her belongings suggested at the very least that she was a person that clung to routine. Ardelia judged this from the way Helen had placed her perishables and leftovers in the refrigerator, all stacked in neat Tupperware cartons labeled with self-determined dates of expiration. Also, the way in which she had cut the stems of her plants, cleanly and carefully as though they were conscious beings rather than flowers oh, she should *not* have made that comparison - showed that she was a highly organized character. Which made Ardelia do a double take when she found the half-dozen empty vodka bottles scattered behind the cleaning products under the sink, some of them broken.
What the…? This didn't fit her mental picture of Helen the happy housewife at all. Her eyes widened as that picture was warped even more when she found another bottle hidden inside a box of dog biscuits (Where's the dog? she wondered aloud to herself, then realized the woman's husband had probably taken the dog when he'd moved out of the house. The date on the box suggested as much.), two more full bottles in a shoebox in a closet and one nearly empty one buried in the dirty laundry basket.
A closet alcoholic, in more ways than one, Ardelia registered. The thought was comical for a brief moment before she fought a sudden wave of nausea, as a memory of Clarice Starling resurfaced. Clarice sprawled out on the floor heaving the remains of her junk-food meal into the bucket Ardelia held out before her. It will all end soon, she had muttering soothingly. Then Clarice's stare had been upon her, hollowed out by disillusion, answering, does it ever? Does anything ever end? And whatever else her friend might have wished to say was lost as she bent over the bucket again, retching and coughing, her tears mingling with vomit.
Endless recollections blindly leading me along a string like a fucking puppet, Ardelia thought furiously. She shrugged off the taste of this particularly vile one as, out of habit, she emptied the bottle she'd found in the laundry basket and put it under the sink with the rest of them.
She then took a pen from her breast pocket and wrote "Check BAC in body" on a Post-It note, which she stuck to the fridge. The police were bound to find it on their no doubt umpteenth time searching the place for evidence. Funny that they had never mentioned the wine before.
It was with great trepidation that Ardelia Mapp eventually entered the sanctuary that was the late Helen LaReine's bedroom and put on a pair of latex gloves. As she pulled back all the shades and threw open a window to freshen the unbearably stuffy air, she noted that the room was decorated in the same falsely cheerful tone that she felt in the rest of the house. The wallpaper and bedspread both had the same garish floral design, dusty and muted colors smudged in some places with remnants of fingerprint powder.
A four-poster queen-sized bed with its curtains drawn back was pushed again one wall. Across the room on the opposite wall was a low dresser with an unbelievable amount of cosmetics placed on top before the vanity mirror. Ardelia picked up a small box, believing it to be a makeup kit, but upon opening the container, she discovered that it was in fact a music box. A plastic ballerina twirled in an eternal pirouette before a small mirror in the lid as the tinny synthetic notes of Debussy's "Claire de Lune" permeated the stillness. She set the box down and walked to the window across from the door. The view into the front yard was blocked by the dense foliage of a willow tree. She turned from the window and began to search the room.
An hour later, Ardelia was reaching under the four-poster with powder-stained gloves and was not all surprised to find another bottle under the bed, this one unmarked and half-full. She uncorked the bottle and sniffed. It was wine this time, the color of gold, she couldn't quite place it…
But beyond that, she had found nothing.
Nothing. The word echoed in the void that was her mind, now. Without being aware of it she had dropped the wine bottle, the liquid spilling over and soaking the carpet in a three-foot radius. There was nothing.
Nothing to connect her to Clarice, to the murderer.
Nothing... How could there be nothing?
Ardelia sank to her knees on the carpet, burying her head in her hands, grasping handfuls of hair in powerless desperation. The ballerina of the music box still spun her pirouette, while the eerie notes of Debussy played throughout the otherwise soundless room. Ardelia felt rather like she were the only living presence in a long-dead house, and the feeling of loss and incompetence intensified.
This was it. She knew no more. This had been the last straw she'd grasped with all her might and it had proven futile. She was at the end of her coping, facing a dead-end street, lost with no sense of direction. Clarice would become as the victims she had tried for years to save from their tormenters and be left to the slaughter while she, little miss Mapp, Special *fucking* Agent Mapp would have to sit by and let it happen because she had no idea what to do.
Ardelia tried to smirk at the irony, but found herself crying instead. The salty substance traveled down her cheeks and dripped into her mouth with natural ease, even though it had been several years since she had last cried.
It was a sign of how desperate she felt. She was going to lose her best friend to this monster and there was nothing anyone could do about it. No Knight in Shining Armor to save her now. No Jack to keep the bloodhounds at the FBI away from her. No bloody Hannibal Lecter to pick her up from a barn full of pigs and carry her away, as Clarice had told her about during a brief spell of sobriety. Though whether that was a comfort or not Ardelia really didn't know anymore. Lecter certainly seemed to care as much as she did, although in a thoroughly twisted and sick sort of way...
But it was of no use. Clarice was lost, doomed and lost, and Ardelia was only now beginning to face the total hopelessness of the situation. The ballerina was slowing now and the notes of the song grew further and further apart. With a cry of sheer frustration, Ardelia grabbed the music box and heaved it against the wall as hard as she could. The music ground to a halt, the top of the box tore off the hinges taking the ballerina and its pedestal with it. The bottom of the box fell over on its side and Ardelia looked in at the wires and batteries of the music box. At the carefully folded sheets of white paper stuffed into the sides of the box.
Impossible. Impossible, she thought even as she picked herself off the floor and scrambled toward the container, grabbing it and shaking all the paper from the bottom half of the mutilated music box. As she unfolded each sheet of paper, she feared for a moment that her expectations were once again falsely raised. The great majority of the letters were love notes, written to Helen from her ex-husband. Hardly daring to hope, Ardelia unfolded the last letter. Barely glancing at the name of the addressee, she looked instead at the signature. Helen LaReine. Helen had written this letter. Oh thank you, thank you, whatever divine being you might be, thank you. Ardelia's eyes moved down to the line below the signature. And froze.
For the date on the letter was Thursday, August 2, 2001. One day before Helen was found murdered and pierced like a voodoo doll in the very house that Ardelia had been searching for over two hours. Two days before Clarice had arrived in Memphis.
This had been her last letter.
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The battered white Honda Civic did not look out of place as it pulled into the small gas station in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, but the man that stepped out of the car and brushed the dust off his jeans before stepping toward the pump encouraged a few sleepy heads to peer at him through the front window of the convenience store. The man wore a white dress shirt, sunglasses and a baseball cap. He looked as uncomfortable and awkward in this casual wear as a bum in a tuxedo.
Hannibal Lecter had not passed a pleasant week. It had been five days since he had left Memphis in this hideous, but thankfully gasoline-efficient, vehicle and began his slow journey toward Washington, stopping frequently along the way to ask likely people if they remembered a FBI agent passing through. The picture of Clarice Starling that he had printed from the Quantico database was worn and grimy from endless exposure to the sun. The process was long and time-consuming and so far ineffective, but Lecter could think of no more efficient means to hunt his quarry.
As the tank of the rented Civic was filling, Lecter walked far enough away from the station to escape the odious fumes of gasoline. Rolling hills surrounded either side of the highway that had been Clarice Starling's most likely path back home on that fateful night. Lecter took in the scent of West Virginia. A church bell tolled faintly upon the breeze. He could taste the fragrance of sun-warmed grass and well-oiled machinery. There was also another smell lurking under the stagnant breeze. This scent he had not experienced for the longest time. Peace.
A sigh. Clarice Starling had long deserted this place.
Lecter passed the Civic on his way into the convenience store just in time to hear the pump click shut. The customers in the store had decided that the man was no longer of interest to them and had returned to their newspapers and cigarettes. Lecter picked up a copy of the National Enquirer from the newsstand and brought it to the counter. He had to cough once to get the cashier's attention.
Afterwards, in his car, parked on the side of the highway, Hannibal Lecter removed his sunglasses and studied the paper. He had to flip past several articles concerning the discovery of the cryogenically frozen body of Elvis before reaching the part that he wanted. He started thinking about reconsidering his choice of correspondence. Nothing new in the copycat case, except the ever-present outrage. Ten murders in barely two months and law enforcement was nowhere close to even a suspicion of a suspect. Lecter pored over a particularly heated editorial lobbying to rewrite the entire American judicial system. It is rather amusing how they complain so much about the way things are, but when someone breaks the rules, they condemn him and lock him away.
Against his better reason, Lecter began to feel the slightest empathy toward the killer. They had both paid the same terrible price for their freedom. Was Clarice then the only reason he was bothering to track this man? Clarice…ah, there was an enigma as great as himself.
He began flipping more pages of his newspaper to keep himself from thinking too long on that matter. He had to find her first. Out of habit, he turned to the personals section, his eyes automatically traveling to the top of the page.
There was the slightest hitch in his breathing as he beheld the familiar name. Hope unwittingly floated to the surface of his mind. Yet even before he had finished reading the brief ad, Lecter had no illusions as to who was writing to him. The killer must have gleaned his contact information from Clarice. And the manner of the writing…memories solidified and begged for attention, rising from the oubliettes and descending from the rafters to mingle in a storm that put nature to shame.
A.A. Aaron—
My warrior, the maiden is waiting. No golden thread to guide her way. The beast roars in hunger... and I fear she is lost.
There was no signature. Lecter did not doubt that the killer had known the code name to use, but he had left it off purposefully. He wanted Lecter to find him. He had thrown down the gauntlet.
Very well then.
Something was begging for elucidation in Lecter's mind, the completion of a puzzle was at hand. He need only to take it…Lecter gripped the steering wheel tightly in his hands as the oubliettes in his memory palace yawned their terrible mouths. The imagined scent of charred flesh and blackened bones assaulted his mind. He held onto the steering wheel until the nausea had passed like the breath of a tidal wave.
The moment his head began to clear, Lecter had opened the case file and was rifling quickly through the victim descriptions. He knew now, what he should have seen before. Do you remember your golden thread that guided the hero's path through the labyrinth? There were fourteen victims every year, sent to the island to soothe the beast's hunger: seven men and seven women. His finger moved quickly down the victim list even as the oubliettes in his memory palace threatened to fly open once again.
Ten murders so far. Six women in a row, no doubt Clarice would be the seventh, saved until the end. Six women, followed by that man, H. Locke, then two more men. No…there was one extra murder. The woman: Helen LaReine. A break in the pattern. In the back of his mind, Lecter once again saw the golden windchime at the LaReine house swinging in the breeze. Helen…Helen…why did the killer choose you? He knew the answer even as he highlighted the name and wrote in the margins: Don't you believe that these killings are too well orchestrated to afford this mistake?
Lecter capped the highlighter, still no closer to a conclusion than before. If only she were here…NO. Lecter furiously shut the door upon that unexpected thought. But memories, as Ariadne had discovered long ago, were too fickle for mental boundaries. The slightest trigger would bring them back full force, try as one might to suppress them. Images were returning now. The ever-present rhythm of the grandfather clock, long walks in a garden, heart's blood spilt on the ground, the cold lights of the asylum, the flames reaching ever higher into the sky…Lecter remembered her now as he had known her. If only he could have known the entirety of her journey…
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The first five years of Rachel Bermuda's marriage rushed by like water from a leaky faucet. Time would blur, hurrying past her so fast she could barely catch her breath before slowing to an unbearable crawl. She had fleeting memories of Michael taking her all around the world. From Greece to Africa to Brazil, back to Europe, London, Geneva, Florence, Rome.
On their first night in Paris he hit her across the face during an argument over something she had long since forgotten and then refused to let her go out for the next three weeks while the bruise healed. During that time, he brought her breakfast in bed and French wine in the year of her birth every night. On the day that her face had healed sufficiently for Michael to allow her out again, he took her to the Place des Vosges and showered her with golden feathers that he had bought at a souvenir shop in Venice.
Five months passed before he even brought her home. Five months of memories that flowed together and clamored for space with her memories of the States until they battled themselves into a frenzied mass that Rachel could not begin to sort out and did not attempt to. Even after Hannibal taught her the art of the memory palace, she wound up those five years worth of memories like a ball of twine and locked it securely inside a nondescript room of her palace. She had no desire to revisit them.
But sometimes threads would pull loose.
Their house was located a few miles away from Baltimore. The backyard ended in a cliff that dropped a hundred feet before ending in the jagged rocks of the bay. The Bermuda mansion was big and imposing enough to put the Cathedral of Notre Dame to shame. The house was built with the same Gothic architecture and none of the cathedral's sense of place. Spires and buttresses were nestled alongside blue slate and white marble. The house seemed so eager to display its wealth that it had lost all sense of purpose: impressive architectural examples of several different cultures clamoring for space and grandness in the façade.
The road in front of their house was never used except by the two of them and the occasional gawker emerging from the forest on the other side of the road to stare at the eyesore. Rachel had thought the façade of the house hideous from the start but could not help falling love with the interior. Michael collected all forms of artifacts and enjoyed displaying them to no end. She could wander from one hallway to another and feel like she was moving from Paris to Athens. The temples of ancient Greece and the natural beauty of the Orient both grudgingly accepted homes in the endless hallways of the mansion. The gifts he had given her during the days he courted her eventually found places in these hallways.
The majority of Rachel's time in the house was spent alone. Michael left the care of their home in her hands, and she had to scramble to learn how to cook and clean and everything else she had ignored in her life up until then. At least until she could hire enough servants. Contact with Ergo was limited to Michael's monthly check that helped to cover the cost of maintaining the house. The thank-you notes sent in return were colder than cold. Rachel's mother had retired years ago, and Michael had offered to pay for her mother's admittance to a home. Margie had adamantly refused.
Michael often complained about her distant relatives good-naturedly, laughing even as Rachel saw his eyes cloud with murderous annoyance. Her husband had always most closely resembled a sentient time bomb, ticking away the seconds that only he could count. He had first praised her grasp of languages and had even paid for lessons in Latin and German for a few years. But then, somewhere around the time he turned 30, he stopped all her language lessons and forbid her from taking any more. At the same time he eliminated her name from their bank account, requiring her to consult him whenever she wished to buy anything, no matter how small.
Their love was as volatile as their hate. Soothing caresses could quickly be followed by screams, blows, and tears. Michael usually avoided hitting her face and Rachel suspected it was because he took her out to company parties often and the bruises would have been too visible. He enjoyed picking out dresses for her on those occasions that even with her limited sense of fashion, Rachel could see were exquisite. The dresses were often accompanied by golden jewelry, always golden. Michael enjoyed adorning his little jewel and watching her glow like the fire from the sun. The outfits were also usually rather revealing and Michael knew it, yet he would still look daggers at anyone he suspected of admiring her too closely.
One of his favorite topics to discuss in bed was that of his heirs, and Rachel tried to steer him away from the idea as much a possible. When he got on the topic of children, he became even more unpredictable than usual. Rachel rarely passed through those nights without pain and, when morning arrived, the ever-present confessions of love coupled with gentle kisses. And always later in the day, when Michael was safely away at work, Rachel would pad downstairs to the kitchen where the cook would give her a pill to swallow. The cook exchanged these piddling capsules of freedom and her promise of silence for secret pay raises that often lowered the salaries of other servants in the house. This small rebellion, instead of evoking pride, made Rachel feel lower than low and after taking the pill would lie in bed all day, as if sick.
She couldn't help loving him even as she hated him. She hated his reedy, snobby voice. She loved how his caress could make her melt and how he could look into her with a light in his emerald eyes rivaling that of the Silmarils. Even as one day he dangled her over the cliff, a single arm around her waist, those eyes consumed her mind more than the thought of plummeting to jagged rocks and crashing waves below. Those eyes danced and blazed like a hypnotizing inferno as he screamed in her face.
"What would you do if I ever left you?" she had asked. He had dragged her to the edge of the precipice in the next second. "You thinking about that?! I'll shove you over and break you on the rocks, that's what I'd do."
A moment crystallized in time as the wind tore into her hair and fingers and left them numb as he dipped her over the cliff in an obscene parody of a dance.
His face softened. "But why, baby? Haven't I given you everything?" He kissed her gently. "Everything you've ever wanted?" He forced her lips open and drew his tongue over her teeth. "What else do you want? Just tell me, baby, don't be scared..." He embraced her there on the edge of the cliff, the wind chilling their trembling hands and her body swaying over the deathly drop. She would not answer.
A week later he raked the fire poker across her stomach for failing to wash his favorite shirt in time for a meeting. The scorching pain made her double over.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…
She had wept that day more than ever, rivulets continuing to stream down her face long after Michael had fallen asleep, his mouth open in a snore loud enough to be annoying. A baseball had broken his nose when he was ten and he had had trouble breathing ever since. His snoring had been growing worse, he had explained, because of the extra energy he expended everyday caring for her.
When her tears had dried, Rachel reached down to touch the raised skin of the burn, a shiny patch shaped like a crescent moon. A sharp intake of breath as her fingers caressed the tender skin. But there were no tears of pain.
She would not weep ever again.
That was in the fourth year of their marriage. Rachel waited another year before returning to Ergo. She chose a time when Michael was away on a business trip and believed her to be sick and so promised not to disturb her with phone calls.
The sight of the super-charged Jaguar roaring down the dirt road in Ergo before skidding into a driveway that had not been used for twenty years must have looked to the residents like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. For that or whatever other reasons, Rachel did not see a single soul as she slammed the car door and looked upon Ergo for the first time in five years.
Time had completely passed the town by. The storefronts looked the same, albeit paler and dirtier from five years worth of sun and mud days. Rachel saw that the signpost displaying the name of the town had finally been replaced. The town was now officially named Ergo.
She turned to face her house. Margie and her mother had taken good care of it over the years. The façade had a new coat of paint and the yard had been tended to, with birch saplings and bushes of chrysanthemums decorating the grass. Courtesy of Michael's money, no doubt. The woodshed attached to the side of the house, however, had been reduced to a pile of boards on the ground. The roof had fallen in and nobody had bothered repairing it. They had never used it anyway.
Fears that her family might have moved away were eased when Rachel saw the roses still occupying their place in the windowsill. Their colors were paler now, pinkish-brown rather than red. She knocked on the door lightly. There was no bell.
Rachel expected to wait outside her house for ages, but in mere seconds she sensed the presence behind the door. Moments slid past like water as the presence hesitated, penetrating the wooden door as an accusing glare. Rachel squirmed. And then the door opened, neither slowly nor quickly, but politely as if greeting a guest and Margie was standing there exactly as Rachel had remembered her, with her hair held back in a simple ponytail and worn but clean clothes draped on her body like loose skin. Only her face was different, and not in her current expression of gentle curiosity but in her skin, paper-thin and several shades paler than before.
And it wasn't only her skin. The space behind Margie's eyes appeared to be drawn-in, closed-off like damask curtains against the afternoon sun. It was with that dull expression that Margie said in a cheerful voice that would have fooled anyone but Rachel, "How nice to see you," and held out her hand in greeting.
"Margie, I—"
"Two people shake hands when they greet each other, it's called courtesy."
Well, what did you expect? Rachel's face, carefully crafted a year ago to show no emotion, blinked rapidly as if irritated before smiling as she took her sister' hand. Margie's skin felt as rough and gritty as it appeared and when Rachel released her hand, some of the grit remained on her skin. Margie pulled her hand back, suddenly embarrassed.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was dusting the parlor when you knocked and some of the dust must've stayed on my hand. Here, I'll show you where to wash up."
"Margie, I know where—."
But her sister had turned and was walking towards their kitchen and Rachel was obliged to follow, closing the door behind her. Margie was washing her own hands in the sink when Rachel walked into the kitchen. She shook the excess water off her hands, droplets sparkling in the sunlight. Then she stepped back and looked expectantly at Rachel. Rachel stopped hesitantly in front of the sink, setting down her purse on the counter. She ran her hand quickly under the faucet and dried it. Instinctively, she raised her eyes to the windowsill to stare through the rose petals into the front yard. The view was exactly the same as it had been five years ago. She raised her hand slowly to touch one of the roses.
Margie had picked up her purse from the countertop. "The parlor's this way." Startled, Rachel turned, her hand knocking several withered petals into the sink.
"Since when have we had a parlor?" Rachel asked as they walked along the main hallway.
"I've had one for about a year now. I changed the living room into one. Have a seat."
The sofas were covered in a glaring neon floral print that clashed terribly with the muted tones of the walls and hardwood floor. Rachel sat down in one of the sofas, feeling like she was descending into something poisonous, and watched as Margie did the same, her mouth fixed into a tightly controlled line.
"So," Rachel said, desperate for conversation, "where's Mother?"
Margie's lips drew into an, if possible, even thinner line. "She's away," she said at last.
Okay, wrong thing to say. Rachel nervously rubbed her hands over the arm of the sofa and said carelessly, "I remember these sofas. Michael sent them to you as a Christmas present. I always thought they were hideous."
Margie had set Rachel's purse down on the coffee table. "If you don't like them, you don't have to stay."
Oh you're doing just *perfectly*. "No, what I meant was…I tried to talk him out of it but…" A deep sigh. "Look, I don't expect that I'll know the right words to say right now, and I don't even know if there's anything I can do to make you forgive me, but, help me a little here. Please?"
Margie's voice was so terribly quiet. "It's always been about you, hasn't it, Rachel?"
Rachel's eyes went wide. "No! I—." Her voice stopped in mid-protest as the full weight of the statement hit her. She looked down at her feet to avoid her sister's gaze. The sigh that escaped her mouth then sounded like one of exhaustion as her eyes closed momentarily. "It has, hasn't it? I don't even know where to begin apologizing, sis, but…I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything."
The distant chimes of the grandfather clock in the hallway intruded upon the silence that followed. Rachel's hands reached up to massage her temples as she laughed slightly. "I've really made a mess of things, haven't I?" Margie didn't speak. "I don't know anything anymore. I don't even know why I came home."
"Home…" Margie's wavering voice tested its existence before picking up speed as she snatched for more confidence. "Why else would you come home if not for comfort…why do you think I've stayed here all these years? Sometimes…I wish I had had the courage to leave like you did, just like that. But I also wish that you could have known what you were getting yourself into."
It was a hard speech for her, who had never talked much, but now it was even harder. Her voice was oddly slurred with emotion and she had trouble composing her sentences. She rubbed the side of her head with a stiff hand, where she thought she might have a bruise. And then she smiled and the change to her face was incredible. Her papery skin flushed with a reddish tinge and for a moment she was recognizable as the girl who had run and laughed upon the green sward of their childhood.
Margie's smile saddened as she observed her sister holding her head in agony. She sighed. "You won't tell me what's happening, will you?"
Rachel continued rubbing her temples. "I can't…" Her voice cracked. "Even if I knew, I couldn't. I'm too…confused. I'm not like you, Margie, I don't know people…"
Margie had opened the drawer of the coffee table and pulled out a worn and battered newspaper that she held against her chest. "I know that you doubt other people's intentions, but you doubt your own even more. I want to help you, Rach, but will you trust me to do so? Will you let me help you, no questions asked?"
Rachel looked with sadness into her sister's tired yet hopeful eyes. Here was a person willing to help despite every awful thing she had done or not done to her over the years. Margie deserved so much better than her…"I will."
Margie spread the newspaper flat upon the table, facing her sister, with the pages neatly folded to reveal the headlines.
Baltimore Psychiatrist Receives Highest Honor
Something flickered behind Rachel's eyes. A shrink?
"His name is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. His practice, as you see, is based out of Baltimore. You live around there, right? Now I know that you haven't been…fond, of doctors ever since Dad died, but I have a good feeling about this one. I know people, remember?"
"What can you know from a picture?"
Margie touched Dr. Lecter's face on the newspaper, tracing his chin with her finger. "Look at the way he holds himself. Proper for the camera but only that, no silly grins or false cheer. This man is honest, perhaps a bit too honest sometimes. And look at his eyes, look at the depth in them…"
"Sis, you sound like you want to marry him."
Margie flushed red, making her skin tone look almost normal. She grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled an address and phone number on it. "Well, better him than—." She blushed again, lowering her head. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that," she muttered, shoving the piece of paper into her sister's hands.
Rachel looked down at the token, her fingers already beginning to smudge the ink. She didn't know what to say. She appreciated the gesture but honestly…she could not see how a shrink, even a famous shrink could help her. She had always been leery of people who tried to read her intentions. She constantly feared that Michael would soon discover everything she was doing behind his back. And Margie…well, honestly, she frightened her sometimes with her intuition. She had been right about Michael. Would it be too much to ask to see if she was right about Lecter?
As was usually the case with her, Rachel spoke not her true feelings, but something else that would hopefully get her intentions across without embarrassing her. "'Highest honor', graduate from Harvard Medical, damn, this guy is going to be expensive."
Margie waved a hand carelessly through the air. "No questions, remember?"
Rachel opened her mouth to say something and then wisely clammed up. They remained in the parlor for nearly an hour more, discussing the most inane topics they could come up with: Marlboro ads, Jimmy Carter, Ophelia's virginity. It was the most peaceful period of Rachel's life in nearly ten years…except for the constant nagging doubt in her mind. Margie was right; Rachel disliked all doctors by nature although she tried desperately to keep these feelings from showing. Stop being a bitch, she told herself, and just enjoy this time.
But when it came time to leave, Rachel could not keep herself from asking one final question. She had already turned to go down the porch steps when she couldn't take it anymore. "Sis, how in the world are you going to pay for this?" Margie took a deep, shuddering breath and Rachel immediately regretted giving into her doubt but it was too late to take it back now. "I mean, it's not like I don't appreciate this, but, I mean…" She trailed off as sadness deeper than eternity crept into Margie's eyes. Rachel could not have been more unprepared for the answer.
"Mom's dead, Rachel. She's been dead for two years. Her life insurance will be enough to cover you." Rachel took so long to process what her sister had just said that the sound of the door clicking shut in her face registered first in her mind
Several neighbors crept toward towards their windows, peeking through the blinds to gawp at the sight of a woman in her early twenties with her hair expertly coiffed, dressed in a business suit and adorned with golden trinkets shuddering and trembling on her doorstep. She pounded, screamed, and pleaded before the unyielding wooden door for what seemed to be an eternity. Her words, muted by the glass windows, were incomprehensible to their ears. But they saw as the door suddenly flew open almost of its own volition and they watched as the two women embraced each on that dusty porch, one sobbing, one clinging to her sister for dear life, her eyes closed in concealed and unspeakable pain.
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Dr. Lecter folded the newspaper neatly before stowing it in the glove compartment of the Civic along with the case file, making a mental note to slip them into the nearest mailbox on his way to Washington. Ariadne had been a most fascinating patient. He thought on this matter and other things as he put the car in drive and pulled onto the highway towards Baltimore. As long as he was in the neighborhood, he wished to see an old acquaintance.