Willy had given up the struggle for escape hours ago. There were chafe marks on his arms and wrists from jerking back and forth against his burlap rope bonds. The column to which he was tied wasn't well sanded- splinters had begun to fragment off and stabbed uncomfortably through his shirt. Still mostly debilitated from whatever injection he had been given during the drive over, Willy reflected on how easily he could be transported from the support column that held up the split level loft section, to the fine cedar chair that Hannibal Lecter had chosen to include in the top class dinner arrangement. A fine silk table cloth had been laid over the scrubbed wooden table, which in turn was topped by three settings of expensive silverware and black lacquered plates. The brass hanging lights had been turned low, adding to the orchestrated coziness of the dining room.
Willy looked dimly across the table at his mother, strapped to an identical chair. Her chin rested against her chest, but Willy could see her lips part as she drew in breath. His eyes drifted past the spray of roses in the silver vase over to the third empty place setting at the head of the table. The smell of exquisite cooking reached his nose and his stomach rumbled. Far too busy with school work and studying for the final oral exam, he had neglected to eat in the past two days. Bitterly, he doubted he would survive this evening, much less finish out the semester.
The click and whirr of the stereo met his ears, and the soft operatic notes of Mozart's Requiem began to hover in his mind. The swinging kitchen door flapped as the author of this cruel imitation of fine dining passed through it, balancing on his palms two exquisite silver platters complete with the traditional domed top. Flashing a smile at the inebriated Willy, Lecter set the platters down on the table.
"Last meal, doc?" Willy slurred, glancing back at the stereo.
"You recognized the music. Very good. But can you tell me what section?" Lecter smiled thinly and reached over to a free standing pewter champagne bucket, retrieving three glasses and a bottle of brut champagne. Willy couldn't tell the date or quality, but he expected it probably costed more than his car. Willy just stared.
"I'll tell you. It is the start of the Offertorium. Domine Jesu." Lecter paused, and tilted his head. Despite being a simple gesture, its strange animal connotations made Willy tense. It reminded him of the first time he ever went to the zoo in Miami, and the panther had come right up to the glass, injecting inquisitiveness into its stare by tilting its head.
He's not a panther. He's just a man. A crazy homicidal maniac who is going to kill you.
"I'm not going to kill you, William, nor am I going to kill your mother," Lecter confided, demonstrating his uncanny ability to read minds as he started to work the bottle opener on the champagne. Willy eyed it blearily. Lecter lifted it by the neck in order to show him the label. "Fine champagne works wonders for seafood, don't you agree?"
"An evening with Martha fucking Stewart, is it?" Willy muttered, his fawn eyes rolling to gaze up into cold blue. Lecter's smile broadened, sending a ripple of fear through him.
"I won't kill you," Lecter repeated, his eyes flickering over to Molly, who was just starting to stir. "As long as you mind your manners. I hate bad manners."
---
"It's Rodriguez," Clarice whispered to Graham as she pressed her hand against the receiver, and then uncovered it. "What's up, Ro?"
"A package was delivered here about an hour ago with your name on it, babe. Want to come get it, or would you like me to run it down?"
"We'll come get it. We have to stop by the library anyway, do some research."
"Sounds good. Things are starting to get heavy around here. The Bureau was asking a few questions, but I told them I had you on some divorce casefile type stuff."
"You don't know what it means to me."
"Yes, I do."
That gave her pause. "I'll see you in twenty minutes."
They said their goodbyes, and Clarice hung up.
"Well?" Graham asked, shifting around to look at her over the back of the couch.
"There's a package at Eagle addressed to me."
"What's your plan?"
"I think," Clarice said as she picked up her coat and purse, "That we should go take a look at the references at the Carnegie."
"You're thinking it's from Lecter. The package. Doesn't it bother you that he seems to be handing us so many clues?"
Clarice toyed with the strap of her purse.
"Yes. It bothers me. But I know what his ultimate goal is. It's not to be caught, or killed. He doesn't want those things. I don't think he wants to kill you, either."
"Then what does he want?" Graham asked, stepping forward, concern creasing his expression.
Clarice shrugged, and glanced up at him. She was far too used to being shorter than everyone around her to find him intimidating. She worked the doorknob, and waited for Graham to follow her out before locking the door.
"He's obsessed with me. He considers me his adversary. He wants me to hunt him."
"Did it occur to you that maybe he wants more than that?" Graham suggested as he trailed her down the hall. The overhead florescent light flickered on and off, making him dizzy.
"No," Clarice said firmly, and ended the subject right there. Graham sighed and followed her out the door into the sunlight.
--
"What did the FBI want, Mr. Rodriguez?"
"The usual. What is Starling doing, how's Starling sleeping, what is Starling wearing. Is Starling fucking a cannibalistic madman. They think that's how they're gonna catch him, see."
"I'm glad you know better, Ro," Clarice mumbled as she accepted the package from her large Cuban employer. Silence prevailed as she slit it open and removed a folded sheet of paper.
In that familiar affluent handwriting, the damning words were written-
"A kiss may ruin a human life."
Clarice gulped, and quickly set the letter down. Graham looked at her, one eyebrow arched.
"Does this mean anything to you?"
"No," she answered quickly. Almost too quickly. She grabbed the package and began to tear through it, looking for some other trace of its sender. A sprig of lavender fell onto the table. Frustrated, Clarice brushed it aside.
"Odd. I know the bastard's crazy," Rodriguez said, picking up the letter. "But I don't see why he's quoting Wilde."
"Oscar Wilde?" Graham pressed, looking from the letter to Clarice, who was blanching. "Relax, Clarice. You're letting him get to you."
"It's from 'A Woman of No Importance'," Rodriguez continued. Both former FBI agents gave him sideways looks. "I had a lot of time to read in prison, okay? I read a lot of his poetry and writings from inside prison, too."
Clarice lifted her head. "Oscar Wilde. Rodriguez...you don't happen to have a copy of that play, do you?"
"Sorry, doll. But, you said you were headed to the Carnegie, and I'll bet they do."
---
While Graham requested research materials at the front desk, Clarice opened the worn copy of 'A Woman of No Importance' and surveyed the first lines.
FIRST ACT
SCENE
Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton.
SIR JOHN and LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSLEY, on chairs
under large yew tree.
LADY CAROLINE. I believe this is the first English country house
you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?
HESTER. Yes, Lady Caroline.
LADY CAROLINE. You have no country houses, I am told, in America?
HESTER. We have not many.
"Graham!" she called, and was immediately silenced by a nearby librarian with a hissed 'sh!'. She whispered "sorry," as loud as she dared. Graham sauntered over with his armful of books. She held the book under the green bank lamp.
"Look at this!"
"A country house in England..?"
"No, no. Look, what it says about country houses in America. That's what we should be looking for. A country house. A very rich one, far from suburbs or anything. Something rural, but affluent."
"That shortens the list down to about a thousand, Clarice."
"God. There is just nothing here."
"Maybe we're digging too deep into this whole thing."
"No! There's got to be something here, somewhere," Clarice pressed her forehead into her palms.
"Maybe," Graham said, sitting down slowly as he dropped the stack of books onto the table. "We should start at the beginning. What have we got so far?"
Clarice pulled out her trusty notebook, and tapped her pen against it.
"Elizabeth Bathory, locker 1279, and a country house. Will, you know more about Lecter's background than I do. When I was after him before, I didn't have time for background research."
"We never really got much from him," Graham began. "He'd killed 12 people...that we knew of."
---
1975
"That you did, with malice aforethought, cause Mason Verger to become intoxicated and induced him to peel off his own face with shattered glass. That you did kill and eviscerate Benjamin Raspail and later serve his entrails to members of the Board of the Philharmonic Orchestra. That you did kill and consume the liver of Karl Preston. That you did kill and bury Nathan de Marco. That you did assault and savage FBI Agent William Graham with the intent of killing him. That you did, through hypnotic suggestion and other nefarious means, cause your patients to bequeath you large sums of money in their wills. That you caused mayhem with the result of trauma, chaos, and the loss of life. How does the defendant answer these charges?"
The form of Hannibal Lecter was elegantly slouched at the defendant's table, his compact wiry body clad in a black silk Armani suit, double breasted and carefully stitched with silver satin pinstripes. It seemed apparent to the recovering Will Graham that he had dressed for the occasion knowing it would be the last time he would ever be able to enjoy such fine clothes. Graham noticed a few members of the philharmonic orchestra board discussing their disbelief of the possibility of Dr. Lecter's guilt.
"He was always such a refined man," one of them whispered reedily.
"This all has to be some gross mistake," the other agreed.
But when it came time to discuss the entry of a plea, both expressed shock when Dr. Lecter's lawyer claimed his client was not interested in entering a plea. Therefore, it was established that the state could not seek the highest sentence of death.
"Son of a bitch," Graham muttered to himself, gently running a finger over his bandaged left cheek.
As the trial progressed, the descriptions of each murder made, the photographs passed around, Graham realized that it was a keen and clever strategy. The nature of the evidence suggested that the perpetrator lacked his faculties. By emphasizing the murders, Lecter had managed a brilliant legal coup for himself, saving himself from death. Behind him, one of the board members had fainted.
The muscles in his neck tightening in anger, Graham stiffly turned his head to look at the man who had put him in the ICU for weeks. Disinterested with the proceedings, Lecter glanced over his shoulder at Graham and smiled devilishly. When Lecter himself was called to the stand, his lawyer indicated that his client had taken to fifth and would not testify. Lecter caught the prosecutor's eye and snapped his teeth at him. His own counsellor shuddered visibly, but did not dare reprimand his client. When the jury came back with a verdict of 'guilty, but insane', it was no surprise.
"Dr. Lecter, before I make known my sentence, do you have anything to say?" the judge asked severely, dislike clear in her stern black face. Lecter cocked his head to the side, and smiled up at her.
"Your earrings, they're Swarovski, aren't they? Quite lovely," he purred, his tongue travelling over the back of his teeth.
"The defendant will rise to hear sentence. I sentence you, Hannibal Lecter, to be confined in a state institution for the remainder of your natural life without the possibility of parole. Case dismissed."
The gavel cracked, and it was done. Will Graham went back to work. Then to a mental institution when the night terrors became too much. Then he went home, until the nightmare called back to him in the seductive voice of Master Crawford. And now here he was again, in pursuit of possibly the most dangerous and brilliant criminal ever to walk the face of the earth.
"Back in the day we established a pattern. Lecter, because he was a well known psychologist, had criminals referred to him often for counselling. Usually rich guys, people who could buy their way out of prosecution with good lawyers or corrupt judges. Through his specialized techniques, he could convince them to leave large portions of their estates to him in their wills."
"Like hypnosis?"
"Drugs, brainwashing, you name it. Sometimes he simply befriended the family, charmed them out of their socks, and had the money legitimately in place to fall into his hands should the inheritor die. It's not that uncommon, people leaving their money to their family doctor. In trust so that it could go back into the system, or be fed into charities. Some people don't want to have their wills drained by posthumous legal fees."
"No one found this suspicious?"
"Well, as you know, Lecter destroyed most of his patient files. After it became apparent that Lecter was going to serve time for life, his lawyer gave details to the press. He was disbarred."
"Who was his lawyer?"
"Jeremy Tate. But don't bother looking, he's dead. Drunk driving accident. They reassigned some other public defender to Lecter, but only on paper. I don't think they ever spoke."
"So we can rule out the lawyer."
"We can rule out any of the other victims, too. The IRS seized the assets Lecter brainwashed any of them into bequeathing to him."
"Great. So we've got nothing."
Clarice tossed the book down onto the table. "We're still back to Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Bathory and locker 1279."
"And a country house," Graham added uselessly.
"And a goddamn country house."