Officer LaConner was a tall, but still possessed the lean muscle of youth. A typical New York kid with black hair and brown eyes, his jaw worked a wad of peppermint gum in one corner of his mouth, while he spoke out the other. When Starling and Graham had entered the dark underground room, they had found LaConner in the centre of a pit full of computers. Through the chain link that separated them from the main computer terminals, they could see the youth playing solitaire on one of the many glowing computer screens that surrounded his old fashioned rolling chair.
Particularly infamous in law enforcement circles, Clarice Starling was in no hurry to begin the usual discussion that police officers (especially male police officers) about Dr. Lecter and Mason Verger. She toyed with the duct tape strip stuck to the counter, with 'Records Center' hastily scrawled across it in black letters.
"'Morning, Officer," Graham called over the desk. LaConner turned around in his chair, and rolled over in their direction.
"Hey, there. Investigator Graham, right?"
"Will Graham, that's right. We spoke about an hour ago."
"Yeah, you wanted those Baltimore records," LaConner stood up, and unlocked the chain link door, and beckoned them in. "I'm going to need you to sign in and check weapons at the desk there."
As they went to sign in and check in their handguns and ammunition, Clarice could feel the eyes of the boy travel over her- either checking her out, or trying to confirm her identity. Probably both. He refused to desist upon meeting her glare. Silently, she wished for just a little of Dr. Lecter's uncanny ability to intimidate, but immediately quashed that thought as the nervy rookie waved them down to the computer pit. He returned to his rolling chair, sliding in front of one of the computer kiosks.
"We've got a system here - newly implemented. You can reference the files by name, date, listing, physical description, whatever. It hasn't been completed yet, and a lot of databases have been slow about updating."
"We need the MP file from Baltimore. 1972," Clarice said, turning on her best FBI 'talking down to rookies' voice.
"Sure, Investigator Starling."
LaConner typed in the criteria. After a few seconds, a 404 error page appeared.
"404 error? Help me out here, kid, I never got a handle on these things."
"It probably means the Baltimore database hasn't been fully uploaded yet."
"Can you ring them up for the information?" Graham asked, making a bemused expression at the screen.
"I can call and ask them to fax it over. Can you maybe give me anything more specific? Cuts down on the paper."
"Tell them to send all the missing persons who have not been recovered," Clarice ordered.
"Okay."
LaConner wheeled over to the fax machine, and lifted up the phone section. He pressed the speakerphone.
"Central Dispatch"
"Yeah, it's LaConner in records. Can you transfer me to Baltimore records?"
"Sure thing, Officer."
A beat, and the buzz of dead air. And then crackling, and a bored middle aged voice suddenly became audible.
"Records."
"Hey, It's LaConner from New York."
"What can I do for you, Officer?"
"We've got a couple of P-Is here looking for the missing person file from 1972. Can you fax over all the unsolveds?"
"Sure thing. Got a fax number for me?"
"Yes, sir. Two-one-two-one-six--oh-twelve hundred."
"Thanks."
A shuffling sound, and then-
"It's only about a page worth. They did good that year."
An electronic buzz as the paper was loaded into the machine several states over. After a moment, the fax machine in the New York office began to beep, and started to print out the list. Clarice felt her heart rate begin to increase as it slowly began to emerge from the printing slot. The moment the first page finally emerged, Graham seized it, taking care not to smudge the wet ink. There was only one page, the listing from A to Z, with last names first.
"Aarons, Abergavenny, Angelo, Bath, Brendon.."
"Wait. Let me see that," Clarice interrupted, an alarm bell going off in her mind. Graham handed over the list. "Gabriel M. Bath."
"Save us a trip to Baltimore if he's got any priors."
"Officer LaConner? Would you please run down Mr. Gabriel M. Bath? B-A-T-H."
"Sure thing."
He wheeled back over to the computer and began to enter the criteria into the database. There was exactly one hit. Graham bent over the screen and read.
"Looks like he's got priors, but he spent most of his life in an institution, so they were all inside. The hospital dealt with them. Gabriel Bath was later released to the custody of his brother Frances, a munitions tycoon in Baltimore. Gabriel Bath disappeared shortly after his brother died of some kind of cancer that was never identified. His estate was released to a...Dr. Hannibal Lecter."
"Hannibal Lecter?" LaConner's eyebrows shot up.
"LaConner, we need a copy of that will, right now. Do you understand me?"
"I gotta call the Census Bureau, it'll take a minute," LaConner said meekly, bowing his head as he made another roll back to the fax-machine.
A phone call and ten minutes later, the machine started pumping out a ten page document of the inventory of the Last Will and Testament of Gabriel Bath. Graham and Clarice immediately began to file through the list, searching for the list of physical properties. Clarice lifted out an affidavit confirming Hannibal Lecter as the recipient of the entire Bath estate, signed in a scrawled hand. After that, the property list finally emerged.
"There are only two main properties...the rest are apartment buildings or properties that the Baths leased to tenants and companies. There's a mansion in Baltimore, and then a colonial house here in New York State, right on Lake Erie. It's got a name, instead of an address. Murdock."
"Betcha my bottom dollar."
"Let's go."
The drive was quiet- the calm before the storm. The rented car was in fine condition, and it floated along the highway like a dream. It was still early, and the influx of traffic to the city was all going the other way. Clarice pretended to doze, but really, she was replaying the vision from her last encounter with Hannibal Lecter. It had been morbidly intimate, surreal and unsettling. She had no desire to repeat such an event. Graham was unaware of her conflicting feelings. He knew that her acquaintance with Dr. Lecter was more than just passing, but didn't know the depth of their connection. He himself was envisioning the scene of arrest. Initially it had begun with two quick shots to the head, until his civilized self whittled it down to a tazer to the side, and a quick snap of handcuffs.
Too easy. This is too easy. We figured it out too fast.
This was going to end up ugly no matter what, that much was certain. Lecter, he believed, had no intention of being taken in alive. The very idea offended him. So Graham was entitled to a belief that this might end with the vanquishment of his greatest and deadliest enemy.
You're kidding yourself. You got lucky the first time, but he's wise to you, now.
Graham watched the mist as it roiled over the windshield, and then looked down at the sleeping Clarice. How had she survived so many encounters with the madman? Lecter had not given any serial killers Starling's home address, nor had he any of the rage or contempt that he had clearly expressed for Graham. What was it about her? Her deadly reputation as an FBI Agent sharpshooter? No, Lecter had been civil in their exchanges from the very start, which had begun when she was a student. He expressed contempt for her station, had been insulted by her presence, but something about her boldness impressed him. She had intrigued him, in some way. Was it her incorruptibility? Her bravery? Or he was it simply that she was the first woman he had seen after eight years, and he wanted her.
No. That wasn't the root of Lecter's craving. Graham had a gift for seeing into the corrupted minds of criminality. His instinct told him that Dr. Lecter had a far more sophisticated desire to have Clarice Starling in proximity. Her outstanding qualities were obvious. She was a straight arrow, dedicated to her values and her beliefs, so much that she quit the FBI when she discovered that their idea of right and wrong had far more to do with dollar signs than hers.
Is it because she's so damn good?
Was it his admiration of her purity? But why? Lecter didn't aspire to goodness. He disdained federal authorities and law enforcement. He would kill someone for the smallest slight on his sense of propriety, and he enjoyed causing pain. Graham ran the pathology through his head. Sometimes Lecter's victims really were examples of human depravity. When he considered it, everyone who had died under Clarice Starling's gun had been a criminal to some extent. Murderers, gun toting drug dealers, hired assassins. Unlike Lecter, she was a protectorate of the innocent. Was it that he admired about her? Or her absolute ability to see past any moral qualms and deliver justice unto the wicked?
What had occurred at Paul Krendler's lakeside house during the macabre dinner? Did Starling eat the proverbial pomegranate, and surrender half of her psyche to Hannibal Lecter? How vulnerable was she to his articulate tongue, the instrument which he used to cause a man to commit suicide one cell over during his incarceration.
Graham decided there were too many questions. Too many questions and it would unfair to ask them. As he passed over a river, he turned his thoughts to Molly and Willy, and prayed for their safety, prayed for his own, knowing that this ordeal would soon be over one way or another. And then he could go home.