“I don’t know how to feel about it.”
“You don’t have to feel any particular way about it. Lecter did it to amuse himself. He knows they can’t really touch him for it, so why not? Chilton takes his books and his toilet seat for a while is all, and he doesn’t get any Jell-O.” Crawford laced his fingers over his stomach and compared his thumbs. “Lecter asked you about me, didn’t he?”
“He asked if you were busy. I said yes.”
“That’s all? You didn’t leave out anything personal because I wouldn’t want to see it?”
“No. He said you were a Stoic, but I put that in.”
“Yes, you did. Nothing else?”
“No, I didn’t leave anything out. You don’t think I traded some kind of gossip, and that’s why he talked to me.”
“No.”
“I don’t know anything personal about you, and if I did I wouldn’t discuss it. If you’ve got a problem believing that, let’s get it straight now.”
“I’m satisfied. Next item.”
“You thought something, or—”
“Proceed to the next item, Starling.”
“Lecter’s hint about Raspail’s car is a dead end. It was mashed
into a cube four months ago in Number Nine Ditch, Arkansas, and sold for recycling. Maybe if I go back in and talk to him, he’ll tell me more.”
“You’ve exhausted the lead?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think the car Raspail drove was his only car?”
“It was the only one registered, he was single, I assumed—”
“Aha, hold it.” Crawford’s forefinger pointed to some principle invisible in the air between them. “You assumed. You assumed, Starling. Look here.” Crawford wrote assume on a legal pad. Several of Starling’s instructors had picked this up from Crawford and used it, but Starling didn’t reveal that she’d seen it before.
Crawford began to underline. “If you assume when I send you on a job, Starling, you can make an ass out of u and me both.” He leaned back, pleased. “Raspail collected cars, did you know that?”
“No, does the estate still have them?”
“I don’t know. Do you think you could manage to find out?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Where would you start?”
“His executor.”
“A lawyer in Baltimore, a Chinese, I seem to remember,” Crawford said.
“Everett Yow,” Starling said. “He’s in the Baltimore phone book.”
“Have you given any thought to the question of a warrant to search Raspail’s car?”
Sometimes Crawford’s tone reminded Starling of the know-it-all caterpillar in Lewis Carroll.
Starling didn’t dare give it back, much. “Since Raspail is deceased and not suspected of anything, if we have permission of his executor to search the car, then it is a valid search, and the fruit admissible evidence in other matters at law,” she recited.