“Uncommon, yes,” Crawford said.
“But Dr. Lecter said Buffalo Bill would do it. How did he know that?”
“He didn’t know it.”
“He said it, though.”
“It’s not a big surprise, Starling. I wasn’t surprised to see that. I should have said that it was rare until the Mengel case, remember that? Scalped the woman? There were two or three copycats after that. The papers, when they were playing around with the Buffalo Bill tag, they emphasized more than once that this
killer doesn’t take scalps. It’s no surprise after that—he probably follows his press. Lecter was guessing. He didn’t say when it would happen, so he could never be wrong. If we caught Bill and there was no scalping, Lecter could say we got him just before he did it.”
“Dr. Lecter also said Buffalo Bill lives in a two-story house. We never got into that. Why do you suppose he said it?”
“That’s not a guess. He’s very likely right, and he could have told you why, but he wanted to tease you with it. It’s the only weakness I ever saw in him—he has to look smart, smarter than anybody. He’s been doing it for years.”
“You said ask if I don’t know—well, I have to ask you to explain that.”
“Okay, two of the victims were hanged, right? High ligature marks, cervical displacement, definite hanging. As Dr. Lecter knows from personal experience, Starling, it’s very hard for one person to hang another against his will. People hang themselves from doorknobs all the time. They hang themselves sitting down, it’s easy. But it’s hard to hang somebody else—even when they’re bound up, they manage to get their feet under them, if there’s any support to find with their feet. A ladder’s threatening. Victims won’t climb it blindfolded and they sure won’t climb it if they can see the noose. The way it’s done is in a stairwell. Stairs are familiar. Tell them you’re taking them up to use the bathroom, whatever, walk them up with a hood on, slip the noose on, and boot them off the top step with the rope fastened to the landing railing. It’s the only good way in a house. Fellow in California popularized it. If Bill didn’t have a stairwell, he’d kill them another way. Now give me those names, the senior deputy from Potter and the state police guy, the ranking officer.”
Starling found them in her notepad, reading by a penlight held in her teeth.
“Good,” Crawford said. “When you’re posting a hotline, Starling, always credit the cops by name. They hear their own names, they get more friendly to the hotline. Fame helps them remember to call us if they get something. What does the burn on her leg say to you?”
“Depends if it’s postmortem.”
“If it is?”
“Then he’s got a closed truck or a van or a station wagon, something long.”
“Why?”
“Because the burn’s across the back of her calf.”
They were at Tenth and Pennsylvania, in front of the new FBI headquarters that nobody ever refers to as the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
“Jeff, you can let me out here,” Crawford said. “Right here, don’t go underneath. Stay in the car, Jeff, just pop the trunk. Come show me, Starling.”
She got out with Crawford while he retrieved his datafax and briefcase from the luggage compartment.
“He hauled the body in something big enough for the body to be stretched out on its back,” Starling said. “That’s the only way the back of her calf would rest on the floor over the exhaust pipe. In a car trunk like this, she’d be curled up on her side and—”
“Yeah, that’s how I see it,” Crawford said.
She realized then that he’d gotten her out of the car so he could speak with her privately.
“When I told that deputy he and I shouldn’t talk in front of a woman, that burned you, didn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“It was just smoke. I wanted to get him by himself.”
“I know that.”
“Okay.” Crawford slammed the trunk and turned away.
Starling couldn’t let it go.
“It matters, Mr. Crawford.”