"The sheriff said they were duck hunters."

"I expect they did tell him that," Lamar said. "They'll tell you they wrestled Duke Keomuka in Honolulu one time too, tag team with Satellite Monroe. You can believe that too, if you feel like it. Grab a croaker sack and they'll take you on a snipe hunt too, if you favor snipe. Give you a glass of billiards with it."

"What do you think happened, Lamar?"

"The Franklins was running this trotline, it's their trotline with these unlawful hooks, and they was pulling it up to see if they had any fish."

"Why do you think so?"

"This lady's not near ready to float."

"No."

"Then if they hadna been pulling up on the trotline they never would have found her. They prob'ly went off scared and finally called in. I expect you'll want the game warden in on this."

"I expect so," Crawford said.

"Lots of times they've got a crank telephone behind the seat in their Ramcharger, that's a big fine right there, if you don't have to go to the pen."

Crawford raised his eyebrows.

"To telephone fish with," Starling said. "Stun the fish with electric current when you hang the wires in the water and turn the crank. They come to the top and you just dip 'em out."

"Right," Lamar said, "are you from around here?"

"They do it lots of places," Starling said.

Starling felt the urge to say something before they zipped up the bag, to make a gesture or express some kind of commitment. In the end, she just shook her head and got busy packing the samples into her case.

It was different with the body and problem out of sight. In this slack moment, what she'd been doing came in on her. Starling stripped off her gloves and turned the water on in the sink. With her back to the room, she ran water over her wrists. The water in the pipes wasn't all that cool. Lamar, watching, disappeared into the hall. He came back from the Coke machine with an ice-cold can of soda, unopened, and offered it to her.

"No, thanks," Starling said. "I don't believe I'll have one."

"No, hold it under your neck there," Lamar said, "and on that little bump at the back of your head. Cold'll make you feel better. It does me."

By the time Starling had finished taping the memo to the pathologist across the zipper of the body bag, Crawford's fingerprint transmitter was clicking on the office desk.

Finding this victim so soon after the crime was a lucky break. Crawford was determined to identify her quickly and start a sweep around her home for witnesses to the abduction. His method was a lot of trouble to everyone, but it was fast.

Crawford carried a Litton Policefax fingerprint transmitter. Unlike federal-issue facsimile machines, the Policefax is compatible with most big-city police department systems. The fingerprint card Starling had assembled was barely dry.

"Load it, Starling, you've got the nimble fingers."

Don't smear it was what he meant, and Starling didn't. It was hard, wrapping the glued-together composite card around the little drum while six wire rooms waited around the country.

Crawford was on the telephone to the FBI switchboard and wire room in Washington. "Dorothy, is everybody on? Okay, gentlemen, we'll turn it down to one-twenty to keep it nice and sharp-- check one-twenty, everybody? Atlanta, how about it? Okay, give me the picture wire… now."

Then it was spinning at slow speed for clarity, sending the dead woman's prints simultaneously to the FBI wire room and major police department wire rooms in the East. If Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, or any of the others got a hit on the fingerprints, a sweep would begin in minutes.

Next Crawford sent pictures of the victim's teeth and photos of her face, the head draped by Starling with a towel in the event the supermarket press got hold of the photographs.

Three officers of the West Virginia State Police Criminal Investigation Section arrived from Charleston as they were leaving. Crawford did a lot of handshaking, passing out cards with the National Crime Information Center hotline number. Starling was interested to see how fast he got them into a male bonding mode. They sure would call up with anything they got, they sure would. You betcha and much oblige. Maybe it wasn't male bonding, she decided; it worked on her too.

Lamar waved with his fingers from the porch as Crawford and Starling rode away with the deputy toward the Elk River. The Coke was still pretty cold. Lamar took it into the storeroom and fixed a refreshing beverage for himself.

CHAPTER 13

"Drop me at the lab, Jeff," Crawford told the driver. "Then I want you to wait for Officer Starling at the Smithsonian. She'll go on from there to Quantico."

"Yes sir."

They were crossing the Potomac River against the after-dinner traffic, coming into downtown Washington from National Airport.

The young man at the wheel seemed in awe of Crawford and drove with excessive caution, Starling thought. She didn't blame him; it was an article of faith at the Academy that the last agent who'd committed a Full Fuck-Up in Crawford's command now investigated pilfering at DEW-line installations along the Arctic Circle.

Crawford was not in a good humor. Nine hours had passed since he transmitted the fingerprints and pictures of the victim, and she remained unidentified. Along with the West Virginia troopers, he and Starling had worked the bridge and the riverbank until dark without result.

Starling had heard him on the phone from the airplane, arranging for an evening nurse at home.

The FBI plain-Jane sedan seemed wonderfully quiet after the Blue Canoe, and talking was easier.

"I'll post the hotline and the Latent Descriptor Index when I take your prints up to ID," Crawford said. "You draft me an insert for the file. An insert, not a 302-- do you know how to do it?"

"I know how."

"Say I'm the Index, tell me what's new."

It took her a second to get it together-- she was glad Crawford seemed interested in the scaffolding on the Jefferson Memorial as they passed by.

The Latent Descriptor Index in the Identification Section's computer compares the characteristics of a crime under investigation to the known proclivities of criminals on file. When it finds pronounced similarities, it suggests suspects and produces their fingerprints. Then a human operator compares the file fingerprints with latent prints found at the scene. There were no prints yet on Buffalo Bill, but Crawford wanted to be ready.

The system requires brief, concise statements. Starling tried to come up with some.

"White female, late teens or early twenties, shot to death, lower torso and thighs flayed--"

"Starling, the Index already knows he kills young white women and skins their torsos-- use 'skinned,' by the way, 'flayed' is an uncommon term another officer might not use, and you can't be sure the damned thing will read a synonym. It already knows he dumps them in rivers. It doesn't know what's new here. What's new here, Starling?"

"This is the sixth victim, the first one scalped, the first one with triangular patches taken from the back of the shoulders, the first one shot in the chest, the first one with a cocoon in her throat."

"You forgot broken fingernails."

"No sir, she's the.second one with broken fingernails."

"You're right. Listen, in your insert for the file, note that the cocoon is confidential. We'll use it to eliminate false confessions."

"I'm wondering if he's done that before-- placed a cocoon or an insect," Starling said. "It would be easy to miss in an autopsy, especially with a floater. You know, the medical examiner sees an obvious cause of death, it's hot in there, and they want to get through… can we check back on that?"