The phone was buzzing its intraoffice buzz.

"Mr. Crawford, a Dr. Danielson from--"

"Right." Punch. "Jack Crawford, Doctor."

"Is this line secure, Mr. Crawford?"

"Yes. On this end it is."

"You're not taping, are you?"

"No, Dr. Danielson. Tell me what's on your mind."

"I want to make it clear this has nothing to do with anybody who was ever a patient at Johns Hopkins."

"Understood."

"If anything comes of it, I want you to make it clear to the public he's not a transsexual, he had nothing to do with this institution."

"Fine. You got it. Absolutely." Come on, you stuffy bastard. Crawford would have said anything.

"He shoved Dr. Purvis down."

"Who, Dr. Danielson?"

"He applied to the program three years ago as John Grant of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania."

"Description?"

"Caucasian male, he was thirty-one. Six feet one, a hundred and ninety pounds. He came to be tested and did very well on the Wechsler intelligence scale-- bright normal-- but the psychological testing and the interviews were another story. In fact, his House-Tree-Person and his TAT were spot-on with the sheet you gave me. You let me think Alan Bloom authored that little theory, but it was Hannibal Lecter, wasn't it?"

"Go on with Grant, Doctor."

"The board would have turned him down anyway, but by the time we met to discuss it, the question was moot because the background checks got him."

"Got him how."

"We routinely check with the police in an applicant's hometown. The Harrisburg police were after him for two assaults on homosexual men. The last one nearly died. He'd given us an address that turned out to be a boarding house he stayed in from time to time. The police got his fingerprints there and a credit-card gas receipt with his license number on it. His name wasn't John Grant at all, he'd just told us that. About a week later he waited outside the building here and shoved Dr. Purvis down, just for spite."

"What was his name, Dr. Danielson?"

"I'd better spell it for you, it's J-A-M-E G-U-M-B."

CHAPTER 52

Fredrica Bimmel's house was three stories tall and gaunt, covered with asphalt shingles stained rusty where the gutters had spilled over. Volunteer maples growing in the gutters had stood up to the winter pretty well. The windows on the north side were covered with sheet plastic.

In a small parlor, very warm from a space heater, a middle-aged woman sat on a rug, playing with an infant.

"My wife," Bimmel said as they passed through the room. "We just got married Christmas."

"Hello," Starling said. The woman smiled vaguely in her direction.

Cold in the hall again and everywhere boxes stacked waist-high filling the rooms, passageways among them, cardboard cartons filled with lampshades and canning lids, picnic hampers, back numbers of the Reader's Digest and National Geographic, thick old tennis rackets, bed linens, a case of dartboards, fiber car-seat covers in a fifties plaid with the intense smell of mouse pee.

"We're moving pretty soon," Mr. Bimmel said.

The stuff near the windows was bleached by the sun, the boxes stacked for years and bellied with age, the random rugs worn bare in the paths through the rooms.

Sunlight dappled the bannister as Starling climbed the stairs behind Fredrica's father. His clothes smelled stale in the cold air. She could see sunlight coming through the sagging ceiling at the top of the stairwell. The cartons stacked on the landing were covered with plastic.

Fredrica's room was small, under the eaves on the third floor.

"You want me anymore?"

"Later, I'd like to talk to you, Mr. Bimmel. What about Fredrica's mother?" The file said "deceased," it didn't say when.

"What do you mean, what about her? She died when Fredrica was twelve."

"I see."

"Did you think that was Fredrica's mother downstairs? After I told you we just been married since Christmas? That what you thought is it? I guess the law's used to handling a different class of people, missy. She never knew Fredrica at all."

"Mr. Bimmel, is the room pretty much like Fredrica left it?"

The anger wandered somewhere else In him.

"Yah," he said softly. "We just left it alone. Nobody much could wear her stuff. Plug in the heater if you want it. Remember and unplug it before you come down."

He didn't want to see the room. He left her on the landing.

Starling stood for a moment with her hand on the cold porcelain knob. She needed to organize a little, before her head was full of Fredrica's things.

Okay, the premise is Buffalo Bill did Fredrica first, weighted her and hid her well, in a river far from home. He hid her better than the others-- she was the only one weighted-- because he wanted the later ones found first. He wanted the idea of random selection of victims in widely scattered towns well established before Fredrica, of Belvedere, was found. It was important to take attention away from Belvedere. Because he lives here, or maybe in Columbus.

He started with Fredrica because he coveted her hide. We don't begin to covet with imagined things. Coveting is a very literal sin-- we begin to covet with tangibles, we begin with what we see every day. He saw Fredrica in the course of his daily life. He saw her in the course of her daily life.

What was the course of Fredrica's daily life? All right…

Starling pushed the door open. Here it was, this still room smelling of mildew in the cold. On the wall, last year's calendar was forever turned to April. Fredrica had been dead ten months.

Cat food, hard and black, was in a saucer in the corner.

Starling, veteran yard-sale decorator, stood in the center of the room and turned slowly around. Fredrica had done a pretty good job with what she had. There were curtains of flowered chintz. Judging from the piped edges, she had recycled some slipcovers to make the curtains.

There was a bulletin board with a sash pinned to it. BHS BAND was printed on the sash in glitter. A poster of the performer Madonna was on the wall, and another of Deborah Harry and Blondie. On a shelf above the desk, Starling could see a roll of the bright self-adhesive wallpaper Fredrica had used to cover her walls. It was not a great job of papering; but better than her own first effort, Starling thought.

In an average home, Fredrica's room would have been cheerful. In this bleak house it was shrill; there was an echo of desperation in it.

Fredrica did not display photographs of herself in the room.

Starling found one in the school yearbook on the small bookcase. Glee Club, Home-Ec Club, Sew n' Sew, Band, 4-H Club-- maybe the pigeons served as her 4-H project.

Fredrica's school annual had some signatures. "To a great pal," and a "great gal" and "my chemistry buddy," and "Remember the bake sale?!!"

Could Fredrica bring her friends up here? Did she have a friend good enough to bring up those stairs beneath the drip? There was an umbrella beside the door.

Look at this picture of Fredrica, here she's in the front row of the band. Fredrica is wide and fat, but her uniform fits better than the others. She's big and she has beautiful skin. Her irregular features combine to make a pleasant face; but she is not attractive looking by conventional standards.

Kimberly Emberg wasn't what you would call fetching either, not to the mindless gape of high school, and neither were a couple of the others.

Catherine Martin, though, would be attractive to anybody, a big, good-looking young woman who would have to fight the fat when she was thirty.

Remember, he doesn't look at women as a man looks at them. Conventionally attractive doesn't count. They just have to be smooth and roomy.