Starling could hardly read the letters, because of the hope in them, because of the dreadful need in them, because of the endearments from Gumb that were implied in her responses: “Dearest Secret Friend in my Breast, I love you!—I didn’t ever think I’d get to say that, and it is best of all to get to say it back.”
When did he reveal himself? Had she discovered the basement? How did her face look when he changed, how long did he keep her alive?
Worst, Fredrica and Gumb truly were friends to the last; she wrote him a note from the pit.
The tabloids changed Gumb’s nickname to Mr. Hide and, sick because they hadn’t thought of the name themselves, virtually started over with the story.
Safe in t
he heart of Quantico, Starling did not have to deal with the press, but the tabloid press dealt with her.
From Dr. Frederick Chilton, the National Tattler bought the tapes of Starling’s interview with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The Tattler expanded on their conversations for their “Bride of Dracula” series and implied that Starling had made frank sexual revelations to Lecter in exchange for information, spurring an offer to Starling from Velvet Talks: The Journal of Telephone Sex.
People magazine did a short, pleasant item on Starling, using yearbook pictures from the University of Virginia and from the Lutheran Home at Bozeman. The best picture was of the horse, Hannah, in her later years, drawing a cart full of children.
Starling cut out the picture of Hannah and put it in her wallet. It was the only thing she saved.
She was healing.
CHAPTER 60
Ardelia Mapp was a great tutor—she could spot a test question in a lecture farther than a leopard can see a limp—but she was not much of a runner. She told Starling it was because she was so weighted with facts.
She had fallen behind Starling on the jogging trail and caught up at the old DC-6 the FBI uses for hijack simulations. It was Sunday morning. They had been on the books for two days, and the pale sun felt good.
“So what did Pilcher say on the phone?” Mapp said, leaning against the landing gear.
“He and his sister have this place on the Chesapeake.”
“Yeah, and?”
“His sister’s there with her kids and dogs and maybe her husband.”
“So?”
“They’re in one end of the house—it’s a big old dump on the water they inherited from his grandmother.”
“Cut to the chase.”
“Pilch has the other end of the house. Next weekend, he wants us to go. Lots of rooms, he says. ‘As many rooms as anybody might need,’ I believe is the way he put it. His sister would call and invite me, he said.”
“No kidding. I didn’t know people did that anymore.”
“He did this nice scenario—no hassles, bundle up and walk on the beach, come in and there’s a fire going, dogs jump all over you with their big sandy paws.”
“Idyllic, umm-humm, big sandy paws, go on.”
“It’s kind of much, considering we’ve never had a date, even. He claims it’s best to sleep with two or three big dogs when it gets really cold. He says they’ve got enough dogs for everybody to have a couple.”
“Pilcher’s setting you up for the old dog-suit trick, you snapped to that didn’t you?”
“He claims to be a good cook. His sister says he is.”
“Oh, she called already.”
“Yep.”
“How’d she sound?”