Thomas Harris - Red Dragon

Close by his cheek a soft-drink can was wedged between the limb and the trunk.

"I love it," Graham whispered into the bark. "Oh sweet Jesus yes. Come on, can."

Still, a child might have left it.

He climbed higher on his side of the tree, dicey work on small branches, and moved around until he could look down on the big limb.

A patch of outer bark on the upper side of the limb was shaved away, leaving a field of green inner bark the size of a playing card. Centered in the green rectangle, carved through to the white wood, Graham saw this:



It was done carefully and cleanly with a very sharp knife. It was not the work of a child.

Graham photographed the mark, carefully bracketing his exposures.

The view from the big limb was good, and it had been improved: the stub of a small branch jutted down from the limb above. It had been clipped off to clear the view. The fibers were compressed and the end slightly flattened in the cutting.

Graham looked for the severed branch. If it had been on the ground, he would have seen it. There, tangled in the limbs below, brown withered leaves amid the green foliage.

The laboratory would need both sides of the cut in order to measure the pitch of the cutting edges. That meant coming back here with a saw. He made several photographs of the stub. All the while he mumbled to himself.

I think that after you killed the cat and threw it into the yard, my man, you climbed up here and waited. I think you watched the children and passed the time whittling and dreaming. When night came, you saw them passing their bright windows and you watched the shades go down, and you saw the lights go out one by one. And after a while you climbed down and went in to them. Didn't you? It wouldn't be too hard a climb straight down ftom the big limb with a flashlight and the bright moon rising.

It was a hard enough climb for Graham. He stuck a twig into the opening of the soft-drink can, gently lifted it from the crotch of the tree, and descended, holding the twig in his teeth when he had to use both hands.

Back at the housing project, Graham found that someone had written "Levon is a doo-doo head" in the dust on the side of his car. The height of the writing indicated that even the youngest residents were well along in literacy.

He wondered if they had written on the Tooth Fairy's car.

Graham sat for a few minutes looking up at the rows of windows. There appeared to be about a hundred units. It was possible that someone might remember a white stranger in the parking lot late at night. Even though a month had passed, it was well worth trying. To ask every resident, and get it done quickly, he would need the help of the Birmingham police.

He fought the temptation to send the drink can straight to Jimmy Price in Washington. He had to ask the Birmingham police for manpower. It would be better to give them what he had. Dusting the can would be a straightforward job. Trying for fingerprints etched by acid sweat was another matter. Price could still do it after Birmingham dusted, as long as the can wasn't handled with bare fingers. Better give it to the police. He knew the FBI document section would fall on the carving like a rabid mongoose. Pictures of that for everybody, nothing lost there.

He called Birmingham Homicide from the Jacobi house. The detectives arrived just as the realtor, Geehan, was ushering in his prospective buyers.

Eileen was reading a National Tattler article called "Filth in Your Bread!" when Dolarhyde came into the cafeteria. She had eaten only the filling in her tuna-salad sandwich.

Behind the red goggles Dolarhyde's eyes zigged down the ftont page of the Tattler. Cover lines in addition to "Filth in Your Bread!" included "Elvis at Secret Love Retreat -Exclusive Pix!!" "Stunning Breakthrough for Cancer Victims!" and the big banner line " Hannibal the Cannibal Helps Lawmen – Cops Consult Fiend in 'Tooth Fairy' Murders."

He stood at the window absently stirring his coffee until he heard Eileen get up. She dumped her tray in the trash container and was about to throw in the Tattler when Dolarhyde touched her shoulder.

"May I have that paper, Eileen?"

"Sure, Mr. D. I just get it for the horoscopes."

Dolarhyde read it in his office with the door closed.

Freddy Lounds had two bylines in the same double-page center spread. The main story was a breathless reconstruction of the Jacobi and Leeds murders. Since the police had not divulged many of the specifics, Lounds consulted his imagination for lurid details. Dolarhyde found them banal.

The sidebar was more interesting:

Insane Fiend Consulted in Mass Murders

by Cop He Tried to Kill

by

Freddy Lounds

CHESAPEAKE, MD. – Federal manhunters, stymied in their search for the "Tooth Fairy," psychopathic slayer of entire families in Birmingham and Atlanta, have turned to the most savage killer in captivity for help.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter, whose unspeakable practices were reported in these pages three years ago, was consulted this week in his maximum-security-asylum cell by ace investigator William (Will) Graham.

Graham suffered a near-fatal slashing at Lecter's hands when he unmasked the mass murderer.

He was brought back from early retirement to spearhead the hunt for the "Tooth Fairy."

What went on in this bizarre meeting of two mortal enemies? What was Graham after?

"It takes one to catch one," a high federal official told this reporter. He was referring to Lecter, known as " Hannibal the Cannibal," who is both a psychiatrist and a mass murderer.

OR WAS HE REFERRING TO GRAHAM???

The Tattler has learned that Graham, former instructor in forensics at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., was once confined to a mental institution for a period of four weeks.

Federal officials refused to say why they placed a man with a history of mental instability at the forefront of a desperate manhunt.

The nature of Graham's mental problem was not revealed, but one former psychiatric worker called it "deep depression."

Garmon Evans, a paraprofessional formerly employed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, said Graham was admitted to the psychiatric wing soon after he killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs, the "Minnesota Shrike." Graham shot Hobbs to death in 1975, ending Hobbs 's eight-month reign of terror in Minneapolis.

Evans said Graham was withdrawn and refused to eat or speak during the first weeks of his stay.

Graham has never been an FBI agent. Veteran observers attribute this to the Bureau's strict screening procedures, designed to detect instability.

Federal sources would reveal only that Graham originally worked in the FBI crime laboratory and was assigned teaching duties at the FBI Academy after outstanding work both in the laboratory and in the field, where he served as a "special investigator."

The Tattler learned that before his federal service, Graham was in the homicide division of the New Orleans police department, a post he left to attend graduate school in forensics at George Washington University.

One New Orleans officer who served with Graham commented, "Well, you can call him retired, but the feds like to know be's around. It's like having a king snake under the house. They may not see him much, but it's nice to know he's there to eat the moccasins.

Dr. Lecter is confined for the rest of his life. If he is ever declared sane, he will have to stand trial on nine counts of first-degree murder.

Lecter's attorney says the mass murderer spends his time writing useful articles for the scientific journals and has an "ongoing dialogue" by mall with some of the most respected figures in psychiatry.