فصل 70

Chapter 70

ON THE evening of December 17, Clarice Starling’s doorbell rang. She could see a federal marshal’s car behind the Mustang in her driveway.

The marshal was Bobby, who drove her home from the hospital after the Feliciana shoot-out.

“Hi, Starling.”

“Hi, Bobby. Come in.”

“I’d like to, but I oughta tell you first. I’ve got a notice here I’ve got to serve you.”

“Well, hell. Serve me in the house where it’s warm,” Starling said, numb in the middle.

The notice, on the letterhead of the Inspector General of the Department of justice, required her to appear at a hearing the next morning, December 18, at nine A.M. in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

“You want a ride tomorrow?” the marshal asked.

Starling shook her head. “Thanks, Bobby, I’ll take my car. Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’m sorry, Starling.” The marshal clearly wanted to go. There was an awkward silence. “Your ear’s looking good,” he said at last.

She waved to him as he backed out of the drive.

The letter simply told her to report. No reason was given.

Ardelia Mapp, veteran of the Bureau’s internecine wars and thorn in the side of the good-old-boy network, immediately brewed her grandmother’s strongest medicinal tea, renowned for enhancing the mentality. Starling always dreaded the tea, but there was no way around it.

Mapp tapped the letterhead with her finger. “The Inspector General doesn’t have to tell you a damn thing,” Mapp said between sips. “If our Office of Professional Responsibility had charges, or the OPRDOJ had something on you, they’d have to tell you, they’d have to serve you with papers. They’d have to give you a damn 645 or a 644 with the charges right there on it, and if it was criminal you’d have a lawyer, full disclosure, everything the crooks get, right?”

“Damn straight.”

“Well, this way you get diddly-squat in advance. Inspector General’s political, he can take over any case.”

“He took over this one.”

“With Krendler blowing smoke up his butt. Whatever it is, if you decide you want to go with an Equal Opportunity case, I’ve got all the numbers. Now, listen to me, Starling, you’ve got to tell them you want to tape. IG doesn’t use signed depositions.

Lonnie Gains got into that mess with them over that. They keep a record of what you say, and sometimes it changes after you say it. You don’t ever see a transcript.”

When Starling called Jack Crawford, he sounded as though he’d been asleep.

“I don’t know what it is, Starling,” he said. “I’ll call around. One thing I do know, I’ll be there tomorrow.”