Meet the FBI
The FBI came to the office three times.
The first visitor was Miriam Lass, a FBI trainee. I could tell that she was smart. She did not call upon the psychiatrist because she suspected that he was the Chesapeake Ripper. But it was clear that she would soon make the connection.
Unfortunately, Dr. Lecter recognized this, too.
As did the harpsichord, which began a silent siren song, luring the trainee to look at the sketches on the antique drawing desk and successfully distracting her from the Ripper’s approach.
The harpsichord was truly Lecter’s minion in evil.
I tried to warn Miss Lass but there was nothing that I could do. Unlike musical instruments, I do not possess the gift to correspond with people. Everyone has a rhythm or song in their heart that can probed, identified, and used to establish communication.
A few handy people can establish a rapport with tools but it is more likely to be with something like hammer or a a wrench. Something that they hold in their hands for long periods on repeat basis.
Nobody spends that much time with a ladder.
To my surprise, the monster did not kill the woman. But he did rob her of her freedom, steadily dismantling her sanity before moving on to her body.
…………………….
The second FBI agent to visit the office was Jack Crawford.
Crawford was a man with an agenda. He ran a serial killer tribute museum and he wanted to catch killers, including the Chesapeake Ripper, so that he could fill up his shrine with accolades to his own accomplishments.
But the agent was also a man of declining skill and had begun to rely on other agents to make the deductions that had once came so easily to him.
Jack Crawford made his initial visit because he wanted Dr. Lecter’s assistance with the man that the agent believed would fill in the gaps of his fading talent and help him to continue to amass glory.
Later I learned that he was the same man who recruited Miriam Lass for the Ripper investigation. I marveled to learn that she had been a part of his team for only two months when her investigation brought her to the Ripper’s door.
By comparison, Jack Crawford had hunted the Chesapeake Ripper for a decade but he experienced no revelations when he finally entered the killer’s lair.
No recognition that the doctor matched the Ripper’s profile.
No pushback on the explanation for scalpels lying around.
He did not even question how a psychiatrist managed to survive a serial killer by snapping his arm, crushing his windpipe, and smashing his skull.
Useless.
Do not even get me started on the man’s poor neglected wife. Mrs . Crawford deserved much better from him.
…………………………..
The third FBI agent to visit the office was Will Graham.
I recognized immediately that he possessed the skills and the talent to catch the Ripper.
I also recognized that he possessed a darkness similar to the monster and had no interest in stopping him.
Indeed he had a very obvious, shall we say, pressing interest in Dr. Lecter.
Graham flirted shamelessly.
He teased that Lecter had intentionally allowed a girl to bleed to death.
“You could have saved her,” he said point blank.
“She could have saved herself by calling one of the tip lines,” the former surgeon who had once vowed to do no harm responded. “Besides, you looked beautiful covered in her blood.”
“The question is when are you going to repay the favor and let me see you coated in blood?”
With that, the agent of the law fiercely kissed Lecter, biting his lip and drawing blood.
“You know blood looks black by in the moonlight.”
And with that they left quickly, presumably so that Lecter could prove this. I never learned whose blood they used but the idea that they killed an innocent haunts me.
………………………………
The penis is an amazing tool. It can be used for pleasure, reproduction, and liquid waste removal.
Many of the visitors to the office possessed this organ.
But Will Graham was the only who successfully maneuvered the Chesapeake Ripper down onto all fours, on the floor of his own pretentious office, naked but for his own silk tie pulled tight around Graham’s fist as the FBI instructor slammed into him from behind.
Did I mention that he accomplished this by merely pointing at the floor and saying down?
“I’m going to fuck you so hard that I put a baby in you!” Graham growled.
“Yes, Alpha, yes!!! Breed me!!!”
Alpha?
“I’ll put a whole litter in you!!!”
“A figliata,” Lecter moaned.
“Une portée!” Graham echoed.
“Vada!”
Graham suddenly stopped.
“What language is that?” he demanded.
“Lithuanian.”
“You’re from Lithuania? I wondered about your accent.”
Call me old fashioned but I believe that you should know something about a person before you start trying to conceive fictional babies with them.
“My Lithuanian litter bearer!” Graham called gleefully as he resumed thrusting into the once dignified doctor.
Across the room the harpsichord began to cry.
……………………………………
The Graham-Lecter affair took a hard toll on the harpsichord.
I am not sure if it was the lack of dignity or the way Lecter easily acquiesced to Graham’s dominance or maybe it was just jealousy.
But I do know that one night Graham bent Lecter over his own desk and said that he was going to ride him all way to the moon. At some point during the festivities, he began proudly calling himself Rocket Man. He also sang that his erection was going to last “a long, long time.”
The next day, between appointments, the very sore serial killer sat at the harpsichord and played Elton John. He had a dreamy look in his eyes as he happily recalled Graham telling him that his ass was a spaceship that he wanted to ride.
As ridiculous as this whole love affair was, I cannot deny that the harpsichord’s misery was a genuine silver lining.
Of course, I should have known that the little schemer would eventually plot to have Will Graham killed.