Red Dragon [Part Lll]

The third section from the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, is yet again 113 pages in length and covers the part of the story up to page 339. The summary for chapters 23 to 34 is as follows.

This part of the novel was a slow read from the beginning to the end. I like to think of it like purgatory. Not quite there yet, but waiting for something good to happen. Chapter 23 starts and ends completely regarding the aftermath of Freddie Lounds being burnt and left for death by the serial killer Red Dragon. In the final statements of my previous summary I had concluded that Freddie had died. However I was wrong. It turned out the ambulance reached him in just enough time to take him to the emergency room for aid. FBI Special Agent Will Graham and Bureau Chief Jack Crawford went to visit him upon hearing the bad news. Freddie had inhaled parts of the flame while he was lit on fire. His mouth and throat were badly burned. If he were to live, he was in for a long path of pain and he may never even be able to speak again. However, within the three days of being moved from the burn unit to the regular hospital floor. Freddie had past.

Will and Jack had been informed that Freddie spoke some words to the press that hadn't been released yet on television or in article. What he told them briefly while being rushed from the ambulance van to the hospital doors was the license plate number he had been able to see right before being engulfed with the flames. Captain Osbourne of Chicago Homicide ran the plate through the Department of Motor Vehicles and came back with the number off an old stolen TV truck. Will knew in the back of his head the killer must have been driving a van though in order to carry around Lounds in a wheelchair. Perhaps a vital clue to the investigation as we end the chapter.

The next chapter shifts scenarios as we, the readers, are back in Baltimore at the Forensic Hospital for the criminally insane. Dr. Hannibal Lecter is being punished for giving out Will's home address, in the previous section to the murderer. Dr. Frederick Chilton, Chief of Staff there, had his orderlies take out all of Lecter's book's from his case in the cell, and remove Hannibal's toilet seat as well.

Brian Zeller, Section Chief of the evidence department back at Quantico, has made a stellar discovery towards the case. The type of gas used on the body of Freddie Lounds was Unleaded "Gasahol". Rarer than the average gas purchased at a local gas station, this was yet another clue to help out Agent Will Graham and the rest of them.

Will's wife Molly and their son Willy were tired of living at a place they weren't comfortable in. One late night Molly had stayed up to watch the Television. When the news came on she had the chance to hear all about the stories tabloid magazines were making up. Like How Lecter was helping out Will with the investigation, how Freddie was Graham's pet and The "Tooth Fairy" always kills the family pet right before he kills the family. Molly and Willy were upset. Upset over living at a place unknown to them and upset Will wasn't there to be by their sides. The next morning they took a plane out to her father's ranch along the Oregon Coast, this went against Will's best wishes.

Throughout chapters 25 to 27, the most lengthiest part of this third section, Thomas Harris writes about the life of his character Francis Dolarhyde and how he grew up. The following is disturbing and almost sad to a certain point.

Springfield, Missouri, June 14th, 1938, Marian Dolarhyde Trevane went to the hospital, 8 months pregnant with her child. That very night, Francis Dolarhyde was born. With bilateral fishures over his upper lip with hard and soft palate clefts, the nurses didn't imagine he would live. He had no way to be fed or receive his milk. Prince Easter Mize, the night shift nurse at the hospital figured out a way for the little baby to receive it's needed nutrition. Through a clearing pipe inserted in one of it's nostril's. This is how the baby would eat for the next two weeks.

Marian could not stand the fact her baby boy in that type of health. He would never be able to speak with proper speech and his face would remain disfigured for the rest of his life and never grow properly again. Within the next week Francis was enrolled at the Morgan Lee Memorial Orphanage.

Grandmother Dolarhyde, Marian's mother received a telephone call from her drunken son-in-law a few years later. He told her the entire story of Francis. She never knew she had a grandson because Marian left home when she was pregnant and never talked to her scorned mother again. At the age of five, Grandmother Dolarhyde adopted little Francis and took him home.

One late afternoon Grandmother took Francis to meet his real mother. Ms. Dolarhyde had never seen her daughter's house or bothered to disturb her new life. Marian had married a man named Howard Vogt in 1943. He had been divorced already with three children from the previous marriage. Now he was running for Mayor of the city and trying to continue on with his life in a new direction.

Ms. Dolarhyde marched right past Marian's and Howard's servant, Viola and told young Francis to walk upstairs and go see his mother. When he reached up the stairs he saw his mother, sitting in her room putting on make up and looking in the mirror. He tried saying Mother but it came out more like "Muhner". He never practiced that word before. Marian assumed it was just one of the three children's friends and told him to come back later in the day. Francis continued saying "Muhner", and then it hit her. She was in shock. She turned to the child. All these years later and now this...

Marian told her mother she wanted nothing to do with this. She threatened to call the authorities if they wouldn't leave before her husband returned home. They left. The next week the stories were out in the papers about Howard Vogt marrying a mother who left her child for death. Howard Vogt lost the election by seventeen thousand votes that year.

Grandmother Dolarhyde's husband had past away years ago and left her in debt for the rest of her life. Ms. Dolarhyde had never worked before in the past, so she ended up opening her house to boarders and started her own nursing home for elders. They lived in the very large house passed down through the Dolarhyde family during the ages. One night a very scared Francis was too scared of the dark to make it all the way down the hall and to in the washroom. He peed the bed. When Grandma found out she started yelling at him and shouting he was the dirtiest and most disgusting boy she has

...