The Empty Chair (41 page)

We need more evidence!
he raged to himself.

But we don't
have
any more goddamn evidence.

When Rhyme was mired smack in the denial stage of grief, after the accident, he had tried to summon superhuman willpower to make his body move. He had recalled the stories of the people who lifted cars off children or had run at impossible speeds to find help in emergencies. But he'd finally accepted that those types of strength were no longer available to him.

But he did have one type of strength left – mental strength.

Think! All you have is your mind and the evidence that's in front of you. The evidence isn't going to change.

So change the way you're thinking.

All right, let's start over.
He went through the chart once more. The trailer key had been identified. The yeast would be from the mill. The sugar, from food or juice. The camphene, from an old lamp. The paint, from the building where she was being held. The kerosene, from the boat. The alcohol could be from anything. The dirt in the boy's cuffs? It exhibited no particularly unique characteristics and was –

Wait . . . the dirt.

Rhyme recalled that he and Ben had run the density-gradient test of the dirt sampled from in the shoes and car-floor mats of county workers yesterday morning. He'd ordered Thom to photograph each tube and note which employee it had come from on the back of the Polaroid.

"Ben?"

"What?"

"Run the dirt you found in Garrett's cuffs at the mill through the density-gradient unit."

After the dirt had settled in the tube the young man said, "Got the results."

"Compare it with the pictures of the samples you did yesterday morning."

"Good, good." The young zoologist nodded, impressed with the idea. He flipped through the Polaroids, paused. "I've got a match!" he said. "One's almost identical."

The zoologist was no longer hesitant to give opinions, Rhyme was pleased to note. And he wasn't hedging either.

"Whose shoes was it from?"

Ben looked at the notation on the back of the Polaroid. "Frank Heller. He works in the Department of Public Works."

"Is he in yet?"

"I'll find out." Ben vanished. He returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a heavyset man in a white short-sleeved shirt. He eyed Rhyme uncertainly. "You're the fellow from yesterday. Making us clean off our shoes." He laughed but the sound was uneasy.

"Frank, we need your help again," Rhyme explained. "Some of the dirt on your shoes matches dirt we found on the suspect's clothes."

"The boy who kidnapped those girls?" Frank muttered, red-faced and looking completely guilty.

"That's right. Which means he might – this is pretty far-fetched but he
might
– have the girl maybe two or three miles from where you live. Could you point out on the map exactly where that is?"

He said, "It's not like I'm a suspect or anything, am I?"

"No, Frank. Not at all."

"'Cause I got people'll vouch for me. I'm with the wife every night. We watch TV.
Jeopardy!
and
Wheel of Fortune.
Like clockwork. Then WWF. Sometimes her brother comes over. I mean, he owes me money but he'd back me up even if he didn't."

"That's okay," Ben reassured him. "We just need to know where you live. On that map there."

"That'd be here." He stepped to the wall and touched a spot. Location D-3. It was north of the Paquenoke – north of the trailer where Jesse had been killed. There were a number of small roads in the area but no towns marked.

"What's the area like around you?"

"Forests and fields mostly."

"You know anywhere that somebody might hide a kidnap victim?"

Frank seemed to be considering this question earnestly. "I don't, no."

Rhyme: "Can I ask you a question?"

"On top of the ones you already asked?"

"That's right."

"I suppose you can."

"You know about Carolina bays?"

"Sure. Everybody does. Meteors made 'em. Long time ago. When the dinosaurs got themselves killed."

"Are there any near you?"

"Oh, you bet there are."

Which was something that Rhyme was hoping the man would say.

Frank continued. "Must be close to a hundred of 'em."

Which was something he was hoping he
wouldn't.

• • •

Head back, eyes closed, reviewing the evidence charts in his mind.

Jim Bell and Mason Germain were back in the evidence room, along with Thom and Ben, but Lincoln Rhyme was paying them no mind. He was in his own world, an orderly place of science and evidence and logic, a place where he needed no mobility, a place where his feelings for Amelia and what she'd done were mercifully forbidden entry. He could see the evidence in his mind as clearly as if he were staring at the notations on the chalkboard. In fact, he was able to see them
better
with his eyes shut.

Paint sugar yeast dirt camphene paint dirt sugar . . . yeast . . . yeast . . .

A thought slipped into his mind, fished away.
Come back, come back, come back . . .

Yes!
He snagged it.

Rhyme's eyes snapped open. He looked into the empty corner of the room. Bell followed his eyes.

"What is it, Lincoln?"

"You have a coffee machine here?"

"Coffee?" Thom asked, not pleased. "No caffeine. Not with your blood pressure the way –"

"No, I don't want a goddamn cup of coffee! I want a coffee
filter!
"

"Filter? I'll dig one up." Bell disappeared and returned a moment later.

"Give it to Ben," Rhyme ordered. Then said to the zoologist, "See if the paper fibers from the filter match the ones we found on Garrett's clothes at the mill."

Ben rubbed some fibers off the filter onto a slide. He gazed through the eyepieces of the comparison microscope, adjusted the focus and then moved the stages so the samples were next to each other in the split-screen viewfinder.

"The colors're a little different, Lincoln, but the structure and size of the fibers're pretty much the same."

"Good," Rhyme said, his eyes now on the T-shirt with the stain on it.He said to Ben, "The juice, the fruit juice on the shirt. Taste it again. Is it a little sour? Tart?"

Ben did. "Maybe a little. Hard to tell."

Rhyme's eyes strayed to the map, imagining that Lucy and the others were closing in on Sachs somewhere in that green wilderness, eager to shoot. Or that Garrett had Sachs' gun and might be turning it on her.

Or that
she
was holding her gun to her own scalp, squeezing the trigger.

"Jim," he said, "I need you to get something for me. For a control sample."

"Okay. Where?" He fished his keys from his pocket.

• • •

Many images revolved in Lucy Kerr's thoughts: Jesse Corn, on his first day in the Sheriff's Department, standard-issue shoes polished perfectly but his socks mismatched; he'd gotten dressed before light to make sure he wasn't late.

Jesse Corn, hunkered down behind a cruiser, shoulder touching hers, while Barton Snell – his mind on fire from PCP – took potshots at the deputies. It was Jesse's easygoing banter that got the big man to put down his Winchester.

Jesse Corn, proudly driving his new cherry-red Ford pickup over to the County Building on his day off and giving some kids a ride in the bed, up and down the parking lot. They shouted, "Wheeee," in unison as he rolled over the speed bumps.

These thoughts – and a dozen others – stayed with her now as she, Ned and Trey pushed through a large oak forest. Jim Bell had told them to wait at the trailer and he'd send Steve Farr, Frank and Mason to take over the pursuit. He wanted her and the other two deputies to return to the office. But they hadn't even bothered to vote on the matter. As reverently as possible they'd moved Jesse's body into the trailer, covered it with a sheet. Then she'd told Jim that they were going after the fugitives and that nothing on God's earth was going to stop them.

Garrett and Amelia were fleeing fast and were making no effort to cover their tracks. They moved along a path that bordered marshland. The ground was soft and their footprints were clearly visible. Lucy remembered something that Amelia had told Lincoln Rhyme about the crime scene at Blackwater Landing as the redhead had gazed at the footprints there: Billy Stail's weight had been on the toes, which meant that he'd been running toward Garrett to rescue Mary Beth. Lucy now noticed this same thing about the prints of the two people they pursued. They were sprinting.

And so Lucy said to her two fellow deputies, "Let's jog." And despite the heat and their exhaustion they trotted forward together.

They continued this way for a mile until the ground grew drier and they could no longer see the footprints. Then the trail ended in a large grassy clearing and they had no idea where their prey had gone.

"Damn," Lucy muttered, gasping for breath and furious that they'd lost the trail. "Goddamn!"

They ringed the clearing, studying every foot of the ground, but could find no path or any other clue as to which way Garrett and Amelia Sachs had gone.

"What do we do?" Ned asked.

"Call in and wait," she muttered. She leaned against a tree, caught the bottled water that Trey tossed to her and drank it down.

Recalling: Jesse Corn, shyly showing off a glistening silver pistol he was planning on using in his NRA competition matches. Jesse Corn, accompanying his parents to First Baptist Church on Locust Street.

The images kept looping through her mind. They were painful for her to picture and stoked her anger. But Lucy made no effort to force them away; when she found Amelia Sachs she wanted her fury to be unrelenting.

• • •

With a squeak, the door to the cabin eased open a few inches.

"Mary Beth," Tom sang. "You come on out now, come out and play."

He and the Missionary whispered to each other. Then Tom spoke again. "Come on, come on, honey. Make it easy on yourself. We won't hurt you. We were just pulling your leg yesterday."

She stood upright, against the wall, behind the front door. Didn't say a word. Gripped the coup stick in both hands.

The door eased open farther, the hinges giving another squeal. A shadow fell onto the floor. Tom stepped inside, cautious.

"Where is she?" the Missionary whispered from the porch.

"There's a cellar," Tom said. "She's down there, I'll bet."

"Well, get her and let's go. I don't like it here."

Tom took another step inside. He was holding a long skinning knife.

Mary Beth knew about the philosophy of Indian warfare and one of the rules is that if the parleys fail and war is inevitable you don't banter or threaten; you attack with all your force. The point of battle isn't to talk your enemy into submission or explain or chide; it's to annihilate them.

And so she stepped calmly out from behind the door, screamed like a Manitou spirit and swung the club with both hands as Tom spun around, eyes wide in terror. The Missionary cried, "Look out!"

But Tom didn't have a chance. The coup stick caught him solidly in front of his ear, shattering his jaw and closing down half his throat. He dropped the knife and grabbed his neck, falling to his knees, choking. He crawled back outside.

"Hehf . . . hehf meh," he gasped.

But there was no help forthcoming – the Missionary simply reached down and pulled him off the porch by his collar, letting him fall to the ground, holding his shattered face, as Mary Beth watched from the window. "You asshole," the Missionary muttered to his friend and then drew a pistol from his back pocket. Mary Beth swung the door shut, took her place behind it again, wiping her sweating hands and getting a better grip on the stick. She heard the double click of a gun cocking.

"Mary Beth, I got a gun here and, you probably figured out, under the circumstances I got no problem using it. Just come on out. You don't, I'll shoot inside and I'll probably hit you."

She crouched down against the wall behind the door, waiting for the gunshot.

But he never fired. It was a trick; he kicked the door hard and it swung into her, stunning her for an instant, knocking her down. But as he started inside she kicked the door closed just as hard as he'd shoved it open. He wasn't expecting any more resistance and the heavy wooden slab caught him on the shoulder, knocking him off balance. Mary Beth stepped toward him and swung the coup stick at the only target on him she could reach – his elbow. But he dropped to the floor just as the rock would have struck him and she missed. The momentum of her fierce swing pulled the stick from her sweaty hands and it skidded along the floor.

No time to get it. Just run!
Mary Beth jumped past the Missionary before he could turn and fire and she sprinted out the door.

At last!

Free of this hellhole at last!

She ran to the left, heading back toward the path that her captor had brought her down two days ago, the one that led past a big Carolina bay. At the corner of the cabin she turned toward the pond.

And ran right into the arms of Garrett Hanlon.

"No!" she cried. "No!"

The boy was wild-eyed. He held a gun. "How'd you get out? How?" He grabbed her wrist.

"Let me go!" She tried to pull away from him but his grip was like steel.

There was a grim-faced woman with him, pretty, with long red hair. Her clothes, like Garrett's, were filthy. The woman was silent, her eyes dull. She didn't seem the least bit startled by the girl's sudden appearance. She looked drugged.

"Goddamn," the Missionary's voice called. "You fucking bitch!" He turned the corner and found Garrett aiming the pistol at his face. The boy screamed, "Who're you? What'd you do to my house? What'd you do to Mary Beth?"

"She attacked us! Look at my friend. Look at –"

"Throw that away," Garrett raged. Nodding at the man's pistol. "Throw it away or I'll kill you! I will. I'll blow your fucking head off!"

The Missionary looked at the boy's face and the gun. Garrett cocked his pistol. "Jesus . . ." The man pitched the revolver into the grass.