Then there was a loud crash from the front of the building as Mason kicked inside. "Sheriff's office!" he cried. "Nobody move!"
Go! she thought.
Lucy kicked the side door. But it moved only a few inches and stopped fast--hitting a large riding lawn mower parked just inside the door. It wouldn't go any farther. She slammed into it with her shoulder twice but the door held.
"Shit," she whispered and ran around to the front of the barn.
Before she got halfway there she heard Mason call out, "Oh, Jesus."
And then she heard a gunshot.
Followed a moment later by a second one.
"What's going on?" Rhyme demanded.
"Okay," Bell said uncertainly, holding the phone. There was something about his stance that alarmed Rhyme; the sheriff stood with the phone pressed hard against his ear, his other fist clenched and away from his body. He nodded as he listened. Looked at Rhyme. "There've been shots."
"Shots?"
"Mason and Lucy went into the barn. Jesse said there were two shots." He looked up, shouted into the other room. "Get the ambulance over to the Hallburton place. Badger Hollow Road, off Route 112."
Steve Farr called, "It's on its way."
Rhyme pressed his head back into the headrest of the chair. Glanced at Thom, who said nothing.
Who was shooting? Who'd been hit?
Oh, Sachs ...
An edge in his voice, Bell said, "Well, find out, Jesse! Is anybody down? What the hell's going on?"
"Is Amelia all right?" Rhyme shouted.
"We'll know in a minute," Bell said.
But it felt more like days.
Finally Bell stiffened again as Jesse Corn or somebody came on the phone. He nodded. "Jesus, he did what?" He listened a moment longer then looked at Rhyme's alarmed face. "It's all right. Nobody's hurt. Mason kicked his way into the barn and saw some overalls hung up on the wall. A rake or shovel or something in front of it. It was real dark. He thought it was Garrett with a gun. He fired a couple times. That's all."
"Amelia's all right?"
"They weren't even there. It was just the truck they stole that was inside. Garrett and Amelia must've been in the house but they probably've heard the shots and took off into the woods. They can't get too far. I know the property--it's all surrounded by bogs."
Rhyme said angrily, "I want Mason off the case. That was no mistake--he shot on purpose. I told you he was too hotheaded."
Bell obviously agreed. Into the phone he said, "Jesse, put Mason on...." There was a short pause. "Mason, what the hell is this all about? ... Why'd you fire? ... Well, what if it'd been Pete Hallburton standing there? Or his wife or one of his kids? ... I don't care. You head back here right now. That's an order.... Well, let them search the house. Get in your cruiser and head back.... I'm not telling you again. I--"
"Shit." Bell hung up. A moment later the phone rang again. "Lucy, what's going on? ..." The sheriff listened, frowning, eyes on the floor. He paced. "Oh, Jesus.... You're sure?" He nodded then said, "Okay, stay there. I'll call you back." He hung up.
"What happened?"
Bell shook his head. "I don't believe it. We got suckered. She did a number on us, your friend."
"What?"
Bell said, "Pete Hallburton's there. He's home--in his house. Lucy and Jesse just talked to him. His wife works the three-to-eleven shift over at Davett's company and she forgot her supper so he dropped it off a half hour ago and drove home."
"He drove home? Were Amelia and Garrett hiding in the trunk?"
Bell gave a disgusted sigh. "He's got a pickup. No place to hide. Not for them anyway. But there was plenty of room for her cell phone. Behind a cooler he had in the back."
Rhyme too now barked a cynical laugh. "She called the rental company, got put on hold and hid the phone in the truck."
"You got that right," Bell muttered.
Thom said, "Remember, Lincoln, she called that rental place this morning. She was mad because she was on hold for so long."
"She knew we'd have a locator on the phone," Bell said. "They waited till Lucy and the squad cars left Canal Road and then went on their merry goddamn way." He looked at the map. "They've got forty minutes on us. They could be anywhere."
... chapter twenty-seven
After the police cruisers had abandoned the roadblock and disappeared west down Route 112, Garrett and Sachs jogged to the end of Canal Road and crossed the highway.
They skirted the Blackwater Landing crime scenes then turned left and moved quickly through brush and an oak forest, following the Paquenoke River.
A half mile into the forest they came to a tributary of the Paquo. It was impossible to go around and Sachs had no desire to swim across the dark water, dotted with insects and slime and trash.
But Garrett had made other arrangements. He pointed his cuffed hands to a place on the shore. "The boat."
"Boat? Where?"
"There, there." He pointed again.
She squinted and could just make out the shape of a small boat. It was covered with brush and leaves. Garrett walked to it, and working as best he could with the handcuffs on, began stripping off the foliage hiding the vessel. Sachs helped him.
"Camouflage," he said proudly. "I learned it from insects. There's this little cricket in France--the truxalis. This is totally cool--it changes its color three times a summer to match the different greens of grass during the season. Predators can hardly see it."
Well, Sachs too had used some of the boy's esoteric knowledge about insects. When Garrett had commented on the moths--their ability to sense electronic and radio signals--she'd realized that of course Rhyme had set up a locator on her cell phone. She'd remembered that she'd been on hold for a long time at Piedmont-Carolina Car Rental that morning. Then she'd snuck into the Davett Industries parking lot, called the rental company and slipped the phone, playing interminable Muzak, into the back of an unoccupied pickup truck whose motor'd been running, parked in front of the employee entrance to the building.
The trick had apparently worked. The deputies took off after the truck when it left the grounds.
As they uncovered the boat Sachs now asked Garrett, "The ammonia? And the pit with the wasps' nest. You learned those from the insects too?"
"Yeah," he said.
"You weren't going to hurt anybody, were you?"
"No, no, the ant-lion pit was just to scare you, to slow you up. I put an empty nest in there on purpose. The ammonia was to warn me if you got close. That's what insects do. Smells're, like, an early warning system or something for them." His red, watery eyes shone with a curious admiration. "That was pretty cool, what you did, finding me at the mill. I, like, never thought you'd get there fast as you did."
"And you left that fake evidence in the mill--the map and the sand--to lead us off."
"Yeah, I told you--insects're smart. They've gotta be."
They finished uncovering the battered boat. It was painted dark gray, was about ten feet long and had a small outboard motor on it. Inside were a dozen plastic gallon bottles of spring water and a cooler. Sachs tore open one of the waters and drank a dozen mouthfuls. She handed the bottle to Garrett and he drank too. Then he opened the cooler. Inside were boxes of crackers and chips. He looked them over carefully to make sure everything was accounted for and undamaged. He nodded then climbed into the boat.
Sachs followed, sat with her back to the bow, facing him. He gave her a knowing grin, as if acknowledging that she didn't trust him enough to turn her back on him, and pulled the starter rope. The engine sputtered to life. He pushed off from the shore and, like modern Huck Finns, they started down the river.
Sachs reflecting: This is knuckle time.
A phrase her father had used. The trim, balding man, a beat patrolman in Brooklyn and Manhattan most of his life, had had a serious talk with his daughter when she'd told him she wanted to give up modeling and get into police work. He'd been all for the decision but had said this about the professi
on: "Amie, you have to understand: sometimes it's a rush, sometimes you get to make a difference, sometimes it's boring. And sometimes, not too often, thank God, it's knuckle time. Fist to fist. You're all by your lonesome, with nobody to help you. And I don't mean just against the perps. Sometimes it'll be you against your boss. Sometimes against their bosses. Could be you against your buddies too. You gonna be a cop, you got to be ready to go it alone. There's no getting around it."
"I can handle it, Pop."
"That's my girl. Let's go for a drive, honey."
Sitting in this rickety boat, being piloted by a troubled young man, Sachs had never felt so alone in her life.
Knuckle time ...fist to fist.
"Look there," Garrett said quickly. Pointing to an insect of some kind. "It's my favorite of all. The water boatman. It flies under the water." His face lit up with unbridled enthusiasm. "It really does! Hey, that'd be pretty neat, Wouldn't it? To fly underwater. I like water. It feels good on my skin." The smile faded and he rubbed his arm. "This fucking poison oak ... I get it all the time. It itches bad sometimes."
They began threading their way through small inlets, around islands, roots and gray trees, half-submerged, always returning to a westerly course, toward the lowering sun.
A thought came to Sachs, an echo of something that had occurred to her earlier, in the boy's cell just before she broke him out of jail: By hiding a boat filled with provisions, gassed up, Garrett had anticipated that he would somehow escape from jail. And that her role in this journey was part of an elaborate, premeditated plan.
"Whatever you think about Garrett, don't trust him. You think he's innocent. But just accept that maybe he isn't. You know how we approach crime scenes, Sachs."
"With an open mind. No preconceptions. Believing that anything's possible."
But then she looked at the boy once again. His eyes bright and skipping happily from sight to sight as he guided the boat through the channels, looking nothing at all like an escaped criminal but for all the world like an enthusiastic teenager on a camping trip, content and excited about what he might find around the next bend in the river.
"She's good, Lincoln," Ben said, referring to the cell phone trick.
She is good, the criminalist thought. Adding, to himself: She's as good as I am. Though he conceded grimly-- and to himself alone--that she'd been better than he this time.
Rhyme was furious with himself for not anticipating it. This isn't a game, he thought, an exercise--like the way he'd challenge her sometimes when she was walking the grid or when they were analyzing evidence back in his lab in New York. Her life was in danger. She had perhaps only hours before Garrett assaulted or killed her. He couldn't afford to slip up again.
A deputy appeared in the doorway, carrying a paper Food Lion bag. It contained Garrett's clothes from the lockup.
"Good!" Rhyme said. "Do a chart, somebody. Thom, Ben ... do a chart. 'Found at the Secondary Crime Scene--the Mill.' Ben, write, write!"
"But we've got one," Ben said, pointing to the chalkboard.
"No, no, no," Rhyme snapped. "Erase it. Those clues were fake. Garrett planted them to lead us off. Just like the limestone in the shoe he left behind when he snatched Lydia. If we can find some evidence in his clothes"--nodding at the bag--"that'll tell us where Mary Beth really is."
"If we're lucky," Bell said.
No, Rhyme thought, if we're skillful. He said to Ben, "Cut a piece of the pants--near the cuff--and run it through the chromatograph."
Bell stepped out of the office to talk to Steve Fan-about getting priority frequencies on the radios without tipping the state police about what was happening, which Rhyme had insisted he do.
Now the criminalist and Ben waited for the results from the chromatograph. As they did, Rhyme asked, "What else do we have?" Nodding toward the clothes.
"Brown paint stains on Garrett's pants," Ben reported as he examined them. "Dark brown. Looks recent."
"Brown," Rhyme repeated, examining them. "What's the color of Garrett's parents' house?"
"I don't know," Ben began.
"I didn't expect you to be a storehouse of Tanner's Corner trivia," Rhyme grumbled. "I meant: Call them."
"Oh." Ben found the number in the case file and called. He spoke to someone for a moment then hung up. "That's one uncooperative son of a bitch.... Garrett's foster dad. Anyway, their house is white and there's nothing painted dark brown on the property."
"So, it's probably the color of the place where he's got her."
The big man asked, "Is there a paint database somewhere we can compare it to?"
"Good idea," Rhyme responded. "But the answer's no. I have one in New York but that won't do us any good here. And the FBI database is automotive. But keep going. What's in the pockets, anything? Put on--"
But Ben was already pulling on the latex gloves. "This what you were going to say?"
"It was," Rhyme muttered.
Thom said, "He hates to be anticipated."
"Then I'll try to do it more," Ben said. "Ah, here's something." Rhyme squinted at several small white objects the young man dug out of Garrett's pocket.
"What are they?"
Ben sniffed. "Cheese and bread."
"More food. Like the crackers and--"
Ben was laughing.
Rhyme frowned. "What's funny?"
"It's food--but it's not for Garrett."
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't you ever fished?" Ben asked.
"No, I've never fished," Rhyme grumbled. "If you want fish you buy it, you cook it, you eat it. What the hell does fishing have to do with cheese sandwiches?"
"They're not from sandwiches," Ben explained. "They're stinkballs. Bait for fishing. You wad up bread and cheese and let 'em get good and sour. Bottom feeders love 'em. Like catfish. The smellier the better."
Rhyme's eyebrow lifted. "Ah, now that's helpful."
Ben examined the cuffs. He brushed a small amount out onto a People magazine subscription card and then looked at it under the microscope. "Nothing much distinctive," he said. "Except little flecks of something. White."
"Let me see."
The zoologist carried the large Bausch & Lomb microscope over to Rhyme, who looked through the eyepieces. "Okay, good. They're paper fibers."
"They are?" Ben asked.
"It's obvious they're paper. What else would they be? Absorbent paper too. Don't have a clue what the source is, though. Now, that dirt is very interesting. Can you get some more? Out of the cuffs?"
"I'll try."
Ben cut the stitching securing the cuff and unfolded it. He brushed more dirt out onto the card.
"'Scope it," Rhyme ordered.
The zoologist prepared a slide and slipped it onto the stage of the compound microscope, which he again held rock steady for Rhyme, who peered into the eyepieces. "There's a lot of clay. I mean, a lot. Feldspathic rock, probably granite. And--what's that? Oh, peat moss."
Impressed, Ben asked, "How d'you know all this?"
"I just do." Rhyme didn't have time to go into a discussion of how a criminalist must know as much about the physical world as he does about crime. He asked, "What else was in the cuffs? What's that?" Nodding toward something resting on the subscription card. "That little whitish-green thing?"
"It's from a plant," Ben said. "But that's not my expertise. I studied marine botany but it wasn't my favorite subject. I'm more into life forms that've got a chance to get away when you're collecting them. Seems more sporting."
Rhyme ordered, "Describe it."
Ben looked it over with a magnifying glass. "A reddish stalk and a dot of liquid on the end. It looks viscous. There's a white, bell-shaped flower attached to it.... If I had to guess--"
"You do," Rhyme snapped. "And quickly."
"I'm pretty sure it's from a sundew."
"What the hell's that? Sounds like dish soap."
Ben said, "It's like a Venus flytrap. They eat insects. They're fascinating. When I was a kid w
e'd sit and watch 'em for hours. The way they eat is--"
"Fascinating," Rhyme repeated sarcastically. "I'm not interested in their dining habits. Where're they found? That's what would be fascinating to me."
"Oh, all over the place here."
Rhyme scowled. "Useless. Shit. All right, run a sample of that dirt through the chromatograph after the cloth sample's done." He then looked at Garrett's T-shirt, which was lying, spread open, on a table. "What're those stains?"
There were several reddish blotches on the shirt. Ben studied them closely and shrugged, shook his head.
The criminalist's thin lips curved into a wry smile. "You game to taste it?"
Without hesitation Ben lifted the shirt and licked a small portion of the stain.
Rhyme called, "Good man."
Ben lifted an eyebrow. "I assumed that was standard procedure."
"No way in hell would I have done that," Rhyme responded.
"I don't believe that for a minute," Ben said. He licked it again. "Fruit juice, I'd guess. Can't tell what flavor."
"Okay, add that to the list, Thom." Rhyme nodded at the chromatograph. "Let's get the results from the scraps of pants' cloth and then run the dirt from the cuffs."
Soon the machine had told them what trace substances were embedded in Garrett's clothes and what had been found in the dirt in his cuffs: sugar, more camphene, alcohol, kerosene and yeast. The kerosene was in significant amounts. Thom had added these to the list and the men examined the chart.
FOUND AT THE SECONDARY CRIME SCENE-- MILL
Brown Paint on Pants
Sundew Plant
Clay
Peat Moss
Fruit Juice
Paper Fibers
Stinkball Bait
Sugar
Camphene
Alcohol
Kerosene
Yeast
What did all this mean? Rhyme wondered. There were too many clues. He couldn't see any relationships among them. Was the sugar from the fruit juice or from a separate location the boy had been to? Had he bought the kerosene or had he just happened to hide in a gas station or barn where the owner stored it? Alcohol was found in more than three thousand common household and industrial products--from solvents to aftershave. The yeast had undoubtedly been picked up in the gristmill, where grain had been ground into flour.
After a few minutes Lincoln Rhyme's eyes flicked to another chart.
FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE-- GARRETT'S ROOM
The Empty Chair Page 25