The Empty Chair

by Jeffery Deaver

  Garrett's eyes strayed to the window, where bugs thumped suicidally against the rusty screen.

  "What was your father's name?" Sachs asked.

  "Stuart. Stu."

  "What did you call him?"

  "'Dad' mostly. 'Sir' sometimes." Garrett smiled sadly. "If I'd done something wrong and thought I better be, like, on good behavior."

  "You two got along?"

  "Better'n most of my friends and their dads. They got whipped some and their dads were always yelling at them. You know: 'Why'd you miss that goal?' 'Why's your room so messy?' 'Why didn't you get your homework done?' But Dad was okay to me. Until ..." His voice bled out.

  "Go on."

  "I don't know." Another shrug.

  Sachs persisted. "Until what, Garrett?"

  Silence.

  "Say it."

  "I don't want to tell you. It's stupid."

  "Well, don't tell me. Tell him, your dad." She nodded toward the chair. "There's your father right there in front of you. Imagine it." The boy edged forward, staring at the chair, almost fearfully. "There's Stu Hanlon sitting there. Talk to him."

  For an instant there was such a look of longing in the boy's eyes that Sachs wanted to cry. She knew they were close to something important and she was afraid he'd balk. "Tell me about him," she said, changing tack slightly. "Tell me what he looked like. What he wore."

  After a pause the boy said, "He was tall and pretty thin. He had dark hair and it stuck up right after he'd get his hair cut. He had to put this stuff on that smelled good to keep it down for a couple days afterward. He always wore pretty nice clothes. He didn't even have a pair of jeans, I don't think. He always wore shirts with, you know, collars on them. And pants with cuffs." Sachs recalled noting when she searched his room that he had no jeans, only cuffed slacks. A faint smile bloomed on Garrett's face. "He used to drop a quarter down the side of his pants and try and catch it in his cuff and if he did then my sister or me could have it. It was, like, this game we played. On Christmas he'd bring home silver dollars for us and he'd keep sliding them down his pants until we got them."

  The silver dollars in the wasp jar, Sachs recalled.

  "Did he have any hobbies? Sports?"

  "He liked to read. He'd take us to bookstores a lot and he read to us. A lot of history and travel books. And stuff about nature. Oh, and he fished. Almost every weekend."

  "Well, imagine that he's sitting there in the empty chair and he's wearing his nice slacks and a shirt with a collar. And he's reading a book. Okay?"

  "I guess."

  "He puts the book down--"

  "No, first he'd, like, mark the place he was reading. He had a ton of bookmarks. He sort of collected them. My sister and me got him one the Christmas before the accident."

  "Okay, he marks his place and puts the book down. He's looking at you. Now you've got a chance to say something to him. What would you say?"

  He shrugged, shook his head. Looked around the dim trailer nervously.

  But Sachs wasn't going to let it go.

  Knuckle time ...

  She said, "Let's think about a specific thing you'd like to talk to him about. An incident. Something you're unhappy about. Was there anything like that?"

  But Dad was okay to me. Until...

  The boy was gripping his hands, rubbing them together, clicking his nails.

  "Tell him, Garrett."

  "Okay, I guess there was something."

  "What?"

  "Well, that night... the night they died."

  Sachs felt a faint shudder. Knew they were probably going very hard places with this. She thought for a moment about pulling back. But it wasn't in Amelia Sachs's nature to pull back and she didn't now. "What about that night? You want to talk to your father about something that happened?"

  He nodded. "See, they were in the car going to dinner. It was Wednesday. Every Wednesday we went to Bennigan's. I liked the chicken fingers. I'd have the chicken fingers and fries and a Coke. And Kaye, my sister'd get onion rings and we'd split the fries and the rings and sometimes we drew pictures on an empty plate with the squeeze bottle of ketchup."

  His face was pale and drawn. There was so much sorrow in his eyes, Sachs thought. She fought down her own emotions. "What do you remember about that night?"

  "It was outside the house. In the driveway. They were in the car, Dad and Mom and my sister. They were going to dinner. And"--he swallowed--"what it was they were going to leave without me."

  "They were?"

  He nodded. "I was late. I'd been in the woods in Blackwater Landing. And I'd kinda lost track of time. I ran, like, a half mile or something. But my father wouldn't let me in. He must've been mad because I was late. I wanted to get in so bad. It was really cold. I remember I was shivering and they were shivering. I remember there was frost on the windows. But they wouldn't let me in."

  "Maybe your father didn't see you. Because of the frost."

  "No, he saw me. I was right beside his side of the car. I was banging on the window and he saw me but he didn't open the door. He just kept frowning and shouting at me. And I kept thinking, He's mad at me and I'm cold and I'm not going to get my chicken fingers and French fries. I'm not going to have dinner with my family." Tears ran down his cheeks.

  Sachs wanted to put her arm around the boy's shoulders but she remained where she was. "Go on." Nodding toward the chair. "Talk to your father. What do you want to say to him?"

  He looked at her but she pointed toward the chair. Finally Garrett turned to it. "It's so cold!" he said, gasping. "It's cold and I want to get in the car. Why won't he let me in the car?"

  "No, tell him. Imagine he's there."

  Sachs was thinking: This is the same way Rhyme urged her to imagine herself as the perp at crime scenes. It was utterly harrowing and she now felt the boy's fear all too clearly. Still, she didn't let up. "Tell him--tell your father."

  Garrett looked at the old chair uneasily. He leaned forward. "I..."

  Sachs whispered, "Go ahead, Garrett. It's okay. I won't let anything happen to you. Tell him."

  "I just wanted to go to Bennigan's with you!" he said, sobbing. "That's all. Like, just to have dinner, all of us. I just wanted to go with you. Why wouldn't you let me in the car? You saw me coming and you locked the door. I wasn't that late!" Then Garrett grew angry. "You locked me out! You were mad at me and it wasn't fair. What I did, being late ... it wasn't that bad. I must've done something else to make you mad. What? Why didn't you want me to go with you? Tell me what I did." His voice was choked. "Come back and tell me. Come back! I want to know! What did I do? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"

  Sobbing, he jumped up and kicked the empty chair hard. It sailed across the room and fell on its side. He grabbed the chair and, screaming in fury, smashed it into the floor of the trailer. Sachs pushed back, blinking in shock at the anger she'd unleashed. He slammed the chair down a dozen times until it was nothing but a shattered mass of wood and rattan. Finally Garrett collapsed on the floor, hugging himself. Sachs rose and put her arms around him as he sobbed and shook.

  After five minutes the crying ended. He stood up, wiped his face on his sleeve.

  "Garrett," she began in a whisper.

  But he shook his head. "I'm going outside," he said. Then rose and pushed out the door.

  She sat for a moment, wondering what to do. Sachs was utterly exhausted but she didn't lie down on the mat he'd left for her and try to sleep. She shut the lantern off and pulled the cloth off the window then sat in the musty armchair. She leaned forward, smelling the pungent aroma of the citronella plant, and watched the hunched-over silhouette of the boy, sitting outside on an oak stump and gazing intently at the moving constellations of lightning bugs that filled the forest around him.

  ... chapter thirty-two

  Lincoln Rhyme muttered, "I don't believe it."

  He'd just spoken with a furious Lucy Kerr and had learned that Sachs had taken several shots at a deputy under the Hobeth Bridge.


  "I don't believe it," he repeated in a whisper to Thom.

  The aide was a master of dealing with broken bodies and spirits broken because of broken bodies. But this was a different matter, far worse, and the best he could do was offer, "It's a mix-up. It has to be. Amelia wouldn't do that."

  "She wouldn't," Rhyme muttered. This time offering the denial to Ben. "There's no way. Not even to scare them off." He told himself that she'd never shoot at a fellow officer, even just to scare them. Yet he was also thinking about what desperate people did. The crazy risks they took. (Oh, Sachs, why do you have to be so impulsive and stubborn? Why do you have to be so much like me?)

  Bell was in the office across the hall. Rhyme could hear him as he spoke endearments over the phone. He supposed that the sheriff's wife and family weren't used to late night absences; law enforcement in a town like Tanner's Corner probably didn't require as many hours as the Garrett Hanlon case had taken.

  Ben Kerr sat beside one of the microscopes, his huge arms crossed over his chest. He was gazing at the map. Unlike the sheriff he hadn't made any calls home and Rhyme wondered if he had a wife or girlfriend or if the shy man's life was wholly consumed with science and the mysteries of the ocean.

  The sheriff hung up. He walked back into the lab. "You have any more ideas, Lincoln?"

  Rhyme nodded at the evidence 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

  He reiterated what they knew about the house where Mary Beth was being kept. "There's a Carolina bay on the way to or near the place. Half the marked passages in his insect books are about camouflage and the brown paint on his pants's the color of tree bark so the place is probably in or next to a forest. The camphene lamps are from the 1800s so the place is old, probably Victorian era. But the rest of the trace isn't much help. The yeast would be from the mill. The paper fibers could be from anywhere. The fruit juice and sugar? From food or drinks Garrett had with him. I just can't--"

  The phone rang.

  Rhyme's left ring finger twitched on the ECU and he answered the call.

  "Hello?" he said into the speakerphone.

  "Lincoln."

  He recognized the soft, exhausted voice of Mel Cooper.

  "What do you have, Mel? I need some good news."

  "I hope it's good. That key you found? We've been looking through sourcebooks and databases all night. Finally tracked it down."

  "What is it?"

  "It's to a trailer made by the McPherson Deluxe Mobile Home Company. The trailers were manufactured from 1946 through the early '70s. Company's out of business but according to the guide, the serial number on the key you've got fits a trailer that was made in '69."

  "Any description?"

  "No pictures in the guide."

  "Hell. Tell me, does one live in these things in a trailer park? Or drive 'em around like a Winnebago?"

  "Live in them, I'd guess. They measure eight by twenty. Not the sort of thing you'd cruise around in. Anyway, they're not motorized. You have to tow it."

  "Thanks, Mel. Get some sleep."

  Rhyme shut the phone off. "What do you think, Jim? Any trailer parks around here?"

  The sheriff seemed doubtful. "There're a couple along Route 17 and 158. But they aren't even close to where Garrett and Amelia were headed. And they're crowded. Hard to hide out in a place like that. Should I send somebody to check them out?"

  "How far?"

  "Seventy, eighty miles."

  "No. Garrett probably found a trailer abandoned someplace in the woods and took it over." Rhyme glanced at the map. Thinking: And it's parked somewhere in a hundred square miles of wilderness.

  Wondering too: Had the boy gotten out of the handcuffs? Did he have Sachs's gun? Was she falling asleep just now, her guard down, Garrett waiting for the moment when she slipped into unconsciousness. He'd rise, crawl closer to her with a rock or a hornets' nest....

  The anxiety racing through him, he stretched his head back, heard a bone pop. He froze, worried about the excruciating contractures that occasionally racked the muscles that were still connected to extant nerves. It seemed completely unfair that the same trauma that made most of your body numb also subjected the sensate part to agonizing tremors.

  There was no pain this time but Thom noticed the alarm on his boss's face.

  The aide said, "Lincoln, that's it ... I'm taking your blood pressure and you're going to bed. No argument."

  "All right, Thom, all right. Only we have to make one phone call first."

  "Look at what time it is... Who's awake now?"

  "It's not a matter of who's awake now," Rhyme said wearily. "It's a matter of who's about to be awake."

  Midnight, in the swamp.

  The sounds of insects. The fast shadows of bats. An owl or two. The icy light of the moon.

  Lucy and the other deputies hiked four miles over to Route 30, where a camper awaited. Bell had pulled strings and "requisitioned" the vehicle from Fred Fisher Winnebagos. Steve Farr had driven it over here to meet the search party and give them a place to stay for the night.

  They stepped inside the cramped quarters. Jesse, Trey and Ned hungrily ate the roast beef sandwiches that Farr had brought. Lucy drank a bottle of water, passed on the food. Farr and Bell--bless their hearts--had also dug up clean uniforms for the searchers.

  She called in and told Jim Bell that they'd tracked the pair to an A-frame vacation house, which had been broken into. "Looked like they'd been watching TV, you can believe that."

  But it had been too dark to follow the trail and they'd decided to wait until dawn to resume the search.

  Lucy picked up the clean clothes and stepped inside the bathroom. In the tiny shower stall she let the weak stream of water course over her body. Her hands started with her hair and face and neck and then, as always, tentatively washed her flat chest, feeling the ridges of scar, then grew more certain as they moved to her belly and thighs.

  She wondered again why she had such an aversion to silicone or the reconstructive surgery that, the doctor explained, took fat from her thighs or butt and remade the breasts. Even nipples could be reconstructed--or tattooed on.

  Because, she told herself, it was fake. Because it wasn't real.

  And, so, why bother?

  But then, Lucy thought, look at that Lincoln Rhyme. He was only a partial man. His legs and arms were fake-- a wheelchair and an aide. But thinking about him reminded her of Amelia Sachs and anger seared her again. She pushed those thoughts aside, dried herself and pulled on a T-shirt, thinking absently about the drawer of bras in the dresser in the guest room of her house--and recalled that she'd been meaning to throw them out for two years. But, for some reason, never had. Then she put on her uniform blouse and slacks. She stepped out of the bathroom. Jesse was hanging up the phone.

  "Anything?"

  "No," he said. "They're still working on the evidence, Jim and Mr. Rhyme."

  Lucy shook her head at the food Jesse offered her then sat down at the table, pulled her service revolver out of its holster. "Steve?" she asked Farr.

  The crew-cut young man looked up from the newspaper he was reading, lifted an eyebrow.

  "You bring what I asked for?"

  "Oh, yeah." He dug in the glove compartment and handed her a yellow-and-green box of Remington bullets. She ejected the round-point cartridges from her pistol and Speedloaders and replaced them with the new bullets--hollow points, which have more stopping power and cause much more damage to soft tissue when they hit a human being.

  Jesse Corn watched her closely but it was a moment before he spoke, as she knew he'd do. "Amelia's not dangerous," he said, in a low voice, the words meant for her only.

/>   Lucy set the gun down and looked into his eyes. "Jesse, everybody said Mary Beth was at the ocean but turns out she's in the opposite direction. Everybody said Garrett was just a stupid kid but he's smart as a snake and's conned us a half-dozen times. We don't know anything anymore. Maybe Garrett's got a store of weapons someplace and has some plan or another to take us out when we walk into his trap."

  "But Amelia's with him. She wouldn't let that happen."

  "Amelia's a damn traitor and we can't trust her an inch. Listen, Jesse, I saw that look on your face when you saw she wasn't under the boat. You were relieved. I know you think you like her and you're hoping she likes you.... No, no, let me finish. But she busted a killer outa jail. And if you'd been the one out there in the river instead of Ned, Amelia'd have shot at you just as fast."

  He began to protest but the chill look in her eyes kept him quiet.

  "It's easy to get infatuated with somebody like that," Lucy continued. "She's pretty and she's from someplace else, someplace exotic.... But she doesn't understand life down here. And she doesn't understand Garrett. You know him--that's one sick boy and it's just a fluke that he's not doing life right now."

  "I know Garrett's dangerous. I'm not arguing there. It's Amelia I'm thinking of."

  "Well, it's us that I'm thinking of and everybody else in Blackwater Landing that boy could be planning on killing tomorrow or next week or next year if he gets away from us. Which he might just do, thanks to her. Now, I need to know if I can count on you. If not, you can go on home and we'll have Jim send somebody else in your place."

  Jesse glanced at the box of shells. Then back to her. "You can, Lucy. You can count on me."

  "Good. You better mean that. 'Cause at first light I'm tracking them down and bringing 'em both back. I hope alive but, I tell you, that's become optional."

  Mary Beth McConnell sat alone in the cabin, exhausted but afraid to sleep.

  Hearing noises everywhere.

  She'd given up on the couch. She was afraid that if she remained there she'd stretch out and fall asleep then wake to find the Missionary and Tom gazing at her through the window, about to break in. So she was perched at a dining room chair, which was about as comfortable as brick.