The Empty Chair (19 page)

• • •

An animal nearby darted across the path and vanished.

"What was that?" Sachs asked, nodding at it. To her the creature had looked like a cross between a dog and a large alley cat.

"Gray fox," Jesse said. "Don't see 'em too often. But then I don't usually go for walks north of the Paquo."

They moved slowly as they tried to follow the frail indications of Garrett's passage. And all the while they kept their eyes out for more deadfall traps and ambush from the surrounding trees and brush.

Once again Sachs felt the foreboding that had dogged her since they'd driven past the child's funeral that morning. They'd left the pines behind and were in a different type of forest. The trees were what you'd see in a tropical jungle. When she asked about them Lucy told her they were tupelo gum, old-growth bald cypress, cedar. They were bound together with webby moss and clinging vines that absorbed sound like thick fog and accentuated her sense of claustrophobia. There were mushrooms and mold and fungus everywhere and scummy marshes all around them. The aroma in the air was that of decay.

Sachs looked at the trodden ground. She asked Jesse, "We're miles from town. Who makes these paths?"

He shrugged. "Mostly bad pay."

"What's that?" she asked, recalling that Rich Culbeau had used the phrase.

"You know, somebody who doesn't pay his debts. Basically, it just means trash. Moonshiners, kids, swamp people, PCP cookers."

Ned Spoto took a drink of water and said, "We get calls sometimes: there's been a shooting, somebody's screaming, calls for help, mysterious lights flashing signals. Stuff like that. Only by the time we get out here, there's nothing . . . No body, no perp, no complaining witness. Sometimes we find a blood trail but it don't lead anywhere. We make the run – we have to – but nobody in the department ever comes out in these parts alone."

Jesse said, "You feel different out here. You feel that – this sounds funny – but you feel that life's different, cheaper. I'd rather be arresting a couple of armed kids pumped up on angel dust at a mini-mart than come out here on a call. At least there, there're rules. You kinda know what to expect. Out here . . ." He shrugged.

Lucy nodded. "That's true. And normal rules don't apply to
anybody
north of the Paquo. Us
or
them. You can see yourself shooting before you read anybody their rights and that'd be perfectly all right. Hard to explain."

Sachs didn't like the edgy talk. If the other deputies hadn't been so somber and unnerved themselves she would have thought they were putting on a show to scare the city girl.

Finally they stopped at a place where the path branched out into three directions. They walked about fifty feet down each but could find no sign of which one Garrett and Lydia had chosen. They returned to the crossroads.

She heard Rhyme's words echoing in her mind.
Be careful, Sachs, but move fast. I don't think we have much time left.

Move fast . . .

But there was no hint of where they ought to be moving
to
and as Sachs looked down the choked paths it seemed impossible that anyone, even Lincoln Rhyme, could figure out where their prey had gone.

Then her cell phone rang and both Lucy and Jesse Corn looked at her expectantly, hoping, as did Sachs, that Rhyme had come up with a new suggestion about which way to go.

Sachs answered, listened to the criminalist and then nodded. Hung up. She took a breath and looked at the three deputies.

"What?" asked Jesse Corn.

"Lincoln and Jim just heard from the hospital about Ed Schaeffer. Looks like he woke up long enough to say, 'I love my kids,' and then he died . . . They thought he'd said something earlier about 'Olive' Street but it turned out he was just trying to say 'I love.' That's all he said. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, Jesus," Ned muttered.

Lucy lowered her head and Jesse put his arm around her shoulders. "What do we do now?" he asked.

Lucy looked up. Sachs could see tears in her eyes. "We're gonna get that boy, that's what," she said with a grim determination. "We're going to pick the most logical path and keep in that direction till we find him. And we're going to go fast. That all right with you?" she asked Sachs, who had no problem momentarily yielding command to the deputy. "You bet it is."

15

Lydia had seen this look in men's eyes a hundred times.

A need. A desire. A hunger.

Sometimes, a pointless itch. Sometimes, an inept expression of love.

This big girl, with stringy hair, a spotted face in her teens and a pocked face now, believed she had little to offer men. But she knew too that they would, for a few years at least, ask one thing from her and she'd decided long ago that to get by in the world she would have to exploit the little power that she had. And so Lydia Johansson was now on a playing field that was very familiar to her.

They were back in the mill, in the dark office once again. Garrett was standing over her, his scalp glistening with sweat through the patchy crew cut. His erection was obvious through his slacks.

His eyes slid over her chest, where her soaked, translucent uniform had ripped open in her fall down the sluice (or had he done it when he grabbed her on the trail?), her bra strap snapped (or had he torn it?).

Lydia eased away from him, wincing at the pain in her ankle. Pressing against the wall, sitting, legs splayed, as she studied that
look
in the boy's eyes. Feeling a cold, spidery repulsion.

And yet she thought:
Should I let him?

He was young. He'd come instantly and it would be over with. Maybe afterward he'd fall asleep and she could find that knife of his and cut her hands free. Then knock him out and tape
him
up.

But those red bony hands of his, his welty face next to her cheek, his disgusting breath and body stench . . . How could she face it? Lydia closed her eyes momentarily. Uttered a prayer as insubstantial as her Blue Sunset eye shadow.
Yes or no?

But any angels in the vicinity remained silent on this particular decision.

All she'd have to do was smile at him. He'd be inside her in a minute. Or she could take him into her mouth . . . It wouldn't mean anything.

Fuck me fast then let's watch a movie
. . . A joke between her boyfriend and her. She'd greet him at the door, in the red teddy she'd bought mail-order from Sears. She'd throw her arms around his shoulders and whisper those words to him.

You do this
, she thought to herself,
and you might be able to escape.

But I can't!

Garrett's eyes were locked onto her. Coursing over her body. His prick couldn't violate her any more thoroughly than his red eyes were doing right now. Jesus, he wasn't just an insect – he was a mutation out of one of Lydia's horror books, something that Dean Koontz or Stephen King could have made up.

Fingernails clicking.

He was examining her legs now, round and smooth – her best feature, she believed.

Garrett snapped, "Why're you crying? It's your fault you hurt yourself. You shouldn't've run. Let me see it." Nodding toward her swollen ankle.

"It's okay," Lydia said quickly but then, almost involuntarily, she held her foot out to him.

"Some assholes at school pushed me down the hill behind the Mobil station last year," he said. "Sprained my ankle. Looked like that. Hurt like a bitch."

Get it over with
, she told herself.
You'll be that much closer to home.

Fuck me fast . . .

No!

But she didn't pull away when Garrett sat down in front of her. He took her leg. His long fingers – God, they were huge – were gripping her around the calf, then around the ankle. He was trembling. Looking at the holes in her white pantyhose, where her pink flesh ballooned out. He studied her foot.

"It's not cut. But it's all black. What's that all about?"

"Might be broken."

He didn't respond, didn't seem sympathetic. It was as if her pain was meaningless to him. As if he couldn't understand that a human being might be suffering. His concern was just an excuse to touch her.

She extended her leg farther, her muscles quivering from the effort of elevating the limb. Her foot touched Garrett's body near his groin.

His eyelids lowered. His breathing was fast.

Lydia swallowed.

He moved her foot. It brushed against his penis through the wet cloth. He was hard as the wooden paddle of the waterwheel that she'd smacked trying to escape.

Garrett slid his hand farther up her leg. She felt his nails snag her pantyhose.

No . . .

Yes . . .

Then he froze.

His head tilted back and his nostrils flared. He inhaled deeply. Twice.

Lydia sniffed the air too. A sour smell. It took a moment before she recognized it. Ammonia.

"Shit," he whispered, eyes wide with horror. "How'd they get here this fast?"

"What?" she asked.

He leapt up. "The trap! They've tripped it! They'll be here in ten minutes! How the fuck d'they get here so fast?" He leaned into her face and she'd never seen so much anger and hatred in anyone's eyes. "You leave anything on the trail? Send 'em a message?"

She cringed, sure he was about to kill her. He seemed completely out of control. "No! I swear! I promise."

Garrett started toward her. Lydia shrank back but he walked past her quickly. He was frantic, ripping the material as he pulled his shirt and slacks off, his underwear, socks. She stared at his lean body, the substantial erection only slightly diminished. Naked, he ran to the corner of the room. There were some other clothes, folded, resting on the floor. He put these on. Shoes too.

Lydia lifted her head and looked out the window, through which the smell of the chemical was strong. So his trap hadn't been a bomb – he'd used the ammonia as a weapon itself; it had rained down on the search party, burning and blinding them.

Garrett continued, speaking almost in a whisper, "I have to get to Mary Beth."

"I can't walk," Lydia said, sobbing. "What are you going to do with me?"

He pulled the folding knife from the pocket of his pants. Opened it up with a loud click. Turned toward her.

"No, no, please . . ."

"You're hurt. Like, there's no way you can keep up with me."

Lydia stared at the blade. It was stained and nicked. Her breath came in short gasps.

Garrett walked closer. Lydia started to cry.

• • •

How had they gotten here so fast? Garrett Hanlon wondered again, jogging from the front door of the mill to the stream, the panic he felt so often prickling his heart the way the poison oak hurt his skin.

His enemies had covered the ground from Blackwater Landing to the mill in just a few hours. He was astonished; he'd thought it would take them at least a day, probably two, to find his trail. The boy looked toward the path leading from the quarry. No sign of them. He turned in the opposite direction and started slowly down another trail – this one led away from the quarry, downstream from the mill.

Clicking his nails, asking himself:
How, how, how?

Relax
, he told himself. There was plenty of time. After the ammonia bottle crashed down on the rocks the police would be moving slow as dung beetles on balls of shit, worried about other traps. In a few minutes he'd be in the bogs and they'd never be able to follow him. Even with dogs. He'd be with Mary Beth in eight hours. He –

Then Garrett stopped.

On the side of the path was a plastic water bottle, empty. It looked as if somebody had just dropped it. He sniffed the air, picked up the bottle, smelled the inside. Ammonia!

An image snapped into his mind: a fly stuck in a spider's web. He thought:
Shit! They tricked me!

A woman's voice barked, "Hold it right there, Garrett." A pretty redheaded woman in jeans and a black T-shirt stepped out of the bushes. She was holding a pistol and pointing it directly at his chest. Her eyes went to the knife in his hand then back to his face.

"He's over here," the woman shouted. "I've got him."

Then her voice dropped and she looked into Garrett's eyes. "Do what I say and you won't get hurt. I want you to toss the knife away and lie down on the ground, face-first."

• • •

But the boy didn't lie down.

He merely stood still, slouching awkwardly, fingernail and thumbnail of his left hand clicking compulsively. He looked utterly scared and desperate.

Amelia Sachs glanced again at the stained knife, held firmly in his hand. She kept the sight of the Smith & Wesson on Garrett's chest.

Her eyes stung from the ammonia and the sweat. She wiped her face with her sleeve."Garrett . . ." Speaking calmly. "Lie down. Nobody's going to hurt you if you do what we say."

She heard distant shouting. "I got Lydia," Ned Spoto called. "She's okay. Mary Beth's not here."

Lucy's voice was calling, "Where, Amelia?"

"On the path to the stream," Sachs shouted. "Throw the knife over there, Garrett. On the ground. Then lie down."

He stared at her cautiously. Red blotches on his skin, eyes wet.

"Come on, Garrett. There're four of us here. There's no way out."

"How?" he asked. "How'd you find me?" His voice was childlike, younger than most sixteen-year-olds'.

She didn't share with him that how they'd found the ammonia trap and the mill had been Lincoln Rhyme, of course. Just as they'd started down the center path at the crossroads in the woods the criminalist had called her. He'd said, "One of the feed-and-grain clerks Jim Bell talked to said that you don't see corn used as feed around here. He said it probably came from a gristmill and Jim knew about an abandoned one that'd burned last year. That'd explain the scorch marks."

Bell got on the phone and told the search party how to get to the mill. Then Rhyme had come back on and added, "I've got a thought about the ammonia too."