The Empty Chair (24 page)

He turned his damp, ruddy eyes back to Sachs.

Stop it! I can't take that look!
she thought, glancing away.

"And Todd Wilkes? The boy who hung himself? Did you threaten him?"

"No!"

"His brother saw you shouting at him last week."

"He was dropping lit matches on anthills. That's shitty and mean and I told him to stop it."

"What about Lydia?" Bell said. "Why'd you kidnap
her?
"

"I was worried about her too."

"Because she was in Blackwater Landing?"

"Right."

"You were going to rape her, weren't you?"

"No!" Garrett started to cry. "I wasn't going to hurt her. Or anybody! And I didn't kill Billy! Everybody's trying to get me to say I did something that I didn't!"

Bell dug up a Kleenex and handed it to the boy.The door swung open fast and Mason Germain walked in. He'd probably been the one watching through the one-way mirror and from the look on his face it was clear he'd lost patience. Sachs smelled his raw cologne; she'd come to detest the cloying scent.

"Mason –" Bell began.

"Listen to me, boy, you tell us where that girl is and you tell us now! 'Cause if you don't you're going to Lancaster and you're going to stay there till they put your ass on trial . . . You heard about Lancaster, haven't you? Case you haven't, let me tell –"

"All right, that's enough," a high-pitched voice commanded.

A bantam strode into the room – a man even shorter than Mason, with razor-trimmed hair perfectly sprayed into place. A gray suit, all buttons snug, a baby-blue shirt and striped tie. He wore shoes with three-inch heels.

"Don't say another word," he said to Garrett.

"Hello, Cal," Bell said, not pleased the visitor was here. The sheriff introduced Sachs to Calvin Fredericks, Garrett's lawyer.

"What the hell're you doing interrogating my client without me being here?" He nodded at Mason. "And what the hell was that Lancaster stuff about? I should have
you
put away for talking to him like that."

"He knows where the girl is, Cal," Mason muttered. "He's not telling us. He had his rights read to him. He –"

"A sixteen-year-old boy? Well, I'm inclined to get this case thrown out right now and get on to an early supper." He turned to Garrett. "Hey, young man, how you doing?"

"My face itches."

"They Mace you?"

"Nosir, just happens."

"We'll get it taken care of. Get some cream or something. Now, I'm going to be your lawyer. The state appointed me. You don't have to pay. They read you your rights? Told you you didn't have to say anything?"

"Yessir. But Sheriff Bell wanted to ask me some questions."

He said to Bell, "Oh, this's cute, Jim. What
were
you thinking of? Four deputies in here?"

Mason said, "We were thinking of Mary Beth McConnell. Who he kidnapped."

"Allegedly."

"And raped," Mason muttered.

"I didn't!" Garrett shouted.

"We got a bloody tissue with his come all over it," Mason snapped.

"No, no!" the boy said, his face growing alarmingly red. "Mary Beth hurt herself. That's what happened. She hit her head and I, like, wiped off the blood with a Kleenex I had in my pocket. And about the other . . . sometimes I just, you know, touch myself . . . I know I shouldn't. I know it's wrong. But I can't help it."

"Shhhh, Garrett," Fredericks said, "you don't have to explain a single thing to anybody." To Bell he said, "Now, this interrogation is over with. Take him back to the cell."

As Jesse Corn was leading him out the door Garrett stopped suddenly and turned to Sachs. "Please, you have to do something for me. Please! My room at home – it's got some jars."

"Go on, Jesse," Bell commanded. "Take him out."

But Sachs found herself saying, "Wait." To Garrett: "The jars? With your insects?"

The boy nodded. "Will you put water in them? Or at least let them go – outside – so they have a chance. Mr. and Mrs. Babbage, they won't do anything to keep them alive. Please . . ."

She hesitated, sensing everyone's eyes upon her. Then nodded. "I'll do it. I promise."

Garrett gave her a faint smile.

Bell looked at Sachs with a cryptic gaze then nodded toward the door and Jesse led the boy out.

The lawyer started after him but Bell stuck a finger in his chest. "You're not going anywhere, Cal. We're sitting here till McGuire shows up."

"Don't touch me, Bell," he muttered. But he sat as ordered. "Jesus Lord, what's all this folderol here, you talking to a sixteen-year-old without –"

"Shut the hell up, Cal. I wasn't fishing for a confession, which he didn't give us and I wouldn't use if he did. We got more evidence than we need to put him away forever. All I care about is finding Mary Beth. She's on the Outer Banks somewhere and that's a hell of a big haystack to find somebody in without some help."

"No way. He's not saying another word."

"She could die of thirst, Cal, she could starve to death. Heatstroke, get sick . . ."

When the lawyer gave no response, the sheriff said, "Cal, that boy's a menace. He's got a slew of incident reports against him –"

"Which my secretary read to me on the way over here. Hell, they're mostly for truancy. Oh, and for peeping – when he, funnily enough, wasn't even on the property of the complaining party, just hanging out on the sidewalk."

"The hornets' nest a few years ago," Mason said angrily. "Meg Blanchard."

"You released him," the lawyer pointed out happily. "Not even indicted."

Bell said, "This one's different, Cal. We got eyewitnesses, we got hard evidence and now Ed Schaeffer's dead. We can do to this boy pretty much what we feel like."

A slim man in a wrinkled blue seersucker suit walked into the interrogation room. Thinning gray hair, a lined fifty-five-year-old face. He glanced at Amelia with a vacant nod and at Fredericks with a darker expression. "I heard enough of that to make me think this's one of the easiest cases of murder one, kidnapping and sexual assault I've had in years."

Bell introduced Sachs to Bryan McGuire, the Paquenoke County prosecutor.

"He's sixteen," Fredericks said.

In an unflappable voice the D.A. said, "Isn't a venue in this state wouldn't try him as an adult and put him away for two hundred years."

"So, giddyap, McGuire," Fredericks said impatiently. "You're fishing for a bargain. I know that tone."

McGuire nodded to Bell and Sachs deduced that a conversation between the sheriff and the district attorney had occurred earlier about this very subject.

"Of
course
we're bargaining," Bell continued. "There's a good chance that girl's alive and we want to find her 'fore she's
not
alive anymore."

McGuire said, "We got so many charges on this one, Cal, you'd be amazed at how flexible we can be."

"Amaze me," the cocky defense lawyer said.

"I could go with two counts unlawful detention and assault and two counts first-degree manslaughter – one for Billy Stail, one for the deputy who died. Yessir, I'm willing to do that. All conditioned on finding the girl alive."

"Ed Schaeffer," the lawyer countered. "That was accidental."

Mason raged, "It was a fucking trap the boy set."

"I'll give you first manslaughter for Billy," McGuire offered, "and negligent homicide for the deputy."

Fredericks chewed on this for a moment. "Lemme see what I can do." His heels tapping noisily, the lawyer vanished in the direction of the cells to consult with his client. He returned five minutes later and he wasn't happy.

"Whatsa story?" Bell asked, discouraged as he read the lawyer's expression.

"No luck."

"Stonewalling?"

"Completely."

Bell muttered, "If you know something and you're not telling us, Cal, I don't give a shit about attorney-client privilege –"

"No, no, Jim, for real. He says he's protecting the girl. He says she's happy where she is and you oughta go looking for this guy in tan overalls and a white shirt."

Bell said, "He doesn't even have a good description and if he gave us one it'd change tomorrow because he's making it up."

McGuire slicked back his already-slicked-back hair. The defense used Aqua Net, Sachs could smell. The prosecution, Brylcreem. "Listen, Cal, this's your problem. I'm offering you what I'm offering. You get us the girl's whereabouts and she's alive, I'll go with reduced counts. You don't, I'll take it to trial and go for the moon. That boy'll never see the outside of a prison again. We both know it."

Silence for a moment.

Fredericks said, "I've got a thought."

"Uh-huh," McGuire said skeptically.

"No, listen . . . I had a case in Albemarle a spell back, a woman claimed her boy'd run away from home. But it seemed fishy."

"The
Williams
case?" McGuire asked. "That black woman?"

"That was it."

"I heard of that one. You represented her?" Bell asked.

"Right. She was giving us pretty odd stories and had a history of mental problems. I hired this psychologist over in Avery, hoping he could give me an insanity opinion. He ran some tests on her. During one of 'em she opened up and told us what had happened."

"Hypnosis – that recovered-memory crap?" McGuire asked.

"No, it's something else. He called it empty chair therapy. I don't exactly know how it works but it really started her talking. Like all she needed was a little push. Let me give this guy a call and have him come over and talk to Garrett. The boy might see reason . . . But" – now the defense got to poke a finger in Bell's chest – "everything they talk about's privileged and you don't get diddly unless the guardian
ad litem
and I say so first."

Bell caught McGuire's eye and nodded. The D.A. said, "Call him."

"Okay." Fredericks stepped toward the phone in the corner of the interrogation room.

Sachs said, "Excuse me?"

The lawyer turned to her.

"That case the psychologist helped you with? The
Williams
case?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened with her child? Did he run away?"

"Naw, the mother killed him. Baled him up in chicken wire and a cinder block and drowned him in a pond behind the house. Hey, Jim, how do I get an outside line?"

• • •

The scream was so loud that it stung her dry throat like fire and for all Mary Beth knew permanently damaged her vocal cords.

The Missionary, walking by the edge of the woods, paused. His backpack was over one shoulder, a tank like a weed sprayer in his hand. He glanced around himself.

Please, please, please
, Mary Beth was thinking. Ignoring the pain, she tried again. "Over here! Help me!"

He looked at the cabin. Started to walk away.

She took a deep breath, thought of Garrett Hanlon's clicking fingernails, his wet eyes and hard erection, thought of her father's brave death, of Virginia Dare . . . And she gave the loudest scream she ever had.

This time the Missionary stopped, looked toward the cabin again. He pulled off his hat, left the rucksack and tank on the ground and started running toward her.

Thank you . . .
She started to sob.
Oh, thank you!

He was thin and well-tanned. In his fifties but in good shape. Clearly an outdoorsman.

"What's wrong?" he called, gasping, when he was fifty feet away, slowing to a trot. "Are you all right?"

"Please!" she rasped. The pain in her throat was overwhelming. She spit more blood.

He walked cautiously up to the broken window, looking at the shards of glass on the ground.

"You need some help?"

"I can't get out. Somebody's kidnapped me –"

"Kidnapped?"

Mary Beth wiped her face, which was wet with tears of relief and sweat. "A high school kid from Tanner's Corner."

"Wait . . . I heard about that. Was on the news.
You're
the one he kidnapped?"

"That's right."

"Where is he now?"

She tried to speak but her throat hurt too much. She breathed deeply and finally responded, "I don't know. He left last night. Please . . . do you have any water?"

"A canteen, with my gear. I'll get it."

"And call the police. You have a phone?"

"Not with me." He shook his head and grimaced. "I'm doing contract work for the county." He nodded toward the backpack and tank. "We're killing marijuana, you know, that kids plant out here. The county gives us those cell phones but I never bother with mine. You hurt bad?" He studied her head, the crusted blood.

"It's okay. But . . . water. I need water."

He trotted back to the woods and for a terrible moment she was afraid he'd keep going. But he picked up an olive drab canteen and ran back. She took it with trembling hands and forced herself to drink slowly. The water was hot and musty but she'd never had as wonderful a drink as this.

"I'm going to try and get you out," the man said. He walked to the front door. A moment later she heard a faint thud as he either kicked the door or tried to break it with his shoulder. Another. Two more. He picked up a rock and slammed it into the wood. It had no effect. He returned to the window. "It's not budging." He wiped sweat from his forehead as he examined the bars on the windows. "Man, he built himself a prison here. Hacksaw'd take hours. Okay, I'll go for help. What's your name?"

"Mary Beth McConnell."

"I'm going to call the police then come back and get you out."

"Please, don't be long."

"I got a friend isn't too far away. I'll call nine-one-one from his place and we'll come back. That boy . . . does he have a gun?"

"I don't know. I didn't see one. But I don't know."

"You sit tight, Mary Beth. You're gonna be okay. I don't run as a rule but I'll do some running today." He turned and started through the field.

"Mister . . . thank you."

But he didn't acknowledge her gratitude. He sprinted through the sedge and tall grass and disappeared in the woods, not even pausing to collect his gear. Mary Beth remained standing in front of the window, cradling the canteen as if it were a newborn baby.