The Empty Chair (4 page)

Clicking his nails, scratching his cheek . . .

Little by little the marshes grew more tangled and the water darker and deeper. She supposed they were headed toward the Great Dismal Swamp though she couldn't imagine why. Just when it seemed they could go no farther because of the choked bogs, Garrett steered them into a large pine forest, which, to Lydia's relief, was far cooler than the exposed swampland.

He found another path. He led her along it until they came to a steep hill. A series of rocks led to the top.

"I can't climb that," she said, struggling to sound defiant. "Not with my hands taped. I'll slip."

"Bullshit," he muttered angrily, as if she were an idiot. "You got those nurse shoes on. They'll hold you fine. Look at me. I'm, like, barefoot and I can climb it. Lookit my feet, look!" He held up the bottoms. They were callused and yellow. "Now get your ass up there. Only, when you get to the top don't go any farther. You hear me? Hey, you listening?" Another hiss; a fleck of spittle touched her cheek and seemed to burn her skin like battery acid.

God, I hate you
, she thought.

Lydia started to climb. She paused halfway, looked back. Garrett was watching her closely, snapping his fingernails. Staring at her legs, encased in white stockings, his tongue teasing his front teeth. Then looking up higher, under her skirt.

Lydia continued to climb. Heard his hissing breath as he started up behind her.

At the top of the hill was a clearing and from it a single path led into a thick grove of pine trees. She started along the path, into the shade.

"Hey!" Garrett shouted. "Didn't you hear me? I told you not to move!"

"I'm not trying to get away!" she cried. "It's hot. I'm trying to get out of the sun."

He pointed to the ground, twenty feet away. There was a thick blanket of pine boughs in the middle of the path. "You could've fallen in," his voice rasped. "You could've ruined it."

Lydia looked closely. The pine needles covered a wide pit.

"What's under there?"

"It's a deadfall trap."

"What's inside?"

"You know – a surprise for anybody coming after us." He said this proudly, smirking, as if he'd been very clever to think of it.

"But
anybody
could fall in there!"

"Shit," he muttered. "This is north of the Paquo. Only ones who'd come this way'd be the people after us. And they deserve whatever happens to them. Let's get going." Hissing again. He took her by the wrist and led her around the pit.

"You don't have to hold me so hard!" she protested.

Garrett glanced at her then relaxed his grip somewhat – though his gentler touch proved to be a lot more troubling; he took to stroking her wrist with his middle finger, which reminded her of a fat blood tick looking for a spot to burrow into her skin.

4

The Rollx van passed a cemetery, Tanner's Corner Memorial Gardens. A funeral was in progress and Rhyme, Sachs and Thom glanced at the somber procession.

"Look at the casket," Sachs said.

It was small, a child's. The mourners, all adults, were few. Twenty or so people. Rhyme wondered why attendance was so sparse. His eyes rose above the ceremony and examined the graveyard's rolling hills and, beyond, the miles of hazy forest and marshland that vanished in the blue distance. He said, "That's not a bad cemetery. Wouldn't mind being buried in a place like that."

Sachs, who'd been gazing at the funeral with a troubled expression, shifted cool eyes toward him – apparently because with surgery on the agenda she didn't like any talk about mortality.

Then Thom eased the van around a sharp curve and, following Jim Bell's Paquenoke County Sheriff's Department cruiser, accelerated down a straightaway; the cemetery disappeared behind them.

As Bell had promised, Tanner's Corner was twenty miles from the medical center at Avery. The WELCOME TO sign assured visitors that the town was the home of 3,018 souls, which may have been true but only a tiny percentage of them were evident along Main Street on this hot August morning. The dusty place seemed to be a ghost town. One elderly couple sat on a bench, looking out over the empty street. Rhyme spotted two men who must've been the resident drunks – sickly-looking and skinny. One sat on the curb, his scabby head in his hands, probably working off a hangover. The other sat against a tree, staring at the glossy van with sunken eyes that even from the distance seemed jaundiced. A scrawny woman lazily washed the drugstore window. Rhyme saw no one else.

"Peaceful," Thom observed.

"That's one way to put it," said Sachs, who obviously shared Rhyme's sense of unease at the emptiness.

Main Street was a tired stretch of old buildings and two small strip malls. Rhyme noticed one supermarket, two drugstores, two bars, one diner, a women's clothing boutique, an insurance company and a combination video shop/candy store/nail salon. The A-OK Car Dealership was sandwiched between a bank and a marine supplies operation. Everybody sold bait. One billboard was for McDonald's, seven miles away along Route 17. Another showed a sun-bleached painting of the
Monitor
and
Merrimack
Civil War ships. "Visit the Ironclad Museum." You had to drive twenty-two miles to see that attraction.

As Rhyme took in all these details of small-town life he realized with dismay how out of his depth as a criminalist he was here. He could successfully analyze evidence in New York because he'd lived there for so many years – had pulled the city apart, walked its streets, studied its history and flora and fauna. But here, in Tanner's Corner and environs, he knew nothing of the soil, the air, the water, nothing of the habits of the residents, the cars they liked, the houses they lived in, the industries that employed them, the lusts that drove them.

Rhyme recalled working for a senior detective at the NYPD when he was a new recruit. The man had lectured his underlings, "Somebody tell me: what's the expression 'Fish out of water' mean?"

Young officer Rhyme had said, "It means: out of one's element. Confused."

"Yeah, well, what happens when fish're out of water?" the grizzled old cop had snapped at Rhyme. "They don't get
confused
. They get fucking
dead
. The greatest single threat to an investigator is unfamiliarity with his environment. Remember that."

Thom parked the van and went through the ritual of lowering the wheelchair. Rhyme blew into the sip-and-puff controller of the Storm Arrow and rolled toward the County Building's steep ramp, undoubtedly added to the building grudgingly after the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect.

Three men – in work clothes and with folding knife scabbards on their belts – pushed out of the side door of the sheriff's office beside the ramp. They walked toward a burgundy Chevy Suburban.

The skinniest of the three poked the biggest one, a huge man with a braided ponytail and a beard, and nodded toward Rhyme. Then their eyes – almost in unison – perused Sachs' body. The big one took in Thom's trim hair, slight build, impeccable clothes and golden earring. Expressionless, he whispered something to the third of the trio, a man who looked like a conservative Southern businessman. He shrugged. They lost interest in the visitors and climbed into the Chevy.

Fish out of water . . .

Bell, walking beside Rhyme's chair, noticed his gaze.

"That's Rich Culbeau, the big one. And his buddies. Sean O'Sarian – the skinny feller – and Harris Tomel. Culbeau's not half as much trouble as he looks. He likes playing redneck but he's usually no bother."

O'Sarian glanced back at them from the passenger seat – though whether he was glancing at Thom or Sachs or himself, Rhyme didn't know.

The sheriff jogged ahead to the building. He had to fiddle with the door at the top of the handicapped ramp; it had been painted shut.

"Not many crips here," Thom observed. Then he asked Rhyme, "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look pale. I'm taking your blood pressure the minute we get inside."

They entered the building. It was dated circa 1950, Rhyme estimated. Painted institutional green, the halls were decorated with finger paintings from a grade-school class, photographs of Tanner's Corner throughout its history and a half-dozen employment notices for county workers.

"Will this be okay?" Bell asked, swinging open a door. "We use it for evidence storage but we're clearing that stuff out and moving it down to the basement."

A dozen boxes lined the walls. One officer struggled to cart a large Toshiba TV out of the room. Another carried two boxes of juice jars filled with a clear liquid. Rhyme glanced at them. Bell laughed. He said, "That there just about summarizes your typical Tanner's Corner criminal: stealing home electronics and making moonshine."

"That's moonshine?" Sachs asked.

"The real thing. Aged all of thirty days."

"Ocean Spray brand?" Rhyme asked wryly, looking at the jars.

"'Shiners' favorite container – because of the wide neck. You a drinking man?"

"Scotch only."

"Stick to that." Bell nodded at the bottles the officer carried out the door. "The feds and the Carolina tax department worry about their revenue.
We
worry about losing citizens. That batch there isn't too bad. But a lot of 'shine's laced with formaldehyde or paint thinner or fertilizer. We lose a couple people a year to bad batches."

"Why's it called moonshine?" Thom asked.

Bell answered, "'Cause they used to make it at night in the open under the light of the full moon – so they didn't need lanterns and, you know, wouldn't attract revenuers."

"Ah," said the young man, whose taste, Rhyme knew, ran to St. Emilions, Pomerols and white Burgundies.

Rhyme examined the room. "We'll need more power." Nodding at the single wall outlet.

"We can run some wires," Bell said. "I'll get somebody on it."

He sent a deputy off on this errand then explained that he'd called the state police lab at Elizabeth City and put in an emergency request for the forensic equipment Rhyme wanted. The items would be here within the hour. Rhyme sensed that this was lightning-fast for Paquenoke County and he felt once more the urgency of the case.

In a sexual abduction case you usually have twenty-four hours to find the victim; after that they become dehumanized in the kidnapper's eyes and he doesn't think anything about killing them.

The deputy returned with two thick electrical cables that had multiple grounded outlets on the ends. He taped them to the floor.

"Those'll do fine," Rhyme said. Then he asked, "How many people do we have to work the case?"

"I've got three senior deputies and eight line deputies. We've got a communications staff of two and clerical of five. We usually have to share them with Planning and Zoning and DPW – that's been a sore spot for us – but 'causa the kidnapping and you coming here and all we'll have every one of 'em we need. The county supervisor'll support that. I talked to him already."

Rhyme gazed up at the wall. Frowning.

"What is it?"

"He needs a chalkboard," Thom said.

"I was thinking of a
map
of the area. But, yes, I want a blackboard too. A big one."

"Done deal," Bell said. Rhyme and Sachs exchanged smiles. This was one of Cousin Roland Bell's favorite expressions.

"Then if I could see your senior people in here? For a briefing."

"And air-conditioning," Thom said. "It needs to be cooler in here."

"We'll see what we can do," Bell said casually, a man who probably didn't understand the North's obsession with moderate temperatures.

The aide said firmly, "It's not good for him to be in heat like this."

"Don't
worry
about it," Rhyme said.

Thom lifted an eyebrow at Bell and said easily, "We have to cool the room. Or else I'm going to take him back to the hotel."

"Thom," Rhyme warned.

"I'm afraid we don't have any choice," the aide said.

Bell said, "Not a problem. I'll take care of it." He walked to the doorway and called, "Steve, come on in here a minute."

A young crew-cut man in a deputy's uniform walked inside. "This's my brother-in-law, Steve Farr." He was the tallest of the deputies they'd seen so far – easily six-seven – and had round ears that stuck out comically. He seemed only mildly uneasy at the initial sight of Rhyme and his wide lips soon slipped into an easy smile that suggested both confidence and competence. Bell gave him the job of finding an air-conditioner for the lab.

"I'll get right on it, Jim." He tugged at his earlobe, turned on his heel like a soldier and vanished into the hall.

A woman stuck her head in the door. "Jim, it's Sue McConnell on three. She's really beside herself."

"Okay. I'll talk to her. Tell her I'll be right there." Bell explained to Rhyme, "Mary Beth's mother. Poor woman . . . Lost her husband to cancer just a year ago and now this happens. I tell you," he added, shaking his head, "I've got a couple of kids myself and I can imagine what she's –"

"Jim, I wonder if we could find that map," Rhyme interrupted. "And get the blackboard set up."

Bell blinked uncertainly at this abrupt tone in the criminalist's voice. "Sure thing, Lincoln. And, hey, if we get too Southern down here, move a little slow for you Yankees, you'll speed us up now, won't you?"

"Oh, you bet I will, Jim."

• • •

One out of three.

One of Jim Bell's three senior deputies seemed glad to meet Rhyme and Sachs. Well, to see Sachs, at least. The other two gave formal nods and obviously wished this odd pair had never left the Big Apple.

The agreeable one was a bleary-eyed thirtyish deputy named Jesse Corn. He'd been at the crime scene earlier that morning and, with painful guilt, admitted that Garrett had gotten away with the other victim, Lydia, right in front of him. By the time Jesse had gotten over the river Ed Schaeffer was near death from the wasp attack.

One deputy offering the cool reception was Mason Germain, a short man in his early forties. Dark eyes, graying features, posture a little too perfect for a human being. His hair was slicked back and showed off ruler-straight teeth marks from the comb. He wore excessive aftershave, a cheap, musky smell. He greeted Rhyme and Sachs with a stiff, canny nod and Rhyme imagined that he was actually glad the criminalist was disabled so he wouldn't have to shake his hand. Sachs, being a woman, was entitled to only a condescending "Miss."