The Empty Chair (51 page)

The judge thought for a moment then said, "For the record, this is not part of any proceeding. The court is merely lending itself to the parties for a deposition prior to arraignment. The examination will be conducted pursuant to North Carolina Rules of Criminal Procedure. Swear the deponent."

Rhyme parked in front of the bench. As the Bible-clutching clerk approached uncertainly, Rhyme said, "No, I can't raise my right hand." Then recited, "I swear that the testimony I am about to give is the truth, upon my solemn oath." He tried to catch Sachs' eye but she was staring at the faded mosaic tile on the courtroom floor.

Geberth strolled to the front of the courtroom. "Mr. Rhyme, could you state your name, address and occupation."

"Lincoln Rhyme, 345 Central Park West, New York City. I'm a criminalist."

"That's a forensic scientist, is that right?"

"Somewhat
more
than that but forensic science is the bulk of what I do."

"And how do you know the defendant, Amelia Sachs?"

"She's been my assistant and partner on a number of criminal investigations."

"And how did you happen to come to Tanner's Corner?"

"We were assisting Sheriff James Bell and the Paquenoke County Sheriff's Department. Looking into the murder of Billy Stail and the abductions of Lydia Johansson and Mary Beth McConnell."

Geberth asked, "Now, Mr. Rhyme, you say you have new evidence that bears on this case?"

"Yes, I do."

"What is that evidence?"

"After we learned that Billy Stail had gone to Blackwater Landing to kill Mary Beth McConnell I began speculating why he'd done that. And I concluded that he'd been paid to kill her. He –"

"Why did you think he was paid?"

"It's obvious why," Rhyme grumbled. He had little patience for irrelevant questions and Geberth was deviating from his script.

"Share that with us, if you would."

"Billy had no romantic relationship with Mary Beth of any kind. He wasn't involved in the murder of Garrett Hanlon's family. He didn't even know her. So he'd have no motivation to kill her other than financial profit."

"Go on."

Rhyme continued, "Whoever hired him wasn't going to pay by check, of course, but in cash. Deputy Kerr went to the house of Billy Stail's parents and was given permission to search his room. She discovered ten thousand dollars hidden beneath his mattress."

"What was there about this –"

"Why don't I just finish the story?" Rhyme asked the lawyer.

The judge said, "Good idea, Mr. Rhyme. I think counsel's laid enough groundwork."

"With Officer Kerr's assistance I did a friction ridge analysis – that's a
fingerprint
check – of the top and bottom bills in the stacks of cash. I found a total of sixty-one latent fingerprints. Aside from Billy's prints, two of these prints proved to be from a person involved in this case. Deputy Kerr got another warrant to enter that individual's house."

"Did you search it too?" the judge asked.

He replied with forced patience, "No, I didn't. It wasn't
accessible
to me. But I
directed
the search, which was conducted by Deputy Kerr. Inside the house she found a receipt for the purchase of a shovel identical to the murder weapon, eighty-three thousand dollars in cash, secured with wrappers identical to the ones around the two stacks of money in Billy Stail's house."

Dramatic as ever, Rhyme had saved the best till the last. "Deputy Kerr also found bone fragments in the barbecue behind that premises. These fragments match the bones of Garrett Hanlon's family."

"Whose house was this?"

"Deputy Jesse Corn's."

This drew some loud murmurs from the courtroom pews. The prosecutor remained unfazed but sat up slightly, his shoes scuffling on the tile floor, and whispered to his colleagues as they considered the implications of the revelation. In the gallery Jesse's parents turned to each other, shock in their eyes; his mother shook her head and started to cry.

"Where exactly are you going, Mr. Rhyme?" the judge asked.

Rhyme resisted telling the judge that the destination was obvious. He said, "Your Honor, Jesse Corn was one of the individuals who had conspired with Jim Bell and Steve Farr – to kill Garrett Hanlon's family five years ago and then to kill Mary Beth McConnell the other day."

Oh, yeah. This town's got itself a few hornets.

The judge leaned back in his chair. "This has nothing to do with me. You two duke it out." Nodding from Geberth to the prosecutor. "You got five minutes then she accepts the plea bargain or I'll set bail and schedule trial."

The prosecutor said to Geberth, "Doesn't mean she didn't kill Jesse. Even if Corn was a co-conspirator he was still the victim of a homicide."

Now the Northerner got to roll
his
eyes. "Oh, come on," Geberth snapped, as if the D.A. were a slow student. "What it means is that Corn was operating
outside
his jurisdiction as a law-enforcer and that when he confronted Garrett he was a felon and armed and dangerous. Jim Bell admitted they were planning on torturing the boy to find Mary Beth's whereabouts. Once they found her, Corn would've been right there with Culbeau and the others to kill Lucy Kerr and the other deputies."

The judge's eyes swept from left to right slowly as he watched this unprecedented tennis match.

The prosecutor: "I can only focus on the crime at hand. Whether Jesse Corn was going to kill anybody or not doesn't matter."

Geberth shook his head slowly. The lawyer said to the court reporter, "We're suspending the deposition. This is off the record." Then, to the prosecutor: "What's the point of proceeding? Corn was a killer."

Rhyme joined in, speaking to the prosecutor. "You take this to trial and what do you think the jury's going to feel when we show the victim was a crooked cop planning to torture an innocent boy to find a young woman and then murder her?"

Geberth continued, "You don't want this notch on your grip. You've got Bell, you've got his brother-in-law, the coroner . . ."

Before the prosecutor could protest again Rhyme looked up at him and said in a soft voice, "I'll help you."

"What?" the prosecutor asked.

"You know who's behind all this, don't you? You know who's killing half the residents of Tanner's Corner?"

"Henry Davett," the prosecutor said. "I've read the filings and depos."

Rhyme asked, "And how's the case against him?"

"Not good. There's no evidence. There's no link between him and Bell or anybody else in town. He used middlemen and they're all stonewalling or out of the jurisdiction."

"But," Rhyme said, "don't you want to nail him – before any more people die of cancer? Before more children get sick and kill themselves? Before more babies are born with birth defects?"

"Of course I want to."

"Then you need
me
. You won't find a criminalist anywhere in the state who can bring Davett down. I can." Rhyme glanced at Sachs. He could see tears in her eyes. He knew that the only thought in her mind now was that, whether they sent her to jail or not, she hadn't killed an innocent man.

The prosecutor sighed deeply. Then nodded. Quickly, as if he might change his mind, he said, "Deal." He looked at the bench. "Your Honor, in the case of the People versus Sachs, the state is withdrawing all charges."

"So ordered," said the bored judge. "Defendant is free to go. Next case." He didn't even bother to bang down his gavel.

45

"I didn't know whether you'd show up," Lincoln Rhyme said.

He was, in fact, surprised.

"Wasn't sure I was going to either," Sachs replied.

They were in his hospital room at the medical center in Avery.

He said, "I just got back from visiting Thom on the fifth floor. That's pretty odd –
I'm
more mobile than he is."

"How is he?"

"He'll be fine. He should be out in a day or two. I told him he was about to see physical therapy from a whole new angle. He didn't laugh."

A pleasant Guatemalan woman – the temporary caregiver – sat in the corner, knitting a yellow-and-red shawl. She seemed to be weathering Rhyme's moods though he believed that this was because she didn't understand English well enough to appreciate his sarcasm and insults.

"You know, Sachs," Rhyme said, "when I heard you'd busted Garrett out of detention it half occurred to me you'd done it to give me a chance to rethink the operation."

A smile curved her Julia Roberts lips. "Maybe there was a bit of that."

"So you're here now to talk me out of it?"

She rose from the chair and walked to the window. "Pretty view."

"Peaceful, isn't it? Fountain and garden. Plants. Don't know what kind."

"Lucy could tell you. She knows plants the way Garrett knows bugs. Excuse me,
insects
. A bug is only one type of insect . . . No, Rhyme, I'm not here to talk you out of it. I'm here to be with you now and to be in the recovery room when you wake up."

"Change of heart?"

She turned to him. "When Garrett and I were on the run he was telling me about something he read in that book of his.
The Miniature World
."

"I have a new respect for dung beetles after reading it," Rhyme said.

"There was something he showed me, a passage. It was a list of the characteristics of living creatures. One of them was that healthy creatures strive to grow and to adapt to the environment. I realized that's something
you
have to do, Rhyme – have this surgery. I can't interfere with it."

After a moment he said, "I know it's not going to cure me, Sachs. But what's the nature of our business? It's little victories. We find a fiber here, a partial latent friction ridge there, a few grains of sand that might lead to the killer's house. That's all I'm after here – a little improvement. I'm not climbing out of this chair, I know that. But I need a little victory."

Maybe the chance to hold your hand for real.

She bent down, kissed him hard, then sat on the bed.

"What's that look, Sachs? You seem a bit coy."

"That passage in Garrett's book?"

"Right."

"There was another characteristic of living creatures I wanted to mention."

"Which is?" he asked.

"All living creatures strive to continue the species."

Rhyme grumbled, "Do I sense another plea bargain here? A deal of some kind?"

She said, "Maybe we can talk about some things when we get back to New York."

A nurse appeared in the doorway. "I need to take you to pre-op, Mr. Rhyme. You ready for a ride?"

"Oh, you bet I am . . ." He turned back to Sachs. "Sure, we'll talk."

She kissed him again and squeezed his left hand, where he could, just faintly, feel the pressure in his ring finger.

• • •

The two women sat side by side in a thick shaft of sunlight.

Two paper cups of very bad vending-machine coffee were in front of them, perched on an orange table covered with brown burn marks from the days when smoking had been permitted in hospitals.

Amelia Sachs glanced at Lucy Kerr, who sat forward, hands together, subdued.

"What's up?" Sachs asked her. "You all right?"

The deputy hesitated then finally said, "Oncology's on the next wing over. I spent months there. Before and after the operation." She shook her head. "I never told anybody this but the Thanksgiving Day after Buddy left me I came here. Just hung out. Had coffee and tuna sandwiches with the nurses. Isn't that a kick? I could've gone to see my parents and cousins in Raleigh for turkey and dressing. Or my sister in Martinsville and her husband – Ben's parents. But I wanted to be where I felt at home. Which sure wasn't in my house."

Sachs said, "When my father was dying my mom and I spent three holidays in the hospital. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Pop made a joke. He said we had to make our Easter reservations early. He didn't live that long, though."

"Your mom's still alive?"

"Oh, yeah. She gets around better than I do. I got Pop's arthritis. Only in spades." Sachs nearly made a joke about that being why she was such a good shot – so she wouldn't have to run down the perps. But then she thought of Jesse Corn, flashed back to the dot of the bullet on his forehead, and she remained silent.

Lucy said, "He'll be all right, you know. Lincoln."

"No, I don't know," Sachs responded.

"I've got a feeling. When you've been through as much as I have – in hospitals, I mean – you get a feeling."

"Appreciate that," Sachs said.

"How long do you think it'll be?" Lucy asked.

Forever . . .

"Four hours, Dr. Weaver was saying."

In the distance they could just hear the tinny, forced dialogue of a soap opera. A distant page for a doctor. A chime. A laugh.

Someone walked past then paused.

"Hey, ladies."

"Lydia," Lucy said, smiling. "How you doing?"

Lydia Johansson. Sachs hadn't recognized her at first because she was wearing a green robe and cap. She recalled that the woman was a nurse here.

"You heard?" Lucy asked. "About Jim and Steve getting arrested? Who would've thought?"

"Never in a million years," Lydia said. "The whole town's talking." Then the nurse asked Lucy, "You have an onco appointment?"

"No. Mr. Rhyme's having his operation today. On his spine. We're his cheerleaders."

"Well, I wish him all the best," Lydia said to Sachs.

"Thank you."

The big girl continued down the corridor, waved, then pushed through a doorway.

"Sweet girl," Sachs said.

"You imagine that job, being an oncology nurse? When I was having my surgery she was on the ward every day. Being just as cheerful as could be. More guts than I have."

But Lydia was far from Sachs' thoughts. She looked at the clock. It was eleven A.M. The operation would start any minute now.

• • •

He tried to be on good behavior.

The prep nurse was explaining things to him and Lincoln Rhyme was nodding but they'd already given him a Valium and he wasn't paying attention.