The Empty Chair

  "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 image 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."

  Lucy Kerr was the third senior deputy and she wasn't any happier to see the visitors than Mason was. She was a tall woman--just a bit shorter than willowy Sachs. Trim and athletic-looking with a long, pretty face. Mason's uniform was wrinkled and smudged but Lucy's was perfectly ironed. Her blond hair was done up in a taut French braid. You could easily picture her as a model for L.L. Bean or Lands' End--in boots, denim and a down vest.

  Rhyme knew that their cold shoulders would be an automatic reaction to interloping cops (especially a crip and a woman--and Northerners, no less). But he had no interest in winning them over. The kidnapper would be harder to find with every passing minute. And he had a date with a surgeon he absolutely was not going to miss.

  A solidly built man--the only black deputy Rhyme had seen--wheeled in a large chalkboard and unfolded a map of Paquenoke County.

  "Tape it up there, Trey." Bell pointed to the wall. Rhyme scanned the map. It was a good one, very detailed.

  Rhyme said, "Now. Tell me exactly what happened. Start with the first victim."

  "Mary Beth McConnell," Bell said. "She's twenty-three. A grad student over at the campus at Avery.

  "Go on. What happened yesterday?"

  Mason said, "Well, it was pretty early. Mary Beth was--"

  "Could you be more specific?" Rhyme asked. "About the time?"

  "Well, we don't know for certain," Mason responded coolly. "Weren't any stopped clocks like on the Titanic, you know."

  "Had to've been before eight," Jesse Corn offered. "Billy--the boy was killed--was
out jogging and the crime scene is a half hour away from home. He was making up some credits in summer school and had to be back by eight-thirty to shower and get to class."

  Good, Rhyme thought, nodding. "Go on."

  Mason continued. "Mary Beth had some class project, digging up old Indian artifacts at Blackwater Landing."

  "What's that, a town?" Sachs asked.

  "No, just an unincorporated area on the river. 'Bout three dozen houses, a factory. No stores or anything. Mostly woods and swamp."

  Rhyme noticed numbers and letters along the margins of the map. "Where?" he asked. "Show me."

  Mason touched Location G-10. "Way we see it, Garrett comes by and grabs Mary Beth. He's going to rape her but Billy Stail's out jogging and sees them from the road and tries to stop it. But Garrett grabs a shovel and kills Billy. Beats his head in. Then he takes Mary Beth and disappears." Mason's jaw was tight. "Billy was a good kid. Really good. Went to church regular. Last season he intercepted a pass in the last two minutes of a tied game with Albemarle High and ran it back--"

  "I'm sure he was a fine boy," Rhyme said impatiently. "Garrett and Mary Beth, they're on foot?"

  "That's right," Lucy answered. "Garrett wouldn't drive. Doesn't even have a license. Think it was because of his folks' dying in a car crash."

  "What physical evidence did you find?"

  "Oh, we got the murder weapon," Mason said proudly. "The shovel. Were real buttoned up about handling it too. Wore gloves. And we did the chain of custody thing, like's in the books."

  Rhyme waited for more. Finally he asked, "What else did you find?"

  "Well, some footprints." Mason looked at Jesse, who said, "Oh, right. I took pictures of 'em."

  "That's all?" Sachs asked.

  Lucy nodded, tight-lipped at the Northerner's implicit criticism.

  Rhyme: "Didn't you search the scene?"

  Jesse said, "Sure we did. Just, there wasn't anything else."

  Wasn't anything else? At a scene where a perp kills one victim and abducts another there'd be enough evidence to make a movie of who did what to whom and probably what each member of the cast had been doing for the last twenty-four hours. It seemed they were up against two perpetrators: the Insect Boy and law enforcement incompetence. Rhyme caught Sachs's eye and saw she was thinking the same.

  "Who conducted the search?" Rhyme asked.

  "I did," Mason said. "I got there first. I was nearby when the call came in."

  "And when was that?"

  "Nine-thirty. A truck driver saw Billy's body from the highway and called nine-one-one."

  And the boy was killed before eight. Rhyme wasn't pleased. An hour and a half--at least--was a long time for a crime scene to be unprotected. A lot of evidence could get stolen, a lot could get added. The boy could have raped and killed the girl and hidden the body then returned to remove some pieces of evidence and plant others to lead investigators off. "You searched it by yourself?" Rhyme asked Mason.

  "First time through. Then we got three, four deputies out there. They went over the area real good."

  And found only the murder weapon? Lord almighty ... Not to mention the damage done by four cops unfamiliar with crime scene search techniques.

  "Can I ask," Sachs said, "how you know Garrett was the perp?"

  "I saw him," Jesse Corn said. "When he took Lydia this morning."

  "That doesn't mean he killed Billy and kidnapped the other girl."

  "Oh," Bell said. "The fingerprints--we got them off the shovel."

  Rhyme nodded and said to the sheriff, "And his prints were on file because of those prior arrests?"

  "Right."

  Rhyme said, "Now tell me about this morning."

  Jesse took over. "It was early. Just after sunup. Ed Schaeffer and I were there keeping an eye on the crime scene in case Garrett came back. Ed was north of the river, I was south. Lydia comes 'round to lay some flowers. I left her alone and went back to the car. Which I guess I shouldn't've done. Next thing I know she's screaming and I see the two of them disappear over the Paquo. They were gone 'fore I could find a boat or anything to get across. Ed wouldn't answer his radio. I was worried about him and when I got over there I found him stung half to death. Garrett'd set a trap."

  Bell said, "We think Ed knows where he's got Mary Beth. He got a look at a map that was in that blind Garrett'd been hiding in. But he got stung and passed out before he could tell us what the map showed and Garrett must've took it with him after he kidnapped Lydia. We couldn't find it."

  "What's the deputy's condition?" Sachs asked.

  "Went into shock because of the stinging. Nobody knows if he's going to make it or not. Or if he'll remember anything if he does come to."

  So we rely on the evidence, Rhyme thought. Which was, after all, his preference; far better than witnesses any day. "Any clues from this morning's scene?"

  "Found this." Jesse opened an attache case and took out a running shoe in a plastic bag. "Garrett lost it when he was grabbing Lydia. Nothing else."

  A shovel at yesterday's scene, a shoe at today's.... Nothing more. Rhyme glanced hopelessly at the lone shoe.

  "Just set it over there." Nodding toward a table. "Tell me about these other deaths Garrett was a suspect in."

  Bell said, "All in and around Blackwater Landing. Two of the victims drowned in the canal. Evidence looked like they'd fallen and hit their heads. But the medical examiner said they could've been hit intentionally and pushed in. Garrett'd been seen around their houses not long before they died. Then last year somebody was stung to death. Wasps. Just like with Ed. We know Garrett did it."

  Bell started to continue but Mason interrupted. He said in a low voice, "Girl in her early twenties--like Mary Beth. Real nice, good Christian. She was taking a nap on her back porch. Garrett tossed a hornets' nest inside. Got herself stung a hundred thirty-seven times. Had a heart attack."

  Lucy Kerr said, "I ran the call. It was a real bad sight, what happened to her. She died slow. Real painful."

  "Oh, and that funeral we passed on the way here?" Bell asked. "That was Todd Wilkes. He was eight. Killed himself."

  "Oh, no," Sachs muttered. "Why?"

  "Well, he'd been pretty sick," Jesse Corn explained. "He was at the hospital more than at home. Was real tore up about it. But there was more--Garrett was seen shouting at Todd a few weeks ago, really giving him hell. We were thinking that Garrett kept harassing and scaring him until he snapped."

  "Motive?" Sachs asked.

  "He's a psycho, that's his motive," Mason spat out. "People make fun of him and he's out to get them. Simple as that."

  "Schizophrenic?"

  Lucy said, "Not according to his counselors at school. Antisocial personality's what they call it. He's got a high IQ. He got mostly A's on his report cards--before he started skipping school a couple of years ago."

  "You have a picture of him?" Sachs asked.

  The sheriff opened a file. "Here's the booking shot for the hornets' nest assault."

  The picture showed a thin, crew-cut boy with prominent, connected brows and sunken eyes. There was a rash on his cheek.

  "Here's another." Bell unfolded a newspaper clipping. It showed a family of four at a picnic table. The caption read, "The Hanlons at the Tanner's Corner Annual Picnic, a week before a tragic auto accident on Route 112 took the lives of Stuart, 39, and Sandra, 37, and their daughter, Kaye, 10. Also pictured is Garrett, 11, who was not in the car at the time of the accident."

  "Can I see the report of the scene yesterday?" Rhyme asked.

  Bell opened a folder. Thom took it. Rhyme had no page-turning frame so he relied on his aide to flip the pages.

  "Can't you hold it steadier?"

  Thom sighed.

  But the criminalist was irritated. The crime scene had been very sloppily worked. There were Polaroid photos revealing a number of footprints but no rulers had been laid in the shot to indicate size. Also, none of the prints had numbered cards to indicate that they'd been made by
different individuals.

  Sachs noticed this too and shook her head, commenting on it.

  Lucy, sounding defensive, said, "You always do that? Put cards down?"

  "Of course," Sachs said. "It's standard procedure."

  Rhyme continued to examine the report. In it was only a cursory description of the location and pose of the boy's body. Rhyme could see that the outlining had been done in spray paint, which is notorious for ruining trace and contaminating crime scenes.

  No dirt had been sampled for trace at the site of the body or where there'd been an obvious scuffle between Billy and Mary Beth and Garrett. And Rhyme could see cigarette butts on the ground--which might provide many clues--but none had been collected.

  "Next."

  Thom flipped the page.

  The friction ridge--fingerprint--report was marginally better. The shovel had four full and seventeen partials, all positively identified as Garrett's and Billy's. Most of them were latents but a few were evident--easily visible without chemicals or alternative light source imaging--in a smear of mud on the handle. Still, Mason had been careless when he'd worked the scene--his latex glove prints on the shovel covered up many of the killer's. Rhyme would have fired a tech for such careless handling of evidence but since there were so many other good prints it wouldn't make any difference in this case.

  The equipment would be arriving soon. Rhyme said to Bell, "I'm going to need that forensics tech to help me with the analysis and the equipment. I'd prefer a cop but the important thing is that they know science. And know the area here. A native."

  Mason's thumb danced a circle over the ribbed hammer of his revolver. "We can dig somebody up but I thought you were the expert. I mean, isn't that why we're using you?"

  "One of the reasons you're using me is because I know when I need help." He looked at Bell. "Anybody come to mind?"

  It was Lucy Kerr who answered. "My sister's boy--Benny--he's studying science at UNC. Grad school."

  "Smart?"

  "Phi Beta. He's just... well, a little quiet."

  "I don't want him for his conversation."

  "I'll call him."

  "Good," Rhyme said. Then: "Now, I want Amelia to search the crime scenes: the boy's room and Blackwater."

  Mason said, "But"--he waved his hand at the report--"we already did that. Fine-tooth comb."

  "I'd like her to search them again," Rhyme said shortly. Then looked at Jesse. "You know the area. Could you go with her?"