The Empty Chair (23 page)

Rhyme said to Bell, "You have an ESDA?"

"A what?"

"Electrostatic Detection Apparatus."

"Don't even know what that is."

"Picks up indented writing on paper. If Garrett had written something on top of the map, a town or address, we could see it."

"Well, we don't have one. Should I call the state police?"

"No. Ben, just shine a flashlight on the map at a low angle. See if there're any indentations."

Ben did this and though they searched every inch of the map they could see no evidence of writing or other marking.

Rhyme ordered Ben to examine the second map, the one Lucy had found in the gristmill. "Let's see if there's any trace in the folds. It's too big for magazine subscription cards. Open it over a newspaper."

More sand poured out. Rhyme noticed immediately that it was in fact ocean sand, the sort that would be found on the Outer Banks – the grains were clear, not opaque, as would have been the case with inland sand.

"Run a sample through the chromatograph. Let's see if there's any other trace that'll be helpful."

Ben started the noisy machine.

As they waited for the results he spread the map out on the table. Bell, Ben and Rhyme examined it carefully. It depicted the eastern shore of the U.S. from Norfolk, Virginia, and the Hampton Roads shipping lanes all the way down to South Carolina. They looked over every inch but Garrett hadn't circled or marked any location.

Of
course
not
, Rhyme thought;
it's never that easy.
They used the flashlight on this map too. But found no indented writing.

The chromatograph results flashed up onto the screen. Rhyme glanced at it quickly. "Not much help. Sodium chloride – salt – along with iodine, organic material . . . All consistent with seawater. But there's hardly any other trace. Doesn't do us much good for tying the sand to a specific location." Rhyme nodded at the shoes that had been in the box with the map. He asked Ben, "Any other trace in those?"

The young man examined them carefully, even unlacing them – just as Rhyme was about to ask him to do.
This boy has good criminalist potential
, Rhyme thought.
He shouldn't be wasting his talent on neurotic fish.

The shoes were old Nikes – so common that tracing them to a particular store where Garrett might have bought them was impossible.

"Flecks of dried leaves, looks like. Maple and oak. If I had to guess."

Rhyme nodded. "Nothing else in the box?"

"Nothing."

Rhyme looked up at the other evidence charts. His eye paused at the references to camphene.

"Sachs, in the mill, were there old-fashioned lamps on the walls? Or lanterns?"

"No," Sachs answered. "None."

"Are you sure," he persisted gruffly, "or did you just not notice?"

She crossed her arms and said evenly, "The floors were ten-inch-wide chestnut, the walls plaster and lath. There was graffiti on one of the walls in blue spray paint. It said, 'Josh and Brittany, luv always,' love spelled L-U-V. There was one Shaker-style table, cracked down the middle and painted black, three bottles of Deer Park water, a pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, five bags of Doritos, two bags of Cape Cod potato chips, six cans of Pepsi, four cans of Coke, eight packets of Planters peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers. There were two windows in the room. One was boarded over. In the unboarded window there was only one pane that was unbroken – the others had been smashed – and every doorknob and window latch in the place were stolen. There were old-fashioned raised electric switches on the walls. And, yes, I'm sure there were no old-fashioned lamps."

"Whoa, she got you there, Lincoln," Ben said, laughing.

Now being one of the gang, the young man was rewarded with a glower from Rhyme. The criminalist stared once more at the evidence then shook his head, said to Bell, "I'm sorry, Jim, the best I can tell you is that she's probably being held in a house not far from the ocean but – if the deciduous leaves are near the place – not
on
the water. Because oak and maple wouldn't grow in sand. And it's old – because of the camphene lamps. Nineteenth century. That's the best I can do, I'm afraid."

Bell was looking at the map of the Eastern shore, shaking his head. "Well, I'm going to talk to Garrett again, see if he'll cooperate. If not I'm gonna give the D.A. a call and think about trading a plea for information. Worse comes to worst I'll fix up a search of the Outer Banks. I tell you, Lincoln, you're a lifesaver. I can't thank you enough. You'll be here for a spell?"

"Only long enough to show Ben how to pack up the equipment."

Rhyme spontaneously thought again of his mascot, Henry Davett. But he found to his surprise that hiselation that his job was now finished was tainted by his frustration that the ultimate answer to the puzzle of finding Mary Beth McConnell still eluded him. But, as his ex-wife used to say to him as he walked out the door of their apartment at one or two A.M. to run a crime scene, you can't save the entire world. "I wish you luck, Jim."

Sachs said to Bell, "You mind if I come with you? To see Garrett?"

"Feel free," the sheriff said. He seemed to want to add something – maybe about female charm helping them get some information out of the boy. But he then apparently – and wisely, Rhyme reflected – thought better of it.

"Let's get to work, Ben," Rhyme said. He wheeled to the table that held the density gradient tubes. "Now listen carefully. A criminalist's tools are like a tactical officer's weapons. They have to be packed and stored just right. You treat them as if somebody's life will depend on them because, believe me, it will. Are you listening, Ben?"

"I'm listening."

18

The Tanner's Corner lockup was a structure two long blocks away from the Sheriff's Department. Sachs and Bell walked along the blistering sidewalk toward the place. Again she was struck by the ghost-town quality of Tanner's Corner. The sickly drunks they'd noticed when they first arrived were still downtown, sitting on a bench, silent. A skinny, coiffed woman parked her Mercedes in an empty row of parking spaces, climbed out and walked into the nail salon. The glitzy car seemed completely out of place in the small town. There was no one else on the street. Sachs noticed a half-dozen businesses had gone under. One of them had been a toy store. A mannequin of a baby wearing a sun-bleached jumper lay in the window. Where, she thought again, were all the children?

Then she looked across the street and saw a face watching her from the dim recesses of Eddie's bar. She squinted. "Those three guys?" she said, nodding.

Bell looked. "Culbeau and his buddies?"

"Uh-huh. They're trouble. They got my weapon away from me," Sachs said. "One of them did. O'Sarian."

The sheriff frowned. "What happened?"

"I got it back," she answered shortly.

"You want me to bring him in?"

"No. Just thought you should know: they're upset about losing out on the reward. If you ask me, though, it's more than that. They're gunning for that boy."

"Them and the rest of the town."

Sachs said, "But the rest of the town doesn't carry around loaded weapons."

Bell chuckled and said, "Well, not all of 'em, anyway."

"I'm also a little curious how they happened to end up at the mill."

The sheriff thought about this for a moment. "Mason, you thinking?"

"Yep," Sachs said.

"Wish he'd take his vacation this week. But there's no chance of that happening. Well, here we are. Not much of a jail. But it works."

They walked inside the single-story cinder-block building. The groaning air-conditioner kept the rooms mercifully cool. Bell told her to drop her gun in the lockbox. He did the same and they walked into the interrogation room. He closed the door.

Wearing a blue jumpsuit, courtesy of the county, Garrett Hanlon sat at a fiberboard table, across from Jesse Corn. The deputy smiled at Sachs and she gave him a smaller smile in return. She then looked at the boy and was struck again at how sad and desperate he seemed.

I'm scared. Make him stop!

On his face and arms were welts that hadn't been there earlier. She asked, "What happened to your skin?"

He looked down at his arm and rubbed self-consciously. "Poison oak," he muttered.

In a kind voice Bell said, "You heard your rights, didn't you? Did Deputy Kerr read them to you?"

"Yeah."

"And you understand them?"

"I guess."

"There's a lawyer on his way. Mr. Fredericks. He's coming from a meeting in Elizabeth City and he'll be here pretty soon. You don't have to say anything until he gets here. You understand that?"

He nodded.

Sachs glanced at the one-way mirror. Wondered who was on the other side, manning the video camera.

"But we hope you'll talk to us, Garrett," Bell continued. "We have some real important things to ask you about. First of all, it's true? Mary Beth's alive?"

"Sure she is."

"Did you rape her?"

"Like, I'd
never
do that," he said, and the pathos momentarily gave way to indignation.

"But you kidnapped her," Bell said.

"Not really."

"Not
really?
"

"She, like, didn't get it that Blackwater Landing's dangerous. I had to get her away or she wouldn't be safe. That's all. I saved her. Like, sometimes you gotta make somebody do things they don't want to. For their own good. And, you know, then they catch on."

"She's near the beach somewhere, isn't she? The Outer Banks, right?"

He blinked at this, red eyes narrowing. He'd be realizing that they'd found the map and talked to Lydia. He looked down at the fiberboard table. Didn't say anything else.

"Where is she exactly, Garrett?"

"I can't tell you."

"Son, you're in serious trouble. You got a murder conviction staring you in the face."

"I didn't kill Billy."

"How'd you know it was Billy I was talking about?" Bell asked quickly. Jesse Corn lifted an eyebrow to Sachs, impressed at his boss's cleverness.

Garrett's fingernails clicked together. "Whole world knows Billy got killed." His fast eyes circled the room. Resting inevitably on Amelia Sachs. She could endure the imploring look for only a moment then had to look away.

"We got your fingerprints on the shovel that killed him."

"The shovel? That killed him?"

"Yep."

He seemed to think back to what had happened. "I remember seeing it lying there on the ground. I guess maybe I picked it up."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I wasn't thinking. I felt all weird seeing Billy lying there, like, all bloody and everything."

"Well, you have any idea who
did
kill Billy?"

"This man. Mary Beth told me that she was, like, doing this project for school there, by the river, and Billy stopped to talk to her. And then this man came up. He'd been following Billy and they started arguing and fighting and this guy grabbed the shovel and killed him. Then I came by and he ran off."

"You saw him?"

"Yessir."

"What were they arguing about?" Bell asked skeptically.

"Drugs or something, Mary Beth said. Sounded like Billy was selling drugs to the kids on the football team. Like, those steroid things?"

"Jeeez," said Jesse Corn, giving a sour laugh.

"Garrett," Bell said. "Billy wasn't into drugs. I knew him. And we never had any reports about steroids at the high school."

"I understand that Billy Stail ragged on you a lot," Jesse said. "Billy and a couple other boys on the team."

Sachs thought this wasn't right – two big deputies double-teaming him.

"That they made fun of you. Called you Bug Boy. You took a swing at Billy once and he and his friends beat you up bad."

"I don't remember."

"Principal Gilmore told us," Bell said. "They had to call security."

"Maybe. But I didn't kill him."

"Ed Schaeffer died, you know. He got stung to death by those wasps in the blind."

"I'm sorry that happened. That wasn't
my
fault. I didn't put the nest there."

"It wasn't a trap?"

"No, it was just there, in the hunting blind. I went there all the time – even slept there – and they didn't bother me. Yellow jackets only sting when they're afraid you're going to hurt their family."

"Well, tell us about this man you say killed Billy," the sheriff said. "You ever see him around here before?"

"Yessir. Two or three times the last couple years. Walking through the woods around Blackwater Landing. Then once I saw him near the school."

"White, black?"

"White. And
he
was tall. Maybe about as old as Mr. Babbage –"

"His forties?"

"Yeah, I guess. He had blond hair. And he was wearing overalls. Tan ones. And a white shirt."

"But it was just your and Billy's fingerprints on the shovel," Bell pointed out. "Nobody else's."

Garrett said, "Like, I think he was wearing gloves."

"Why'd he be wearing gloves this time of year?" Jesse said.

"Probably so he
wouldn't
leave fingerprints," Garrett shot back.

Sachs thought back to the friction-ridge prints on the shovel. She and Rhyme hadn't done the printing themselves. Sometimes it's possible to image grain prints from leather gloves. Cotton or wool glove prints were much less detectable although fabric fibers could slough off and get caught in the tiny splinters in a wooden surface like a tool handle.

"Well, what you say could've happened, Garrett," Bell said. "But it just doesn't seem like the truth to anybody."

"Billy was dead! I just picked up the shovel and looked at it. Which I shouldn't have. But I did. That's all that happened. I knew Mary Beth was in danger so I took her away to be safe." He said this to Sachs, gazing at her with imploring eyes.

"Let's get back to her," Bell said. "Why was she in danger?"

"Because she was in Blackwater Landing." He snapped his nails again . . .
Different from my habit
, Sachs reflected.
I dig into my flesh, he clicks nail against nail. Which is worse?
she wondered.
Mine
, she decided;
it's more destructive.