Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

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The Barnes Noble Review
May 2000
The Empty Chair is the third – or, if you count a guest appearance in the millennial thriller The Devil's Teardrop, the fourth – novel to feature Lincoln Rhyme, the irascible forensic genius who became a quadriplegic when a cave-in at a crime scene damaged his spinal cord beyond repair. The series began in 1997 with The Bone Collector, which was recently made into a so-so film starring Denzel Washington. Every Rhyme novel to date has been characterized by authentic forensic detail and wild, even extravagant plotting, and the latest entry is no exception. The Empty Chair may, in fact, be the single trickiest suspense novel published so far this year.
Unlike earlier volumes, The Empty Chair takes place outside of New York City in the bucolic but sinister environs of Paquenoke County, North Carolina. Rhyme – accompanied by his long-suffering physical therapist, Thom, and his beloved forensic assistant, Amelia Sachs – has just been accepted as a patient at the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina, where he is scheduled to undergo an experimental procedure that might increase the range of his mobility but might, on the other hand, result in his death. Shortly after his arrival, Lincoln 's plans are disrupted by an unforeseen emergency. Jim Bell, Paquenoke County sheriff, has trouble on his hands and needs Lincoln 's expertise.
According to Bell, a disturbed teenager – known, for reasons that become graphically clear, as the Insect Boy – has murdered a local football hero and abductedtwoyoung women. Convinced that the women have only hours to live, Bell asks Lincoln to examine the trace evidence found at the abduction site in the faint hope of pinpointing the kidnapper's location. Though he knows nothing about the physical composition of the surrounding area – he and Sachs, as he repeatedly comments, are "fish out of water" in the American South – Rhyme agrees to help. Once again using Amelia Sachs as his eyes and legs, he sets up an ad hoc forensic lab in a borrowed corner of the local Sheriff's office and goes to work.
This sort of scenario – a crazed killer, a race against time, a scattered handful of clues – offers more than enough drama to fuel any number of traditional suspense novels. In The Empty Chair, however, this same scenario is merely the first level of a complex, multitiered mystery that constantly confounds our most fundamental expectations. The first indication that The Empty Chair contains unexpected depths comes when Lincoln, flawlessly interpreting his disparate bits of evidence, locates both the Insect Boy (Garrett Hanlon) and his most recent victim (an oncology nurse named Lydia Johannsen) within the first 150 pages. At that point, Deaver throws away the rulebook.
After talking with Garrett Hanlon in the Paquenoke County jail, Amelia develops the instinctive sense that Garrett might, as he continually claims, be a victim, and that another unidentified killer might still be at large. In a moment of intuitive – and reckless – empathy, Amelia abandons her professional principles and escapes with Garrett, determined both to prove the boy's innocence and rescue the remaining victim, a local history student named Mary Beth McConnell. From this point forward, almost nothing that happens in The Empty Chair is even remotely predictable.
It would spoil too many of the carefully constructed surprises to reveal the plot in any more detail. Suffice it to say that the narrative – which seems, at first, a simple but effective chase story – broadens and deepens to become something stranger and infinitely more complex. Throwing a varied assortment of people and elements into the mix – a trio of Deliverance-style rednecks, an emotionally scarred cancer survivor, a revisionist account of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an apparently deranged deputy sheriff, a pair of incipient rapists, the hidden motivations of a wealthy industrialist, and the tragic history of Tanner's Corner, a "town without children" – Deaver constructs an artful, entertaining melodrama that has much to say about the destructive consequences of uncontrolled greed.
If The Empty Chair has a besetting weakness, it is Deaver's relentless determination to dazzle the reader with his narrative sleight of hand, piling on an endless, constantly escalating series of shocks, surprises, and unexpected twists that might, in a lesser writer's hands, have become just a bit too much. But Deaver, as usual, is a consummate professional, and he holds it all together with the ease and assurance of a natural storyteller. Readers familiar with the earlier adventures of Lincoln Rhyme will be lining up for this one, which seems likely to attract a substantial number of new readers, as well. The Empty Chair is Jeffery Deaver at his best and most devious and is recommended, without reservation, to anyone in search of intelligent, high-adrenaline entertainment.
– Bill Sheehan

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Rhyme decided he hated this man, who was acting as if the criminalist were the oddest kind of circus freak.

And part of him hated Amelia Sachs too – for engineering this whole diversion and taking him away from his shark cells and Dr. Weaver's hands.

"Well, sir -"

"' Lincoln ' is fine."

"The thing is I specialize in marine sociozoology."

"Which is?" Rhyme asked impatiently.

"Basically, the behavior of marine animal life."

Oh, great , Rhyme thought. Not only do I get a crip-phobe for an assistant but I get one who's a fish shrink. "Well, it doesn't matter. You're a scientist. Principles are principles. Protocols are protocols. You've used a gas chromatograph?"

"Yessir."

"And compound and comparison microscopes?"

An affirmative nod though not as assertive as Rhyme would have liked. "But…" Looking at Bell for a moment then returning obediently to Rhyme's face. "… Aunt Lucy just asked me to stop by. I didn't know she meant I was supposed to help you on a case… I'm not really sure… I mean, I have classes -"

"Ben, you have to help us," Rhyme said curtly.

The sheriff explained, "Garrett Hanlon."

Ben let the name settle in his massive head somewhere. "Oh, that kid in Blackwater Landing."

The sheriff explained about the kidnappings and Ed Schaeffer's wasp attack.

"Gosh, I'm sorry about Ed," Ben said. "I met him once at Aunt Lucy's house and -"

"So we need you," Rhyme said, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

"We don't have a clue where he's gone with Lydia," the sheriff continued. "And we hardly have any time left to save those women. And, well, as you can see – Mr. Rhyme, he needs somebody to help him."

"Well…" A glance toward, but not at, Rhyme. "It's just I have this test coming up. I'm in school and all. Like I said."

Rhyme said patiently, "We don't really have any options here, Ben. Garrett's got three hours on us and he could kill either of his victims at any time – if he hasn't already."

The zoologist looked around the dusty room for a reprieve and found none. "Guess I can stick around for a little while, sir."

"Thank you," Rhyme said. He inhaled into the controller and swung around to the table on which the instruments rested. He stopped and surveyed them. He looked over at Ben. "Now, if you could just change my catheter we'll get to work."

The big man looked stricken. Whispered, "You want me to…"

"It's a joke," Thom said.

But Ben didn't smile. He just nodded uneasily and with the grace of a bison walked over to the chromatograph and began studying the control panel.

• • •

Sachs jogged into the impromptu lab in the County Building, Jesse Corn keeping up the speedy pace beside her.

Moving more leisurely, Lucy Kerr joined them a moment later. She said hello to her nephew Ben and introduced the huge man to Sachs and Jesse. Sachs held up one cluster of bags. "This is the evidence from Garrett's room," she said, then held up more bags. "This is from Blackwater Landing – the primary scene."

Rhyme looked at the bags but did so with some discouragement. Not only was there very little physical evidence but Rhyme was troubled again by what had occurred to him earlier: he had to analyze the clues without any firsthand knowledge of the surrounding area.

Fish out of water

He had a thought.

"Ben, how long've you lived here?" the criminalist asked.

"All my life, sir."

"Good. What's this general area of the state called?"

He cleared his throat. "I guess the Northern Coastal Plain."

"You have any friends who're geologists who specialize in the area? Cartographers? Naturalists?"

"No. They're all marine biologists."

"Rhyme," Sachs said, "when we were at Blackwater Landing I saw that barge, remember? It was shipping asphalt or tar paper from a factory near here."

"Henry Davett's company," Lucy said.

Sachs asked, "Would they have a geologist on staff?"

"I don't know about that," Bell said, "but Davett, he's an engineer and's lived here for years. Probably knows the land as good as anybody."

"Give him a call, will you?"

"You bet." Bell disappeared. He returned a moment later. "I got Davett. There's no geologist on staff but he said he might be able to help. He'll be over in a half hour." Then the sheriff asked, "So, Lincoln, how do you want to handle the pursuit?"

"I'll be here, with you and Ben. We're going to go through the evidence. I want a small search party over at Blackwater Landing now – to where Jesse saw Garrett and Lydia disappear. I'll guide the team as best I can, depending on what the evidence shows."

"Who do you want on the team?"

"Sachs in charge," Rhyme said. "Lucy with her."

Bell nodded and Rhyme noticed that Lucy gave no reaction to these orders about the chain of command.

"I'd like to volunteer," Jesse Corn said quickly.

Bell looked at Rhyme, who nodded. Then he said, "Probably one other."

"Four people? That's all? " Bell asked, frowning. "Hell, I could get dozens of volunteers."

"No, less is better in a case like this."

"Who's the fourth?" Lucy asked. "Mason Germain?"

Rhyme looked at the doorway, could see nobody outside. He lowered his voice. "What's Mason's story? He's got some history. I don't like cops with histories. I like blank slates."

Bell shrugged. "The man's had a tough life. He grew up north of the Paquo – the wrong side of the tracks. Father tried to make a go of it at a couple businesses and then started running 'shine and when he got collared by revenuers he killed himself. Mason himself worked his way up from dust. There's an expression 'round here – too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash. That's Mason. He's always complaining about being held back, not getting what he wants. He's an ambitious man in a town that hasn't got any use for ambition."

Rhyme observed, "And he's gunning for Garrett."

"You got that right."

"Why?"

"Mason just about begged to be lead investigator on that case we were telling you about – the girl got stung to death in Blackwater. Meg Blanchard. Truth be told, I think the victim had, you know, some connection with Mason. Maybe they were going out. Maybe there was something else – I don't know. But he wanted to nail Garrett bad. But he just couldn't make the case against him. When it came time for the old sheriff to retire, the Board of Supervisors held that against him. I got the job and he didn't – even though he's older'n me and'd been on the force longer."

Rhyme shook his head. "We don't need hotheads in an operation like this. Pick somebody else."

"Ned Spoto?" Lucy suggested.

Bell shrugged. "He's a good man. Sure. Can shoot good but he also won't unless he for sure has to."

Rhyme said, "Just make sure Mason's nowhere near the search."

"He won't like it."

"That's not a consideration," Rhyme said. "Find something else for him to do. Something that sounds important."

"I'll do the best I can," Bell said uncertainly.

Steve Farr leaned into the doorway. "Just called the hospital," he announced. "Ed's still in critical condition."

"Has he said anything? About the map he saw?"

"Not a word. Still unconscious."

Rhyme turned to Sachs. "Okay… Get going. Hold up where the trail stops in Blackwater Landing and wait to hear from me."

Lucy was looking uncertainly at the bags of evidence. "You really think this's the way to find those girls?"

"I know it is," Rhyme answered shortly.

She said skeptically, "Seems a little too much like magic to me."

Rhyme laughed. "Oh, that's exactly what it is. Sleight of hand, pulling rabbits out of hats. But remember that illusion is based on… on what , Ben?"

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