Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"Open it carefully, remember the traps."

Sachs eased a corner of the bag down, peered inside.

"It's clear, Rhyme."

Lucy and Ned came down the path and all four of them stood around the bag as if it were the body of a drowned man pulled from the quarry.

"What's in it?"

Sachs pulled on her latex gloves, which were very soft because of the sun. Immediately her hands began to sweat and tingle from the heat.

"Empty water bottles. Deer Park. No store price or inventory stickers on them. Wrappers from two packages of Planters peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers. No store stickers on them either. You want UPC codes to trace the shipments?"

"If we had a week, maybe," Rhyme muttered. "No, don't bother. More details on the bag," he ordered.

"There's a little printing on it. But it's too faded to read. Anybody make it out?" she asked the others.

No one could read the lettering.

"Any idea what was inside originally?" Rhyme asked.

She picked up the bag and smelled it. "Musty. Been inside someplace for a long time. Can't tell what was in it." Sachs turned the bag inside out and hit it hard with the flat of her hand. A few old, shriveled corn kernels fell onto the ground.

"Corn, Rhyme."

"My namesake." Jesse laughed.

Rhyme asked, "Farms around here?"

Sachs relayed the question to the search party.

"Dairy, not corn," Lucy said, looking at Ned and Jesse, who nodded.

Jesse said, "But you'd feed corn to cows."

"Sure," Ned said. "I'd guess it came from a feed-and-grain store someplace. Or a warehouse."

"You hear that, Rhyme?"

"Feed and grain. Right. I'll get Ben and Jim Bell on that. Anything else, Sachs?"

She looked at her hands. They were blackened. She turned the bag over. "Looks like there's scorch on the bag, Rhyme. It wasn't burned itself but it was sitting in something that had."

"Any idea what?"

"Bits of charcoal, looks like. So I'd guess wood."

"Okay," he said. "It's going on the list."

She glanced at Garrett's and Lydia 's footprints. "We're going after them again," she told Rhyme. "I'll call when I have some more answers." Sachs announced to the search party, "Back up to the top." Feeling the shooting pains in her knees she gazed up to the lip of the quarry, muttering, "Didn't seem that high when we got here."

"Oh, hey, that's a rule – hills're always twice as tall going up as coming down," said Jesse Corn, the resident storehouse of aphorisms, as he politely let her precede him up the narrow path.

Lincoln Rhyme, ignoring a glistening black-and-green fly that strafed nearby, was gazing at the latest evidence chart.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

QUARRY

Old Burlap Bag – Unreadable Name on It

Corn – Feed and Grain?

Scorch Marks on Bag

Deer Park Water

Planters Cheese Crackers

The most unusual evidence is the best evidence. Rhyme was never happier at a crime scene than when he found something completely unidentifiable. Because it meant that if he could identify it there'd be limited sources he could trace it back to.

But these items – the evidence Sachs had found at the quarry – were common. If the printing on the bag had been legible then he might have traced that to a single source. But it wasn't. If the water and crackers had price stickers they might have been traced to the stores that sold them and to a clerk who recalled Garrett and might have some information about where to find him. But they didn't. And scorched wood? That led to every barbecue in Paquenoke County. Useless.

The corn might be helpful – Jim Bell and Steve Farr were on phones right now, calling feed-and-grain outlets – but Rhyme doubted the clerks would have anything more to say than "Yeah. We sell corn. In old burlap bags. Like everybody does."

Damn! He had no sense of this place at all. He needed weeks – months – to get a feel for the area.

But, of course, they didn't have weeks or months.

Eyes moving from chart to chart, fast as the fly.

FOUND AT PRIMARY CRIME SCENE -

BLACKWATER LANDING

Kleenex with Blood

Limestone Dust

Nitrates

Phosphate

Ammonia

Detergent

Camphene

Nothing more to be deduced from that one.

Back to the insect books , he decided.

"Ben, that book there – The Miniature World . I want to look at it."

"Yessir," the young man said absently, eyes on the evidence chart. He picked it up and held it out to Rhyme.

A moment passed as the book hovered in the air over the criminalist's chest. Rhyme cast a wry gaze at Ben, who glanced at him and, after a beat, gave a sudden jerk and reared back, realizing that he was offering something to a man who'd need divine intervention to take it.

"Oh, my, Mr. Rhyme… look," Ben blurted, his round face red. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking, sir. Man, that was stupid. I really -"

"Ben," Rhyme said evenly, "shut the fuck up."

The huge man blinked in shock. Swallowed. The book, tiny in his massive hand, lowered. "It was an accident, sir. I said I was -"

"Shut. Up."

Ben did. His mouth closed. He looked around the room for help but there was no help on the horizon. Thom was standing against the wall, silent, arms crossed, not about to become a U.N. peacekeeper.

Rhyme continued in a low growl, "You're walking on eggshells and I'm sick of it. Quit your goddamn cringing."

"Cringing? I was just trying to be decent to somebody who's… I mean -"

"No, you weren't. You've been trying to figure out how to get the hell out of here without looking at me any more than you have to and without upsetting your own delicate little psyche."

The massive shoulders stiffened. "Well, now, sir, I don't think that's completely fair."

"Bullshit. It's about time I took the gloves off…" Rhyme laughed viciously. "How do you like that metaphor? Me, taking off gloves? Something I'm not going to be able to do very fast, am I now?… How's that for a crip joke?"

Ben was desperate to escape – to flee out the door – but his massive legs were rooted like oak trunks.

"What I've got isn't contagious," Rhyme snapped. "You think it's going to rub off? Doesn't work that way. You're walking around here like you breathe the air and they're going to have to cart you off in a wheelchair. Hell, you're even afraid if you look my way you're going to end up like me!"

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it? I think it is… How come I scare the hell out of you?"

"You don't!" Ben snarled. "No way!"

Rhyme raged, "Oh, yes, I do. You're terrified to be in the same room with me. You're a fucking coward."

The big man leaned forward, spittle flying from his lips, jaw trembling, as he shouted back, "Well, fuck you, Rhyme!" He was speechless with rage for a moment. Then continued, "I come over here as a favor to my aunt. It messes up all my plans and I'm not getting paid a penny! I listen to you boss people around like you're some kind of fucking prima donna. I mean, I don't know where the hell you get off, mister…" His voice faded and he squinted at Rhyme, who was laughing hard.

"What?" Ben snapped. "What the hell're you laughing at?"

"See how easy it is?" Rhyme asked, chuckling now. Thom too was having trouble suppressing a smile.

Breathing heavily, straightening up, Ben wiped his mouth. Angry, wary. He shook his head. "What do you mean? What's easy?"

"Looking me in the eye and telling me I'm a prick." Rhyme continued in a placid voice, "Ben, I'm just like anybody else. I don't like it when people treat me like a china doll. And I know they sure as hell don't like to worry that they're going to break me."

"You suckered me. You said those things just to get my goat."