Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Garrett looked down at his long, grimy fingernails. "Well, maybe there is something."

"Go on."

"This is… it's kinda hard."

Cal Fredericks was sitting forward, pen held over a pad of paper.

Dr. Penny said softly, "Let's set the scene… Mary Beth's right there. She's waiting. She wants you to say it."

Garrett asked, "She does? You think so?"

"I do," the doctor reassured him. "Do you want to tell her something about where she is now? Where you took her? What it's like? Maybe why you took her to that particular place?"

"No," Garrett said. "I don't want to say anything about that."

"Then what do you want to say?"

"I…" His voice faded. His nails clicked.

"I know it's difficult."

Sachs too was sitting forward in her chair. Come on , she found herself thinking, come on, Garrett. We want to help you. Meet us halfway.

Dr. Penny continued, his voice hypnotic. "Go ahead, Garrett. There's Mary Beth right there in the chair. She's waiting. She's wondering what you're going to say. Talk to her." The doctor pushed the soft drink closer to Garrett and he took several long drinks, the cuffs ringing against the can as he lifted it with both hands. After this momentary break the doctor continued. "What is there that you really want to say to her? That one important thing? I can see that you want to say it. I can see that you need to say it. And I think that she needs to hear it."

The doctor pushed the empty chair closer. "There she is, Garrett, sitting there right in front of you, looking at you. What's that one thing you'd say to her that you haven't been able to? Now's your chance. Go ahead."

Another swallow of Coke. Sachs noticed that the boy's hands were shaking. What was coming? she wondered. What was he about to say?

Suddenly, startling both the men in the room, Garrett leaned forward and blurted to the chair, "I really, really like you, Mary Beth. And… and I think I love you." He took several deep breaths, clicked his fingernails a few times then gripped the arms of the chair nervously and lowered his head, his face red as sunset.

"That's what you wanted to say?" the doctor asked.

Garrett nodded.

"Anything else?"

"Uhm, no."

This time it was the doctor who glanced at the lawyer and shook his head.

"Mister," Garrett began. "Doctor… I've, like, got this question?"

"Go ahead, Garrett."

"Okay… there's this book of mine I'd really like to have from my house. It's called The Miniature World . Would that be okay?"

"We'll see if that can be arranged," the doctor said. He looked past Garrett to Fredericks, who rolled his eyes in frustration. The men rose, pulled on their jackets. "That'll be it for now, Garrett." The boy nodded.

Sachs quickly rose and stepped outside into the lockup office. The desk deputy hadn't noticed her eavesdropping.

Fredericks and the doctor stepped outside as Garrett was led back into the cell.

Jim Bell pushed through the doorway. Fredericks introduced him to the doctor, and the sheriff asked, "Anything?"

Fredericks shook his head. "Not a thing."

Bell said grimly, "Was just over with the magistrate. They're gonna arraign him at six and get him over to Lancaster tonight."

" Tonight? " Sachs said.

"Better to get him out of town. There're a few people around here'd like to take matters into their own hands."

Dr. Penny said, "I can try again later. He's very agitated right now."

"'Course he's agitated," Bell muttered. "He just got himself arrested for murder and kidnapping. That'd make me agitated too. Do whatever you want in Lancaster but McGuire's slapping the charges on him and we're shipping him out 'fore dark. And by the way, Cal, I have to tell you: McGuire's going for murder one."

In the County Building, Amelia Sachs found Rhyme as ornery as she'd thought he'd be.

"Come on, Sachs, help poor Ben with the equipment and let's get on our way. I told Dr. Weaver I'd be at the hospital some time this year ."

But she just stood at the window, looking out. Finally she said, "Rhyme."

The criminalist looked up, squinted as he studied her the way he'd study a bit of trace evidence he couldn't identify. "I don't like that, Sachs."

"What?"

"I don't like it one bit. Ben, no, you have to take the armature off before you pack it up."

"Armature?" Ben was struggling to close up the boxy ALS – alternative light source, used to image substances invisible to the unaided eye.

"The wand," Sachs explained and took over packing up the device.

"Thanks." Ben began to coil computer wire.

"That look of yours, Sachs. That's what I don't like. Your look and the tone of your voice."

"Ben," she asked, "could you give us a few minutes alone?"

"No, he couldn't," Rhyme snapped. "We don't have time. We've got to get packed up and out of here."

"Five minutes," she said.

Ben looked from Rhyme to Sachs and because Sachs stared at him with an imploring gaze, not an angry gaze, she won the contest and the big man stepped out of the room.

Rhyme tried to preempt her. "Sachs, we've done all we can do. We saved Lydia. We've caught the perp. He'll take a plea and tell them where Mary Beth is."

"He's not going to tell where she is."

"But that's not our problem. There's nothing more -"

"I don't think he did it."

"Killed Mary Beth? I agree. The blood shows she's probably alive but -"

"I mean, killed Billy."

Rhyme tossed his head, to flick an infuriating tail of hair off his forehead. "You believe that man-in-the-tan-overalls story that Jim mentioned?"

"Yes, I do."

"Sachs, he's a troubled boy and you feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him. But -"

"That doesn't have anything to do with it."

"You're right, it doesn't," he snapped. "The only thing that's relevant is the evidence. And the evidence shows there's no man in overalls and that Garrett's guilty."

"The evidence suggests he's guilty, Rhyme. It doesn't prove it. Evidence can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Besides, I've got some evidence of my own."

"Such as?"

"He asked me to take care of his insects for him."

"So?"

"Doesn't it seem a little odd that a cold-blooded killer would care what happened to some goddamn insects?"

"That's not evidence, Sachs. That's his strategy. It's psychological warfare, trying to break down our defenses. The boy's smart, remember. High IQ, good grades. And look at his reading matter. It's heady stuff – he's learned a lot from the insects. And one thing about them is that they have no moral code. All they care about is surviving. Those are the lessons he's learned. That's been his child development. It's sad, but it's not our problem."

"You know that trap he set. The pine-bough trap?"

Rhyme nodded.

"It was only two feet deep. And the hornets' nest inside? It was empty. No wasps. And the ammonia bottle wasn't rigged to hurt anybody. It was just so he'd have some warning when a search party was getting close to the mill."

"That's not empirical evidence, Sachs. Like the bloody tissue, for instance."

"He said he had been masturbating. And that Mary Beth hit her head and he wiped the wound with it. Anyway, if he raped her what would be the point of a tissue?"

"To clean up afterward."

"Doesn't fit any rape profile I know."

Rhyme quoted himself, from the foreword of his criminalistics textbook, "'A profile is a guide . Evidence is -'"

"- 'God,'" she completed the quotation. "Okay, then – there were plenty of footprints at the scene. Remember, it was trampled. Some of those might've been the overall man's."

"There are no other prints on the murder weapon."