Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Sachs asked, "You called him a boy, the perp. How old is he?"

"Sixteen."

"Juvenile."

"Technically," Bell said. "But his history's worse than most of our adult troublemakers."

"You've checked with his family?" she asked, as if it were a foregone conclusion that she and Rhyme were on the case.

"Parents're dead. He's got foster parents. We looked through his room at their place. Didn't find any secret trapdoors or diaries or anything."

One never does , thought Lincoln Rhyme, wishing devoutly this man would hightail it back to his unpronounceable county and take his problems with him.

"I think we should, Rhyme," Sachs said.

"Sachs, the surgery…"

She said, "Two victims in two days? He could be a progressive." Progressive felons are like addicts. To satisfy their increasing psychological hunger for violence, the frequency and severity of their acts escalate.

Bell nodded. "You got that right. And there's stuff I didn't mention. There've been three other deaths in Paquenoke County over the past couple of years and a questionable suicide just a few days ago. We think the boy might've been involved in all of them. We just didn't find enough evidence to hold him."

But then I wasn't working the cases, now, was I? Rhyme thought before reflecting that pride was probably the sin that would do him in.

He reluctantly felt his mental gears turning, intrigued by the puzzles that the case presented. What had kept Lincoln Rhyme sane since his accident – what had stopped him from finding some Jack Kevorkian to help with assisted suicide – were mental challenges like this.

"Your surgery's not till day after tomorrow, Rhyme," Sachs pushed. "And all you have are those tests before then."

Ah, your ulterior motives are showing, Sachs…

But she'd made a good point. He was looking at a lot of downtime before the operation itself. And it would be pre-surgery downtime – which meant without eighteen-year-old scotch. What was a quad going to do in a small North Carolina town anyway? Lincoln Rhyme's greatest enemy wasn't the spasms, phantom pain or dysreflexia that plague spinal cord patients; it was boredom.

"I'll give you one day," Rhyme finally said. "As long as it doesn't delay the operation. I've been on a waiting list for fourteen months to have this procedure."

"Deal, sir," Bell said. His weary face brightened.

But Thom shook his head. "Listen, Lincoln, we're not here to work. We're here for your procedure and then we're leaving. I don't have half the equipment I need to take care of you if you're working."

"We're in a hospital , Thom. I wouldn't be surprised to find most of what you need here. We'll talk to Dr. Weaver. I'm sure she'll be happy to help us out."

The aide, resplendent in white shirt, pressed tan slacks and tie, said, "For the record, I don't think it's a good idea."

But like hunters everywhere – mobile or not – once Lincoln Rhyme had made the decision to pursue his prey nothing else mattered. He now ignored Thom and began to interrogate Jim Bell. "How long has he been on the run?"

"Just a couple hours," Bell said. "What I'll do is have a deputy bring over the evidence we found and maybe a map of the area. I was thinking…"

But Bell 's voice faded as Rhyme shook his head and frowned. Sachs suppressed a smile; she'd know what was coming.

"No," Rhyme said firmly. "We'll come to you. You'll have to set us up someplace in – what's the county seat again?"

"Uhm, Tanner's Corner."

"Set us up someplace we can work. I'll need a forensics assistant… You have a lab in your office?"

"Us?" asked the bewildered sheriff. "Not hardly."

"Okay, we'll get you a list of equipment we'll need. You can borrow it from the state police." Rhyme looked at the clock. "We can be there in a half hour. Right, Thom?"

" Lincoln…"

" Right? "

"A half hour," the resigned aide muttered.

Now who was in a bad mood?

"Get the forms from Dr. Weaver. Bring them with us. You can fill them out while Sachs and I're working."

"Okay, okay."

Sachs was writing a list of the basic forensics lab equipment. She held it up for Rhyme to read. He nodded then said, "Add a density gradient unit. Otherwise, it looks good."

She wrote this item on the list and handed it to Bell. He read it, nodding his head uncertainly. "I'll work this out, sure. But I really don't want you to go to too much trouble -"

"Jim, hope I can speak freely."

"Sure."

The criminalist said in a low voice, "Just looking over a little evidence isn't going to do any good. If this is going to work, Amelia and I are going to be in charge of the pursuit. One hundred percent in charge. Now, you tell me up front – is that going to be a problem for anybody?"

"I'll make sure it isn't," Bell said.

"Good. Now you better get going on that equipment. We need to move ."

And Sheriff Bell stood for a moment, nodding, hat in one hand, Sachs' list in the other, before he headed for the door. Rhyme believed that Cousin Roland, a man of many Southernisms, had an expression that fit the look on the sheriff's face. Rhyme wasn't exactly sure how the phrase went but it had something to do with catching a bear by the tail.

"Oh, one thing?" Sachs asked, stopping Bell as he passed through the doorway. He paused and turned. "The perp? What's his name?"

"Garrett Hanlon. But in Tanner's Corner they call him the Insect Boy."

Paquenoke is a small county in northeastern North Carolina. Tanner's Corner, roughly in the center of the county, is the biggest town and is surrounded by smaller unincorporated clusters of residential or commercial pockets, such as Blackwater Landing, which huddles against the Paquenoke River – called the Paquo by most locals – a few miles to the north of the county seat.

South of the river is where most of the county's residential and shopping areas are located. The land there is dotted with gentle marshes, forests, fields and ponds. Nearly all of the residents live in this half. North of the Paquo, on the other hand, the land is treacherous. The Great Dismal Swamp has encroached and swallowed up trailer parks and houses and the few mills and factories on that side of the river. Snaky bogs have replaced the ponds and fields, and the forests, largely old-growth, are impenetrable unless you're lucky enough to find a path. No one lives on that side of the river except 'shiners and drug cookers and a few crazy swamp people. Even hunters tend to avoid the area after that incident two years ago when wild boars came after Tal Harper and even shooting half of them didn't stop the rest from devouring him before help arrived.

Like most people in the county Lydia Johansson rarely went north of the Paquo, and never very far from civilization when she did. She now realized, with an overwhelming sense of despair, that by crossing the river she'd stepped over some boundary into a place from which she might never return – a boundary that was not merely geographic but was spiritual too.

She was terrified being dragged along behind this creature, of course – terrified at the way he looked over her body, terrified of his touch, terrified that she'd die from heat – or sunstroke or snakebite – but what scared her the most was realizing what she'd left behind on the south side of the river: her fragile, comfortable life, small though it was: her few friends and fellow nurses on the hospital ward, the doctors she flirted futilely with, the pizza parties, the Seinfeld reruns, her horror books, ice cream, her sister's children. She even looked back longingly at the troubled parts of her life – the struggle with her weight, the fight to quit smoking, the nights alone, the long absence of phone calls from the man she occasionally saw (she called him her "boyfriend," though she knew that was merely wishful thinking)… even these now seemed fiercely poignant simply because of their familiarity.