Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Sachs followed, sat with her back to the bow, facing him. He gave her a knowing grin, as if acknowledging that she didn't trust him enough to turn her back on him, and pulled the starter rope. The engine sputtered to life. He pushed off from the shore and, like modern Huck Finns, they started down the river.

Sachs reflecting: This is knuckle time.

A phrase her father had used. The trim, balding man, a beat patrolman in Brooklyn and Manhattan most of his life, had had a serious talk with his daughter when she'd told him she wanted to give up modeling and get into police work. He'd been all for the decision but had said this about the profession: "Amie, you have to understand: sometimes it's a rush, sometimes you get to make a difference, sometimes it's boring. And sometimes, not too often, thank God, it's knuckle time. Fist to fist. You're all by your lonesome, with nobody to help you. And I don't mean just against the perps. Sometimes it'll be you against your boss. Sometimes against their bosses. Could be you against your buddies too. You gonna be a cop, you got to be ready to go it alone. There's no getting around it."

"I can handle it, Pop."

"That's my girl. Let's go for a drive, honey."

Sitting in this rickety boat, being piloted by a troubled young man, Sachs had never felt so alone in her life.

Knuckle time… fist to fist.

"Look there," Garrett said quickly. Pointing to an insect of some kind. "It's my favorite of all. The water boatman. It flies under the water." His face lit up with unbridled enthusiasm. "It really does! Hey, that'd be pretty neat, wouldn't it? To fly underwater. I like water. It feels good on my skin." The smile faded and he rubbed his arm. "This fucking poison oak… I get it all the time. It itches bad sometimes."

They began threading their way through small inlets, around islands, roots and gray trees, half-submerged, always returning to a westerly course, toward the lowering sun.

A thought came to Sachs, an echo of something that had occurred to her earlier, in the boy's cell just before she broke him out of jail: By hiding a boat filled with provisions, gassed up, Garrett had anticipated that he would somehow escape from jail. And that her role in this journey was part of an elaborate, premeditated plan.

" Whatever you think about Garrett, don't trust him. You think he's innocent. But just accept that maybe he isn't. You know how we approach crime scenes, Sachs ."

" With an open mind. No preconceptions. Believing that anything's possible ."

But then she looked at the boy once again. His eyes bright and skipping happily from sight to sight as he guided the boat through the channels, looking nothing at all like an escaped criminal but for all the world like an enthusiastic teenager on a camping trip, content and excited about what he might find around the next bend in the river.

"She's good, Lincoln," Ben said, referring to the cell phone trick.

She is good , the criminalist thought. Adding, to himself: She's as good as I am. Though he conceded grimly – and to himself alone – that she'd been better than he this time.

Rhyme was furious with himself for not anticipating it. This isn't a game, he thought, an exercise – like the way he'd challenge her sometimes when she was walking the grid or when they were analyzing evidence back in his lab in New York. Her life was in danger. She had perhaps only hours before Garrett assaulted or killed her. He couldn't afford to slip up again.

A deputy appeared in the doorway, carrying a paper Food Lion bag. It contained Garrett's clothes from the lockup.

"Good!" Rhyme said. "Do a chart, somebody. Thom, Ben… do a chart. 'Found at the Secondary Crime Scene – the Mill.' Ben, write, write!"

"But we've got one," Ben said, pointing to the chalkboard.

"No, no, no," Rhyme snapped. "Erase it. Those clues were fake . Garrett planted them to lead us off. Just like the limestone in the shoe he left behind when he snatched Lydia. If we can find some evidence in his clothes" – nodding at the bag – "that'll tell us where Mary Beth really is."

"If we're lucky," Bell said.

No , Rhyme thought, if we're skillful. He said to Ben, "Cut a piece of the pants – near the cuff – and run it through the chromatograph."

Bell stepped out of the office to talk to Steve Farr about getting priority frequencies on the radios without tipping the state police about what was happening, which Rhyme had insisted he do.

Now the criminalist and Ben waited for the results from the chromatograph. As they did, Rhyme asked, "What else do we have?" Nodding toward the clothes.

"Brown paint stains on Garrett's pants," Ben reported as he examined them. "Dark brown. Looks recent."

"Brown," Rhyme repeated, examining them. "What's the color of Garrett's parents' house?"

"I don't know," Ben began.

"I didn't expect you to be a storehouse of Tanner's Corner trivia," Rhyme grumbled. "I meant: Call them."

"Oh." Ben found the number in the case file and called. He spoke to someone for a moment then hung up. "That's one uncooperative son of a bitch… Garrett's foster dad. Anyway, their house is white and there's nothing painted dark brown on the property."

"So, it's probably the color of the place where he's got her."

The big man asked, "Is there a paint database somewhere we can compare it to?"

"Good idea," Rhyme responded. "But the answer's no. I have one in New York but that won't do us any good here. And the FBI database is automotive. But keep going. What's in the pockets, anything? Put on -"

But Ben was already pulling on the latex gloves. "This what you were going to say?"

"It was," Rhyme muttered.

Thom said, "He hates to be anticipated."

"Then I'll try to do it more," Ben said.

"Ah, here's something." Rhyme squinted at several small white objects the young man dug out of Garrett's pocket.

"What are they?"

Ben sniffed. "Cheese and bread."

"More food. Like the crackers and -"

Ben was laughing.

Rhyme frowned. "What's funny?"

"It's food – but it's not for Garrett."

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't you ever fished?" Ben asked.

"No, I've never fished," Rhyme grumbled. "If you want fish you buy it, you cook it, you eat it. What the hell does fishing have to do with cheese sandwiches?"

"They're not from sandwiches," Ben explained. "They're stinkballs. Bait for fishing. You wad up bread and cheese and let 'em get good and sour. Bottom feeders love 'em. Like catfish. The smellier the better."

Rhyme's eyebrow lifted. "Ah, now that's helpful."

Ben examined the cuffs. He brushed a small amount out onto a People magazine subscription card and then looked at it under the microscope. "Nothing much distinctive," he said. "Except little flecks of something. White."

"Let me see."

The zoologist carried the large Bausch & Lomb microscope over to Rhyme, who looked through the eyepieces. "Okay, good. They're paper fibers."

"They are?" Ben asked.

"It's obvious they're paper. What else would they be? Absorbent paper too. Don't have a clue what the source is, though. Now, that dirt is very interesting. Can you get some more? Out of the cuffs?"

"I'll try."

Ben cut the stitching securing the cuff and unfolded it. He brushed more dirt out onto the card.

"'Scope it," Rhyme ordered.

The zoologist prepared a slide and slipped it onto the stage of the compound microscope, which he again held rock-steady for Rhyme, who peered into the eyepieces. "There's a lot of clay. I mean, a lot . Feldspathic rock, probably granite. And – what's that? Oh, peat moss."