Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"I don't know. Maybe." Then he shook his head and offered a sad smile. "I guess not. Mary Beth's pretty and smart and a bunch older than me. She'll end up with somebody who's handsome and smart. But maybe we could be friends, her and me. But even if not, all I really care about is she's okay. She'll stay with me till it's safe. Or you and your friend, that man in the wheelchair everybody was talking about, you can help her go someplace where she'd be safe." He looked out the window and fell silent.

"Safe from the man in the overalls?" she asked.

He didn't answer for a moment then nodded. "Yeah. That's right."

"I'm going to get some of that water," Sachs said.

"Wait," he said. He tore some dry leaves off a small branch resting on the kitchen counter, told her to rub her bare arms and neck and cheeks with it. It gave off a strong herbal smell. "Citronella plant," he explained. "Keeps the mosquitoes away. You won't have to swat 'em anymore."

Sachs picked up the cup. She went outside, looked at the rainwater barrel. It was covered with a fine screen. Lifted it, filled the cup and drank. The water seemed sweet. She listened to the creaks and zips of the insects.

Or you and your friend, that man in the wheelchair everybody was talking about, you can help her go someplace where she'd be safe.

The phrase echoed in her head: The man in the wheelchair, the man in the wheelchair.

She returned to the trailer. Set down the cup. Looked around the tiny living room. "Garrett, would you do me a favor?"

"I guess."

"You trust me?"

"I guess."

"Go sit over there."

He looked at her for a moment then stood and walked to the old armchair she was nodding at. Sachs walked across the tiny room and picked up one of the rattan chairs in the corner. She carried it to where the boy sat and placed it on the floor, facing him.

"Garrett, you remember what Dr. Penny was telling you to do in jail? About the empty chair?"

"Talk to the chair?" he asked, eyeing it uncertainly. He nodded. "That game."

"That's right. I want you to do it again. Will you?"

He hesitated, wiped his hands on the legs of his pants. Stared at the chair for a moment. Finally he said, "I guess."

Amelia Sachs was thinking back to the interrogation room and the session with the psychologist. From her vantage point Sachs had watched the boy closely through the one-way mirror. She remembered how the doctor had tried to get him to imagine that Mary Beth was in the chair but that, while Garrett hadn't wanted to say anything to her, he did want to talk to somebody . She'd seen a look in his face, a longing, disappointment – and anger too, she believed – when the doctor turned him away from where he wanted to go.

Oh, Rhyme, I understand that you like hard, cold evidence. That we can't depend on those "soft" things – on words and expressions and tears and the look in someone's eyes as we sit across from them and listen to their stories… But that doesn't mean those stories are always false. I believe there's more to Garrett Hanlon than the evidence tells us.

"Look at the chair," she said. "Who do you want to imagine sitting there?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

She pushed the chair closer. Smiled to encourage him. "Tell me. It's okay. A girl? Somebody at school?"

He shook his head once more.

"Tell me."

"Well, I don't know. Maybe…" After a pause he blurted: "Maybe my father."

Sachs remembered, with irritation, the cold eyes and crude manners of Hal Babbage. She supposed that Garrett would have a lot to say to him.

"Just your father? Or both him and Mrs. Babbage?"

"No, no, not him. I mean, my real father."

"Your real father?"

Garrett nodded. He was agitated, nervous. Clicking his nails frequently.

Insects' antennas show their moods…

Looking at his troubled face, Sachs realized with concern that she had no idea what she was doing. There were surely all sorts of things psychologists did to draw patients out, to guide them, to protect them when they practiced any type of therapy. Was there a chance that she would make Garrett worse? Push him over a line so that he actually would do something violent and hurt himself or someone else? Nonetheless, she was going to try it. Sachs' nickname in the New York City Police Department was P.D. – for "the portable's daughter," the child of a beat patrolman – and she definitely took after her old man: his love of cars, love of police work, impatience with bullshit and especially his talent for street-cop psychology. Lincoln Rhyme disparaged her being a "people cop" and warned that it would be her downfall. He extolled her talent as a criminalist and, though she was a talented forensic scientist, in her heart she was just like her father; for Amelia Sachs the best type of evidence was that found in the human heart.

Garrett's eyes strayed to the window, where bugs thumped suicidally against the rusty screen.

"What was your father's name?" Sachs asked.

"Stuart. Stu."

"What did you call him?"

"'Dad' mostly. 'Sir' sometimes." Garrett smiled sadly. "If I'd done something wrong and thought I better be, like, on good behavior."

"You two got along?"

"Better'n most of my friends and their dads. They got whipped some and their dads were always yelling at them. You know: 'Why'd you miss that goal?' 'Why's your room so messy?' 'Why didn't you get your homework done?' But Dad was okay to me. Until…" His voice bled out.

"Go on."

"I don't know." Another shrug.

Sachs persisted. "Until what, Garrett?"

Silence.

"Say it."

"I don't want to tell you. It's stupid."

"Well, don't tell me . Tell him , your dad." She nodded toward the chair. "There's your father right there in front of you. Imagine it." The boy edged forward, staring at the chair, almost fearfully. "There's Stu Hanlon sitting there. Talk to him."

For an instant there was such a look of longing in the boy's eyes that Sachs wanted to cry. She knew they were close to something important and she was afraid he'd balk. "Tell me about him," she said, changing tack slightly. "Tell me what he looked like. What he wore."

After a pause the boy said, "He was tall and pretty thin. He had dark hair and it stuck up right after he'd get his hair cut. He had to put this stuff on that smelled good to keep it down for a couple days afterward. He always wore pretty nice clothes. He didn't even have a pair of jeans, I don't think. He always wore shirts with, you know, collars on them. And pants with cuffs." Sachs recalled noting when she searched his room that he had no jeans, only cuffed slacks. A faint smile bloomed on Garrett's face. "He used to drop a quarter down the side of his pants and try and catch it in his cuff and if he did then my sister or me could have it. It was, like, this game we played. On Christmas he'd bring home silver dollars for us and he'd keep sliding them down his pants until we got them."

The silver dollars in the wasp jar, Sachs recalled.

"Did he have any hobbies? Sports?"

"He liked to read. He'd take us to bookstores a lot and he read to us. A lot of history and travel books. And stuff about nature. Oh, and he fished. Almost every weekend."

"Well, imagine that he's sitting there in the empty chair and he's wearing his nice slacks and a shirt with a collar. And he's reading a book. Okay?"

"I guess."

"He puts the book down -"

"No, first he'd, like, mark the place he was reading. He had a ton of bookmarks. He sort of collected them. My sister and me got him one the Christmas before the accident."

"Okay, he marks his place and puts the book down. He's looking at you. Now you've got a chance to say something to him. What would you say?"