Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"What're you doing here?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Whatcha think? Lincoln wasn't sure who he could trust and who he couldn't so he had me fly down and hooked me up with Deputy Germain here to keep an eye on you. Figured he needed some help, seeing as how he couldn't trust Jim Bell or his kin."

" Bell ? " she whispered.

" Lincoln thinks he put this whole thing together. He's finding out for sure right now. But looks like he was right, that being his brother-in-law." Dellray nodded at Steve Farr.

"He almost got me," Sachs said.

The lean agent chuckled. "You weren't in a single, solitary lick of danger, no way. I had a bead on that fellow right 'tween his big ears from the second the back door opened. He'd so much as squinted out a target at you he'da been way, way gone."

Dellray noticed Mason studying him suspiciously. The agent laughed, said to Sachs, "Our friend in the constabulary here don't like my kind much. He told me so."

"Wait," Mason protested. "I only meant -"

"You meant federal agents, I'm betting," Dellray said.

The deputy shook his head, said gruffly, "I meant Northerners."

"True, he doesn't," Sachs confirmed.

Sachs and Dellray laughed. But Mason remained solemn. But it wasn't cultural differences that made him somber. He said to Sachs, "Sorry, but I'll have to take you back to the cell. You're still under arrest."

Her smile faded, and Sachs looked once more at the sun dancing over the scruffy yellow grass. She inhaled the scorching air of the out-of-doors once, then again. Finally she turned and walked back into the dim lockup.

"You killed Billy, didn't you?" Rhyme asked Jim Bell.

But the sheriff said nothing.

The criminalist continued, "The crime scene was unprotected for an hour and a half. And, sure, Mason was the first officer. But you got there before he arrived. You never got a call from Billy saying that Mary Beth was dead and you started to worry so you drove over to Blackwater Landing and found her gone and Billy hurt. Billy told you about Garrett getting away with the girl. Then you put the latex gloves on, picked up the shovel and killed him."

Finally the sheriff's anger broke through his facade. "Why did you suspect me? "

"Originally I did think it was Mason – only the three of us and Ben knew about the moonshiners' cabin. I assumed he called Culbeau and sent him there. But I asked Lucy and it turned out that Mason called her and sent her to the cabin – just to make sure Amelia and Garrett didn't get away again. Then I got to thinking and I realized that at the mill Mason tried to shoot Garrett. Anybody in on the conspiracy would want to keep him alive – like you did – so he could lead you to Mary Beth. I checked into Mason's finances and found out he's got a cheap house and is in serious hock to MasterCard and Visa. Nobody was paying him off. Unlike you and your brother-in-law, Bell. You've got a four-hundred-thousand-dollar house and plenty of cash in the bank. And Steve Farr's got a house worth three ninety and a boat that cost a hundred eighty thousand. We're getting court orders to take a peek in your safe-deposit boxes. Wonder how much we'll find there."

Rhyme continued. "I was a little curious why Mason was so eager to nail Garrett but he had a good reason for that. He told me he was pretty upset when you got the job of sheriff – couldn't quite figure out why since he had a better record and more seniority. He thought that if he could collar the Insect Boy the Board of Supervisors'd be sure to appoint him sheriff when your term expired."

"All your fucking playacting…" Bell muttered. "I thought you only believed in evidence."

Rhyme rarely sparred verbally with his quarry. Banter was useless except as a balm for the soul and Lincoln Rhyme had yet to uncover any hard evidence on the whereabouts and nature of the soul. Still, he told Bell, "I would've preferred evidence. But sometimes you have to improvise. I'm really not the prima donna everybody thinks I am."

The Storm Arrow wheelchair wouldn't fit into Amelia Sachs' cell.

"Not crip-accessible?" Rhyme groused. "That's an A.D.A. violation."

She thought his bluster was for her benefit, letting her see his familiar moods. But she said nothing.

Because of the wheelchair problem Mason Germain suggested they try the interrogation room. Sachs shuffled in, wearing the hand and ankle shackles that the deputy insisted on (she had, after all, already managed one escape from the place).

The lawyer from New York had arrived. He was gray-haired Solomon Geberth. A member of the New York, Massachusetts and D.C. bars, he had been admitted to the jurisdiction of North Carolina pro hoc vice – for the single case of People v. Sachs. Curiously, with his smooth, handsome face and mannerisms even smoother he seemed far more a genteel Southern lawyer out of a John Grisham novel than a bulldog of a Manhattan litigator. The man's trim hair glistened with spray and his Italian suit successfully resisted wrinkles even in Tanner's Corner's astonishing humidity.

Lincoln Rhyme sat between Sachs and her lawyer. She rested her hand on the armrest of his injured wheelchair.

"They brought in a special prosecutor from Raleigh," Geberth was explaining. "With the sheriff and the coroner on the take I don't think they quite trust McGuire. Anyway he's looked over the evidence and decided to dismiss the charges against Garrett."

Sachs stirred at this. "He did?"

Geberth said, "Garrett admitted hitting the boy, Billy, and thought he killed him. But Lincoln was right. It was Bell who killed the boy. And even if they brought him up on assault charges Garrett was clearly acting in self-defense. That other deputy, Ed Schaeffer? His death's been ruled accidental."

"What about kidnapping Lydia Johansson?" Rhyme asked.

"When she realized that Garrett had never intended to hurt her she decided to drop the charges. Mary Beth did the same. Her mother wanted to go ahead with the complaint but you should've heard that girl talk to the woman. Some fur flew during that conversation, I'll tell you."

"So he's free? Garrett?" Sachs asked, eyes on the floor.

"They're letting him out in a few minutes," Geberth told her. Then: "Okay, here's the laundry, Amelia: the prosecutor's position is that even if Garrett turned out not to be a felon, you aided in the escape of a prisoner who'd been arrested on the basis of probable cause and you killed an officer during the commission of that crime. The prosecutor's going for first-degree murder and throwing in the standard lesser-included offenses: both manslaughter counts – voluntary and involuntary – and reckless homicide and criminally negligent homicide."

"First degree?" Rhyme snapped. "It wasn't premeditated; it was an accident! For Christ's sake."

"Which is what I' m going to try to show at trial," Geberth said. "That the other deputy, the one who grabbed you, was a partial proximate cause of the shooting. But I guarantee they'll get the reckless homicide conviction. On the facts there's no doubt about that."

"What's the chance of acquittal?" Rhyme asked.

"Bad. Ten, fifteen percent at best. I'm sorry, but I have to recommend you take a plea."

She felt this like a blow to her chest. Her eyes closed and when she exhaled it was as if her soul had fled from her body.

"Jesus," Rhyme muttered.

Sachs was thinking about Nick, her former boyfriend. How, when he was arrested for hijacking and taking kickbacks, he refused a plea and took the risk of a jury trial. He said to her, "It's like what your old man said, Aimee – when you move they can't get you. It's all or nothing."