Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Bell started to continue but Mason interrupted. He said in a low voice, "Girl in her early twenties – like Mary Beth. Real nice, good Christian. She was taking a nap on her back porch. Garrett tossed a hornets' nest inside. Got herself stung a hundred thirty-seven times. Had a heart attack."

Lucy Kerr said, "I ran the call. It was a real bad sight, what happened to her. She died slow. Real painful."

"Oh, and that funeral we passed on the way here?" Bell asked. "That was Todd Wilkes. He was eight. Killed himself."

"Oh, no," Sachs muttered. "Why?"

"Well, he'd been pretty sick," Jesse Corn explained. "He was at the hospital more than at home. Was real tore up about it. But there was more – Garrett was seen shouting at Todd a few weeks ago, really giving him hell. We were thinking that Garrett kept harassing and scaring him until he snapped."

"Motive?" Sachs asked.

"He's a psycho, that's his motive," Mason spat out. "People make fun of him and he's out to get them. Simple as that."

"Schizophrenic?"

Lucy said, "Not according to his counselors at school. Antisocial personality's what they call it. He's got a high IQ. He got mostly A's on his report cards – before he started skipping school a couple of years ago."

"You have a picture of him?" Sachs asked.

The sheriff opened a file. "Here's the booking shot for the hornets'-nest assault."

The picture showed a thin, crew-cut boy with prominent, connected brows and sunken eyes. There was a rash on his cheek.

"Here's another." Bell unfolded a newspaper clipping. It showed a family of four at a picnic table. The caption read, "The Hanlons at the Tanner's Corner Annual Picnic, a week before a tragic auto accident on Route 112 took the lives of Stuart, 39, and Sandra, 37, and their daughter, Kaye, 10. Also pictured is Garrett, 11, who was not in the car at the time of the accident."

"Can I see the report of the scene yesterday?" Rhyme asked.

Bell opened a folder. Thom took it. Rhyme had no page-turning frame so he relied on his aide to flip the pages.

"Can't you hold it steadier?"

Thom sighed.

But the criminalist was irritated. The crime scene had been very sloppily worked. There were Polaroid photos revealing a number of footprints but no rulers had been laid in the shot to indicate size. Also, none of the prints had numbered cards to indicate that they'd been made by different individuals.

Sachs noticed this too and shook her head, commenting on it. Lucy, sounding defensive, said, "You always do that? Put cards down?"

"Of course," Sachs said. "It's standard procedure."

Rhyme continued to examine the report. In it was only a cursory description of the location and pose of the boy's body. Rhyme could see that the outlining had been done in spray paint, which is notorious for ruining trace and contaminating crime scenes.

No dirt had been sampled for trace at the site of the body or where there'd been an obvious scuffle between Billy and Mary Beth and Garrett. And Rhyme could see cigarette butts on the ground – which might provide many clues – but none had been collected.

"Next."

Thom flipped the page.

The friction ridge – fingerprint – report was marginally better. The shovel had four full and seventeen partials, all positively identified as Garrett's and Billy's. Most of them were latents but a few were evident – easily visible without chemicals or alternative light source imaging – in a smear of mud on the handle. Still, Mason had been careless when he'd worked the scene – his latex glove prints on the shovel covered up many of the killer's. Rhyme would have fired a tech for such careless handling of evidence but since there were so many other good prints it wouldn't make any difference in this case.

The equipment would be arriving soon. Rhyme said to Bell, "I'm going to need that forensics tech to help me with the analysis and the equipment. I'd prefer a cop but the important thing is that they know science. And know the area here. A native."

Mason's thumb danced a circle over the ribbed hammer of his revolver. "We can dig somebody up but I thought you were the expert. I mean, isn't that why we're using you?"

"One of the reasons you're using me is because I know when I need help." He looked at Bell. "Anybody come to mind?"

It was Lucy Kerr who answered. "My sister's boy – Benny – he's studying science at UNC. Grad school."

"Smart?"

"Phi Beta. He's just… well, a little quiet."

"I don't want him for his conversation."

"I'll call him."

"Good," Rhyme said. Then: "Now, I want Amelia to search the crime scenes: the boy's room and Blackwater."

Mason said, "But" – he waved his hand at the report – "we already did that. Fine-tooth comb."

"I'd like her to search them again," Rhyme said shortly. Then looked at Jesse. "You know the area. Could you go with her?"

"Sure. Be happy to."

Sachs gave him a wry look. But Rhyme knew the value of a flirt; Sachs would need cooperation – and a lot of it. Rhyme didn't think Lucy or Mason would be half as helpful as the already-infatuated Jesse Corn.

Rhyme said, "I want Amelia to have a sidearm."

"Jesse's our ordnance expert," Bell said. "He can rustle you up a nice Smith and Wesson."

"You bet I can."

"Let me have some cuffs too," Sachs said.

"Sure thing."

Bell noticed Mason, looking unhappy, staring at the map. "What is it?" the sheriff asked.

"You really want my opinion?" the short man asked.

"I asked, didn't I?"

"You do what you think is best, Jim," Mason said in a taut voice, "but I don't think we have time for any more searches. There's a lot of territory out there. We've got to get after that boy and get after him fast."

But it was Lincoln Rhyme who responded. Eyes on the map, at Location G-10, Blackwater Landing, the last place anyone had seen Lydia Johansson alive, he said, "We don't have enough time to move fast."

"We wanted him," the man whispered cautiously, as if speaking too loudly would conjure a witch. He looked uneasily around the dusty front yard in which sat a wheel-less pickup on concrete blocks. "We called family services and asked about Garrett specifically. 'Cause we'd heard about him and felt sorry. But, fact is, he was trouble from the start. Not like any of the other kids we had. We did our best but, I'll tell you, I'm thinking he doesn't see it that way. And we're scared. Scared bad."

He stood on the weather-beaten front porch of his house north of Tanner's Corner, speaking to Amelia Sachs and Jesse Corn. Amelia was here, at Garrett's foster parents' house, solely to search his room but, despite the urgency, she was letting Hal Babbage ramble on in hopes that she might learn a bit more about Garrett Hanlon; Amelia Sachs didn't quite share Rhyme's view that evidence was the sole key to tracking down perps.

But the only thing this conversation was revealing was that his foster parents were indeed, as Hal had said, terrified that Garrett would return to hurt them or the other children. His wife, who stood beside him on the porch, was a fat woman with curly rust-colored hair. She wore a stained country-western radio station giveaway T-shirt. MY BOOTS TAP TO WKRT. Like her husband's, Margaret Babbage's eyes often scanned the yard and surrounding forest, looking for Garrett's return, Sachs assumed.

"It's not like we ever did anything to him," the man continued. "I never whipped him – the state won't let you do that anymore – but I'd be firm with him, make him toe the line. Like, we eat on a schedule. I insist on that. Only Garrett wouldn't show up on time. I lock the food up when it's not mealtime so he went hungry a lot. And sometimes I'd take him to father and son's Saturday Bible study and he hated that. He just sat there and didn't say a word. Embarrassed me, I'll tell you. And I'd nag him to clean that pigsty of a room." He hesitated, caught between anger and fear. "Those're just things you gotta make children do. But I know he hates me for 'em."