The Empty Chair (13 page)

"So," Rhyme said, never much interested in local myths if they couldn't help him forensically, "if it's not the Paquenoke, where would the phosphates place him?"

Davett looked at Bell. "Where'd he kidnap the girl most recently?"

"Same place as Mary Beth. Blackwater Landing." Bell touched the map and then moved his finger north to Location H-9. "Crossed the river, went to a hunting blind about here then headed north a half-mile. Then the search party lost the trail. They're waiting for us to give them directions."

"Oh, then there's no question," Davett said with encouraging confidence. The businessman moved his finger to the east. "He crossed Stone Creek. Here. See it? Some of the waterfalls there look like foam on beer, there's so much detergent and phosphate in the water. It starts out near Hobeth Falls up north and there's a ton of runoff. They don't know a thing about planning and zoning in that town."

"Good," Rhyme said. "Now, once he crossed the creek, any thoughts about which way he'd go?"

Davett again consulted the chart. "If you found pine needles I'd have to guess this way." Tapping the map at I-5 and J-8. "There's pine everywhere in North Carolina but around here most of the forests are oak, old-growth cedar, cypress and gum. The only big pine forest I know of is northeast. Here. On the way to the Great Dismal." Davett stared at the charts for a moment longer, shook his head. "Not much else I can say, I'm afraid. How many search parties you have out?"

"One," Rhyme said.

"What?" Davett turned to him, frowning. "Just one? You're joking."

"No," Bell said, sounding defensive under the man's firm cross-examination.

"Well, how big is it?"

"Four deputies," Bell said.

Davett scoffed. "That's crazy." He waved at the map. "You've got hundreds of square miles. This's Garrett Hanlon . . . the Insect Boy. He just about
lives
north of the Paquo. He can outmaneuver you in a minute."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "Mr. Rhyme here thinks it's better not to use too many people."

"You
can't
use too many people in a situation like this," Davett said to Rhyme. "You should take fifty men, give them rifles and have them beat the bushes till you find him. You're doing it all wrong."

Rhyme noticed that Ben observed Davett's lecture with a mortified expression. The zoologist would, of course, assume that one
had
to take the kid-glove approach when arguing with crips. The criminalist, though, said calmly, "A big manhunt would just drive Garrett to kill Lydia and then go to ground."

"No," Davett said emphatically, "it'd scare him into letting her go. I've got about forty-five people working a shift at the factory now. Well, a dozen are women. We couldn't get them involved. But the men . . . Let me get them out. We'll find some guns. Turn them loose around Stone Creek."

Rhyme could just imagine what thirty or forty amateur bounty hunters would do in a search like this. He shook his head. "No, this is the way to handle it."

Their eyes met and for a moment there was a thick silence in the room. Davett shrugged and looked away first but this disengagement was not a concession that Rhyme might be correct. It was just the opposite: an emphatic protest that by ignoring his advice Rhyme and Bell were proceeding at their own peril.

"Henry," Bell said, "I agreed to let Mr. Rhyme run the show. We're pretty thankful to him."

Part of the sheriff's comments were intended for Rhyme himself – implicitly apologizing for Davett.

But for his part Rhyme was delighted to be on the receiving end of Davett's bluntness. It was a shocking admission for him but Rhyme, who believed not at all in omens, felt the man's presence now was a sign – that the surgery would go well and would have some beneficial effect on his condition. He felt this because of the brief exchange that had just occurred – in which this tough businessman had looked him in the eye and told him he was dead-wrong. Davett didn't even notice Rhyme's condition; all he saw was Rhyme's actions, his decision, his attitude. His damaged body was irrelevant to Davett. Dr. Weaver's magic hands would move him a step closer to a place where more people would treat him this way.

The businessman said, "I'll pray for those girls." Then turned to Rhyme. "I'll pray for you too, sir." The glance lasted a moment longer than a valediction normally would and Rhyme sensed the last promise was meant sincerely – and literally. He walked out the door.

"Henry's a bit opinionated," Bell said when Davett had left.

"And he's got his own interests here, right?" Rhyme asked.

"The girl who died from the hornets last year. Meg Blanchard . . ."

Got herself stung 137 times.
Rhyme nodded.

Bell continued, "She worked for Henry's company. Went to the same church he and his family belong to, too. He's no different from most folks here – he thinks the town'd be better off without Garrett Hanlon in it. He just tends to think
his
way is the best way to handle things."

Church . . . prayer . . .
Rhyme suddenly understood something. He said to Bell, "Davett's tie bar. The
J
stands for Jesus?"

Bell laughed. "You got that right. Oh, Henry'd drive a competitor out of business without a blink but he's a deacon in church. Goes three times a week or so. One of the reasons he'd like to send an army out after Garrett is that he's thinking that the boy's probably a heathen."

Rhyme still couldn't figure out the rest of the initials. "I give up. What're the other letters?"

"Stands for 'What Would Jesus Do?' That's what all those good Christians 'round here ask themselves when they're facing a big decision. I myself don't have a clue what He'd do in a case like this. But I'll tell you what
I'm
doing: calling up Lucy and your friend and gettin' 'em on Garrett's trail."

• • •

"Stone Creek?" Jesse Corn said after Sachs had relayed Rhyme's message to the search party. The deputy pointed. "A half-mile that way."

He started through the brush, followed by Lucy and Amelia. Ned Spoto was in the rear, his pale eyes scanning the surroundings uneasily.

In five minutes they broke out of the tangle and stepped onto a well-trod path. Jesse motioned them along it, to the right – east.

"This is the path?" Sachs asked Lucy. "The one you thought he'd gone down?"

"That's right," Lucy responded.

"You were right," Sachs said quietly, for her ears only. "But we still had to wait."

"No,
you
had to show who was in charge," Lucy said brusquely.

That's absolutely right
, Sachs thought. Then added: "But now we know there's probably a bomb on the trail. We didn't know that before."

"I would've been looking for traps anyway." Lucy fell silent and she continued along the path, eyes fixed on the ground, proving that she would, in fact, have been looking.

In ten minutes they came to Stone Creek, its water milky and frothing with pollutant suds. On the bank they found two sets of footprints – sneaker prints in a small size, but deep, probably left by a heavyset woman. Lydia, undoubtedly. And a man's bare feet. Garrett had apparently discarded his remaining shoe.

"Let's cross here," Jesse said. "I know the pine woods that Mr. Rhyme mentioned. This's the shortest way to get to them."

Sachs started toward the water.

"Stop!" Jesse called abruptly.

She froze, hand on her pistol, crouching. "What's the matter?" she asked. Lucy and Ned, snickering at her reaction, were sitting on rocks, taking off their shoes and socks.

"You get your socks wet and keep walking," Lucy said, "you'll be standing in need of about a dozen bandages 'fore you go a hundred yards. Blisters."

"Don't know much 'bout hiking, do you?" Ned asked the policewoman.

Jesse Corn gave an exasperated laugh at his fellow deputy. "'Cause she lives in the
city
, Ned. Just like I don't figure you'd be an expert on subways and skyscrapers."

Sachs ignored both the chide and the gallant defense, and pulled off her short boots and black ankle-length socks. Rolled her jeans cuffs up.

They started through the stream. The water was ice-cold and felt wonderful. She regretted when the short trek through the creek – which Jesse pronounced "crick" – was over.

They waited a few minutes on the other side for their feet to dry then pulled on socks and shoes. Then searched the shore until they found the footprints once more. The party followed the trail into the woods but, as the ground grew drier and more tangled with brush, they lost the tracks.

"The pine trees're that way," Jesse said. He pointed northeast. "Makes the most sense for them to go straight through there."

Following his general guidance, they hiked for another twenty minutes, single-file, scanning the ground for trip wires. Then the oak and holly and sedge gave way to juniper and hemlock. Ahead of them, a quarter mile, was a huge line of pine trees. But there was no longer any sign of the kidnapper's or his victim's footprints – no clue as to where they'd entered the forest.

"Too damn big," Lucy muttered. "How're we going to find the trail in there?"

"Let's fan out," Ned suggested. He too looked dismayed at the tangle of flora in front of them. "If he's left a bomb here it'll be the dickens to see it."

They were about to spread out when Sachs lifted her head. "Wait. Stay here," she ordered then started slowly through the brush, eyes on the ground, looking for traps. Only fifty feet away from the deputies, in a grove of some flowering trees, now barren and surrounded by rotting petals, she found Garrett's and Lydia's footprints in the dusty earth. They led to a clear path that headed into the forest.

"They came this way!" she called. "Follow my footprints. I checked it for traps."

A moment later the three deputies joined her.

"How'd you find it?" asked infatuated Jesse Corn.

"What do you smell?" she asked.

"Skunk," Ned said.

Sachs said, "Garrett had skunk scent on the pants I found in his house. I figured he'd come this way before. I just followed the smell here."

Jesse laughed and said to Ned, "How's
that
for a city girl?"

Ned rolled his eyes and they all started up the path, moving slowly toward the line of pine trees.

Several times along this route they passed large, barren areas – the trees and bushes were dead. Sachs felt uneasy as they trekked through these – the search party was completely exposed to attack. Halfway through the second clearing, and after another bad scare when an animal or bird rustled the brush ringing the bare dirt, she pulled out her cell phone.

"Rhyme, you there?"

"What is it? Found anything?"

"We've picked up the trail. But tell me – did any of the evidence point to Garrett doing any shooting?"

"No," he answered. "Why?"

"There're some big barren patches in the woods here – acid rain or pollution's killed all the plants. We have
zero
cover. It's a perfect place for an ambush."

"I don't see any trace that's consistent with firearms. We've got the nitrates but if that was from ammunition we'd've found burnt powder grains, cleaning solvent, grease, cordite, fulminate of mercury. There's none of that."

"Which just means he hasn't fired a weapon in a while," she said.

"True."

She hung up.

Looking around cautiously now, skittish, they walked for several miles more, surrounded by the turpentiney scent of the air. Lulled by the heat, the buzzing of insects, they were still on the path that Garrett and Lydia had started along, though their footsteps were no longer visible. Sachs wondered if they'd missed –

"Stop!" Lucy Kerr cried. She dropped to her knees. Ned and Jesse froze. Sachs drew her pistol in a fraction of a second. Then she noticed what Lucy was referring to – the silvery glimmer of a wire across the path.

"Man," Ned said, "how'd you see that? It's full-up invisible."

Lucy didn't respond. She crawled to the side of the path, following the wire. Gently pulled aside bushes. Hot, crisp leaves rustled as she lifted them out one by one.

"Want me to get the bomb squad over here from Elizabeth City?" Jesse asked.

"Shhhh," Lucy ordered.

The deputy's careful hands moved aside the leaves a millimeter at a time.

Sachs was holding her breath. In a recent case she'd been the victim of an antipersonnel bomb. She hadn't been badly injured but she remembered that in a portion of a second the astonishing noise, the heat, the pressure wave and debris had enveloped her completely. She didn't want that to happen again. She knew too that many homemade pipe bombs were filled with BBs or ball bearings – sometimes dimes or pennies – as deadly shrapnel. Would Garrett do this too? She remembered his picture: his dim, sunken eyes. She remembered the jars of insects. Remembered the death of that woman in Blackwater Landing – stung to death. Remembered Ed Schaeffer in a wasp-venom coma. Yes, she decided, Garrett would definitely rig the most vicious trap he could think of.

She cringed as Lucy eased the last leaf off the pile.The deputy sighed, sat back on her haunches. "It's a spider," she muttered.

Sachs saw it too. It wasn't fishing line at all, just a long string of web.

They rose to their feet.

"Spider," Ned said, laughing. Jesse chuckled too.

But their voices were humorless and, Sachs noticed, as they started down the path once more each one of them carefully lifted their feet well over the glistening strand.

• • •

Lincoln Rhyme, head back, eyes squinting at the chalkboard.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE –

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

He sighed angrily. Felt completely helpless. The evidence was inexplicable to him.