The Empty Chair

Ignoring the bottle, Lydia lowered her mouth to the water in the quarry and drank deep. It was salty and metallic. Disgusting. She choked, nearly vomited.

"Jesus, I told you," Garrett snapped. He offered her the water again. "There's all kinds of crap in there. Quit being so fucking stupid." He tossed her the bottle. She caught it clumsily with her taped hands and drank it down.

Drinking the water immediately refreshed her. She relaxed some and asked, "Where's Mary Beth? What've you done with her?"

"She's in this place by the ocean. An old banker house."

Lydia knew what he meant. "Banker" to a Carolinian meant somebody who lived on the Outer Banks, the barrier islands off the coast in the Atlantic. So that's where Mary Beth was. And she understood now why they'd been traveling east – toward swampland with no houses and very few other places to hide. He probably had a boat stashed to take them through the swamp to the Intracoastal Waterway then to Elizabeth City and through Albemarle Sound to the Banks.

He continued. "I like it there. It's really neat. You like the ocean?" He asked her in a fu

"The Outer Banks'll take us a day to get to. More."

"Oh, hell, we're not go

"Spend the night?" she whispered hopelessly.

But Garrett said nothing more. He started prodding her up the steep incline to the lip of the quarry and the pine woods beyond.

6

What's the attraction of the sites of death? As she'd walked the grid at dozens of crime scenes Amelia Sachs had often asked this question and she asked it again now as she stood on the shoulder of Route 112 in Blackwater Landing, overlooking the Paquenoke River.

This was the place where young Billy Stail had died bloody, where two young women had been kidnapped, where a hardworking deputy's life had been changed forever – perhaps ended – by a hundred wasps. And even in the relentless sun the mood of Blackwater Landing was somber and edgy.

She surveyed the place carefully. Here, at the crime scene, a steep hill, strewn with trash, led from the shoulder of Route 112 down to the muddy riverbank. Where the ground leveled off, there were willows and cypress and clusters of tall grass. An old, rotting pier extended about thirty feet into the river then dipped below the surface of the water.

There were no homes in this immediate area though Sachs had noticed a number of large, new colonials not far from the river. The houses were obviously expensive but Sachs noticed that even this residential portion of Blackwater Landing, like the county seat itself, seemed ghostly and forlorn. It took her a moment to realize why – there were no children playing in the yards even though it was summer vacation. No inflatable pools, no bikes, no strollers. This reminded her of the funeral they'd passed a few hours ago – and the child's casket – and she forced her thoughts away from that sad memory and back to her task.

Examining the scene. Yellow tape encircled two areas. The one nearest the water included a willow in front of which were several bouquets of flowers – where Garrett had kidnapped Lydia. The other was a dusty clearing surrounded by a grove of trees where, yesterday, the boy had killed Billy Stail and taken Mary Beth. In the middle of this scene were a number of shallow holes in the ground where she'd been digging for arrowheads and relics. Twenty feet from the center of the scene was the spray-painted outline representing where Billy's body had lain.

Spray paint? she thought, chagrined. These deputies obviously weren't used to homicide investigations.

A Sheriff's Department car pulled onto the shoulder and Lucy Kerr climbed out. Just what I need – more cooks. The deputy nodded coolly to Sachs. "Find anything helpful at the house?"

"A few things." Sachs didn't explain further and nodded at the hillside.

In her headset she heard Rhyme's voice. "Is the scene trampled as bad as in the photos?"

"Like a herd of cattle walked through it. Must be two-dozen footprints."

"Shit," the criminalist muttered.

Lucy had heard Sachs's comment but said nothing, just kept looking out over the dark junction where the canal met the river.

Sachs asked, "That's the boat he got away in?" Looking toward a skiff beached on the muddy riverbank.

"Over there, yeah," Jesse Corn said. "It's not his. He stole it from some folks up the river. You want to search it?"

"Later. Now, which way wouldn't he have come to get here? Yesterday, I mean. When he killed Billy."

"Wouldn't?" Jesse pointed to the east. "There's nothing that way. Swamp and reeds. Can't even land a boat. So either he came along Route 112 and down the embankment here. Or, 'cause of the boat, I guess he might've rowed over."

She opened the crime scene suitcase. Said to Jesse, "I want a known of the dirt around here."

"Known?"

"Exemplars – samples, you know."

"Just of the dirt here."

"Right."

"Sure," he said. Then asked, "Why?"

"Because if we can find soil that doesn't match what's found here naturally it might be from the place Garrett's got those girls."

"It could also," Lucy said, "be from Lydia 's garden or Mary Beth's backyard or shoes of some kids fishing here a couple of days ago."

"It could," Sachs said patiently. "But we need to do it anyway." She handed Jesse a plastic bag. He strode off, pleased to help. Sachs started down the hill. She paused, opened the crime scene case again. No rubber bands. She noticed that Lucy Kerr had some bands binding the end of her French braid. "Borrow those?" she asked. "The elastic bands?"

After a brief pause the deputy pulled them off. Sachs stretched them around her shoes. Explained. "So I'll know which footprints're mine."

As if it makes a difference in this mess, she thought.

She stepped into the crime scene.

"Sachs, what do you have?" Rhyme asked. The reception was even worse than earlier.

"I can't see the scenario very clearly," she said, studying the ground. "Way too many footprints. Must've been eight, ten different people walking through here in the last twenty-four hours. But I have an idea what happened – Mary Beth was kneeling. A man's shoes approach from the west – from the direction of the canal. Garrett's. I remember the tread of the shoe Jesse found. I can see where Mary Beth stands and steps back. A second man's shoes approach from the south. Billy. He came down the embankment. He's moving fast – mostly on his toes. So he's sprinting. Garrett goes toward him. They scuffle. Billy backs up to a willow tree. Garrett comes toward him. More scuffling." Sachs studied the white outline of Billy's body. "The first time Garrett hits Billy with the shovel he gets him in the head. He falls. That didn't kill him. But then he hit him in the neck when he was down. That finished him off."

Jesse gave a surprised laugh, staring at the same outline as if he were looking at something completely different from what she saw. "How'd you know that?"

Absently she said, "The blood pattern. There're a few small drops here." She pointed to the ground. "Consistent with blood falling about six feet – that's from Billy's head. But that big spray pattern – which'd have to be from a severed carotid or jugular – starts when he was on the ground… Okay, Rhyme, I'm going to start the search."