The Empty Chair

Rhyme said to Bell, "Don't you think somebody might wonder if I die this way? I can hardly open a jar by myself."

The sheriff responded, "You bumped the table. The lid wasn't on tight. It splashed on you. I went for help but we couldn't save you in time."

"Amelia's not going to let it go. Lucy won't either."

"Your girlfriend's not going to be a problem for very much longer. And Lucy? She might just get sick again… and this time there might not be anything to cut off to save her."

Bell hesitated only a moment then he stepped close and poured the liquid over Rhyme's mouth and nose. The rest he splashed onto the front of his shirt.

The sheriff dropped the jar onto Rhyme's lap, stepped back fast and covered his own mouth with a handkerchief.

Rhyme's head jerked back, his lips parted involuntarily and some of the liquid slipped into his mouth. He began to choke.

Bell pulled off the gloves and stuffed them into his slacks. He waited a moment, calmly studying Rhyme, then walked toward the door slowly, unlocked it, swung it open. He called. "There's been an accident! Somebody, I need help!" He stepped into the corridor. "I need -"

He walked right into Lucy Kerr's line of fire, her pistol aimed steadily at his chest.

"Jesus, Lucy!"

"That's enough, Jim. Just hold it right there."

The sheriff stepped back. Nathan, the snapshooting deputy, walked into the room, behind Bell, and snagged the sheriff's pistol from its holster. Another man entered – a large man in a tan suit and white shirt.

Ben too ran inside, ignored everyone else and hurried to Rhyme, wiping the criminalist's face with a paper towel.

The sheriff stared at Lucy and the others. "No, you don't understand! There was an accident! That poison stuff spilled. You've got to -"

Rhyme spit on the floor and wheezed from the astringent liquid and the fumes. He said to Ben, "Could you wipe higher on my cheek? I'm afraid it'll get into my eyes. Thank you."

"Sure, Lincoln."

Bell said, "I was going for help! That stuff spilled! I -"

The man in the suit pulled handcuffs off his belt and ratcheted the loops around the sheriff's wrists. He said, "James Bell, I'm Detective Hugo Branch with the North Carolina State Police. You're under arrest here." Branch looked at Rhyme sourly. "I told you he'd pour it on your shirt. We should've put the unit someplace else."

"But you got enough on tape?"

"Oh, plenty. That's not the point. The point is those transmitters cost money."

"Bill me," Rhyme said acerbically as Branch opened Rhyme's shirt and untaped the microphone and transmitter.

"It was a setup," Bell whispered.

You got that right.

"But the poison…"

"Oh, it's not toxaphene," Rhyme said. "Just a little moonshine. From that jar we tested. By the way, Ben, if there's any left, I could use a sip just now. And, Christ, could somebody get that AC going?"

Tense, cut to the left and run like hell. I'll get hit but if I'm lucky it won't stop me.

When you move they can't getcha…

Amelia Sachs took three steps into the grass.

Ready…

Set…

Then a man's voice from behind them, inside the lockup area, called, "Hold it, Steve! Put the weapon on the ground. Now! I'm not telling you again!"

Sachs spun around and saw Mason Germain, his gun pointed at the shocked young man's crew-cut head, his round ears crimson. Farr crouched and set the gun on the floor. Mason hurried forward and cuffed him.

Footsteps sounded from outside, leaves rustled. Dizzy from the heat and the adrenaline, Sachs turned back to the field and saw a lean black man climbing out of the bushes, bolstering a big Browning automatic pistol.

"Fred!" she cried.

FBI agent Fred Dellray, sweating furiously in his black suit, walked up to her, brushing petulantly at his sleeve. "Hey, A-melia. My, it is too too too hot down here. I don't like this town one tiny bit. And look at this suit. It's all, I don't know, dusty or something. What is this shit, pollen? We don't have this stuff in Man-hattan. Look at this sleeve!"

"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.

43

"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."