The Empty Chair (47 page)

"Oh, I should mention" – Rhyme couldn't resist a faint smile; modesty was never a quality that he wore well – "I've
got
some hard evidence. I found the bodies of Garrett's family."

41

At the Albemarle Manor Hotel, a block away from the Paquenoke County lockup, Mason Germain didn't wait for the elevator but climbed the stairs, covered with threadbare tan carpet.

He found Room 201 and knocked.

"S'open," came the voice.

Mason pushed the door open slowly, revealing a pink room bathed in orange, afternoon sunlight. It was painfully hot inside. He couldn't imagine that the occupant of the room liked it this way so he assumed that the man sitting at the table was either too lazy to turn on the air-conditioner or too stupid to figure out how it worked. Which made Mason all the more suspicious of him.

The African-American, lean and with particularly dark skin, wore a wrinkled black suit, which looked completely out of place in Tanner's Corner.
Draw attention to yourself, why don't you?
Mason thought contemptuously.
Malcolm Goddamn X.

"You'd be Germain?" the man asked.

"Yeah."

The man's feet were on the chair across from him and when he withdrew his hand from under a copy of the
Charlotte Observer
his long fingers were holding a long automatic pistol.

"That answers one of my questions," Mason said. "Whether you got a gun or not."

"What's the other?" the man in the suit asked.

"Whether you know how to use it."

The man said nothing but carefully marked his place in a newspaper story with a stubby pencil. He looked like a third-grader struggling with the alphabet.

Mason studied him again, not saying a word, then felt an infuriating trickle of sweat running down his face. Without asking the man if it was all right Mason walked to the bathroom, snagged a towel and wiped his face with it, dropped it on the bathroom floor.

The man gave a laugh, as irritating as the bead of sweat had been, and said, "I'm gettin' the distinct impression you don't much like my kind."

"No, I guess I don't," Mason answered. "But if you know what you're doing, what I like and what I don't aren't important."

"That's completely right," the black man said coolly. "So, talk to me. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to."

Mason said, "Here's the way it's shaking out. Rhyme's talking to Jim Bell right now over in the County Building. And that Amelia Sachs, she's in the lockup up the street."

"Where should we go first?"

Without hesitating Mason said, "The woman."

"Then that's what we'll do," the man said as if it were
his
idea. He slipped the gun away, placed the newspaper on the dresser and, with a politeness that Mason believed was more mockery than anything else, said, "After yourself." And gestured toward the door.

• • •

"The bodies of the Hanlons?" Jim Bell asked Rhyme. "Where are they?"

"Over there," Rhyme said. Nodding to a pile of the bones that had been in Mary Beth's backpack. "
Those're
what Mary Beth found at Blackwater Landing," the criminalist said. "She thought they were the bones of the survivors of the Lost Colony. But I had to break the news to her that they're not that old. They looked decayed but that's just because they were partially burned. I've done a lot of work in forensic anthropology and I knew right away they've been in the ground only about five years – which is just how long ago Garrett's folks were killed. They're the bones of a man in his late thirties, a woman about the same age who'd borne children and a girl about ten. That describes Garrett's family perfectly."

Bell looked at them. "I don't get it."

"Garrett's family's property was right across Route 112 from the river in Blackwater Landing. Mason and Culbeau poisoned the family then burned and buried the bodies and pushed their car into the water. Davett bribed the coroner to fake the death report and paid off somebody at the funeral home to pretend to cremate the remains. The graves're empty, I guarantee. Mary Beth must've mentioned finding the bones to somebody and word got back to Mason. He paid Billy Stail to go to Blackwater Landing to kill her and steal the evidence – the bones."

"
What?
Billy?"

"Except that Garrett happened to be there, keeping an eye on Mary Beth. He was right, you know: Blackwater Landing
is
a dangerous place. People
did
die there – those other cases in the last few years. Only it wasn't Garrett who killed them. It was Mason and Culbeau. They were murdered because they'd gotten sick from the toxaphene and started asking questions about why. Everybody in town knew about the Insect Boy so Mason or Culbeau killed that one girl – Meg Blanchard – with the hornets' nest to make it look like he was the killer. The others they hit over the head and pitched into the canal to drown. People who didn't question getting sick – like Mary Beth's father and Lucy Kerr – they didn't bother with."

"But Garrett's fingerprints were on the shovel . . . the murder weapon."

"Ah, the shovel," Rhyme mused. "Something very interesting about that shovel. I stumbled again . . . There were only
two
sets of fingerprints on it."

"Right, Billy's and Garrett's."

"But where were Mary Beth's?" Rhyme asked.

Bell's eyes narrowed. He nodded. "Right. There were none of hers."

"Because it wasn't
her
shovel. Mason gave it to Billy to take to Blackwater Landing – after wiping his own prints off it, of course. I asked Mary Beth about it. She said that Billy came out of the bushes carrying it. Mason figured it would be the perfect murder weapon – because as an archaeologist Mary Beth'd probably have a shovel with her. Well, Billy gets to Blackwater Landing and sees Garrett with her. He figures he'll kill the Insect Boy too. But Garrett got the shovel away and hit Billy. He thought he killed him. But he didn't."

"Garrett didn't kill Billy?"

"No, no, no . . . He only hit Billy once or twice. Knocked him out but didn't hurt him that seriously. Then Garrett took Mary Beth away with him to the moonshiners' cabin. Mason was the first on the scene. He admitted that."

"That's right. He took the call."

"Kind of a coincidence that he was nearby, don't you think?" Rhyme asked.

"I guess. I didn't think about it at the time."

"Mason found Billy. He picked up the shovel – wearing latex evidence gloves – and beat the boy until he died."

"How do you know that?"

"Because of the position of the latex prints. I had Ben reexamine the handle of the shovel an hour ago with an alternative light source. Mason held the shovel like a baseball bat. That's not how somebody would pick up evidence at a crime scene. And he adjusted his grip a number of times to get better leverage. When Sachs was at the crime scene she said the blood pattern showed Billy'd been hit first in the head and knocked down. But he was still alive. Until Mason hit him in the neck with the shovel."

Bell looked out the window, his face hollow. "Why would Mason kill Billy?"

"He probably figured that Billy'd panic and tell the truth. Or maybe the boy was conscious when Mason got there and said he was fed up and wanted out of the deal."

"So that's why you wanted Mason to leave . . . a few minutes ago. I
wondered
what that was about. So how're we going to prove all of this, Lincoln?"

"I've got the latex prints on the shovel. I've got the bones, which test positive for toxaphene in high concentrations. I want to get a diver and look for the Hanlons' car in the Paquenoke. Some evidence will've survived – even after five years. Then we should search Billy's house and see if there's any cash there that can be traced to Mason. And we'll search Mason's house too. It'll be a tough case." Rhyme gave a faint smile. "But I'm good, Jim. I can do it." Then his smile faded. "But if Mason doesn't turn state's evidence against Henry Davett it's going to be tough to make the case against
him
. All I've got's that." Rhyme nodded to a plastic exemplar jar filled with about eight ounces of pale liquid.

"What's that?"

"Pure toxaphene. Lucy got a sample from Davett's warehouse a half hour ago. She said there must've been ten thousand gallons of the stuff there. If we can establish a compositional identity between the chemical that killed Garrett's family and what's in that jar we might convince the prosecutor to bring a case against Davett."

"But Davett helped us find Garrett."

"Of course he did. It was in his interest to find the boy – and Mary Beth – as fast as possible.
Davett
was the one who wanted her dead most of all."

"Mason," Bell muttered, shaking his head. "I've known him for years . . . You think he suspects?"

"You're the only one I've told. I didn't even tell Lucy – I just had her do some legwork for me. I was afraid somebody'd overhear and word'd get back to Mason or Davett. This town, Jim, it's a nest of hornets. I don't know who to trust."

Bell sighed. "How can you be so sure it's Mason?"

"Because Culbeau and his friends showed up at the moonshiners' cabin just after we figured out where it was. And Mason was the only one who knew that . . . aside from me and you and Ben. He must've called Culbeau and told him where the cabin was. So . . . let's call the state police, have one of their divers come on down here and check out Blackwater Landing. We should get on those warrants to search Billy's and Mason's houses too."

Rhyme watched Bell nod. But instead of going to the phone he walked to the window and slid it shut. Then he stepped to the door again, opened it, looked out, closed it.

Locked the latch.

"Jim, what're you doing?"

Bell hesitated then took a step toward Rhyme.

The criminalist looked once into the sheriff's eyes and gripped the sip-and-puff controller quickly between his teeth. He blew into it and the wheelchair started forward. But Bell stepped behind him and yanked the battery cable free. The Storm Arrow eased forward a few inches and stopped.

"Jim," he whispered. "Not you too?"

"You got that right."

Rhyme's eyes closed. "No, no," he whispered. His head dipped. But only a few millimeters. As with most great men Lincoln Rhyme's gestures of defeat were very subtle.

V

THE TOWN WITHOUT CHILDREN

42

Mason Germain and the sullen black man moved slowly through the alley next to the Tanner's County lockup.

The man was sweating and he slapped in irritation at a mosquito. He muttered something and wiped a long hand over his short kinky hair.

Mason felt an urge to needle him but resisted.

The man was tall and by stretching up on his toes he could look into the lockup window. Mason saw that he wore short black boots – shiny patent leather – which for some reason added to the deputy's contempt for the out-of-towner. He wondered how many men he'd shot.

"She's in there," the man said. "She's alone."

"We're keeping Garrett on the other side."

"You go in the front. Can somebody get out through the back?"

"I'm a deputy, remember? I got a key. I can unlock it." He said this in a snide tone, wondering again if this fellow was halfway bright.

He got snide in return. "I was only asking if there's a
door
in the back. Which I don't know, never having been in this swamp of a town before."

"Oh. Yeah, there's a door."

"Well, let's go then."

Mason noticed that the man's gun was in his hand and that he hadn't seen him draw it.

• • •

Sachs sat on the bench in her cell, hypnotized by the motion of a fly.

What kind was it? she wondered. Garrett would know in an instant. He was a warehouse of knowledge. A thought occurred to her: There'd be that moment when a child's knowledge of a subject surpasses his parents'. It must be a miraculous thing, exhilarating, to know that you'd produced this creation who'd outsoared you. Humbling too.

An experience that she now would never know.

She thought once again about her father. The man had
diffused
crime. Never fired his gun in all his years on duty. Proud as he was of his daughter, he'd worried about her fascination with firearms. "Shoot
last
," he'd often remind her.

Oh, Jesse . . . What can I say to you?

Nothing, of course. I can't say a word. You're gone.

She thought she saw a shadow outside the lockup window. But she ignored it, and her thoughts slipped to Rhyme.

You and me
, she was thinking.
You and me.
Recalling the time a few months ago, lying together in his opulent Clinitron bed in his Manhattan townhouse, as they watched Baz Luhrmann's stylish
Romeo and Juliet
, an updated version set in Miami. With Rhyme, death always hovered close and, watching the final scenes of the movie, Amelia Sachs had realized that, like Shakespeare's characters, she and Rhyme were in a way star-crossed lovers too. And another thought had then flashed through her mind: that the two of them would also die together.

She hadn't dared share this thought with rationalist Lincoln Rhyme, who didn't have a sentimental cell in his brain. But once this notion had occurred to her it seated itself permanently in her psyche and for some reason gave her great comfort.

Yet now she couldn't even find solace in this odd thought. No, now – thanks to her – they'd live separately and die separately. They'd –

The door to the lockup swung open and a young deputy walked inside. She recognized him. It was Steve Farr, Jim Bell's brother-in-law.

"Hey there," he called.

Sachs nodded. Then she noticed two things about him. One was that he wore a Rolex watch, which must've cost half the annual salary of a typical cop in North Carolina.

The other was that he wore a sidearm and that the holster thong was unsnapped.