The Empty Chair

him the job of finding an air conditioner for the lab.
    “I’ll get right on it, Jim.” He tugged at his earlobe, turned on his heel like a soldier and vanished into the hall.
    A woman stuck her head in the door. “Jim, it’s Sue McConnell on three. She’s really beside herself.”
    “Okay. I’ll talk to her. Tell her I’ll be right there.” Bell explained to Rhyme, “Mary Beth’s mother. Poor woman. . . . Lost her husband to cancer just a year ago and now this happens. I tell you,” he added, shaking his head, “I’ve got a couple of kids myself and I can image what she’s—”
    “Jim, I wonder if we could find that map,” Rhyme interrupted. “And get the blackboard set up.”
    Bell blinked uncertainly at this abrupt tone in the criminalist’s voice. “Sure thing, Lincoln. And, hey, if we get too Southern down here, move a little slow for you Yankees, you’ll speed us up now, won’t you?”
    “Oh, you bet I will, Jim.”

    One out of three.
    One of Jim Bell’s three senior deputies seemed glad to meet Rhyme and Sachs. Well, to see Sachs, at least. The other two gave formal nods and obviously wished this odd pair had never left the Big Apple.
    The agreeable one was a bleary-eyed thirtyish deputy named Jesse Corn. He’d been at the crime scene earlier that morning and, with painful guilt, admitted that Garrett had gotten away with the other victim, Lydia, right in front of him. By the time Jesse had gotten over the river Ed Schaeffer was near death from the wasp attack.
    One deputy offering the cool reception was Mason Germain, a short man in his early forties. Dark eyes, graying features, posture a little too perfect for a human being. His hair was slicked back and showed off ruler-straight teeth marks from the comb. He wore excessive aftershave, a cheap, musky smell. He greeted Rhyme and Sachs with a stiff, canny nod and Rhyme imagined that he was actually glad the criminalist was disabled so hewouldn’t have to shake his hand. Sachs, being a woman, was entitled to only a condescending “Miss.”
    Lucy Kerr was the third senior deputy and she wasn’t any happier to see the visitors than Mason was. She was a tall woman—just a bit shorter than willowy Sachs. Trim and athletic-looking with a long, pretty face. Mason’s uniform was wrinkled and smudged but Lucy’s was perfectly ironed. Her blond hair was done up in a taut French braid. You could easily picture her as a model for L.L. Bean or Lands’ End—in boots, denim and a down vest.
    Rhyme knew that their cold shoulders would be an automatic reaction to interloping cops (especially a crip and a woman—and Northerners, no less). But he had no interest in winning them over. The kidnapper would be harder to find with every passing minute. And he had a date with a surgeon he absolutely was not going to miss.
    A solidly built man—the only black deputy Rhyme had seen—wheeled in a large chalkboard and unfolded a map of Paquenoke County.
    “Tape it up there, Trey.” Bell pointed to the wall. Rhyme scanned the map. It was a good one, very detailed.
    Rhyme said, “Now. Tell me exactly what happened. Start with the first victim.”
    “Mary Beth McConnell,” Bell said. “She’s twenty-three. A grad student over at the campus at Avery.”
    “Go on. What happened yesterday?”
    Mason said, “Well, it was pretty early. Mary Beth was—”
    “Could you be more specific?” Rhyme asked. “About the time?”
    “Well, we don’t know for certain,” Mason responded coolly. “Weren’t any stopped clocks like on the Titanic, you know.”
    “Had to’ve been before eight,” Jesse Corn offered.“Billy—the boy was killed—was out jogging and the crime scene is a half hour away from home. He was making up some credits in summer school and had to be back by eight-thirty to shower and get to class.”
    Good, Rhyme thought, nodding. “Go on.”
    Mason continued. “Mary Beth had some class project, digging up old Indian artifacts at Blackwater Landing.”
    “What’s that, a town?” Sachs asked.
    “No, just an unincorporated area on the river. ’Bout three dozen houses, a factory. No stores or anything. Mostly woods and swamp.”
    Rhyme noticed numbers and letters along the margins of the map. “Where?” he asked. “Show me.”
    Mason touched Location G-10. “Way we see it, Garrett comes by and grabs Mary Beth. He’s going to rape her but Billy Stail’s out jogging and sees them from the road and tries to stop it. But