The Empty Chair

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.”
    “All your fucking playacting. . . .” Bell muttered. “I thought you only believed in evidence.”
    Rhyme rarely sparred verbally with his quarry. Banter was useless except as a balm for the soul and Lincoln Rhyme had yet to uncover any hard evidence on the whereabouts and nature of the soul. Still, he told Bell, “I would’ve preferred evidence. But sometimes you have to improvise. I’m really not the prima donna everybody thinks I am.”

    The Storm Arrow wheelchair wouldn’t fit into Amelia Sachs’s cell.
    “Not crip accessible?” Rhyme groused. “That’s an A.D.A. violation.”
    She thought his bluster was for her benefit, letting her see his familiar moods. But she said nothing.
    Because of the wheelchair problem Mason Germainsuggested they try the interrogation room. Sachs shuffled in, wearing the hand and ankle shackles that the deputy insisted on (she had, after all, already managed one escape from the place).
    The lawyer from New York had arrived. He was gray-haired Solomon Geberth. A member of the New York, Massachusetts and D.C. bars, he had been admitted to the jurisdiction of North Carolina pro hac vice —for the single case of People v. Sachs. Curiously, with his smooth, handsome face and mannerisms even smoother he seemed far more a genteel Southern lawyer out of a John Grisham novel than a bulldog of a Manhattan litigator. The man’s trim hair glistened with spray and his Italian suit successfully resisted wrinkles even in Tanner’s Corner’s astonishing humidity.
    Lincoln Rhyme sat between Sachs and her lawyer. She rested her hand on the armrest of his injured wheelchair.
    “They brought in a special prosecutor from Raleigh,” Geberth was explaining. “With the sheriff and the coroner on the take I don’t think they quite trust McGuire. Anyway he’s looked over the evidence and decided to dismiss the charges against Garrett.”
    Sachs stirred at this. “He did?”
    Geberth said, “Garrett admitted hitting the boy, Billy, and thought he killed him. But Lincoln was right. It was Bell who killed the boy. And even if they brought him up on assault charges Garrett was clearly acting in self-defense. That other deputy, Ed Schaeffer? His death’s been ruled accidental.”
    “What about kidnapping Lydia Johansson?” Rhyme asked.
    “When she realized that Garrett had never intended to hurt her she decided to drop the charges. Mary Beth did the same. Her mother wanted to go ahead with the complaint but you should’ve heard that girl talk to the woman. Some fur flew during that conversation, I’ll tell you.”
    “So he’s free? Garrett?” Sachs asked, eyes on the floor.
    “They’re letting him out in a few minutes,” Geberth