The Empty Chair

sarcastically. “I don’t think so.” Lydia turned away and studied the shafts of light piercing the remains of the corridor. From beyond it came a squeaking sound—the revolving millstone, she guessed.
    Garrett continued, offering: “The only reason I took her away is to make sure she’s okay. She wanted to get out of Tanner’s Corner. She likes it at the beach. I mean, fuck, who wouldn’t? Better than shitty Tanner’s Corner.” Snapping his nails faster now, louder. He was agitated and nervous. With his huge hands he ripped open one of the bags of chips. He ate several handfuls, chewing them sloppily, bits falling from his mouth. He drank down an entire can of Coke at once. Ate more chips.
    “This place burned down two years ago,” he said. “I don’t know who did it. You like that sound? The waterwheel? It’s pretty cool. The wheel going round and round. Like, reminds me of this song my father used to sing around the house all the time. ‘ Big wheel keep on turning . . . ’ ” He shoveled more food into his mouth and started speaking. She couldn’t understand him for a moment. He swallowed. “—here a lot. You sit here atnight, listen to the cicada and the bloodnouns—you know, the bullfrogs. If I’m going all the way to the ocean—like now—I spend the night here. You’ll like it at night.” He stopped talking and leaned toward her suddenly. Too scared to look directly at him, she kept her eyes downcast but sensed he was studying her closely. Then, in an instant, he leapt up and crouched close beside her.
    Lydia winced as she smelled his body odor. She waited for his hands to crawl over her chest, between her legs.
    But he wasn’t interested in her, it seemed. Garrett moved aside a rock and lifted something out from underneath.
    “A millipede.” He smiled. The creature was long and yellow-green and the sight of it sickened her.
    “They feel neat. I like them.” He let it climb over his hand and wrist. “They’re not insects,” he lectured. “They’re like cousins. They’re dangerous if you try to hurt them. Their bite is really bad. The Indians around here used to grind them up and put the poison on arrowheads. When a millipede is scared it shits poison and then escapes. A predator crawls through the gas and dies. That’s pretty wild, huh?”
    Garrett grew silent and studied the millipede intently, the way Lydia herself would look at her niece and nephew—with affection, amusement, almost love.
    Lydia felt the horror rising in her. She knew she should stay calm, knew she shouldn’t antagonize Garrett, should just play along with him. But seeing that disgusting bug slither over his arm, hearing his fingernails click, watching his blotched skin and wet, red eyes, the flecks of food on his chin, she convulsed in panic.
    As the disgust and the fear boiled up in her Lydia imagined she heard a faint voice, urging, “Yes, yes, yes!” A voice that could only belong to a guardian angel.
    Yes, yes, yes!
    She rolled onto her back. Garrett looked up, smilingfrom the sensation of the animal on his skin, curious about what she was doing. And Lydia lashed out as hard as she could with both feet. She had strong legs, used to carrying her big frame for eight-hour shifts at the hospital, and the kick sent him tumbling backward. He hit his head against the wall with a dull thud and rolled to the floor, stunned. Then he cried out, a raw scream, and grabbed his arm; the millipede must have bit him.
    Yes! Lydia thought triumphantly as she rolled upright. She struggled to her feet and ran blindly toward the grinding room at the end of the corridor.

. . . chapter twelve
    According to Jesse Corn’s reckoning they were almost to the quarry.
    “About five minutes ahead,” he told Sachs. Then he glanced at her twice and after some tacit debate said, “You know, I was going to ask you. . . . When you drew your weapon, when that turkey came outa the brush. Well, and at Blackwater Landing too when Rich Culbeau surprised us. . . . That was . . . well, that was something. You know how to drive a nail, looks like.”
    She knew, from Roland Bell, the Southern expression meant “to shoot.”
    “One of my hobbies,” she said.
    “No foolin’!”
    “Easier than running,” she said. “Cheaper than joining a health club.”
    “You in competition?”
    Sachs nodded. “North Shore Pistol Club on Long Island.”
    “How ’bout that,” he said with a daunting enthusiasm. “NRA