The Empty Chair

Bell,” he muttered. But he sat as ordered. “Jesus Lord, what’s all this folderol here, you talking to a sixteen-year-old without—”
    “Shut the hell up, Cal. I wasn’t fishing for a confession, which he didn’t give us and I wouldn’t use if he did. We got more evidence than we need to put him away forever. All I care about is finding Mary Beth. She’s on the Outer Banks somewhere and that’s a hell of a big haystack to find somebody in without some help.”
    “No way. He’s not saying another word.”
    “She could die of thirst, Cal, she could starve to death. Heatstroke, get sick . . .”
    When the lawyer gave no response, the sheriff said, “Cal, that boy’s a menace. He’s got a slew of incident reports against him—”
    “Which my secretary read to me on the way over here. Hell, they’re mostly for truancy. Oh, and for peeping—when he, funnily enough, wasn’t even on the property of the complaining party, just hanging out on the sidewalk.”
    “The hornets’ nest a few years ago,” Mason said angrily. “Meg Blanchard.”
    “You released him,” the lawyer pointed out happily. “Not even indicted.”
    Bell said, “This one’s different, Cal. We got eyewitnesses, we got hard evidence and now Ed Schaeffer’s dead. We can do to this boy pretty much what we feel like.”
    A slim man in a wrinkled blue seersucker suit walked into the interrogation room. Thinning gray hair, a lined fifty-five-year-old face. He glanced at Amelia with a vacant nod and at Fredericks with a darker expression. “I heard enough of that to make me think this’s one of the easiest cases of murder one, kidnapping and sexual assault I’ve had in years.”
    Bell introduced Sachs to Bryan McGuire, the Paquenoke County prosecutor.
    “He’s sixteen,” Fredericks said.
    In an unflappable voice the D.A. said, “Isn’t a venue in this state wouldn’t try him as an adult and put him away for two hundred years.”
    “So, giddyap, McGuire,” Fredericks said impatiently. “You’re fishing for a bargain. I know that tone.”
    McGuire nodded to Bell and Sachs deduced that a conversation between the sheriff and the district attorney had occurred earlier about this very subject.
    “Of course we’re bargaining,” Bell continued. “There’s a good chance that girl’s alive and we want to find her ’fore she’s not alive anymore.”
    McGuire said, “We got so many charges on this one, Cal, you’d be amazed at how flexible we can be.”
    “Amaze me,” the cocky defense lawyer said.
    “I could go with two counts unlawful detention and assault and two counts first-degree manslaughter—one for Billy Stail, one for the deputy who died. Yessir, I’m willing to do that. All conditioned on finding the girl alive.”
    “Ed Schaeffer,” the lawyer countered. “That was accidental.”
    Mason raged, “It was a fucking trap the boy set.”
    “I’ll give you first manslaughter for Billy,” McGuire offered, “and negligent homicide for the deputy.”
    Fredericks chewed on this for a moment. “Lemme see what I can do.” His heels tapping noisily, the lawyer vanished in the direction of the cells to consult with his client. He returned five minutes later and he wasn’t happy.
    “Whatsa story?” Bell asked, discouraged as he read the lawyer’s expression.
    “No luck.”
    “Stonewalling?”
    “Completely.”
    Bell muttered, “If you know something and you’re not telling us, Cal, I don’t give a shit about attorney-client privilege—”
    “No, no, Jim, for real. He says he’s protecting the girl. He says she’s happy where she is and you oughta go looking for this guy in tan overalls and a white shirt.”
    Bell said, “He doesn’t even have a good description and if he gave us one it’d change tomorrow because he’s making it up.”
    McGuire slicked back his already-slicked-back hair. The defense used Aqua Net, Sachs could smell. The prosecution, Brylcreem. “Listen, Cal, this’s your problem. I’m offering you what I’m offering. You get us the girl’s whereabouts and she’s alive, I’ll go with reduced counts. You don’t, I’ll take it to trial and go for the moon. That boy’ll never see the outside of a prison again. We both know it.”
    Silence for a moment.
    Fredericks said, “I’ve got a thought.”
    “Uh-huh,” McGuire said skeptically.
    “No, listen . . . I had a case in Albemarle a spell back, a woman claimed her boy’d run away from home. But it seemed