The Empty Chair

Hacksaw’d take hours. Okay, I’ll go for help. What’s your name?”
    “Mary Beth McConnell.”
    “I’m going to call the police then come back and get you out.”
    “Please, don’t be long.”
    “I got a friend isn’t too far away. I’ll call nine-one-one from his place and we’ll come back. That boy . . . does he have a gun?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t see one. But I don’t know.”
    “You sit tight, Mary Beth. You’re gonna be okay. I don’t run as a rule but I’ll do some running today.” He turned and started through the field.
    “Mister . . . thank you.”
    But he didn’t acknowledge her gratitude. He sprinted through the sedge and tall grass and disappeared in the woods, not even pausing to collect his gear. Mary Beth remained standing in front of the window, cradling the canteen as if it were a newborn baby.

. . . chapter nineteen
    On the street across from the lockup Sachs saw Lucy Kerr sitting on a park bench in front of a deli, drinking an Arizona iced tea. She crossed the street. The women nodded to each other.
    Sachs noticed a sign on the front of the place. COLD BEER. She asked Lucy, “You have an open-container law in Tanner’s Corner?”
    “Yeah,” Lucy said. “And we take it pretty serious. The law is if you’re going to drink from a container it’s got to be open.”
    Took just a second for the joke to register. Sachs laughed. She said, “You want something stronger?”
    Lucy nodded at the iced tea. “This’ll do fine.”
    Sachs came out a minute later with a Sam Adams ale foaming excessively in a large Styrofoam cup. She sat down next to the deputy. She told Lucy about the discussion between McGuire and Fredericks, about the psychologist.
    “Hope that works,” Lucy said. “Jim was figuring there’s gotta be thousands of old houses on the Outer Banks. We’ll have to narrow down the search some.”
    They said nothing for a few minutes. A lone teenager clattered past on a noisy skateboard and vanished. Sachs commented on the absence of children in town.
    “True,” Lucy said. “Hadn’t thought about it but there aren’t a lot of kids here. I think most of the young couples’ve moved away, places closer to the interstate maybe or bigger towns. Tanner’s Corner’s not the sort of place for anybody on the way up.”
    Sachs asked, “You have any? Children?”
    “No. Buddy and I never did. Then we split up and I never met anybody after that. My big regret, I’ll have to say. No kids.”
    “How long you been divorced?”
    “Three years.”
    Sachs was surprised the woman hadn’t remarried. She was very attractive—especially her eyes. When Sachs had been a professional model in New York, before she’d decided to follow in her father’s law enforcement career, she’d spent a lot of time with many gorgeous people. But so often their gazes were vacant; if the eyes aren’t beautiful, Amelia Sachs had concluded, neither is the person.
    Sachs told Lucy, “Oh, you’ll meet somebody, have a family.”
    “I’ve got my job,” Lucy said quickly. “Don’t have to do everything in life, you know.”
    Something was going unsaid here—something that she felt Lucy wanted to divulge. Sachs wondered whether she should push it or not. She tried the oblique approach. “Must be a thousand men in Paquenoke County dying to go out with you.”
    After a moment Lucy said, “Fact is, I don’t date much.”
    “Really?”
    Another pause. Sachs looked up and down the dusty, deserted street. The skateboarder was long gone. Lucy took a breath to say something, opted for a long sip oficed tea instead. Then, on impulse, it seemed, the policewoman said, “You know that medical problem I told you about?”
    Sachs nodded.
    “Breast cancer. Wasn’t too advanced but the doctor said they probably should do a double radical. And that’s what they did.”
    “I’m sorry,” Sachs said, frowning with sympathy. “You go through the treatments?”
    “Yup. Was bald for a while. Interesting look.” She sipped more of the iced tea. “I’m three and a half years in remission. So far, so good.” Lucy continued, “Really threw me for a loop, that happening. No history of it in my family. Grandmother’s healthy as a horse. My mom’s still working five days a week at the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Reserve. She and my dad hike the Appalachian two, three times a year.”
    Sachs asked, “You can’t have kids because of the radiation?”
    “Oh, no, they used a