The Empty Chair

bill you.”
    “I understand.”
    “Okay, hold the line, I’ll call my tech people.” There was a faint click.
    Lucy sat on the desk, shoulders slumped, flexing her left hand, staring at fingers ruddy from years of gardening, an old scar from the metal strap on a pallet of mulch, the indentation in her ring finger from five years of wedding band.
    Flex, straighten.
    Watching the veins and muscles beneath the skin, LucyKerr realized something. That Amelia Sachs’s crime had tapped into an anger within her that was more intense than anything she’d ever felt.
    When they took part of her body away she’d felt ashamed and then forlorn. When her husband left she’d felt guilty and resigned. And when she finally grew mad at those events she was angry in a way that suggested embers—an anger that radiates immense heat but never bursts into flames.
    But for a reason she couldn’t understand, this woman cop from New York had let the simple white-hot fury burst from Lucy’s heart—like the wasps that had streamed out of the nest and killed Ed Schaeffer so horribly.
    White-hot fury at the betrayal of Lucy Kerr, who never intentionally caused a soul pain, who was a woman who loved plants, a woman who’d been a good wife to her man, a good daughter to her parents, a good sister, a good policewoman, a woman who wanted only the harmless pleasures life gave freely to everyone else but seemed determined to withhold from her.
    No more shame or guilt or resignation or sorrow.
    Simple fury—at the betrayals in her life. The betrayal by her body, by her husband, by God.
    And now by Amelia Sachs.
    “Hello, Lucy?” Pete asked from Elizabeth City. “You there?”
    “Yes, I’m here.”
    “You . . . are you okay? You sound funny.”
    She cleared her throat. “Fine. You set up?”
    “You’re good to go. When’s the subject going to be making a call?”
    Lucy looked into the other room. Called, “Ready?”
    Rhyme nodded.
    Into the phone she said, “Any time now.”
    “Stay on the line,” Gregg said. “I’ll liaise.”
    Please let this work, Lucy thought. Please . . .
    Then she added a footnote to her prayer: And, dear Lord, give me one clear shot at my Judas.

    Thom fitted the headset over Rhyme’s head. The aide then punched in a number.
    If Sachs’s phone was shut off it would ring only three times and the pleasant lilt of the voice-mail lady would start to speak.
    One ring . . . two . . .
    “Hello?”
    Rhyme didn’t believe he’d ever felt such relief, hearing her voice. “Sachs, are you all right?”
    A pause. “I’m okay.”
    In the other room he saw Lucy Kerr’s sullen face nod.
    “Listen to me, Sachs. Listen to me. I know why you did it but you have to give yourself up. You . . . are you there?”
    “I’m here, Rhyme.”
    “I know what you’re doing. Garrett’s agreed to take you to Mary Beth.”
    “That’s right.”
    “You can’t trust him,” Rhyme said. (Thinking in despair: Or me either. He saw Lucy moving her finger in a circle, meaning: Keep her on the line.) “I’ve made a deal with Jim. If you bring him back in they’ll work something out with the charges against you. The state’s not involved yet. And I’ll stay here as long as it takes to find Mary Beth. I’ve postponed the operation.”
    He closed his eyes momentarily, pierced with guilt. But he had no choice. He pictured what the death of that woman in Blackwater Landing had been like, the death of Deputy Ed Schaeffer. . . . Imagining the hornets swarming over Amelia’s body. He had to betray her in order to save her.
    “Garrett’s innocent, Rhyme. I know he is. I couldn’t let him go to the detention center. They’d kill him there.”
    “Then we’ll arrange for him to be held someplace else. And we’ll look at the evidence again. We’ll find more evidence. We’ll do it together. You and me. That’s what we say, Sachs, right? You and me. . . . Always you and me. There’s nothing we can’t find.”
    There was a pause. “There’s nobody on Garrett’s side. He’s all by himself, Rhyme.”
    “We can protect him.”
    “You can’t protect somebody from a whole town, Lincoln.”
    “No first names,” Rhyme said. “That’s bad luck, remember?”
    “This whole thing has been bad luck.”
    “Please, Sachs. . . .”
    She said, “Sometimes you just have to go on faith.”
    “Now who’s dispensing maxims?” He forced himself to laugh—in part to reassure her. In part,