The Empty Chair

34

What was happening now? a frantic Lincoln Rhyme wondered.

An hour ago, at five-thirty A.M., he'd finally gotten a call from a very putout drone in the Real Estate Division of the North Carolina Department of Taxation. The man had been awakened at one-thirty and given the assignment of tracking down delinquent taxes on any land on which a claimed residence was a McPherson trailer. Rhyme had first checked to see if Garrett's parents had owned one and – when he learned they hadn't – reasoned that if the boy was using the place as a hideout it was abandoned. And if it was abandoned the owner had defaulted on the taxes.

The assistant director told him there'd been two such properties in the state. In one case, near the Blue Ridge, to the west, the land and trailer had been sold at a tax lien foreclosure to a couple who currently lived there.

The other, on an acre in Paquenoke County, wasn't worth the time or money to foreclose on. He'd given Rhyme the address, an RFD route about a half-mile from the Paquenoke River. Location C-6 on the map.

Rhyme had called Lucy and the others and sent them there. They were going to approach at first light and, if Garrett and Amelia were inside, surround them and talk them into surrendering.

The last Rhyme had heard they'd spotted the trailer and were moving in slowly.

Unhappy that his boss had gotten virtually no sleep, Thom sent Ben out of the room and went through the morning ritual carefully. The four Bs: bladder, bowel, brushing teeth and blood pressure.

"It's high, Lincoln," Thom muttered, putting away the sphygmomanometer. Excessive blood pressure in a quad could lead to an attack of dysreflexia, which in turn could result in a stroke. But Rhyme didn't pay any attention. He was riding on pure energy. He wanted desperately to find Amelia. He wanted -

Rhyme looked up. Jim Bell, an alarmed expression on his face, walked through the doorway. Ben Kerr, equally upset, entered behind him.

"What happened?" Rhyme asked. "Is she all right? Is Amelia -"

"She killed Jesse," Bell said in a whisper. "Shot him in the head."

Thom froze. Glanced at Rhyme. The sheriff continued, "He was about to arrest Garrett. She shot him. They took off."

"No, it's impossible," Rhyme whispered. "There's a mistake. Somebody else did it."

But Bell was shaking his head. "No. Ned Spoto was there. He saw the whole thing… I'm not saying she did it on purpose – Ned went for her and her gun went off – but it's still felony murder."

Oh, my God…

Amelia… second-generation cop, the Portable's Daughter. And now she'd killed one of her own. The worst crime a police officer could commit.

"This's way past us now, Lincoln. I've got to get the state involved."

"Wait, Jim," Rhyme said urgently. "Please… She's desperate now, she's scared. So's Garrett. You call in troopers, a lot more people're going to get hurt. They'll be gunning for them both."

"Well, apparently they oughta be gunning for them," Bell spat back. "And looks like they shoulda been from the git-go."

"I'll find them for you. I'm close." Rhyme nodded toward the evidence chart and map.

"I gave you one chance and look what happened."

"I'll find them and I'll talk her into surrendering. I know I can. I'll -"

Suddenly Bell was jostled aside and a man rushed into the room. It was Mason Germain. "You fucking son of a bitch!" he cried and made right for Rhyme. Thom stepped in the way but the deputy flung aside the thin man. He rolled to the floor. Mason grabbed Rhyme by the shirt. "You fucking freak! You come down here and play your little -"

"Mason!" Bell started forward but the deputy shoved him aside again.

"- play your little games with the evidence – your little puzzles. And now a good man's dead because of you!" Rhyme smelled the man's potent aftershave as the deputy drew his fist back. The criminalist cringed and turned his face away.

"I'm going to kill you. I'm going to -" But Mason's voice was choked off as a huge arm wrapped around his chest and he was lifted clean off the floor.

Ben Kerr carried the deputy away from Rhyme.

"Kerr, goddamn it, let go of me!" Mason gasped. "You asshole! You're under arrest!"

"Calm yourself down, Deputy," the big man said slowly.

Mason was reaching for his pistol but with his other hand Ben clamped down hard on the man's wrist. Ben looked at Bell, who waited a moment then nodded. Ben released the deputy, who stood back, fury in his eyes. He said to Bell, "I'm going out there and I'm finding that woman and I'm -"

"You are not, Mason," Bell said. "You want to keep working in this department you'll do what I tell you. We're going to handle it my way. You're staying in the office here. You understand?"

"Son of a bitch, Jim. She -"

"Do you understand me?"

"Yeah, I fucking understand you." He stormed out of the lab.

Bell asked Rhyme, "You all right?"

Rhyme nodded.

"And you?" He glanced at Thom.

"I'm fine." The aide adjusted Rhyme's shirt. And despite the criminalist's protest he took the blood pressure again. "The same. Too high but not critical."

The sheriff shook his head. "I've got to call Jesse's parents. Lord, I don't want to do that." He walked to the window and stared outside. "First Ed, now Jesse. What a nightmare this whole thing's been."

Rhyme said, "Please, Jim. Let me find them and give me a chance to talk to her. If you don't, it's going to escalate. You know that. We'll end up with more people dead."

Bell sighed. Glanced at the map. "They've got a twenty-minute lead. You think you can find them?"

"Yes," Rhyme answered. "I can find them."

• • •

"That direction," Sean O'Sarian said. "I'm positive."

Rich Culbeau was looking west, where the young man was pointing – toward where they'd heard the gunshot and the shouting fifteen minutes ago.

Culbeau finished peeing against a pine tree and asked, "What's over that way?"

"Swamp, a few old houses," said Harris Tomel, who had hunted probably every square foot of Paquenoke County. "Not much else. Saw a gray wolf there a month ago." The wolves had supposedly been extinct but were making a comeback.

"No fooling," Culbeau said. He'd never seen one, always wanted to.

"You shoot it?" O'Sarian asked.

"You don't shoot 'em," Tomel said.

Culbeau added, "They're protected."

"So?"

And Culbeau realized he didn't have an answer for that.

They waited a few minutes longer but there were no more gunshots, no more shouts. "May as well keep going," Culbeau said, pointing toward where the shot had come from.

"May as well," said O'Sarian as he took a hit from a bottle of water.

"Hot again today," Tomel offered, looking at the low disk of radiant sun.

"It's hot every day," Culbeau muttered. He picked up his gun and started along the path, his army of two trudging along behind him.

Thunk.

Mary Beth's eyes shot open, pulling her from a deep, unwanted sleep.

Thunk.

"Hey, Mary Beth," a man's voice called cheerfully. Like an adult speaking to a child. In her grogginess she thought: It's my father! What's he doing back from the hospital? He's in no shape to chop wood. I'll have to get him back to bed. Has he had his medicine?

Wait!

She sat up, dizzy, head throbbing. She'd fallen asleep in the dining-room chair.

Thunk.

Wait. It's not my father. He's dead… It's Jim Bell…

Thunk.

"Mareeeeeeee Bayeth…"

She jumped as the leering face looked in the window. It was Tom.

Another slam on the door as the Missionary's ax bit into the wood.

Tom leaned inside, squinting into the gloom. "Where are you?"

She stared at him, paralyzed.

Tom continued, "Oh, hey, there you are. My, you're prettier'n I remembered." He held up his wrist, showed her thick bandages. "I lost a pint of blood, thanks to you. I think it's only fair I get a little back."

Thunk.

"I have to tell you, honey," he said. "I fell asleep last night thinking about feeling up your titties yesterday. Thank you much for that sweet thought."

Thunk.

With this blow the ax broke through the door. Tom disappeared from the window and joined his friend.

"Keep going, boy," he called encouragingly. "You're on a roll."

Thunk.

35

His worry now was that she'd hurt herself. Since he'd known Amelia Sachs, Lincoln Rhyme had watched her hands disappear into her scalp and return bloody. He'd watched her worry nails with teeth, and skin with nails. He'd seen her drive at a hundred fifty miles per hour. He didn't know exactly what pushed her but he knew there was something within her that made Amelia Sachs live on the edge.

Now that this had happened, now that she'd killed, the anxieties might push her over the line. After the accident that left Rhyme a broken man, Terry Dobyns, the NYPD psychologist, had explained to him that, yes, he would feel like killing himself. But it wasn't depression that would motivate him to act. Depression depleted your energy; the main cause of suicide was a deadly fusion of hopelessness, anxiety and panic.

Which would be exactly what Amelia Sachs – hunted, betrayed by her own nature -would be feeling right now.

Find her! was his only thought. Find her fast.

But where was she? The answer to that question still eluded him.

He looked at the chart again. There was no evidence from the trailer. Lucy and the other deputies had searched it fast – too fast, of course. They were under the spell of hunt lust – even immobilized Rhyme often felt this – and the deputies were desperate to get on the trail of the enemy who'd killed their friend.

The only clues he had to Mary Beth's location – to where Garrett and Sachs were now headed – were right in front of him. But they were as enigmatic as any set of clues he'd ever analyzed.

FOUND AT THE SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

We need more evidence! he raged to himself.

But we don't have any more goddamn evidence.

When Rhyme was mired smack in the denial stage of grief, after the accident, he had tried to summon superhuman willpower to make his body move. He had recalled the stories of the people who lifted cars off children or had run at impossible speeds to find help in emergencies. But he'd finally accepted that those types of strength were no longer available to him.

But he did have one type of strength left – mental strength.

Think! All you have is your mind and the evidence that's in front of you. The evidence isn't going to change.

So change the way you're thinking.

All right, let's start over. He went through the chart once more. The trailer key had been identified. The yeast would be from the mill. The sugar, from food or juice. The camphene, from an old lamp. The paint, from the building where she was being held. The kerosene, from the boat. The alcohol could be from anything. The dirt in the boy's cuffs? It exhibited no particularly unique characteristics and was -

Wait… the dirt.

Rhyme recalled that he and Ben had run the density-gradient test of the dirt sampled from in the shoes and car-floor mats of county workers yesterday morning. He'd ordered Thom to photograph each tube and note which employee it had come from on the back of the Polaroid.

"Ben?"

"What?"

"Run the dirt you found in Garrett's cuffs at the mill through the density-gradient unit."

After the dirt had settled in the tube the young man said, "Got the results."

"Compare it with the pictures of the samples you did yesterday morning."

"Good, good." The young zoologist nodded, impressed with the idea. He flipped through the Polaroids, paused. "I've got a match!" he said. "One's almost identical."

The zoologist was no longer hesitant to give opinions, Rhyme was pleased to note. And he wasn't hedging either.

"Whose shoes was it from?"

Ben looked at the notation on the back of the Polaroid. "Frank Heller. He works in the Department of Public Works."

"Is he in yet?"

"I'll find out." Ben vanished. He returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a heavyset man in a white short-sleeved shirt. He eyed Rhyme uncertainly. "You're the fellow from yesterday. Making us clean off our shoes." He laughed but the sound was uneasy.

"Frank, we need your help again," Rhyme explained. "Some of the dirt on your shoes matches dirt we found on the suspect's clothes."

"The boy who kidnapped those girls?" Frank muttered, red-faced and looking completely guilty.

"That's right. Which means he might – this is pretty far-fetched but he might – have the girl maybe two or three miles from where you live. Could you point out on the map exactly where that is?"

He said, "It's not like I'm a suspect or anything, am I?"

"No, Frank. Not at all."

"'Cause I got people'll vouch for me. I'm with the wife every night. We watch TV. Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Like clockwork. Then WWF. Sometimes her brother comes over. I mean, he owes me money but he'd back me up even if he didn't."

"That's okay," Ben reassured him. "We just need to know where you live. On that map there."

"That'd be here." He stepped to the wall and touched a spot. Location D-3. It was north of the Paquenoke – north of the trailer where Jesse had been killed. There were a number of small roads in the area but no towns marked.

"What's the area like around you?"

"Forests and fields mostly."

"You know anywhere that somebody might hide a kidnap victim?"

Frank seemed to be considering this question earnestly. "I don't, no."

Rhyme: "Can I ask you a question?"

"On top of the ones you already asked?"

"That's right."

"I suppose you can."

"You know about Carolina bays?"

"Sure. Everybody does. Meteors made 'em. Long time ago. When the dinosaurs got themselves killed."

"Are there any near you?"

"Oh, you bet there are."

Which was something that Rhyme was hoping the man would say.

Frank continued. "Must be close to a hundred of 'em."

Which was something he was hoping he wouldn't.

Head back, eyes closed, reviewing the evidence charts in his mind.

Jim Bell and Mason Germain were back in the evidence room, along with Thom and Ben, but Lincoln Rhyme was paying them no mind. He was in his own world, an orderly place of science and evidence and logic, a place where he needed no mobility, a place where his feelings for Amelia and what she'd done were mercifully forbidden entry. He could see the evidence in his mind as clearly as if he were staring at the notations on the chalkboard. In fact, he was able to see them better with his eyes shut.

Paint sugar yeast dirt camphene paint dirt sugar… yeast… yeast…

A thought slipped into his mind, fished away. Come back, come back, come back…

Yes! He snagged it.

Rhyme's eyes snapped open. He looked into the empty corner of the room. Bell followed his eyes.

"What is it, Lincoln?"

"You have a coffee machine here?"

"Coffee?" Thom asked, not pleased. "No caffeine. Not with your blood pressure the way -"

"No, I don't want a goddamn cup of coffee! I want a coffee filter!"

"Filter? I'll dig one up." Bell disappeared and returned a moment later.

"Give it to Ben," Rhyme ordered. Then said to the zoologist, "See if the paper fibers from the filter match the ones we found on Garrett's clothes at the mill."

Ben rubbed some fibers off the filter onto a slide. He gazed through the eyepieces of the comparison microscope, adjusted the focus and then moved the stages so the samples were next to each other in the split-screen viewfinder.

"The colors're a little different, Lincoln, but the structure and size of the fibers're pretty much the same."

"Good," Rhyme said, his eyes now on the T-shirt with the stain on it. He said to Ben, "The juice, the fruit juice on the shirt. Taste it again. Is it a little sour? Tart?"

Ben did. "Maybe a little. Hard to tell."

Rhyme's eyes strayed to the map, imagining that Lucy and the others were closing in on Sachs somewhere in that green wilderness, eager to shoot. Or that Garrett had Sachs' gun and might be turning it on her.

Or that she was holding her gun to her own scalp, squeezing the trigger.

"Jim," he said, "I need you to get something for me. For a control sample."

"Okay. Where?" He fished his keys from his pocket.

• • •

Many images revolved in Lucy Kerr's thoughts: Jesse Corn, on his first day in the Sheriff's Department, standard-issue shoes polished perfectly but his socks mismatched; he'd gotten dressed before light to make sure he wasn't late.

Jesse Corn, hunkered down behind a cruiser, shoulder touching hers, while Barton Snell – his mind on fire from PCP – took potshots at the deputies. It was Jesse's easygoing banter that got the big man to put down his Winchester.

Jesse Corn, proudly driving his new cherry-red Ford pickup over to the County Building on his day off and giving some kids a ride in the bed, up and down the parking lot. They shouted, "Wheeee," in unison as he rolled over the speed bumps.

These thoughts – and a dozen others – stayed with her now as she, Ned and Trey pushed through a large oak forest. Jim Bell had told them to wait at the trailer and he'd send Steve Farr, Frank and Mason to take over the pursuit. He wanted her and the other two deputies to return to the office. But they hadn't even bothered to vote on the matter. As reverently as possible they'd moved Jesse's body into the trailer, covered it with a sheet. Then she'd told Jim that they were going after the fugitives and that nothing on God's earth was going to stop them.

Garrett and Amelia were fleeing fast and were making no effort to cover their tracks. They moved along a path that bordered marshland. The ground was soft and their footprints were clearly visible. Lucy remembered something that Amelia had told Lincoln Rhyme about the crime scene at Blackwater Landing as the redhead had gazed at the footprints there: Billy Stail's weight had been on the toes, which meant that he'd been running toward Garrett to rescue Mary Beth. Lucy now noticed this same thing about the prints of the two people they pursued. They were sprinting.

And so Lucy said to her two fellow deputies, "Let's jog." And despite the heat and their exhaustion they trotted forward together.

They continued this way for a mile until the ground grew drier and they could no longer see the footprints. Then the trail ended in a large grassy clearing and they had no idea where their prey had gone.

"Damn," Lucy muttered, gasping for breath and furious that they'd lost the trail. "Goddamn!"

They ringed the clearing, studying every foot of the ground, but could find no path or any other clue as to which way Garrett and Amelia Sachs had gone.

"What do we do?" Ned asked.

"Call in and wait," she muttered. She leaned against a tree, caught the bottled water that Trey tossed to her and drank it down.

Recalling: Jesse Corn, shyly showing off a glistening silver pistol he was planning on using in his NRA competition matches. Jesse Corn, accompanying his parents to First Baptist Church on Locust Street.

The images kept looping through her mind. They were painful for her to picture and stoked her anger. But Lucy made no effort to force them away; when she found Amelia Sachs she wanted her fury to be unrelenting.

With a squeak, the door to the cabin eased open a few inches.

"Mary Beth," Tom sang. "You come on out now, come out and play."

He and the Missionary whispered to each other. Then Tom spoke again. "Come on, come on, honey. Make it easy on yourself. We won't hurt you. We were just pulling your leg yesterday."

She stood upright, against the wall, behind the front door. Didn't say a word. Gripped the coup stick in both hands.

The door eased open farther, the hinges giving another squeal. A shadow fell onto the floor. Tom stepped inside, cautious.

"Where is she?" the Missionary whispered from the porch.

"There's a cellar," Tom said. "She's down there, I'll bet."

"Well, get her and let's go. I don't like it here."

Tom took another step inside. He was holding a long skinning knife.

Mary Beth knew about the philosophy of Indian warfare and one of the rules is that if the parleys fail and war is inevitable you don't banter or threaten; you attack with all your force. The point of battle isn't to talk your enemy into submission or explain or chide; it's to annihilate them.

And so she stepped calmly out from behind the door, screamed like a Manitou spirit and swung the club with both hands as Tom spun around, eyes wide in terror. The Missionary cried, "Look out!"

But Tom didn't have a chance. The coup stick caught him solidly in front of his ear, shattering his jaw and closing down half his throat. He dropped the knife and grabbed his neck, falling to his knees, choking. He crawled back outside.

"Hehf… hehf meh," he gasped.

But there was no help forthcoming – the Missionary simply reached down and pulled him off the porch by his collar, letting him fall to the ground, holding his shattered face, as Mary Beth watched from the window. "You asshole," the Missionary muttered to his friend and then drew a pistol from his back pocket. Mary Beth swung the door shut, took her place behind it again, wiping her sweating hands and getting a better grip on the stick. She heard the double click of a gun cocking.

"Mary Beth, I got a gun here and, you probably figured out, under the circumstances I got no problem using it. Just come on out. You don't, I'll shoot inside and I'll probably hit you."

She crouched down against the wall behind the door, waiting for the gunshot.

But he never fired. It was a trick; he kicked the door hard and it swung into her, stunning her for an instant, knocking her down. But as he started inside she kicked the door closed just as hard as he'd shoved it open. He wasn't expecting any more resistance and the heavy wooden slab caught him on the shoulder, knocking him off balance. Mary Beth stepped toward him and swung the coup stick at the only target on him she could reach – his elbow. But he dropped to the floor just as the rock would have struck him and she missed. The momentum of her fierce swing pulled the stick from her sweaty hands and it skidded along the floor.

No time to get it. Just run! Mary Beth jumped past the Missionary before he could turn and fire and she sprinted out the door.

At last!

Free of this hellhole at last!

She ran to the left, heading back toward the path that her captor had brought her down two days ago, the one that led past a big Carolina bay. At the corner of the cabin she turned toward the pond.

And ran right into the arms of Garrett Hanlon.

"No!" she cried. "No!"

The boy was wild-eyed. He held a gun. "How'd you get out? How?" He grabbed her wrist.

"Let me go!" She tried to pull away from him but his grip was like steel.

There was a grim-faced woman with him, pretty, with long red hair. Her clothes, like Garrett's, were filthy. The woman was silent, her eyes dull. She didn't seem the least bit startled by the girl's sudden appearance. She looked drugged.

"Goddamn," the Missionary's voice called. "You fucking bitch!" He turned the corner and found Garrett aiming the pistol at his face. The boy screamed, "Who're you? What'd you do to my house? What'd you do to Mary Beth?"

"She attacked us! Look at my friend. Look at -"

"Throw that away," Garrett raged. Nodding at the man's pistol. "Throw it away or I'll kill you! I will. I'll blow your fucking head off!"

The Missionary looked at the boy's face and the gun. Garrett cocked his pistol. "Jesus…" The man pitched the revolver into the grass.

"Now get outa here! Move."

The Missionary backed away then helped Tom to his feet and they staggered off toward the trees.

Garrett walked toward the front door of the cabin, pulling Mary Beth after him. "Into the house! We have to get in. They're after us. We can't let them see us. We'll hide in the cellar. Look what they did to the locks! They broke my door!"

"No, Garrett!" Mary Beth said in a rasping voice. "I'm not going back in there."

But he said nothing and pulled her into the cabin. The silent redhead walked unsteadily inside. Garrett shoved the door closed, looking at the shattered wood, the broken locks, dismay on his face. "No!" he cried, seeing shards of glass on the floor – from the jar that had held the dinosaur beetle.

Mary Beth, appalled that the boy seemed the most upset that one of his bugs had escaped, strode up to Garrett and slapped him hard on the face. He blinked in surprise and staggered backward. "You prick!" she screamed. "They could've killed me."

The boy was flustered. "I'm sorry!" His voice cracked. "I didn't know about them. I thought there was nobody around here. I didn't mean to leave you this long. I got arrested."

He shoved splinters under the door to wedge it shut.

"Arrested?" Mary Beth asked. "Then what're you doing here?"

Finally the redhead spoke. In a mumbling voice she said, "I got him out of jail. So we could find you and bring you back. And you could back up his story about the man in the overalls."

"What man?" Mary Beth asked, confused.

"At Blackwater Landing. The man in the tan overalls, the one who killed Billy Stail."

"But…" She shook her head. "Garrett killed Billy. He hit him with a shovel. I saw him. It happened right in front of me. Then he kidnapped me."

Mary Beth had never seen such an expression on another human being. Complete shock and dismay. The redhead started to turn toward Garrett but then something caught her eye: the rows of Farmer John canned fruits and vegetables. She walked slowly toward the table, as if she were sleepwalking, and picked one up. Stared at the picture on the label – a cheerful blond farmer wearing tan overalls and a white shirt.

"You made it up?" she whispered to Garrett, holding the can up. "There was no man. You lied to me."

Garrett stepped forward, fast as a grasshopper, and pulled a pair of handcuffs off the redhead's belt. He ratcheted them onto her wrists.

"I'm sorry, Amelia," he said. "But if I'd told you the truth you never would've got me out. It was the only way. I had to get back here. I had to get back to Mary Beth."

36

FOUND AT THE SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

Yeast

Obsessively Lincoln Rhyme's eyes scanned the evidence chart. Top to bottom, bottom to top.

Then again.

Why the hell was the damn chromatograph taking so long? he wondered.

Jim Bell and Mason Germain sat nearby, both silent. Lucy had called in a few minutes before to say that they'd lost the trail and were waiting north of the trailer – at Location C-5.

The chromatograph rumbled and everyone in the room remained still, waiting for the results.

Silence for long minutes, finally broken by Ben Kerr's voice. He spoke to Rhyme in a soft voice. "They used to call me it, you know. What you're probably thinking."

Rhyme looked over at him.

"'Big Ben.' Like the clock in England. You were probably wondering."

"I wasn't. In school, you mean?"

A nod. "High school. I hit six-three and two-fifty when I was sixteen. I got made fun of a lot. 'Big Ben.' Other names too. So I never felt real comfortable with the way I looked. Think maybe that was why I acted kinda funny seeing you at first."

"Kids gave you a tough time, did they?" Rhyme asked, both acknowledging and deflecting the apology.

"They sure did. Until I took up junior varsity wrestling and pinned Darryl Tennison in three-point-two seconds and it took him a lot longer than that to get his wind back."

"I skipped P.E. class a lot," Rhyme told him. "I forged excuses from my doctor, my parents – pretty good ones, I will say – and snuck into the science lab."

"You did that?"

"Twice a week at least."

"And you did experiments?"

"Read a lot, played around with the equipment… A few times, I played around with Sonja Metzger."

Thom and Ben laughed.

But Sonja, his first girlfriend, put him in mind of Amelia Sachs and he didn't like where those thoughts were headed.

"Okay," Ben said. "Here we go." The computer screen had burst to life with the results of the control sample Rhyme had asked Jim Bell to procure. The big man nodded. "Here's what we've got: Solution of fifty-five percent alcohol. Water, lot of minerals."

"Well water," Rhyme said.

"Most likely." The zoologist continued, "Then there're traces of formaldehyde, phenol, fructose, dextrose, cellulose."

"That's good enough for me," Rhyme announced. Thinking: The fish may still be out of water but it's just grown lungs. He announced to Bell and Mason, "I made a mistake. A big one. I saw the yeast and I assumed it'd come from the mill, not the place where Garrett really has Mary Beth. But why would a mill have supplies of yeast? You'd only find those in a bakery… Or" – he lifted his eyebrow to Bell – "someplace they're brewing that." He nodded at the bottle that sat on the table. The liquid inside was what Rhyme had just asked Bell to collect from the basement of the Sheriff's Department. It was 110-proof moonshine – from one of the juice bottles that Rhyme had seen a deputy clear away when he'd taken over the evidence room and turned it into a lab. This is what Ben had just sampled in the chromatograph.

"Sugar and yeast," the criminalist continued. "Those're ingredients in liquor. And the cellulose in that batch of moonshine," Rhyme continued, looking at the computer screen, "is probably from the paper fibers – I assume when you make moonshine, you have to filter it."

"Yep," Bell confirmed. "And most 'shiners use off-the-shelf coffee filters."

"Just like the fiber we found on Garrett's clothes. And the dextrose and fructose – complex sugars found in fruit. That's from the fruit juice left over in the jar. Ben said it was tart – like cranberry juice. And you told me, Jim, that's the most popular container for moonshine. Right?"

"Ocean Spray."

"So," Rhyme summarized, "Garrett's holding Mary Beth in a moonshiner's cabin – presumably one that's been abandoned since the raid."

"What raid?" Mason asked.

"Well, it's like the trailer," Rhyme replied shortly, hating as always to have to explain the obvious. "If Garrett's using the place to hide Mary Beth then it has to be abandoned. And what's the only reason anybody'd abandon a working still?"

"Department of revenue busted it," Bell said.

"Right," Rhyme said. "Get on the phone and find out the location of any stills that've been raided in the past couple of years. It'll be a nineteenth-century building in a stand of trees and painted brown – though it may not have been when it got raided. It's four or five miles from where Frank Heller lives and it'll be on a Carolina bay or you'll have to go around a bay to get there from the Paquo."

Bell left to call the revenue department.

"That's pretty good, Lincoln," Ben said. Even Mason Germain seemed impressed.

A moment later Bell hurried back into the room. "Got it!" He examined the sheet of paper in his hand then began tracing directions on the map, ending at Location B-4. He circled a spot. "Right here. Head of investigations at revenue said it was a big operation. They raided it a year ago and busted up the still. One of his agents checked out the place a couple, three months ago and saw that somebody'd painted it brown so he looked it over good to see if it was being used again. But he said it was empty so he didn't pay any more mind. Oh, and it's about twenty yards from a good-sized Carolina bay."

"Is there any way to get a car in there?" Rhyme asked.

"Has to be," Bell said. "All stills're near roads – to bring the supplies in and get the finished 'shine out."

Rhyme nodded and said firmly, "I need an hour alone with her – to talk her out. I know I can do it."

"It's risky, Lincoln."

"I want that hour," Rhyme said, holding Bell 's eye.

Finally Bell said, "Okay. But if Garrett gets away this time it's gonna be a full-out manhunt."

"Understood. You think my van can make it there?"

Bell said, "Roads aren't great but -"

"I'll get you there," Thom said firmly. "Whatever it takes, I'll get you there."

Five minutes after Rhyme had wheeled out of the County Building, Mason Germain watched Jim Bell return to his office. He waited a moment and, making sure no one saw him, he stepped into the corridor and headed toward the front door of the building.

There were dozens of phones in the County Building Mason could have used to make his call but instead he pushed outside into the heat and walked quickly across the quadrangle to a bank of pay phones on the sidewalk. He fished into his pockets and dug out some coins. He looked around and when he saw he was alone he dropped them in, looked at a number on a slip of paper and punched in the digits.

Farmer John, Farmer John. Enjoy it fresh from Farmer John… Farmer John, Farmer John. Enjoy it fresh from Farmer John…

Staring at the row of cans in front of her, a dozen overall-clad farmers staring back with mocking smiles, Amelia Sachs' mind was clogged with this inane jingle, the anthem for her foolishness.

Which had cost Jesse Corn his life. And had ruined hers as well.

She was only vaguely aware of the cabin where she now sat, a prisoner of the boy she'd risked her life to save. And of the angry exchange now going on between Garrett and Mary Beth.

No, all she could see was that tiny black dot appearing in Jesse's forehead.

All she could hear was the singsong jingle. Farmer John… Farmer John…

Then suddenly Sachs understood something: Occasionally Lincoln Rhyme would, mentally, go away. He might converse but his words were superficial, he might smile but it was false, he might appear to listen but he wasn't hearing a word. At moments like that, she knew, he was considering dying. He'd be thinking about finding someone from an assisted-suicide group like the Lethe Society to help him. Or even, as some severely disabled people had done, actually hiring a hit man. (Rhyme, who'd contributed to the jailing of a number of OC – organized crime – mobsters, obviously had some connections there. In fact, there were probably a few who'd gladly do the job for free.)

But until this moment – with her own life now as shattered as Rhyme's, no, more shattered – she'd always thought he was wrong in that thinking. Now, though, she understood how he felt.

"No!" Garrett called, leaping up and cocking his ear toward the window.

You have to listen all the time. Otherwise they can sneak up on you.

Then Sachs heard it too. A car was slowly approaching.

"They've found us!" the boy cried, gripping the pistol.

He ran to the window, stared out. He seemed confused. "What's that?" he whispered.

A door slammed. Then there was a long pause.

And she heard, "Sachs. It's me."

A faint smile crossed her face. No one else in the universe could have found this place except Lincoln Rhyme.

"Sachs, are you there?"

"No!" Garrett whispered. "Don't say anything!"

Ignoring him, Sachs rose and walked to a broken window. There, in front of the cabin, resting unevenly on a dirt driveway, was the black Rollx van. Rhyme, in the Storm Arrow, had maneuvered close to the cabin – as far as he could get until a hillock of dirt near the porch stopped him. Thom stood beside him.

"Hello, Rhyme," she said.

"Quiet!" the boy whispered harshly.

"Can I talk to you?" the criminalist called.

What was the point? she wondered. Still, she said, "Yes."

She walked to the door and said to Garrett, "Open it. I'm going outside."

"No, it's a trick," the boy said. "They'll attack -"

"Open the door, Garrett," she said firmly, her eyes boring into his. He looked around the room. Then bent down and pulled the wedges out from the doorjamb. Sachs opened the door, the cuffs on her stiff wrists jingling like sleigh bells.

"He did it, Rhyme," she said, sitting down on the porch steps in front of him. "He killed Billy… I got it wrong. Dead-wrong."

The criminalist closed his eyes. What horror she must be feeling, he thought. He looked at her carefully, her pale face, her stony eyes. He asked, "Is Mary Beth okay?"

"She's fine. Scared but fine."

"She saw him do it?"

Sachs nodded.

"There wasn't any man in overalls?" he asked.

"No. Garrett made that up. So I'd break him out. He had it all planned from the beginning. Leading us off to the Outer Banks. He had a boat hidden, supplies. He'd planned what to do if the deputies got close. Even had a safe house – that trailer you found. The key, right? That I found in the wasp jar? That's how you tracked us down."

"It was the key," Rhyme confirmed.

"I should've thought of that. We should've stayed someplace else."

He saw she was cuffed and noticed Garrett in the window, peering out angrily, holding a pistol. This was now a hostage situation; Garrett wasn't going to come out willingly. It was time to call the FBI. Rhyme had a friend, Arthur Potter, now retired, but still the best hostage negotiator the bureau ever had. He lived in Washington, D.C., and could be here in a few hours.

He turned back to Sachs. "And Jesse Corn?"

She shook her head. "I didn't know it was him, Rhyme. I thought it was one of Culbeau's friends. A deputy jumped me and my weapon went off. But it was my fault – I acquired an unidentified target with an unsafetied weapon. I broke rule number one."

"I'll get you the best lawyer in the country."

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters, Sachs. It matters. We'll get something worked out."

She shook her head. "There's nothing to work out, Rhyme. It's felony murder. Open-and-shut case." Then she was looking up, past him. Frowning. She stood. "What's -?"

Suddenly a woman's voice called, "Hold it right there! Amelia, you're under arrest."

Rhyme tried to turn but couldn't rotate his head far enough. He puffed into the controller and backed up in a semicircle. He saw Lucy and two other deputies, crouching as they ran from the woods. Their weapons were in their hands and they kept their eyes on the windows of the cabin. The two men used trees for cover. But Lucy walked boldly toward Rhyme, Thom and Sachs, her pistol leveled at Sachs' chest.

How had the search party found the cabin? Had they heard the van? Had Lucy picked up Garrett's trail again?

Or had Bell reneged on his deal and told them?

Lucy walked right up to Sachs and without a moment's pause hit her hard in the face, her fist connecting with the policewoman's chin. Sachs gave a faint wheeze at the pain and stepped back. She said nothing.

"No!" Rhyme cried. Thom stepped forward but Lucy grabbed Sachs by the arm. "Is Mary Beth in there?"

"Yes." Blood trickled from her chin.

"Is she all right?"

A nod.

Eyes on the cabin window, Lucy asked, "Does he have your weapon?"

"Yes."

"Jesus." Lucy called to the other deputies, "Ned, Trey, he's inside. And he's armed." Then she snapped at Rhyme, "I'd suggest you get under cover." And she pulled Sachs roughly back behind the van on the side opposite the cabin.

Rhyme followed the women, Thom holding the chair for stability as it crossed the uneven ground.

Lucy turned to Sachs, grabbed her by the arms. "He did it, didn't he? Mary Beth told you, right? Garrett killed Billy."

Sachs looked down at the ground. Finally she said, "Yes… I'm sorry. I -"

"Sorry doesn't mean a damn thing to me or anybody else. Least of all to Jesse Corn… Does Garrett have any other weapons in there?"

"I don't know. I didn't see any."

Lucy turned back to the cabin, shouted, "Garrett, can you hear me? It's Lucy Kerr. I want you to put that gun down and walk outside with your hands on your head. You do that now, okay?"

The only response was the door slamming shut. A faint pounding filled the clearing as Garrett hammered or wedged the door shut. Lucy pulled out her cell phone and started to make a call.

"Hey, Deputy," a man's voice interrupted, "you need some help?"

Lucy turned. "Oh, no," she muttered.

Rhyme too glanced toward the voice. A tall, pony-tailed man, carrying a hunting rifle, was trooping through the grass toward them.

"Culbeau," she snapped, "I got a situation here and I can't deal with you too. Just go on, get out of here." Her eyes noticed something in the field. There was another man walking slowly toward the cabin. He carried a black army rifle and squinted thoughtfully as he surveyed the field and cabin. "Is that Sean?" Lucy asked.

Culbeau said, "Yeah, and Harris Tomel's over there."

Tomel was walking up to the tall African-American deputy. They were chatting casually, as if they knew each other.

Culbeau persisted, "If the boy's in the cabin you might need some help getting him out. What can we do?"

"This is police business, Rich. The three of you, clear on outa here. Now. Trey!" she called to the black deputy. "Get 'em out."

The third deputy, Ned, walked toward Lucy and Culbeau. "Rich," he called, "there's no reward anymore. Forget about it and -"

The shot from Culbeau's powerful rifle poked a hole in the front of Ned's chest and the impact flung him several feet onto his back. Trey stared at Harris Tomel, only ten feet away. Each man looked about as shocked as the other and neither moved for a moment.

Then there was a whoop like a hyena's cry from Sean O'Sarian, who lifted his soldier gun and shot Trey three times in the back. Cackling with laughter, he vanished into the field.

"No!" Lucy screamed and lifted her pistol toward Culbeau, but by the time she fired, the men had gone for cover in the tall grass surrounding the cabin.

37

Rhyme felt the instinctive urge to drop to the ground but, of course, remained upright in the Storm Arrow wheelchair. More bullets slammed into the van where Sachs and Lucy, now facedown on the grass, had been standing a moment before. Thom was on his knees, trying to work the heavy wheelchair out of the depression of soft earth where it was lodged.

" Lincoln!" Sachs cried.

"I'm okay. Move! Get to the other side of the van. Under cover."

Lucy said, "But Garrett can target us from there."

Sachs snapped back, "But he's not the one who's goddamn shooting!"

Another shotgun blast missed them by a foot and the pellets rattled along the porch. Thom put the wheelchair in neutral and muscled it toward the cabin side of the van. "Stay low," Rhyme said to the aide, who ignored a shot that zipped past them and shattered a side window of the vehicle.

Lucy and Sachs followed the two men to the shadowy area between the cabin and the van.

"Why the hell're they doing this?" Lucy cried. She fired several shots, sending O'Sarian and Tomel scrabbling for cover. Rhyme couldn't see Culbeau but knew that the big man was directly in front of them somewhere. The rifle that he'd been carrying was high-powered and fitted with a large telescopic sight.

"Take the cuffs off and give me the gun," Sachs shouted.

"Give it to her," Rhyme said. "She's a better shot than you."

"No goddamn way!" The deputy shook her head, her expression one of astonishment at this suggestion. More bullets slapped the metal of the van, dug out chunks of wood from the porch.

"They've got fucking rifles!" Sachs raged. "You're no match for them. Give me the gun!"

Lucy rested her head against the side of the van and stared in shock at the slain deputies lying in the grass. "What's going on?" she muttered, crying. "What's happening?"

Their cover – the van – wasn't going to last much longer. It protected them from Culbeau and his rifle but the other two were flanking them. In a few minutes they'd set up a crossfire.

Lucy fired twice more – into the grass where a shotgun blast had erupted a moment before.

"Don't waste your ammunition," Sachs ordered. "Wait till you have a clear shot. Otherwise – "

"Shut the hell up," Lucy raged. She patted her pockets. "Lost the goddamn phone."

" Lincoln," Thom said, "I'm taking you out of the chair. You're too much of a target."

Rhyme nodded. The aide undid the harness, got his arms around Rhyme's chest and pulled him out, laid him on the ground. Rhyme tried to lift his head to see what was going on but a contracture – a merciless cramp – gripped his neck muscles and he had to lower his head to the grass until the pain passed. He'd never felt as stabbed by his helplessness as at this moment.

More shots. Closer. And more insane laughter from O'Sarian. "Hey, knife lady, where are you?"

Lucy muttered, "They're almost in position."

"Ammo?" Sachs asked.

"I've got three left in the chamber, one Speedloader."

"Loaded six?"

"Yeah."

A shot slammed into the back of the Storm Arrow and knocked it on its side. A cloud of dust rose up around it.

Lucy fired at O'Sarian but his giggling and the staccato response from the Colt told them that she'd missed.

The rifle fire also told them that in only a minute or two they'd be completely flanked.

They'd die here, shot to death, trapped in this dim valley between the shattered van and the cabin. Rhyme wondered what he would feel when the bullets tore into his body. No pain, of course, not even any pressure in his numb flesh. He glanced at Sachs, who was looking at him with a hopeless expression on her face.

You and me, Sachs…

Then he glanced at the front of the cabin.

"Look," he called.

Lucy and Sachs followed his eyes.

Garrett had opened the front door.

Sachs said, "Let's get inside."

"Are you crazy?" Lucy called. "Garrett's with them. They're all together."

"No," Rhyme said. "He's had a chance to shoot from the window. He didn't."

Two more shots, very close. The bushes rustled nearby. Lucy lifted the pistol.

"Don't waste it!" Sachs called. But Lucy rose and fired two fast shots at the sound. The rock one of the men had thrown to shake the bushes and trick her into presenting a target rolled into view. Lucy jumped aside just as Tomel's shotgun blast, meant for her back, streaked past, puncturing the side of the van.

"Shit," the deputy cried. Ejecting the empty cartridges and reloading with the Speedloader.

"Inside," Rhyme said. "Now."

Lucy nodded. "Okay."

Rhyme said, "Fireman's carry." This was a bad position to carry a quad in – it put stress on parts of the body that weren't used to stress, but it was faster and would expose Thom to the gunshots for the least amount of time. Rhyme was also thinking that his own body would protect Thom's.

"No," Thom said.

"Do it, Thom. No argument."

Lucy said, "I'll cover you. The three of you go together. Ready?"

Sachs nodded. Thom lifted Rhyme, cradling him like a child in his strong arms.

"Thom -" Rhyme protested.

"Quiet, Lincoln," the aide snapped. "We're doing this my way."

"Go," Lucy called.

Rhyme's hearing was stunned by several loud gunshots. Everything blurred as they ran up the few stairs into the cabin.

Another several bullets cracked into the wood of the cabin as they pushed inside. A moment later Lucy rolled into the room after them and slammed the door shut. Thom set Rhyme gently on a couch.

Rhyme had a glimpse of a terrified young woman sitting in a chair, staring at him. Mary Beth McConnell.

Garrett Hanlon, with his red, blotched face, eyes wide with fear, sat manically clicking the fingernails of one hand and holding a pistol awkwardly in the other, as Lucy aimed the gun right in his face.

"Give me the weapon!" she cried. "Now, now!"

He blinked and immediately handed the gun to her. She put it in her belt and called out something. Rhyme didn't hear what; he was staring at the boy's bewildered and frightened eyes, a child's eyes. And he thought: I understand why you had to do it, Sachs. Why you believed him. Why you had to save him.

I understand…

He said, "Everybody okay?"

"Fine," Sachs said.

Lucy nodded.

"Actually," Thom said, almost apologetically. "Not really."

He lifted his hand away from his trim belly, revealing the bloody exit wound. Then the aide went down on his knees, hard, ripping the slacks that he'd ironed with such care just that morning.

38

Search the wound for severe hemorrhage, stop the bleeding. If possible, check the patient for shock.

Amelia Sachs, trained in the basic NYPD first-aid course for patrol officers, bent over Thom, examining the wound.

The aide lay on his back, conscious but pale, sweating fiercely. She clamped one hand over the wound.

"Get these cuffs off me!" she cried. "I can't take care of him this way."

"No," Lucy said.

"Jesus," Sachs muttered and examined Thom's stomach as best she could with the restraints on.

"How are you, Thom?" Rhyme blurted. "Talk to us."

"It feels numb… It's feeling… It's funny…" His eyes rolled back under the lids and he passed out.

A crash above their heads. A bullet tore through the wall. Followed by a thud of a shotgun blast hitting the door. Garrett handed Sachs a wad of napkins. She pressed them against the rip in Thom's belly. She slapped him gently on the face. He gave no response.

"Is he alive?" Rhyme asked hopelessly.

"He's breathing. Shallow. But he's breathing. Exit wound isn't too bad but I don't know what kind of damage there is inside."

Lucy looked out the window fast, ducked. "Why're they doing this?"

Rhyme said, "Jim said they were into moonshine. Maybe they had their eye on this place and didn't want it found. Or maybe there's a drug lab nearby."

"There were two men earlier – they tried to break in," Mary Beth told them. "They said they were killing marijuana fields but I guess they were growing it. They might all be working together."

"Where's Bell?" Lucy asked. "And Mason?"

"He'll be here in a half hour," Rhyme said.

Lucy shook her head in dismay at this information. Then looked again out the window. She stiffened as, it seemed, she sighted a target. She lifted the pistol, aimed quickly.

Too quickly.

"No, let me!" Sachs cried.

But Lucy fired twice. Her grimace told them she had missed. She squinted. "Sean's just found a can. A red can. What is that, Garrett? Gas?" The boy huddled on the floor, frozen in panic. "Garrett! Talk to me!"

He turned toward her.

"The red can? What's in it?"

"It's, like, kerosene. For the boat."

Lucy muttered, "Hell, they're going to burn us out."

"Shit," Garrett cried. He rolled to his knees, staring at Lucy, eyes frantic.

Sachs, alone among them, it seemed, knew what was coming. "No, Garrett, don't -"

The boy ignored her and flung the door open and, half running, half crawling, skittered along the porch. Bullets cracked into the wood, following him. Sachs had no idea if he'd been hit.

Then there was silence. The men moved closer to the cabin with the kerosene.

Sachs looked around the room, filled with dust from the impact of the bullets. She saw Mary Beth, hugging herself, crying.

Lucy, her eyes filled with the devil's own hatred, checking her pistol.

Thom, slowly bleeding to death.

Lincoln Rhyme, on his back, breathing hard.

You and me…

In a steady voice Sachs said to Lucy, "We've got to go out there. We've got to stop them. The two of us."

"There're three of them, they've got rifles."

"They're going to set fire to the place. And either burn us alive or shoot us when we run outside. We don't have any choice. Take the cuffs off." Sachs held out her wrists. "You have to."

"How can I trust you?" Lucy whispered. "You ambushed us at the river."

Sachs asked, "Ambushed? What're you talking about?"

Lucy scowled. "What am I talking about? You used that boat as a lure and shot at Ned when he went out to get it."

"Bullshit! You thought we were under the boat and shot at us."

"Only after you…" Then Lucy's voice faded, and she nodded knowingly.

Sachs said to the deputy, "It was them. Culbeau and the others. One of them shot first. To scare you and slow you up probably."

"And we thought it was you."

Sachs held her wrists out. "We don't have any choice."

The deputy looked at Sachs carefully then slowly reached into her pocket and found her cuff key. She undid the chrome bracelets. Sachs rubbed her wrists. "What's the ammunition situation?"

"I've got four left."

"I've got five in mine," Sachs said, taking her long-barreled Smith & Wesson from Lucy and checking the cylinder.

Sachs looked down at Thom. Mary Beth stepped forward. "I'll take care of him."

"One thing," Sachs said. "He's gay. He's been tested but…"

"Doesn't matter," the girl responded. "I'll be careful. Go on."

"Sachs," Rhyme said. "I…"

"Later, Rhyme. No time for that now." Sachs eased to the door, looked out quickly, eyes taking in the topography of the field, what would make good cover and shooting positions. Her hands free again, gripping a hefty gun in her palm, she felt confident once more. This was her world: guns and speed. She couldn't think about Lincoln Rhyme and his operation, about Jesse Corn's death, about Garrett Hanlon's betrayal, about what awaited her if they got out of this terrible situation.

When you move they can't getcha…

She said to Lucy, "We go out the door. You go left behind the van but don't stop, no matter what. Keep moving till you get to the grass. I'm going right – for that tree over there. We get into the tall grass and stay down, move forward, toward the forest, flank them."

"They'll see us go out the door."

"They're supposed to see us. We want them to know there're two of us out there somewhere in the grass. It'll keep 'em edgy and looking over their shoulders. Don't shoot unless you have a clear, no-miss target. Got that?… Do you?"

"I've got it."

Sachs gripped the doorknob with her left hand. Her eyes met Lucy's.

One of them – O'Sarian, with Tomel beside him – was lugging the kerosene can toward the cabin, not paying attention to the front door. So that when the two women charged outside, splitting up and sprinting for cover, neither of them got his weapon up in time for a clear shot.

Culbeau – back a ways so he could cover the front and sides of the cabin – must not have been expecting anybody to run either because by the time his deer rifle boomed, both Sachs and Lucy were rolling into the tall grass surrounding the cabin.

O'Sarian and Tomel disappeared into the grass too and Culbeau shouted, "You let 'em get out. What the fuck you doing?" He fired one more shot toward Sachs – she hugged the earth – and when she looked again Culbeau too had dropped into the grass.

Three deadly snakes out there in front of them. And no clue where they might be.

Culbeau called, "Go right."

One of the others responded, "Where?" She thought it was Tomel.

"I think… wait."

Then silence.

Sachs crawled toward where she'd seen Tomel and O'Sarian a moment ago. She could just make out a bit of red and she steered in that direction. The hot breeze pushed the grass aside and she saw it was the kerosene can. She moved a few feet closer and, when the wind cooperated again, aimed low and fired a bullet squarely into the bottom of the can. It shivered under the impact and bled clear liquid.

"Shit," one of the men called and she heard a rustle of grass as, she supposed, he fled from the can, though it didn't ignite.

More rustling, footsteps.

But coming from where?

Then Sachs saw a flash of light about fifty feet into the field. It was near where Culbeau had been and she realized it would be the 'scope or the receiver of his big gun. She lifted her head cautiously and caught Lucy's eye, pointed to herself and then toward the flash. The deputy nodded then gestured around to the flank. Sachs nodded.

But as Lucy started through the grass on the left side of the cabin, running in a crouch, O'Sarian rose and, laughing again madly, began firing with his Colt. Sharp cracks filled the field. Lucy was, momentarily, a clear target and it was only because O'Sarian was an impatient marksman that he missed. The deputy dove prone, as the dirt kicked up around her, then rose and fired one shot at him, a near hit, and the small man dropped to cover, giving a whoop and calling, "Nice try, baby!"

Sachs started forward again, toward Culbeau's sniper's nest. She heard several other shots. The pops of a revolver, then the staccato cracks of the soldier rifle, then the stunning detonation of the shotgun.

She was worried that they'd hit Lucy but a moment later she heard the woman's voice call, "Amelia, he's coming at you."

The pounding of feet in the grass. A pause. Rustling.

Who? And where was he? She felt panicked, looking around dizzily.

Then silence. A man's voice calling something indistinct.

The footsteps receded.

The wind parted the grass again and Sachs saw the glint of Culbeau's telescopic sight. He was nearly in front of her, fifty feet away, on a slight rise – a good spot for him to shoot from. He could pop up out of the grass with his big gun and cover the entire field. She crawled faster, convinced that he was sighting through the powerful 'scope at Lucy – or into the cabin and targeting Rhyme or Mary Beth through the window.

Faster, faster!

She climbed to her feet and started to run in a crouch. Culbeau was still thirty-five feet away.

But Sean O'Sarian, it turned out, was much closer than that – as Sachs found out when she sprinted into the clearing and tripped over him. He gasped as she rolled past him and fell onto her back. She smelled liquor and sweat.

His eyes were manic; he looked as disconnected as a schizophrenic.

There was an immeasurable beat and Sachs lifted her pistol as he swung the Colt toward her. She kicked backward into the grass and they fired simultaneously. She felt the muzzle blast of the three shots as he emptied the clip, all the long rounds missing. Her single shot missed too; when she rolled prone and looked for a target he was leaping through the grass, howling.

Don't miss the opportunity, she told herself. And risked a shot from Culbeau as she rose from the grass and aimed at O'Sarian. But before she could fire, Lucy Kerr stood and shot him once as he ran directly toward her. The man's head lifted and he touched his chest. Another laugh. Then he spiraled down into the grass.

The look on Lucy's face was shock and Sachs wondered if this had been her first kill in the line of duty. Then the deputy dropped into the grass. A moment later several shotgun blasts chewed up the vegetation where she'd been standing.

Sachs continued on toward Culbeau, moving very fast now; it was likely that he knew Lucy's position and when she stood again he'd have a clear shot at her.

Twenty feet, ten.

The glint from the 'scope flashed more brightly and Sachs ducked. Cringing, waiting for his shot. But apparently the big man hadn't seen her. There was no shot and she continued on her belly, easing around to the right to flank him. Sweating, the arthritis pinching her joints hard.

Five feet.

Ready.

It was a bad shooting situation. Because he was on a hill, in order to acquire a clear target she'd have to roll into the clearing on Culbeau's right, and stand. There'd be no cover. If she didn't cap his ass immediately he'd have a clear shot at her. And even if she did hit him, Tomel would have several long seconds to hit her with the scattergun.

But there was nothing to be done.

When you move…

Smittie up, pressure on the trigger.

A deep breath…

… they can't getcha.

Now!

She leapt forward and rolled into the clearing. She went up on one knee, aiming the gun.

And gave a gasp of dismay.

Culbeau's "gun" was a pipe from an old still and the 'scope was a part of a bottle resting on top. Exactly the same trick she and Garrett had used at the vacation house on the Paquenoke.

Suckered…

The grass rustled nearby. A footstep. Amelia Sachs dropped to the ground like a moth.

The footsteps were getting closer to the cabin, powerful footsteps, first through brush then on dirt then on the wooden steps leading up to the cabin. Moving slowly. To Rhyme they seemed more leisurely than cautious. Which meant they were confident too. And therefore dangerous.

Lincoln Rhyme struggled to lift his head from the couch but couldn't see who was approaching.

A creak of floorboards, and Rich Culbeau, holding a long rifle, looked inside.

Rhyme felt another jolt of panic. Was Sachs all right? Had one of the dozens of shots he'd heard struck her? Was she lying somewhere injured in the dusty field? Or dead?

Culbeau looked at Rhyme and Thom and concluded they weren't a threat. Still standing in the doorway, he asked Rhyme, "Where's Mary Beth?"

Rhyme held the man's eyes and said, "I don't know. She ran outside to get help. Five minutes ago."

Culbeau glanced around the room then his eyes settled on the root cellar door.

Rhyme said quickly, "Why're you doing this? What're you after?"

"Ran outside, did she? I didn't see her do that." Culbeau stepped farther into the cabin, his eyes on the root cellar door. Then he nodded behind him, toward the field. "They shouldn't've left you here alone. That was their mistake." He was studying Rhyme's body. "What happened to you?"

"I was hurt in an accident."

"You're that fellow from New York everybody was talking 'bout. You're the one figured out she was here. You really can't move?"

"No."

Culbeau gave a faint laugh of curiosity, as if he'd caught a kind of fish he'd never known existed.

Rhyme's eyes slipped to the cellar door then back to Culbeau.

The big man said, "You sure got yourself into a mess here. More than you bargained for."

Rhyme said nothing in response and finally Culbeau started forward, aiming his gun, one-handed, at the cellar door. "Mary Beth left, did she?"

"She ran out. Where are you going?" Rhyme asked.

Culbeau said, "She's down there, ain't she?" He pulled the door open fast and fired, worked the bolt, fired again. Three times more. Then he peered into the smoky darkness, reloading.

It was then that Mary Beth McConnell, brandishing her primitive club, stepped out from behind the front door, where she'd been waiting. Squinting with determination, she swung the weapon hard. It slammed into the side of Culbeau's head, ripping part of his ear. The rifle fell from his hands and down the stairs into the darkness of the cellar. But he wasn't badly hurt and lashed out with a huge fist, striking Mary Beth squarely in the chest. She gasped and dropped to the floor, the wind knocked out of her. She lay on her side, keening.

Culbeau touched his ear and examined the blood. Then he looked down at the young woman. From a scabbard on his belt he took a folding knife and opened it with a click. He gripped her brunette hair, pulled it up, exposing her white throat.

She grabbed his wrist and tried to hold it back. But his arms were huge and the dark blade moved steadily toward her skin.

"Stop," a voice from the doorway commanded. Garrett Hanlon stood just inside the cabin. He was holding a large gray rock in his hand. He walked close to Culbeau. "Leave her alone and get the fuck out of here."

Culbeau released Mary Beth's hair; her head dropped to the floor. The big man stepped back. He touched his ear again and winced. "Hey, boy, who're you to be cussing at me?"

"Go on, get out."

Culbeau laughed coldly. "Why'd you come back here? I got close to a hundred pounds of weight on you. And I got a Buck knife. All you got's that rock. Well, come on over here. Let's mix it up, get it over with."

Garrett clicked his fingernails twice. He crouched like a wrestler, walked forward slowly. His face showed eerie determination. He pretended to throw the rock several times and Culbeau dodged, backed up. Then the big man laughed, sizing up his adversary and probably concluding that the boy wasn't much of a threat. He lunged forward and swung the knife toward Garrett's narrow belly. The boy jumped back fast and the blade missed. But Garrett had misjudged the distance and hit the wall hard. He dropped to his knees, stunned.

Culbeau wiped his hand on his pants and gripped the knife again matter-of-factly, surveying Garrett with no emotion, as if he were about to dress a deer. He stepped toward the boy.

Then there was a blur of motion from the floor. Mary Beth, still lying on the floor, grabbed the club and swung it into Culbeau's ankle. He cried out as it connected and turned toward her, lifting the knife. But Garrett lunged forward and pushed the man hard on the shoulder. Culbeau was off balance and he slid on his knees down the cellar stairs. He caught himself halfway down. "You little shit," he growled.

Rhyme saw Culbeau grope in the dark cellar stairway for his rifle. "Garrett! He's going for the gun!"

The boy just walked slowly to the cellar and lifted the rock. But he didn't throw it. What was he doing? Rhyme wondered. He watched Garrett pull a wad of cloth out of a hole in the end. He looked down at Culbeau, said, "It's not a rock." And, as the first few yellow jackets flew out of the hole, he flung the nest into Culbeau's face and slammed the root cellar door shut. He hooked the clasp on the lock and stood back.

Two bullets snapped through the wood of the cellar door and disappeared through the ceiling.

But there were no more shots. Rhyme thought Culbeau would have fired more than twice.

But then he also thought the screams from the basement would last longer than they did.

Harris Tomel knew it was time to get the hell out, back to Tanner's Corner.

O'Sarian was dead – okay, no loss there – and Culbeau had gone down to the cabin to take care of the rest of them. So it was Tomel's job to find Lucy. But he didn't mind. He was still stung with shame that he'd clenched when he'd faced down Trey Williams and it had been that psycho little shit O'Sarian who'd saved his life.

Well, he wasn't going to freeze again.

Then, beside a tree some distance away, he saw a flash of tan. He looked. Yeah, there – through the crook of a tree – he could just make out Lucy Kerr's tan uniform blouse.

Holding the two-thousand-dollar shotgun, he moved a little closer. It wasn't a great shot – there wasn't much target presenting. Just part of her chest, visible through the crook of the tree. A hard shot with a rifle. But doable with the shotgun. He set the choke on the end of the muzzle so that the pellets would scatter wider and he'd have a better chance of hitting her.

He stood fast, dropped the bead sight right on the front of her blouse and squeezed the trigger.

A huge kick. Then he squinted to see if he'd hit his target.

Oh, Christ… Not again! The blouse was floating in the air – launched by the impact of the pellets. She'd hung it on the tree to lure him into giving away his position.

"Hold it right there, Harris," Lucy's voice called, behind him. "It's over with."

"That was good," he said. "You fooled me." He turned to face her, holding the Browning at waist level, hidden in the grass, the shotgun pointed in her direction. She was in a white T-shirt.

"Drop your gun," she ordered.

"I did already," he said.

He didn't move.

"Let me see your hands. In the air. Now, Harris. Last warning."

"Look, Lucy…"

The grass was four feet high. He'd drop down, fire to take out her knees. Then finish her off from close range. It'd be a risk, though. She could still get off a shot or two.

Then he noticed something: a look in her eyes. A look of uncertainty. And it seemed to him that she held her gun too threateningly.

She was bluffing.

"You're out of ammo," Tomel said, smiling.

There was a pause and the expression on her face confirmed it. He lifted the shotgun with both hands and aimed it at her. She gazed back hopelessly.

"But I'm not," came a voice nearby. The redhead! He looked her over, and his instinct told him: She's a woman. She'll hesitate. I can get her first. He swung toward her.

The pistol in her hands bucked and the last thing Tomel felt was an itchy tap on the side of his head.

Lucy Kerr saw Mary Beth stagger onto the porch and call out that Culbeau was dead and that Rhyme and Garrett were all right.

Amelia Sachs nodded then walked toward Sean O'Sarian's body. Lucy turned her own attention to Harris Tomel's. She bent down and closed her shaking hands around the Browning shotgun. She thought that while she should be horrified to be prying this elegant weapon from a dead man's hands, in fact all she thought about was the gun itself. She wondered if it was still loaded.

She answered that question by racking the gun – losing one shell, but making sure that another was chambered.

Fifty feet away Sachs was bending down over O'Sarian's body as she searched it, keeping her pistol pointed at the corpse. Lucy wondered why she was bothering then decided, wryly, that it must be standard procedure.

She found her blouse and put it back on. It was torn apart by the shotgun pellets but she was self-conscious about her body in the tight T-shirt. Lucy stood by the tree, breathing heavily in the heat and watching Sachs' back.

Simple fury – at the betrayals in her life. The betrayal by her body, by her husband, by God.

And now by Amelia Sachs.

She glanced behind her, where Harris Tomel lay. It was a straight line of sight from where he'd been standing to Amelia's back. The scenario was plausible: Tomel had been hiding in the grass. He rose, shot Sachs in the back with his shotgun. Lucy then grabbed Sachs' gun and killed Tomel. Nobody'd know different – except Lucy herself and, maybe, Jesse Corn's spirit.

Lucy lifted the shotgun, which felt weightless as a larkspur blossom in her hands. Pressing the smooth, fragrant stock against her cheek, reminding her of the way she'd pressed her face against the chrome guard of the hospital bed after her mastectomy. She sighted down the smooth barrel at the woman's black T-shirt, resting the sight on the woman's spine. She'd die painlessly. And fast.

As fast as Jesse Corn had died.

This was simply trading a guilty life for an innocent one.

Dear Lord, give me one clear shot at my Judas…

Lucy looked around. No witnesses.

Her finger curled around the trigger, tightened.

Squinted, held the brass dot of the bead sight rock-steady thanks to arms strengthened by years of gardening, years of managing a house – and a life – on her own. Aiming at the exact center of Amelia Sachs' back.

The hot breeze whistled through the grass around her. She thought about Buddy, about her surgeon, about her house and her garden.

Lucy lowered the gun.

She racked the weapon until it was empty and, padded butt resting on her hip, muzzle skyward, she carried it back to the van in front of the cabin. She set it on the ground and found her cell phone then called the state police.

The medevac chopper was the first to arrive and the medics quickly bundled Thom up and flew him off to the medical center. One stayed to look after Lincoln Rhyme, whose blood pressure was edging critical.

When the troopers themselves showed up in a second helicopter a few minutes later it was Amelia Sachs they arrested first and left hog-tied, hands behind her, lying in the hot dirt outside the cabin, while they went inside to arrest Garrett Hanlon and read him his rights.

39

Thom would survive. The doctor in the Emergency Medicine Department of the University Medical Center in Avery had said laconically, "The bullet? It came and went. Missed the important stuff." Though the aide would be off duty for a month or two.

Ben Kerr had volunteered to cut class and stay around Tanner's Corner for a few days to assist Rhyme. The big man had grumbled, "You don't really deserve my help, Lincoln. I mean, hell, you never even pick up after yourself."

Still not quite comfortable with crip jokes he glanced quickly at Rhyme to see if this type of banter was within the rules. The criminalist's sour grimace was a reverse affirmation that it was. But Rhyme added that, as much as he appreciated the offer, the care and feeding of a quad is a full-time, and tricky, job. Largely thankless too – if the patient is Lincoln Rhyme. And so Dr. Cheryl Weaver was arranging for a professional caregiver from the medical center to help Rhyme.

"But hang around, Ben," he said. "I still might need you. Most aides don't last more than a few days."

The case against Amelia Sachs was bad. Ballistics tests had proved that the bullet that killed Jesse Corn had come from her gun and, though Ned Spoto was dead, Lucy Kerr had given a statement describing what Ned had told her about the incident. Bryan McGuire had already announced that he was going for the death penalty. Good-natured Jesse Corn had been a popular figure around town and, since he'd died trying to arrest the Insect Boy, there was considerable outcry for making this a capital case.

Jim Bell and the state police had looked into why Culbeau and his friends would attack Rhyme and the deputies. An investigator from Raleigh had found tens of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in their houses. "More than moonshine money," the detective had said. Then echoed Mary Beth's thought: "That cabin must've been near a marijuana farm – those three were probably working it with the men who attacked Mary Beth. Garrett must've stumbled on their operation."

Now, a day after the terrible events at the 'shiners' cabin, Rhyme sat in the Storm Arrow – drivable despite the stigmata of a bullet hole – in the improvised lab, waiting for the new aide to arrive. Morose, he was brooding about Sachs' fate when a shadow appeared in the doorway.

He looked up and saw Mary Beth McConnell. She stepped into the room. "Mr. Rhyme."

He noted how pretty she was, what confident eyes she had, what a ready smile. He understood how Garrett could have become ensnared by her. "How's your head?" Nodding at the bandage on her temple.

"I'll have a pretty spectacular scar. Won't be wearing my hair pulled back too much, I don't think. But no serious damage."

Like everyone else, Rhyme had been relieved to learn that Garrett hadn't in fact raped Mary Beth. He'd been telling the truth about the bloody tissue: Garrett had startled her in the root cellar of the cabin and she'd stood quickly, hitting her head on a low beam. He'd been visibly aroused, true, but that was due only to a sixteen-year-old's hormones, and Garrett hadn't touched her other than to carry her carefully upstairs, clean the wound and bandage it. He'd apologized profusely that she'd been hurt.

The girl now said to Rhyme, "I just wanted to say thank you. I don't know what I would've done if it hadn't been for you. I'm sorry about your friend, that policewoman. But if it wasn't for her I'd be dead now. I'm sure of it. Those men were going to… well, you can figure that out. Thank her for me."

"I will," Rhyme told her. "Would you mind answering something?"

"What?"

"I know you gave a statement to Jim Bell but I only know what happened at Blackwater Landing from the evidence. And some of that wasn't clear. Could you tell me?"

"Sure… I was down by the river, dusting off some of the relics I'd found, and I looked up and there was Garrett. I was upset. I didn't want to be bothered. Whenever he saw me he just came right up and started talking like we were best friends."

"That morning he was agitated. He was saying things like 'You shouldn't've come here by yourself, it's dangerous, people die in Blackwater Landing.' That sort of thing. He was freaking me out. I told him to leave me alone. I had work to do. He grabbed my hand and tried to make me leave. Then Billy Stail comes out of the woods and he goes, 'You son of a bitch,' or something, and he starts to hit Garrett with a shovel but he got it away from Billy and killed him. Then he grabbed me again and made me get into this boat and brought me to the cabin."

"How long had Garrett been stalking you?"

Mary Beth laughed. "Stalking? No, no. You've been talking to my mother, I'll bet. I was downtown about six months ago and some of the kids from his school were picking on him. I scared them off. That made me his girlfriend, I guess. He followed me around a lot but that was all. Admired me from afar, that sort of thing. I was sure he was harmless." Her smile faded. "Until the other day." Mary Beth glanced at her watch. "I should go. But I wanted to ask you – the other reason I came by – if you don't need them anymore for evidence would it be okay if I took the rest of the bones?"

Rhyme, whose eyes were now gazing out his window as thoughts of Amelia Sachs slipped back into his mind, turned slowly to Mary Beth.

"What bones?" he asked.

"At Blackwater Landing? Where Garrett kidnapped me?"

Rhyme shook his head. "What do you mean?"

Mary Beth's face furrowed with concern. "The bones – those were the relics I found. I was digging up the rest of them when Garrett kidnapped me. They're very important… You don't mean they're missing?"

"Nobody recovered any bones at the crime scene," Rhyme said. "They weren't in the evidence report."

She shook her head. "No, no… They can't be gone!"

"What kind of bones?"

"I found the remains of some of the Lost Colonists of Roanoke. From the late fifteen hundreds."

Rhyme's knowledge of history was pretty much limited to New York City. "I'm not too familiar with that."

Though when she explained about the settlers on Roanoke Island and their disappearance he nodded. "I do remember something from school. Why do you think it was their remains?"

"The bones were really old and decayed and they weren't in an Algonquin burial site or a colonial graveyard. They were just dumped in the ground without any markings. That was typical of what the warriors did with the bodies of their enemies. Here…" She opened her backpack. "I'd already packed up a few of them before Garrett took me off." She lifted several of them out, wrapped in Saran Wrap, blackened and decomposed. Rhyme recognized a radius, a portion of a scapula, a hipbone and several inches of femur.

"There were a dozen more," she said. "This is one of the biggest finds in U.S. archaeological history. They're very valuable. I have to find them."

Rhyme stared at the radius – one of the two forearm bones. After a moment he looked up.

"Could you go up the hallway there to the Sheriff's Department? Ask for Lucy Kerr and have her come down here for a minute."

"Is this about the bones?" she asked.

"It might be."

It had been an expression of Amelia Sachs' father's: "When you move they can't getcha."

The expression meant many things. But most of all it was a statement of their shared philosophy, father and daughter. Both of them were admirers of fast cars, lovers of police work on the street, fearful of closed spaces and lives that were going nowhere.

But now they had got her.

Got her for good.

And her precious cars, her precious life as a policewoman, her life with Lincoln Rhyme, her future with children… all that was destroyed.

Sachs, in her cell in the lockup, had been ostracized. The deputies who brought her food and coffee said nothing to her, just stared coldly. Rhyme was having a lawyer flown down from New York but, like most police officers, Sachs knew as much about criminal law as most attorneys. She knew that, whatever horse-trading went on between the hired gun from Manhattan and the Paquenoke County D.A., her life as she'd lived it was over with. Her heart was as numb as Lincoln Rhyme's body.

On the floor an insect of some kind made a diligent trek from one wall to the other. What was its mission? To eat, to mate, to find shelter?

If all the people on earth disappeared tomorrow the world'd keep going just fine. But if the insects all went away then life'd be over with way fast – like, one generation. The plants'd die then the animals and the earth'd turn into this big rock again.

The door to the main office swung open. A deputy she didn't recognize stood there. "You've got a call." He opened the cell door, shackled her and led her to a small metal table on which sat a phone. It would be her mother, she supposed. Rhyme was going to call the woman and give her the news. Or maybe it was her best friend in New York, Amy.

But when she picked up the receiver, the thick chains clinking, she heard Lincoln Rhyme's voice. "How is it in there, Sachs? Cool?"

"It's all right," she muttered.

"That lawyer'll be here tonight. He's good. He's been doing criminal law for twenty years. He got off a suspect in a burglary I made a case against. Anybody does that, you know they have to be good."

"Rhyme, come on. Why even bother? I'm an outsider who broke a murderer out of jail and killed one of the local cops. It doesn't get any more hopeless than that."

"We'll talk about your case later. I've got to ask you something else. You spent a couple of days with Garrett. Did you talk about anything?"

"Sure we did."

"What?"

"I don't know. Insects. The woods, the swamp." Why was he asking her these things? "I don't remember."

"I need you to remember. I need you to tell me everything he said."

"Why bother, Rhyme?" she repeated.

"Come on, Sachs. Humor an old crip, will you?"

40

Lincoln Rhyme was alone in the impromptu lab, gazing at the evidence charts.

FOUND AT PRIMARY CRIME SCENE -

BLACKWATER LANDING

Kleenex with Blood

Limestone Dust

Nitrates

Phosphate

Ammonia

Detergent

Camphene

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

QUARRY

Old Burlap Bag – Unreadable Name on It

Corn – Feed and Grain?

Scorch Marks on Bag

Deer Park Water

Planters Cheese Crackers

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

Yeast

Then he studied the map, eyes tracing the course of the Paquenoke River as it made its way from the Great Dismal Swamp through Blackwater Landing and meandered west.

There was a peak in the stiff paper of the map – a wrinkle that made you itch to smooth it.

That's been my life for the past few years, Lincoln Rhyme thought: itches that can't be scratched.

Maybe, soon, I'll be able to do that. After Dr. Weaver cuts and stitches and fills me up with her magic potions and youthful shark… maybe then I'll be able to run my hand over maps like this, flatten out a little crinkle.

An unnecessary gesture, pointless, really. But what a victory it would be.

Footsteps sounded. Boots, Rhyme deduced from the sound. With hard leather heels. From the interval between the steps it had to be a tall man. He hoped it would be Jim Bell and it was.

Breathing carefully into the sip-and-puff controller, Rhyme turned away from the wall.

" Lincoln," the sheriff asked. "What's up? Nathan said it was urgent."

"Come on in. Close the door. But first – is anybody in the hall?"

Bell gave a faint smile at this intrigue and looked. "Empty."

Rhyme reflected that the man's cousin, Roland, would have tacked on a Southernism of some sort. "Quiet as a church on payday" was one that he'd heard the northern Bell use from time to time.

The sheriff swung the door shut then walked to the table, leaned against it, crossed his arms. Rhyme turned slightly and continued to study the map of the area. "Our map doesn't go far enough north and east to show the Dismal Swamp Canal, does it?"

"The canal? No, it doesn't."

Rhyme asked, "You know much about it?"

"Not really," Bell said deferentially. He'd known Rhyme for only a short while but must've sensed when to play straight man.

"I've been doing a little research," Rhyme said, nodding at the phone. "The Dismal Swamp Canal's part of the Intracoastal Waterway. You know you can take a boat all the way from Norfolk, Virginia, down to Miami and not have to sail on open sea?"

"Sure. Everybody in Carolina knows about the Intracoastal. I've never been on it. I'm not much of a boater. I got seasick watching Titanic."

"Took twelve years to dig the canal. It's twenty-two miles long. Dug completely by hand. Amazing, don't you think?… Relax, Jim. This's going someplace, I promise you. Look at that line up there, the one between Tanner's Corner and the Paquenoke River. G-11 to G-10 on the map."

"You mean, our canal. The Blackwater Canal?"

"Right. Now, a boat could sail up that to the Paquo then to the Great Dismal and – "

The approaching footsteps weren't half as loud as Bell 's had been, with the door being shut, and there was little warning before it swung open. Rhyme stopped speaking.

Mason Germain stood in the doorway. He glanced at Rhyme then at his boss and said, "Wondered where you'd got to, Jim. We got to make a call to Elizabeth City. Captain Dexter has some questions 'bout what happened at the 'shiners' cabin."

"Just having a chat with Lincoln. We were talking about -"

But Rhyme interrupted him quickly. "Say, Mason, I wonder if you could give us a few minutes alone here."

Mason glanced from one to the other. He nodded slowly. "They're in a mind to talk to you pretty soon, Jim." He left before Bell could respond.

"Is he gone?" Rhyme asked.

Once again Bell glanced down the corridor then nodded. "What's this all about, Lincoln?"

"Could you check out the window? Make sure Mason's left? Oh, and I'd close that door again."

Bell did. Then he walked to the window and looked out. "Yeah. He's headed up the street. Why all this…?" He lifted his hands to complete the thought.

"How well do you know Mason?"

"As good as I know mosta my deputies. Why?"

"Because he murdered Garrett Hanlon's family."

"What?" Bell started to smile but the expression faded fast. "Mason?"

"Mason," Rhyme said.

"But why on earth?"

"Because Henry Davett paid him to."

"Hold up," Bell said. "You're a couple steps past me."

"I can't prove it yet. But I'm sure."

"Henry? What's his involvement?"

Rhyme said, "It all has to do with the Blackwater Canal." He fell into his lecturing mode, eyes on the map. "Now, the point of digging the canals in the eighteenth century was having dependable transport because the roads were so bad. But as the roads and railroads got better, shippers stopped using the waterways."

"Where'd you find all this out?"

"Historical Society in Raleigh. Talked to a charming lady, Julie DeVere. According to her, Blackwater Canal was closed just after the Civil War. Wasn't used for a hundred thirty years. Until Henry Davett started running barges on it again."

Bell nodded. "That was about five years ago."

Rhyme continued, "Let me ask – you ever wonder why Davett started using it?"

The sheriff shook his head. "I remember some of us were a little worried kids'd try to swim out to a barge and get hurt and drown but none of 'em ever did and we never thought any more about it. But now you mention it I don't know why he'd use the canal. He's got trucks coming and going all the time. Norfolk 's nothing to get to by truck."

Rhyme nodded up at the evidence chart. "The answer's right up there. That one bit of trace I never did find a source for: camphene."

"The stuff in the lanterns?"

Rhyme shook his head, grimaced. "No. I made a mistake there. True, camphene was used in lanterns. But it's also used in something else. It can be processed to make toxaphene."

"What's that?"

"One of the most dangerous pesticides there is. It was used mostly in the South – until it was banned in the eighties by the EPA for most uses." Rhyme shook his head angrily. "I assumed that because toxaphene was illegal there was no point in considering pesticides as the source for the camphene and that it had to be from old lanterns. Except we never found any old lanterns. My mind got into a rut and it wouldn't get out. No old lamps? Then I should have gone down the list and started looking for insecticide. And when I did – this morning – I found the source of the camphene."

Bell nodded, fascinated. "Which was where?"

"Everywhere," Rhyme said. "I had Lucy take samples of dirt and water from around Tanner's Corner. There's toxaphene all over the place – the water, the land. I should've listened to what Sachs told me the other day when she was searching for Garrett. She saw huge patches of barren land. She thought it was acid rain but it wasn't. Toxaphene did that. The highest concentrations are for a couple of miles around Davett's factory – Blackwater Landing and the canal. He's been manufacturing asphalt and tar paper as a cover for making toxaphene."

"But it's banned, I thought you said."

"I called an FBI agent friend of mine and he called the EPA. It's not completely banned – farmers can use it in emergencies. But that's not how Davett's making his millions. This agent at the EPA explained something called the 'circle of poison.'"

"Don't like the sound of that."

"You shouldn't. Toxaphene is banned here but the ban in the U.S. is only on use. It can be made here and sold to foreign countries."

"And they can use it?"

"It's legal in most Third World and Latin American countries. That's the circle: Those countries spray food with pesticides and send it back into the U.S. The FDA only inspects a small percentage of imported fruits and vegetables so there are plenty of people in the U.S. still poisoned, even though it's banned."

Bell gave a cynical laugh. "And Davett can't ship it on the roads because of all the counties and towns that won't let any toxic shipments go through 'em. And the ICC logs on his trucks'd show what the cargo is. Not to mention the public relations problem if word got out what he was doing."

"Exactly," Rhyme said, nodding. "So he reopened the canal to send the toxaphene through the Intracoastal Waterway to Norfolk, where it's loaded onto foreign ships. Only there was a problem – when the canal closed in the eighteen hundreds the property around it was sold privately. People whose houses butted up against the canal had the right to control who used it."

Bell said, "So Davett paid them to lease their portion of the canal." He nodded with sudden understanding. "And he must've paid a lot of money – look at how big those houses are in Blackwater Landing. And think about those nice trucks and Mercedeses and Lexuses people're driving around here. But what's this about Mason and Garrett's family?"

"Garrett's father's land was on the canal. But he wouldn't sell his usage rights. So Davett or somebody in his company hired Mason to convince Garrett's father to sell and, when he wouldn't, Mason picked up some local trash to help him kill the family – Culbeau, Tomel and O'Sarian. Then I'd guess that Davett bribed the executor of the will to sell the property to him."

"But Garrett's folks died in an accident. A car accident. I saw the report myself."

"Was Mason the officer who handled the report?"

"I don't remember but he could've been," Bell admitted. He looked at Rhyme with an admiring smile. "How on earth d'you figure this out?"

"Oh, it was easy – because there's no frost in July. Not in North Carolina anyway."

"Frost?"

"I talked to Amelia. Garrett told her that the night his family was killed the car was frosty and his parents and sister were shivering. But the accident happened in July. I remembered seeing the article in the file – the picture of Garrett and his family. He was in a T-shirt and the picture was of them at a Fourth of July party. The story said the photo was taken a week before his parents were killed."

"Then what was the boy talking about? Frost, shivering?"

"Mason and Culbeau used some of Davett's toxaphene to kill the family. I talked to my doctor over at the medical center. She said that in extreme cases of neurotoxic poisoning the body spasms. That's the shivering Garrett saw. The frost was probably fumes or residue of the chemical in the car."

"If he saw it why didn't he tell anybody?"

"I described the boy to the doctor. And she said it sounds like he got poisoned too that night. Just enough to give him MCS – multiple chemical sensitivity. Memory loss, brain damage, severe reaction to other chemicals in the air and water. Remember the welts on his skin?"

"Sure."

"Garrett thinks it's poison oak but it isn't. The doctor told me that skin eruptions are a classic symptom of MCS. Breaking out when you're exposed to trace amounts of substances that wouldn't affect anybody else. Even soap or perfume'll make your skin erupt."

"It's making sense," Bell said. Then, frowning, he added, "But if you don't have any hard evidence then all we've got is speculation."

"Oh, I should mention" – Rhyme couldn't resist a faint smile; modesty was never a quality that he wore well – "I've got some hard evidence. I found the bodies of Garrett's family."

41

At the Albemarle Manor Hotel, a block away from the Paquenoke County lockup, Mason Germain didn't wait for the elevator but climbed the stairs, covered with threadbare tan carpet.

He found Room 201 and knocked.

"S'open," came the voice.

Mason pushed the door open slowly, revealing a pink room bathed in orange, afternoon sunlight. It was painfully hot inside. He couldn't imagine that the occupant of the room liked it this way so he assumed that the man sitting at the table was either too lazy to turn on the air-conditioner or too stupid to figure out how it worked. Which made Mason all the more suspicious of him.

The African-American, lean and with particularly dark skin, wore a wrinkled black suit, which looked completely out of place in Tanner's Corner. Draw attention to yourself, why don't you? Mason thought contemptuously. Malcolm Goddamn X.

"You'd be Germain?" the man asked.

"Yeah."

The man's feet were on the chair across from him and when he withdrew his hand from under a copy of the Charlotte Observer his long fingers were holding a long automatic pistol.

"That answers one of my questions," Mason said. "Whether you got a gun or not."

"What's the other?" the man in the suit asked.

"Whether you know how to use it."

The man said nothing but carefully marked his place in a newspaper story with a stubby pencil. He looked like a third-grader struggling with the alphabet.

Mason studied him again, not saying a word, then felt an infuriating trickle of sweat running down his face. Without asking the man if it was all right Mason walked to the bathroom, snagged a towel and wiped his face with it, dropped it on the bathroom floor.

The man gave a laugh, as irritating as the bead of sweat had been, and said, "I'm gettin' the distinct impression you don't much like my kind."

"No, I guess I don't," Mason answered. "But if you know what you're doing, what I like and what I don't aren't important."

"That's completely right," the black man said coolly. "So, talk to me. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to."

Mason said, "Here's the way it's shaking out. Rhyme's talking to Jim Bell right now over in the County Building. And that Amelia Sachs, she's in the lockup up the street."

"Where should we go first?"

Without hesitating Mason said, "The woman."

"Then that's what we'll do," the man said as if it were his idea. He slipped the gun away, placed the newspaper on the dresser and, with a politeness that Mason believed was more mockery than anything else, said, "After yourself." And gestured toward the door.

"The bodies of the Hanlons?" Jim Bell asked Rhyme. "Where are they?"

"Over there," Rhyme said. Nodding to a pile of the bones that had been in Mary Beth's backpack. "Those're what Mary Beth found at Blackwater Landing," the criminalist said. "She thought they were the bones of the survivors of the Lost Colony. But I had to break the news to her that they're not that old. They looked decayed but that's just because they were partially burned. I've done a lot of work in forensic anthropology and I knew right away they've been in the ground only about five years – which is just how long ago Garrett's folks were killed. They're the bones of a man in his late thirties, a woman about the same age who'd borne children and a girl about ten. That describes Garrett's family perfectly."

Bell looked at them. "I don't get it."

"Garrett's family's property was right across Route 112 from the river in Blackwater Landing. Mason and Culbeau poisoned the family then burned and buried the bodies and pushed their car into the water. Davett bribed the coroner to fake the death report and paid off somebody at the funeral home to pretend to cremate the remains. The graves're empty, I guarantee. Mary Beth must've mentioned finding the bones to somebody and word got back to Mason. He paid Billy Stail to go to Blackwater Landing to kill her and steal the evidence – the bones."

"What? Billy?"

"Except that Garrett happened to be there, keeping an eye on Mary Beth. He was right, you know: Blackwater Landing is a dangerous place. People did die there – those other cases in the last few years. Only it wasn't Garrett who killed them. It was Mason and Culbeau. They were murdered because they'd gotten sick from the toxaphene and started asking questions about why. Everybody in town knew about the Insect Boy so Mason or Culbeau killed that one girl – Meg Blanchard – with the hornets' nest to make it look like he was the killer. The others they hit over the head and pitched into the canal to drown. People who didn't question getting sick – like Mary Beth's father and Lucy Kerr – they didn't bother with."

"But Garrett's fingerprints were on the shovel… the murder weapon."

"Ah, the shovel," Rhyme mused. "Something very interesting about that shovel. I stumbled again… There were only two sets of fingerprints on it."

"Right, Billy's and Garrett's."

"But where were Mary Beth's?" Rhyme asked.

Bell 's eyes narrowed. He nodded. "Right. There were none of hers."

"Because it wasn't her shovel. Mason gave it to Billy to take to Blackwater Landing – after wiping his own prints off it, of course. I asked Mary Beth about it. She said that Billy came out of the bushes carrying it. Mason figured it would be the perfect murder weapon – because as an archaeologist Mary Beth'd probably have a shovel with her. Well, Billy gets to Blackwater Landing and sees Garrett with her. He figures he'll kill the Insect Boy too. But Garrett got the shovel away and hit Billy. He thought he killed him. But he didn't."

"Garrett didn't kill Billy?"

"No, no, no… He only hit Billy once or twice. Knocked him out but didn't hurt him that seriously. Then Garrett took Mary Beth away with him to the moonshiners' cabin. Mason was the first on the scene. He admitted that."

"That's right. He took the call."

"Kind of a coincidence that he was nearby, don't you think?" Rhyme asked.

"I guess. I didn't think about it at the time."

"Mason found Billy. He picked up the shovel – wearing latex evidence gloves – and beat the boy until he died."

"How do you know that?"

"Because of the position of the latex prints. I had Ben reexamine the handle of the shovel an hour ago with an alternative light source. Mason held the shovel like a baseball bat. That's not how somebody would pick up evidence at a crime scene. And he adjusted his grip a number of times to get better leverage. When Sachs was at the crime scene she said the blood pattern showed Billy'd been hit first in the head and knocked down. But he was still alive. Until Mason hit him in the neck with the shovel."

Bell looked out the window, his face hollow. "Why would Mason kill Billy?"

"He probably figured that Billy'd panic and tell the truth. Or maybe the boy was conscious when Mason got there and said he was fed up and wanted out of the deal."

"So that's why you wanted Mason to leave… a few minutes ago. I wondered what that was about. So how're we going to prove all of this, Lincoln?"

"I've got the latex prints on the shovel. I've got the bones, which test positive for toxaphene in high concentrations. I want to get a diver and look for the Hanlons' car in the Paquenoke. Some evidence will've survived – even after five years. Then we should search Billy's house and see if there's any cash there that can be traced to Mason. And we'll search Mason's house too. It'll be a tough case." Rhyme gave a faint smile. "But I'm good, Jim. I can do it." Then his smile faded. "But if Mason doesn't turn state's evidence against Henry Davett it's going to be tough to make the case against him. All I've got's that." Rhyme nodded to a plastic exemplar jar filled with about eight ounces of pale liquid.

"What's that?"

"Pure toxaphene. Lucy got a sample from Davett's warehouse a half hour ago. She said there must've been ten thousand gallons of the stuff there. If we can establish a compositional identity between the chemical that killed Garrett's family and what's in that jar we might convince the prosecutor to bring a case against Davett."

"But Davett helped us find Garrett."

"Of course he did. It was in his interest to find the boy – and Mary Beth – as fast as possible. Davett was the one who wanted her dead most of all."

"Mason," Bell muttered, shaking his head. "I've known him for years… You think he suspects?"

"You're the only one I've told. I didn't even tell Lucy – I just had her do some legwork for me. I was afraid somebody'd overhear and word'd get back to Mason or Davett. This town, Jim, it's a nest of hornets. I don't know who to trust."

Bell sighed. "How can you be so sure it's Mason?"

"Because Culbeau and his friends showed up at the moonshiners' cabin just after we figured out where it was. And Mason was the only one who knew that… aside from me and you and Ben. He must've called Culbeau and told him where the cabin was. So… let's call the state police, have one of their divers come on down here and check out Blackwater Landing. We should get on those warrants to search Billy's and Mason's houses too."

Rhyme watched Bell nod. But instead of going to the phone he walked to the window and slid it shut. Then he stepped to the door again, opened it, looked out, closed it.

Locked the latch.

"Jim, what're you doing?"

Bell hesitated then took a step toward Rhyme.

The criminalist looked once into the sheriff's eyes and gripped the sip-and-puff controller quickly between his teeth. He blew into it and the wheelchair started forward. But Bell stepped behind him and yanked the battery cable free. The Storm Arrow eased forward a few inches and stopped.

"Jim," he whispered. "Not you too?"

"You got that right."

Rhyme's eyes closed. "No, no," he whispered. His head dipped. But only a few millimeters. As with most great men Lincoln Rhyme's gestures of defeat were very subtle.