The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

"Okay. I'll listen. Don't think you need to be talking that way.... Okay. I'm listening. What's Culbeau done now?"

But Mason didn't answer. He asked, "Where's your Ruger?"

"My deer rifle? The M77?"

"Right."

"In my truck. At home."

"You got the Hitech 'scope mounted?"

"Course I do."

"We're gonna go get it."

They pulled out of the parking lot and as soon as they were on Main Street Mason hit the switch for the gumball machine--the revolving red and blue light on top of the car. Kept the siren off. He sped out of town.

Nathan tucked some Red Indian inside his cheek, which he couldn't do with Jim around but Mason didn't mind. "The Ruger.... So. That's why you wanted me. Not Frank."

"That's right."

Nathan Groomer was the best rifle shot in the department, one of the best in Paquenoke County. Mason'd seen him bring down a ten-point buck at eight hundred yards.

"So. After I get the rifle we going to Culbeau's house?"

"No."

"Where we going?"

"We're going hunting."

"Nice houses here," Amelia Sachs observed.

She and Lucy Kerr were driving north along Canal Road, back to Blackwater Landing from downtown. Jesse Corn and Ned Spoto, a stocky deputy in his late thirties, were behind them in a second squad car.

Lucy glanced at the real estate overlooking the canal--the elegant new colonials Sachs had seen earlier--and said nothing.

Again Sachs was struck by the forlorn quality of the houses and yards, the absence of kids. Just like the streets of Tanner's Corner.

Children, she reflected again.

Then told herself: Let's not get into that.

Lucy turned right on Route 112 then off onto the shoulder--where they'd been just a half hour earlier, the ridge overlooking the crime scenes. Jesse Corn's squad car pulled in behind. The four of them walked down the embankment to the riverside and climbed into the skiff. Jesse took up the rowing position again, muttered, "Brother, north of the Paquo." He said this with an ominous tone that Sachs at first took to be a joke but then noticed that neither he nor the others were smiling. On the far side of the river they climbed out and followed Garrett's and Lydia's footsteps to the hunting blind where Ed Schaeffer had been stung then about fifty feet past it into the woods, where the tracks vanished.

At Sachs's direction they fanned out, moving in increasingly large circles, looking for any signs of the direction Garrett had gone. They found nothing and returned to the place where the footprints disappeared.

Lucy said to Jesse, "You know that path? The one those druggies scooted down after Frank Sturgis found 'em over last year?"

He nodded. He said to Sachs, "It's about fifty yards north. That way." He pointed. "Garrett'd know about it probably and it's the best way to get through the woods and swamp here."

"Let's check it out," Ned said.

Sachs wondered how to best handle the impending conflict and decided there was only one way: head-on. Being overly delicate wouldn't work, not with three of them versus her alone (Jesse Corn being, she believed, only amorously in her camp). "We should stay here until we hear from Rhyme."

Jesse kept a faint smile on his face, tasting a morsel of divided loyalty.

Lucy shook her head. "Garrett had to've taken that path."