The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

"You can always tell when an insect's really upset. They clean their antennas over and over again.... Insects' antennas show their moods. Like our faces. Only the thing is," he added cryptically, "they don't fake it. Like we do." He laughed in an odd way--a sound she hadn't heard before.

He eased over the side of the boat into the water and pulled the boat onto the land. Sachs climbed out. He directed her through the woods and seemed to know exactly where he was going despite the darkness of dusk and the absence of any path that she could see.

"How do you know where to go?" she asked.

Garrett said, "I guess I'm like the monarchs. I just know directions pretty good."

"Monarchs?"

"You know, the butterflies. They migrate a thousand miles and know exactly where they're going. It's really, really cool--they navigate by the sun and, like, change course automatically depending on where it is on the horizon. Oh, and when it's overcast or dark they use this other sense they have--they can feel the earth's magnetic fields."

When a bat shoots out a beam of sound to find them, moths fold their wings and drop to the ground and hide.

She was smiling at his enthusiastic lecture when she stopped suddenly and crouched. "Look out," she whispered. "There! There's a light."

Faint illumination reflecting off a murky pond. An eerie yellow light like a failing lantern.

But Garrett was laughing.

She looked at him quizzically.

He said, "Just a ghost."

"What?" she asked.

"It's the Lady of the Swamp. Like, this Indian maiden who died the night before her wedding. Her ghost still paddles through the Dismal Swamp looking for the guy she was going to marry. We're not in the Great Dismal but it's near here." He nodded toward the glow. "What it is really is just fox fire--this gross fungus that glows."

She didn't like the light. It reminded her of the uneasiness she felt as they drove into Tanner's Corner that morning, seeing the small coffin at the funeral.

"I don't like the swamp, with or without ghosts," Sachs said.

"Yeah?" Garrett said. "Maybe you'll get to like it. Someday."

He led her along a road and after ten minutes he turned down a short, overgrown driveway. There was an old trailer sitting in a clearing. In the gloom she couldn't see clearly but it seemed to be a ramshackle place, leaning to the side, rusted, tires flat and overgrown with ivy and moss.

"This is yours?"

"Well, nobody's lived here for years so I guess it's mine. I have a key but it's at home. I didn't have a chance to get it." He went around to the side and managed to open a window, boosted himself up and through it. A moment later the door opened.

She wal

ked inside. Garrett was rummaging through a cabinet in the tiny kitchen. He found some matches and lit a propane lantern. It gave off a warm, yellow glow. He opened another cabinet, peered inside.

"I had some Doritos but the mice got 'em." He pulled out some Tupperware and examined it. "Chewed right through. Shit. But I've got Farmer John macaroni. It's good. I eat it all the time. And some beans too." He started opening cans as Sachs looked around the trailer. A few chairs, a table. In the bedroom she could see a dingy mattress. There was a thick mat and a pillow on the living room floor. The trailer itself radiated poverty: broken doors and fixtures, bullet holes in the walls, windows broken, carpet stained beyond cleaning. In her days as a patrol officer for the NYPD she'd seen many sad places like this--but always from the outside; now this was her temporary home.

Thinking of Lucy's words from that morning.

Normal rules don't apply to anybody north of the Paquo. Us or them. You can see yourself shooting before you read anybody their rights and that'd be perfectly all right.

Remembering the stunning blasts of the shotgun, intended for her and Garrett.

The boy hung pieces of greasy cloth over the windows to keep anyone from seeing the light inside. He stepped outside for a moment then came back with a rusty cup, filled, presumably, with rainwater. He held it out to her. She shook her head. "Feel like I drank half the Paquenoke."

"This's better."

"I'm sure it is. I'll still pass."

He drank the contents of the cup and then stirred the food as it heated on the small propane stove. In a soft voice he sang an eerie tune over and over, "Farmer John, Farmer John. Enjoy it fresh from Farmer John. ..." It was nothing more than an advertising jingle but the chant was unsettling and she was glad when he stopped.