The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

"Like a herd of cattle walked through it. Must be two dozen footprints."

"Shit," the criminalist muttered.

Lucy had heard Sachs's comment but said nothing, just kept looking out over the dark junction where the canal met the river.

Sachs asked, "That's the boat he got away in?" Looking toward a skiff beached on the muddy riverbank.

"Over there, yeah," Jesse Corn said. "It's not his. He stole it from some folks up the river. You want to search it?"

"Later. Now, which way wouldn't he have come to get here? Yesterday, I mean. When he killed Billy."

"Wouldn't?" Jesse pointed to the east. "There's nothing that way. Swamp and reeds. Can't even land a boat. So either he came along Route 112 and down the embankment here. Or, 'cause of the boat, I guess he might've rowed over."

She opened the crime scene suitcase. Said to Jesse, "I want a known of the dirt around here."

"Known?"

"Exemplars--samples, you know."

"Just of the dirt here."

"Right."

"Sure," he said. Then asked, "Why?"

"Because if we can find soil that doesn't match what's found here naturally it might be from the place Garrett's got those girls."

"It could also," Lucy said, "be from Lydia's garden or Mary Beth's backyard or shoes of some kids fishing here a couple of days ago."

"It could," Sachs said patiently. "But we need to do it anyway." She handed Jesse a plastic bag. He strode off, pleased to help. Sachs started down the hill. She paused, opened the crime scene case again. No rubber bands. She noticed that Lucy Kerr had some bands binding the end of her French braid. "Borrow those?" she asked. "The elastic bands?"

After a brief pause the deputy pulled them off. Sachs stretched them around her shoes. Explained. "So I'll know which footprints're mine."

As if it makes a difference in this mess, she thought.

She stepped into the crime scene.

"Sachs, what do you have?" Rhyme asked. The reception was even worse than earlier.

"I can't see the scenario very clearly," she said, studying the ground. "Way too many footprints. Must've been eight, ten different people walking through here in the last twenty-four hours. But I have an idea what happened--Mary Beth was kneeling. A man's shoes approach from the west--from the direction of the canal. Garrett's. I remember the tread of the shoe Jesse found. I can see where Mary Beth stands and steps back. A second man's shoes approach from the south. Billy. He came down the embankment. He's moving fast--mostly on his toes. So he's sprinting. Garrett goes toward him. They scuffle. Billy backs up to a willow tree. Garrett comes toward him. More scuffling." Sachs studied the white outline of Billy's body. "The first time Garrett hits Billy with the shovel he gets him in the head. He falls. That didn't kill him. But then he hit him in the neck when he was down. That finished him off."

Jesse gave a surprised laugh, staring at the same outline as if he were looking at something completely different from what she saw. "How'd you know that?"

Absently she said, "The blood pattern. There're a few small drops here." She pointed to the ground. "Consistent with blood falling about six feet--that's from Billy's head. But that big spray pattern--which'd have to be from a severed carotid or jugular--starts when he was on the ground.... Okay, Rhyme, I'm going to start the search."

Walking the grid. Foot by foot. Eyes on the dirt and grass, eyes on the knotty bark of the oaks and willows, eyes up to the overhanging branches ("A crime scene is three dimensional, Sachs," Rhyme often reminded).

"Those cigarette butts still there?" Rhyme asked.

"Got 'em." She turned to Lucy. "Those cigarette butts," she said, nodding at the ground. "Why weren't they picked up?"

"Oh," Jesse answered for her, "those're just Nathan's."

"Who?"

"Nathan Groomer. One of our deputies. He's been trying to quit but just can't quite manage to."

Sachs sighed but managed to refrain from telling them that any cop who smoked at a crime scene ought to be suspended. She covered the ground carefully but the search was futile. Any visible fibers, scraps of paper or other physical evidence had been removed or blown away. She walked to the scene of this morning's kidnapping, stepped under the tape and started on the grid around the willow. Back and forth, fighting the dizziness from the heat. "Rhyme, there isn't much here ... but... wait. I've got something." She'd seen a flash of white, close to the water. She walked down and carefully picked up a wadded-up Kleenex. Her knees cried out--from the arthritis that had plagued her for years. Rather be running down a perp than doing deep knee bends, she thought. "Kleenex. Looks similar to the ones at his house, Rhyme. Only this one's got blood on it. Quite a bit."