The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver Page A

here with what you’ve found.”
    As they sat in the boat on the way back over the canal Sachs asked, “How much trouble’s he gonna be?”
    “Culbeau?” Lucy responded. “He’s lazy mostly. Smokes dope and drinks too much but he’s never done worse than broke some jaws in public. We think he’s got a still someplace and, even for a thousand bucks, I can’t imagine him getting too far from it.”
    “What do he and his two cronies do?”
    Jesse asked, “Oh, you saw them too? Well, Sean—that’s the skinny one—and Rich don’t have what you’d call real jobs. Scavenge and do day labor some. Harris Tomel’s been to college—a couple years anyway. He’s always trying to buy a business or put some deal together. Nothing ever pays out that I heard of. But all three of those boys have money and that means they’re running ’shine.”
    “Moonshine? You don’t bust ’em?”
    After a moment Jesse said, “Sometimes, down here, you go lookin’ for trouble. Sometimes you don’t.”
    Which was a bit of law enforcement philosophy that, Sachs knew, was hardly limited to the South.
    They landed again on the south shore of the river, beside the crime scenes, and Sachs climbed out before Jesse could offer his hand, which he did anyway.
    Suddenly a huge, dark shape came into view. A black motorized barge, forty feet long, eased down the canal, then passed them and headed into the river. She read on the side: DAVETT INDUSTRIES.
    Sachs asked, “What’s that?”
    Lucy answered, “A company outside of town. They move shipments up the Intracoastal through the Dismal Swamp Canal and into Norfolk. Asphalt, tar paper, stuff like that.”
    Rhyme had heard this through the radio and said, “Let’s ask if there was a shipment around the time of the killing. Get the name of the crew.”
    Sachs mentioned this to Lucy but she said, “I already did that. One of the first things Jim and I did.” Her answer was clipped. “It was a negative. If you’re interestedwe also canvassed everybody in town normally makes the commute along Canal Road and Route 112 here. Wasn’t any help.”
    “That was a good idea,” Sachs said.
    “Just standard procedure,” Lucy said coolly and strode back to her car like a homely girl in high school who’d finally managed to fling a searing put-down at the head cheerleader.

. . . chapter seven
    “I’m not letting him do anything until you get an air conditioner in here.”
    “Thom, we don’t have time for this,” Rhyme spat out. Then told the workmen where to unload the instruments that had arrived from the state police.
    Bell said, “Steve’s out trying to dig one up. Isn’t quite as easy as I thought.”
    “I don’t need one.”
    Thom explained patiently, “I’m worried about dysreflexia.”
    “I don’t remember hearing that temperature was bad for blood pressure, Thom,” Rhyme said. “Did you read that somewhere? I didn’t read it. Maybe you could show me where you read it.”
    “I don’t need your sarcasm, Lincoln.”
    “Oh, I’m sarcastic, am I?”
    The aide patiently said to Bell, “Heat causes tissue swelling. Swelling causes increased pressure and irritation. And that can lead to dysreflexia. Which can kill him. We need an air conditioner. Simple as that.”
    Thom was the only one of Rhyme’s caregiving aides who’d survived more than a few months in the service of the criminalist. The others had either quit or been peremptorily fired.
    “Plug that in,” Rhyme ordered a deputy who was wheeling a battered gas chromatograph into the corner.
    “No.” Thom crossed his arms and stood in front of the extension cord. The deputy saw the look on the aide’s face and paused uneasily, not prepared for a confrontation with the persistent young man. “When we get the air conditioner up and running . . . then we’ll plug it in.”
    “Jesus Christ.” Rhyme grimaced. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a quad is the inability to bleed off anger. After his