The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver Page B

accident Rhyme quickly came to realize how a simple act like walking or clenching our fists—not to mention flinging a heavy object or two (a favorite pastime of Rhyme’s ex-wife, Blaine)—dissipates fury. “If I get angry I could start spasming or get contractures,” Rhyme pointed out testily.
    “Neither of which will kill you—the way dysreflexia will.” Thom said this with a tactical cheerfulness that infuriated Rhyme all the more.
    Bell gingerly said, “Gimme five minutes.” He disappeared and the troopers continued to wheel in the equipment. The chromatograph went unelectrified for the moment.
    Lincoln Rhyme surveyed the machinery. Wondered what it would be like to actually close his fingers around an object again. With his left ring finger he could touch and had a faint sense of pressure. But actually gripping something, feeling its texture, weight, temperature . . . those were unimaginable.
    Terry Dobyns, the NYPD therapist, the man who’d been sitting at Rhyme’s bedside when he’d awakened after the accident at a crime scene left him a quadriplegic, had explained to the criminalist all the clichéd stages of grief. Rhyme had been assured that he’d experience—andsurvive—all of them. But what the doctor hadn’t told him was that certain stages sneak back. That you carried them around with you like sleeping viruses and that they might erupt at any time.
    Over the past several years he’d reexperienced despair and denial.
    Now, he was consumed with fury. Why, here were two kidnapped young women and a killer on the run. How badly he wanted to speed to the crime scene, walk the grid, pluck elusive evidence from the ground, gaze at it through the luxurious lenses of a compound microscope, punch the buttons of the computers and the other instruments, pace as he drew his conclusions.
    He wanted to get to work without worrying that the fucking heat would kill him. He thought again about Dr. Weaver’s magic hands, about the operation.
    “You’re quiet,” Thom said cautiously. “What’re you plotting?”
    “I’m not plotting anything. Would you please plug in the gas chromatograph and turn it on? It needs time to warm up.”
    Thom hesitated then walked to the machine and got it running. He arranged the rest of the equipment on a fiberboard table.
    Steve Farr walked into the office, lugging a huge Carrier air conditioner. The deputy was apparently as strong as he was tall and the only clue to the effort was the red hue to his prominent ears.
    He gasped, “Stole it from Planning and Zoning. We don’t much like them.”
    Bell helped Farr mount the unit in the window and a moment later cold air was chugging into the room.
    A figure appeared in the doorway—in fact, he filled the doorway. A man in his twenties. Massive shoulders, a prominent forehead. Six-five, close to three hundred pounds. For a difficult moment Rhyme thought this might be a relative of Garrett’s and that the man hadcome to threaten them. But in a high, bashful voice he said, “I’m Ben?”
    The three men stared at him as he glanced uneasily at Rhyme’s wheelchair and legs.
    Bell said, “Can I help you?”
    “Well, I’m looking for Mr. Bell.”
    “I’m Sheriff Bell.”
    Eyes still surveying Rhyme’s legs awkwardly. He glanced away quickly then cleared his throat and swallowed. “Oh, well, now. I’m Lucy Kerr’s nephew?” He seemed to ask questions more than make statements.
    “Ah, my forensics assistant!” Rhyme said. “Excellent! Just in time.”
    Another glance at the legs, the wheelchair. “Aunt Lucy didn’t say . . .”
    What was coming next? Rhyme wondered.
    “. . . didn’t say anything about forensics,” he mumbled. “I’m just a student, post-grad at UNC in Avery. Uhm, what do you mean, sir, ‘just in time’?” The question was directed to Rhyme but Ben was looking at the sheriff.
    “I mean: Get over to that table. I’ve got samples coming in any minute and you have to help me analyze