"Deaver, Jeffery - Lincoln Rhyme Series 03 - The Empty Chair(2000)[v1]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deaver Jeffrey)

"Hey," a man's voice said. Very near.

Lydia gasped and spun around. Nearly dropped the flowers. "Jesse, you scared me."

"Sorry." Jesse Corn stood on the other side of a weeping willow, near the clearing that was
roped off. Lydia noticed that their eyes were fixed on the same thing: a glistening white
outline on the ground where the boy's body'd been found. Surrounding the line indicating
Billy's head was a dark stain that, as a nurse, she recognized immediately as old blood.

"So that's where it happened," she whispered.

'It is, yep." Jesse wiped his forehead and rearranged the floppy hook of blond hair. His
uniform - the beige outfit of the Paquenoke County Sheriffs Department - was wrinkled
and dusty. Dark stains of sweat blossomed under his arms. He was thirty and boyishly
cute. "How long you been here?" she asked.

"I don't know. Since five maybe."

"I saw another car," she said. "Up the road. Is that Jim?"

"Nope. Ed Schaeffer. He's on the other side of the river." Jesse nodded at the flowers.
"Those're pretty."

After a moment Lydia looked down at the daisies in her hand. "Two forty-nine. At Food
Lion. Got 'em last night. 1 knew nothing'd be open this early. Well, Dell's is but they don't
sell flowers." She wondered why she was rambling. She looked around again. "No idea
where Mary Beth is?"

Jesse shook his head. "Not hide nor hair."

"Him neither, 1 guess that means."

"Him neither." Jesse looked at his watch. Then out over the dark water, dense reeds and
concealing grass, the rotting pier.

Lydia didn't like it that a country deputy, sporting a large pistol, seemed as nervous as she
was. Jesse started up the grassy hill to the highway. He paused, glanced at the flowers.
"Only two ninety-nine?"

"Forty-nine. Food Lion."

"That's a bargain," the young cop said, squinting toward

a thick sea of grass. He turned back to the hill. "I'll be up by the patrol car."

Lydia Johansson walked closer to the crime scene. She pictured Jesus, she pictured angels
and she prayed for a few minutes. She prayed for the soul of Billy Stail, which had been
released from his bloody body on this very spot just yesterday morning. She prayed that
the sorrow visiting Tanner's Corner would soon be over.