The Empty Chair

responded.
    “I don’t believe that for a minute,” Ben said. He licked it again. “Fruit juice, I’d guess. Can’t tell what flavor.”
    “Okay, add that to the list, Thom.” Rhyme nodded atthe chromatograph. “Let’s get the results from the scraps of pants’ cloth and then run the dirt from the cuffs.”
    Soon the machine had told them what trace substances were embedded in Garrett’s clothes and what had been found in the dirt in his cuffs: sugar, more camphene, alcohol, kerosene and yeast. The kerosene was in significant amounts. Thom had added these to the list and the men examined the chart.
    F OUND AT THE S ECONDARY C RIME S CENE —M ILL
    Brown Paint on Pants
    Sundew Plant
    Clay
    Peat Moss
    Fruit Juice
    Paper Fibers
    Stinkball Bait
    Sugar
    Camphene
    Alcohol
    Kerosene
    Yeast
    What did all this mean? Rhyme wondered. There were too many clues. He couldn’t see any relationships among them. Was the sugar from the fruit juice or from a separate location the boy had been to? Had he bought the kerosene or had he just happened to hide in a gas station or barn where the owner stored it? Alcohol was found in more than three thousand common household and industrial products—from solvents to aftershave. The yeast had undoubtedly been picked up in the gristmill, where grain had been ground into flour.
    After a few minutes Lincoln Rhyme’s eyes flicked to another chart.
    F OUND AT S ECONDARY C RIME S CENE —G ARRETT’S R OOM
    Skunk Musk
    Cut Pine Needles
    Drawings of Insects
    Pictures of Mary Beth and Family
    Insect Books
    Fishing Line
    Money
    Unknown Key
    Kerosene
    Ammonia
    Nitrates
    Camphene
    Something that Sachs had mentioned when she was searching the boy’s room came back to him.
    “Ben, could you open that notebook there, Garrett’s notebook? I want to look at it again.”
    “You want me to put it in the turning frame?”
    “No, just thumb through it,” Rhyme told him.
    The boy’s stilted drawings of the insects flipped past: a water boatman, a diving bell spider, a water strider.
    He remembered that Sachs had told him that, except for the wasp jar—Garrett’s safe—the insects in his collection were in jars containing water. “They’re all aquatic.”
    Ben nodded. “Seem to be.”
    “He’s attracted to water,” Rhyme mused. He looked at Ben. “And that bait? You said it’s for bottom feeders.”
    “Stinkballs? Right.”
    “Saltwater or fresh?”
    “Well, fresh. Of course.”
    “And the kerosene—boats run on that, right?”
    “White gas,” Ben said. “Small outboards do.”
    Rhyme said, “How’s this for a thought? He’s going west by boat on the Paquenoke River?”
    Ben said, “Makes sense, Lincoln. And I’ll bet there’s so much kerosene because he’s been refueling a lot—making runs back and forth between Tanner’s Corner and the place he’s got Mary Beth. Getting it ready for her.”
    “Good thinking. Call Jim Bell in here, would you?”
    A few minutes later Bell returned and Rhyme explained his theory.
    Bell said, “Water bugs gave you that idea, huh?”
    Rhyme nodded. “If we know insects, we’ll know Garrett Hanlon.”
    “It’s no crazier than anything else I’ve heard today,” Jim Bell said.
    Rhyme asked, “Have you got a police boat?”
    “No. But it wouldn’t do us any good anyway. You don’t know the Paquo. From the map it looks like any other river—with banks and all. But it’s got a thousand inlets and branches flowing into and out of marshes. If Garrett’s on it he’s not staying to the main channel. I guarantee you that. It’d be impossible to find him.”
    Rhyme’s eyes followed the Paquenoke west. “If he was moving supplies to the place where he’s got Mary Beth that means it’s probably not too far off the river. How far west would he have to go to be in an area that was habitable?”
    “Have to be a ways. See up there?” Bell touched a spot around Location G-7. “That’s north of the Paquo; nobody’d live there. South of the river it gets pretty residential. He’d be seen for sure.”
    “So at least ten miles or so west?”
    “You got that right,” Bell said.
    “That bridge?” Rhyme nodded toward the map. Looking at spot E-8.
    “The Hobeth Bridge?”
    “What’re the approaches to it like? The highway?”
    “Just landfill. But there’s a lot of it. The bridge’s about forty feet high so the ramps leading up to it are long. Oh, wait. . . . You’re thinking Garrett’d have to sail back to the main