The Empty Chair

heard.”
    Ben said, “He got away from us.”
    “No!” Davett frowned.
    “Sure did,” Ben offered. “Old-fashioned jailbreak.”
    Rhyme: “I’ve got some more evidence but I don’t know what to make of it. I was hoping you could help again.”
    The businessman sat down. “I’ll do what I can.”
    A glance at his WWJD tie bar.
    Rhyme nodded toward the chart, said, “Could you look that over? The list on the right.”
    “The mill—is that where he was? That old mill northeast of town?”
    “Right.”
    “I knew about the place.” Davett grimaced angrily. “I should’ve thought of it.”
    Criminalists can’t let the verb “should have” creep into their vocabulary. Rhyme said, “It’s impossible to think of everything in this business. But take a look at the chart. Does anything on it seem familiar to you?”
    Davett read carefully.
    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
    As he gazed at the list he said in a distracted voice, “It’s like a puzzle.”
    “That’s the nature of my job,” Rhyme said.
    “How much can I speculate?” the businessman asked.
    “As much as you’d like,” Rhyme said.
    “All right,” Davett said. He thought for a moment then said, “A Carolina bay.”
    Rhyme asked, “What’s that? A horse?”
    Davett glanced at Rhyme to see if he was joking. Then said, “No, it’s a geologic structure you see on the Eastern Seaboard. Mostly, though, they’re found in the Carolinas. North and South. They’re basically oval ponds, about three or four feet deep, freshwater. They could be a half acre big or a couple of hundred. The bottom of them is mostly clay and peat. Just what’s on the chart there.”
    “But clay and peat—they’re pretty common around here,” Ben said.
    “They are,” Davett agreed. “And if you’d found just those two things I wouldn’t have a clue where they came from. But you found something else. See, one of the most interesting characteristics about Carolina bays is that insect-killer plants grow around them. You see hundreds of Venus flytraps, sundews and pitcher plants around bays—probably because the ponds promote insects. If you found a sundew along with clay and peat moss then there’s no doubt the boy’s spent time around a Carolina bay.”
    “Good,” Rhyme said. Then, gazing at the map, asked, “What does ‘bay’ mean? An inlet of water?”
    “No, it refers to bay trees. They grow around the ponds. There’re all sorts of myths about them. Settlers used to think they were carved out of the land by sea monsters or witches casting spells. Meteorites were a theory for a few years. But they’re really just natural depressions caused by wind and currents of water.”
    “Are they unique to a particular area around here?” Rhyme asked, hoping that they’d help narrow down the search.
    “To some extent.” Davett rose and walked to the map. With his finger he circled a large area to the west of Tanner’sCorner. Location B-2 to E-2 and F-13 to B-12. “You’ll find them mostly here, in this area, just before you get to the hills.”
    Rhyme was discouraged. What Davett had circled must have included seventy or eighty square miles.
    Davett saw Rhyme’s reaction. He said, “Wish I could be more helpful.”
    “No, no, I appreciate it. It will be helpful. We just need to narrow down more of the clues.”
    The businessman read, “Sugar, fruit juice, kerosene . . .” He shook his head, unsmiling. “You have a difficult job, Mr. Rhyme.”
    “These are the tough cases,” Rhyme explained. “When you have no clues you’re free to speculate. When you have a lot of them you can usually get the answer pretty quickly. But having a few clues, like this . . .” Rhyme’s voice faded.
    “We’re hog-tied by the facts,” Ben muttered.
    Rhyme turned to him. “Exactly, Ben. Exactly.”
    “I should be getting home,” Davett said. “My family’s expecting me.” He wrote a phone number on a business card. “You can call me anytime.”
    Rhyme thanked him again and turned his gaze back to the evidence chart.
    Hog-tied by the facts . . .

    Rich Culbeau sucked the blood off his arm from where the brambles had scratched it deeply. He spit against a tree.
    It had taken them twenty minutes of hard slogging through the brush to get to the side porch of the A-frame vacation house