The Empty Chair

Bell could respond.
    “Is he gone?” Rhyme asked.
    Once again Bell glanced down the corridor then nodded. “What’s this all about, Lincoln?”
    “Could you check out the window? Make sure Mason’s left? Oh, and I’d close that door again.”
    Bell did. Then he walked to the window and lookedout. “Yeah. He’s headed up the street. Why all this . . . ?” He lifted his hands to complete the thought.
    “How well do you know Mason?”
    “As good as I know mosta my deputies. Why?”
    “Because he murdered Garrett Hanlon’s family.”

    “ What? ” Bell started to smile but the expression faded fast. “Mason?”
    “Mason,” Rhyme said.
    “But why on earth?”
    “Because Henry Davett paid him to.”
    “Hold up,” Bell said. “You’re a couple steps past me.”
    “I can’t prove it yet. But I’m sure.”
    “Henry? What’s his involvement?”
    Rhyme said, “It all has to do with the Blackwater Canal.” He fell into his lecturing mode, eyes on the map. “Now, the point of digging the canals in the eighteenth century was having dependable transport because the roads were so bad. But as the roads and railroads got better, shippers stopped using the waterways.”
    “Where’d you find all this out?”
    “Historical Society in Raleigh. Talked to a charming lady, Julie DeVere. According to her, Blackwater Canal was closed just after the Civil War. Wasn’t used for a hundred thirty years. Until Henry Davett started running barges on it again.”
    Bell nodded. “That was about five years ago.”
    Rhyme continued, “Let me ask—you ever wonder why Davett started using it?”
    The sheriff shook his head. “I remember some of us were a little worried kids’d try to swim out to a barge and get hurt and drown but none of ’em ever did and we never thought any more about it. But now you mention it I don’t know why he’d use the canal. He’s got trucks coming and going all the time. Norfolk’s nothing to get to by truck.”
    Rhyme nodded up at the evidence chart. “The answer’s right up there. That one bit of trace I never did find a source for: camphene.”
    “The stuff in the lanterns?”
    Rhyme shook his head, grimaced. “No. I made a mistake there. True, camphene was used in lanterns. But it’s also used in something else. It can be processed to make toxaphene.”
    “What’s that?”
    “One of the most dangerous pesticides there is. It was used mostly in the South—until it was banned in the eighties by the EPA for most uses.” Rhyme shook his head angrily. “I assumed that because toxaphene was illegal there was no point in considering pesticides as the source for the camphene and that it had to be from old lanterns. Except we never found any old lanterns. My mind got into a rut and it wouldn’t get out. No old lamps? Then I should have gone down the list and started looking for insecticide. And when I did—this morning—I found the source of the camphene.”
    Bell nodded, fascinated. “Which was where?”
    “Everywhere,” Rhyme said. “I had Lucy take samples of dirt and water from around Tanner’s Corner. There’s toxaphene all over the place—the water, the land. I should’ve listened to what Sachs told me the other day when she was searching for Garrett. She saw huge patches of barren land. She thought it was acid rain but it wasn’t. Toxaphene did that. The highest concentrations are for a couple of miles around Davett’s factory—Blackwater Landing and the canal. He’s been manufacturing asphalt and tar paper as a cover for making toxaphene.”
    “But it’s banned, I thought you said.”
    “I called an FBI agent friend of mine and he called the EPA. It’s not completely banned—farmers can use it in emergencies. But that’s not how Davett’s making his millions.This agent at the EPA explained something called the ‘circle of poison.’ ”
    “Don’t like the sound of that.”
    “You shouldn’t. Toxaphene is banned here but the ban in the U.S. is only on use . It can be made here and sold to foreign countries.”
    “And they can use it?”
    “It’s legal in most Third World and Latin American countries. That’s the circle: Those countries spray food with pesticides and send it back into the U.S. The FDA only inspects a small percentage of imported fruits and vegetables so there are plenty of people in the U.S. still poisoned, even though it’s banned.”
    Bell gave a cynical laugh. “And Davett can’t ship it on the roads because of