The Empty Chair

Paquenoke County Government Building. Delaying your operation?”
    “No. Just helping out on a case here. Listen, Mel, Idon’t have much time and I need some information about a substance called camphene. Ever hear of it?”
    “No. But hold on. I’ll go into the database.”
    Rhyme heard frantic clicking. Cooper was also the fastest keyboarder Rhyme had ever met.
    “Okay, here we go . . . Interesting . . .”
    “I don’t need interesting, Mel. I need facts.”
    “It’s a terpene—carbon and hydrogen. Derived from plants. It used to be an ingredient in pesticides but it was banned in the early eighties. Its main use was in the late 1800s. It was used for fuel in lamps. It was state of the art at the time—replaced whale oil. Common as natural gas back then. You’re trying to track down an unsub?”
    “He’s not an unknown subject, Mel. He’s extremely known. We just can’t find him. Old lamps? So trace camphene probably means that he’s been hiding out someplace built in the nineteenth century.”
    “Likely. But there’s another possibility. Says here that camphene’s only present use is in fragrances.”
    “What sort?”
    “Perfumes, aftershave and cosmetics mostly.”
    Rhyme considered this. “What percentage of a finished fragrance product is camphene?” he asked.
    “Trace only. Parts per thousand.”
    Rhyme had always told his forensic teams never to be afraid to make bold deductions in analyzing the evidence. Still, he was painfully aware of the short time the two women might have to live and he felt they had only enough resources now to pursue one of these potential leads.
    “We’ll have to play the odds on this one,” he announced. “We’ll assume the camphene’s from old lanterns, not fragrances, and act accordingly. Now, listen, Mel, I’m also going to be sending you a photocopy of a key. I need you to trace it.”
    “Easy. From a car?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “House?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Recent?”
    “No clue.”
    Cooper said dubiously, “May be less easy than I thought. But get it to me and I’ll do what I can.”
    When they disconnected, Rhyme ordered Ben to photocopy both sides of the key and fax it to Cooper. Then he tried Sachs on the radio. It wasn’t working. He called her on her cell phone.
    “ ’Lo?”
    “Sachs, it’s me.”
    “What’s wrong with the radio?” she asked.
    “There’s no reception.”
    “Which way should we go, Rhyme? We’re across the river but we lost the trail. And, frankly”— her voice fell to a whisper—“the natives’re restless. Lucy wants to boil me for dinner.”
    “I’ve got the basic analysis done but I don’t know what to do with all the data—I’m waiting for that man from the factory in Blackwater Landing. Henry Davett. He should be here any minute. But listen, Sachs, there’s something else I have to tell you. I found significant trace of ammonia and nitrates on Garrett’s clothes and in the shoe he lost.”
    “A bomb?” she asked, her hollow voice revealing her dismay.
    “Looks that way. And that fishing line you found’s too light to do any serious fishing. I think he’s using it for trip wires to set off the device. Go slow. Look for traps. If you see something that looks like a clue just remember that it might be rigged.”
    “Will do, Rhyme.”
    “Sit tight. I hope to have some directions for you soon.”

    Garrett and Lydia had covered another three or four miles.
    The sun was high now. It was noon maybe, or close to it, and the day was hot as a tailpipe. The bottled water that Lydia had drunk at the quarry had quickly leached from her system and she was faint from the heat and thirst.
    As if he sensed this Garrett said, “We’ll be there soon. It’s cooler. And I got more water.”
    The ground was open here. Broken forests, marshes. No houses, no roads. There were many old paths branching in different directions. It would be almost impossible for anyone searching for them to figure out which way they’d gone—the paths were like a maze.
    Garrett nodded down one of these narrow paths, rocks to the left, a twenty-foot drop off to the right. They walked about a half mile along this route and then he stopped. He looked back.
    When he seemed satisfied that no one was nearby he stepped into the bushes and returned with a nylon string—like thin fishing line—that he ran across the path just above the ground. It was nearly impossible to see. He connected it to a stick, which in