Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

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 all the counties and towns that won't let any toxic shipments go through 'em. And the ICC logs on his trucks'd show what the cargo is. Not to mention the public relations problem if word got out what he was doing."

"Exactly," Rhyme said, nodding. "So he reopened the canal to send the toxaphene through the Intracoastal Waterway to Norfolk, where it's loaded onto foreign ships. Only there was a problem – when the canal closed in the eighteen hundreds the property around it was sold privately. People whose houses butted up against the canal had the right to control who used it."

Bell said, "So Davett paid them to lease their portion of the canal." He nodded with sudden understanding. "And he must've paid a lot of money – look at how big those houses are in Blackwater Landing. And think about those nice trucks and Mercedeses and Lexuses people're driving around here. But what's this about Mason and Garrett's family?"

"Garrett's father's land was on the canal. But he wouldn't sell his usage rights. So Davett or somebody in his company hired Mason to convince Garrett's father to sell and, when he wouldn't, Mason picked up some local trash to help him kill the family – Culbeau, Tomel and O'Sarian. Then I'd guess that Davett bribed the executor of the will to sell the property to him."

"But Garrett's folks died in an accident. A car accident. I saw the report myself."

"Was Mason the officer who handled the report?"

"I don't remember but he could've been," Bell admitted. He looked at Rhyme with an admiring smile. "How on earth d'you figure this out?"

"Oh, it was easy – because there's no frost in July. Not in North Carolina anyway."

"Frost?"

"I talked to Amelia. Garrett told her that the night his family was killed the car was frosty and his parents and sister were shivering. But the accident happened in July. I remembered seeing the article in the file – the picture of Garrett and his family. He was in a T-shirt and the picture was of them at a Fourth of July party. The story said the photo was taken a week before his parents were killed."

"Then what was the boy talking about? Frost, shivering?"

"Mason and Culbeau used some of Davett's toxaphene to kill the family. I talked to my doctor over at the medical center. She said that in extreme cases of neurotoxic poisoning the body spasms. That's the shivering Garrett saw. The frost was probably fumes or residue of the chemical in the car."

"If he saw it why didn't he tell anybody?"

"I described the boy to the doctor. And she said it sounds like he got poisoned too that night. Just enough to give him MCS – multiple chemical sensitivity. Memory loss, brain damage, severe reaction to other chemicals in the air and water. Remember the welts on his skin?"

"Sure."

"Garrett thinks it's poison oak but it isn't. The doctor told me that skin eruptions are a classic symptom of MCS. Breaking out when you're exposed to trace amounts of substances that wouldn't affect anybody else. Even soap or perfume'll make your skin erupt."

"It's making sense," Bell said. Then, frowning, he added, "But if you don't have any hard evidence then all we've got is speculation."

"Oh, I should mention" – Rhyme couldn't resist a faint smile; modesty was never a quality that he wore well – "I've got some hard evidence. I found the bodies of Garrett's family."

At the Albemarle Manor Hotel, a block away from the Paquenoke County lockup, Mason Germain didn't wait for the elevator but climbed the stairs, covered with threadbare tan carpet.

He found Room 201 and knocked.

"S'open," came the voice.

Mason pushed the door open slowly, revealing a pink room bathed in orange, afternoon sunlight. It was painfully hot inside. He couldn't imagine that the occupant of the room liked it this way so he assumed that the man sitting at the table was either too lazy to turn on the air-conditioner or too stupid to figure out how it worked. Which made Mason all the more suspicious of him.

The African-American, lean and with particularly dark skin, wore a wrinkled black suit, which looked completely out of place in Tanner's Corner. Draw attention to yourself, why don't you? Mason thought contemptuously. Malcolm Goddamn X.

"You'd be Germain?" the man asked.

"Yeah."

The man's feet were on the chair across from him and when he withdrew his hand from under a copy of the Charlotte Observer his long fingers were holding a long automatic pistol.

"That answers one of my questions," Mason said. "Whether you got a gun or not."

"What's the other?" the man in the suit asked.

"Whether you know how to use it."

The man said nothing but carefully marked his place in a newspaper story with a stubby pencil. He looked like a third-grader struggling with the alphabet.

Mason studied him again, not saying a word, then felt an infuriating trickle of sweat running down his face. Without asking the man if it was all right Mason walked to the bathroom, snagged a towel and wiped his face with it, dropped it on the bathroom floor.

The man gave a laugh, as irritating as the bead of sweat had been, and said, "I'm gettin' the distinct impression you don't much like my kind."

"No, I guess I don't," Mason answered. "But if you know what you're doing, what I like and what I don't aren't important."