“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’s Corner. 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 without being seen by the bitch with the sniper gun. Even Harris Tomel, who normally looked like he’d just stepped off a country club patio, was bloody and dust-stained.

The new Sean O’Sarian, quiet and thoughtful and, well, sane, was waiting back on the path, lying on the ground with his black gun like an infantry grunt at Khe Sahn, ready to slow up Lucy and the other Vietcong with a few shots over their heads in case they came up the trail toward the house.

“You ready?” Culbeau asked Tomel, who nodded.

Culbeau eased open the knob of the mudroom door and pushed the door inside, his gun up and ready. Tomel followed. They were skittish as cats, knowing that the redheaded cop with the deer rifle she surely knew how to use could be waiting for them anywhere in the house.

“You hear anything?” Culbeau whispered.