“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.”