“Then that’s what we’ll do,” the man said as if it were his idea. He slipped the gun away, placed the newspaper on the dresser and, with a politeness that Mason believed was more mockery than anything else, said, “After yourself.” And gestured toward the door.

“The bodies of the Hanlons?” Jim Bell asked Rhyme. “Where are they?”

“Over there,” Rhyme said. Nodding to a pile of the bones that had been in Mary Beth’s backpack. “Those’re what Mary Beth found at Blackwater Landing,” the criminalist said. “She thought they were the bones of the survivors of the Lost Colony. But I had to break the news to her that they’re not that old. They looked decayed but that’s just because they were partially burned. I’ve done a lot of work in forensic anthropology and I knew right away they’ve been in the ground only about five years—which is just how long ago Garrett’s folks were killed. They’re the bones of a man in his late thirties, a woman about the same age who’d borne children and a girl about ten. That describes Garrett’s family perfectly.”

Bell looked at them. “I don’t get it.”

“Garrett’s family’s property was right across Route 112 from the river in Blackwater Landing. Mason and Culbeau poisoned the family then burned and buried the bodies and pushed their car into the water. Davett bribed the coroner to fake the death report and paid off somebody at the funeral home to pretend to cremate the remains. The graves’re empty, I guarantee. Mary Beth must’ve mentioned finding the bones to somebody and word got back to Mason. He paid Billy Stail to go to Blackwater Landing to kill her and steal the evidence—the bones.”

“What? Billy?”

“Except that Garrett happened to be there, keeping an eye on Mary Beth. He was right, you know: Blackwater Landing is a dangerous place. People did die there—those other cases in the last few years. Only it wasn’t Garrett who killed them. It was Mason and Culbeau. They were murdered because they’d gotten sick from the toxaphene and started asking questions about why. Everybody in town knew about the Insect Boy so Mason or Culbeau killed that one girl—Meg Blanchard—with the hornets’ nest to make it look like he was the killer. The others they hit over the head and pitched into the canal to drown. People who didn’t question getting sick—like Mary Beth’s father and Lucy Kerr—they didn’t bother with.”

“But Garrett’s fingerprints were on the shovel … the murder weapon.”

“Ah, the shovel,” Rhyme mused. “Something very interesting about that shovel. I stumbled again…. There were only two sets of fingerprints on it.”

“Right, Billy’s and Garrett’s.”

“But where were Mary Beth’s?” Rhyme asked.

Bell’s eyes narrowed. He nodded. “Right. There were none of hers.”