While they waited for the results Rhyme examined the rest of the evidence from the boy’s room. “Let me see that notebook, Thom.” The aide flipped through the pages for Rhyme. They contained only bad drawings of insects. He shook his head. Nothing helpful there.

“Those other books?” Rhyme nodded toward the four hardbound books Sachs had found in his room. One—The Miniature World—had been read so often it was falling apart. Rhyme noticed passages were circled or underlined or marked with asterisks. But none of the passages gave any clue as to where the boy might have spent time. They seemed to be trivia about insects. He told Thom to put them aside.

Rhyme then looked over what Garrett had hidden in the wasp jar: money, pictures of Mary Beth and of the boy’s family. The old key. The fishing line.

The cash was just a crumpled mass of fives and tens and silver dollars. There were, Rhyme noted, no helpful jottings in the margins of the bills (where many criminals write messages or plans—a fast way to get rid of incriminating instructions to co-conspirators is to buy something and send the note off into the black hole of circulation). Rhyme had Ben run the PoliLight—an alternative light source—over the money and found that both the paper and the silver dollars contained easily a hundred different partial fingerprints, too many to provide any helpful clues. There was no price sticker on the picture frame or fishing line and thus no way to trace them to stores Garrett might’ve frequented.

“Three-pound-test fishing line,” Rhyme commented, looking at the spool. “That’s light, isn’t it, Ben?”

“Hardly catch a bluegill with that, sir.”

The results of the trace on the boy’s slacks flickered onto the computer screen. Rhyme read aloud: “Kerosene, more ammonia, more nitrates and that camphene again. Another chart, Thom, if you’d be so kind.” He dictated.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE— GARRETT’S ROOM

Skunk Musk
Cut Pine Needles
Drawings of Insects
Pictures of Mary Beth and Family
Insect Books
Fishing Line
Money
Unknown Key
Kerosene
Ammonia
Nitrates
Camphene

Rhyme stared at the charts. Finally he said, “Thom, make a call. Mel Cooper.”

The aide picked up the phone, dialed from memory.

Cooper, who worked with NYPD forensics, weighed in at probably half Ben’s weight. He looked like a timid actuary and he was one of the top forensic lab men in the country.

“Can you speaker me, Thom?”

A button was pushed and a moment later the soft tenor of Cooper’s voice said, “Hello, Lincoln. Something tells me you’re not in the hospital.”

“How’d you figure that one out, Mel?”

“Didn’t take much deductive reasoning. Caller ID says Paquenoke County Government Building. Delaying your operation?”

“No. Just helping out on a case here. Listen, Mel, I don’t have much time and I need some information about a substance called camphene. Ever hear of it?”