“Oh, then there’s no question,” Davett said with encouraging confidence. The businessman moved his finger to the east. “He crossed Stone Creek. Here. See it? Some of the waterfalls there look like foam on beer, there’s so much detergent and phosphate in the water. It starts out near Hobeth Falls up north and there’s a ton of runoff. They don’t know a thing about planning and zoning in that town.”

“Good,” Rhyme said. “Now, once he crossed the creek, any thoughts about which way he’d go?”

Davett again consulted the chart. “If you found pine needles I’d have to guess this way.” Tapping the map at I-5 and J-8. “There’s pine everywhere in North Carolina but around here most of the forests are oak, old-growth cedar, cypress and gum. The only big pine forest I know of is northeast. Here. On the way to the Great Dismal.” Davett stared at the charts for a moment longer, shook his head. “Not much else I can say, I’m afraid. How many search parties you have out?”

“One,” Rhyme said.

“What?” Davett turned to him, frowning. “Just one? You’re joking.”

“No,” Bell said, sounding defensive under the man’s firm cross-examination.

“Well, how big is it?”

“Four deputies,” Bell said.

Davett scoffed. “That’s crazy.” He waved at the map. “You’ve got hundreds of square miles. This’s Garrett Hanlon … the Insect Boy. He just about lives north of the Paquo. He can outmaneuver you in a minute.”

The sheriff cleared his throat. “Mr. Rhyme here thinks it’s better not to use too many people.”

“You can’t use too many people in a situation like this,” Davett said to Rhyme. “You should take fifty men, give them rifles and have them beat the bushes till you find him. You’re doing it all wrong.”

Rhyme noticed that Ben observed Davett’s lecture with a mortified expression. The zoologist would, of course, assume that one had to take the kid-glove approach when arguing with crips. The criminalist, though, said calmly, “A big manhunt would just drive Garrett to kill Lydia and then go to ground.”

“No,” Davett said emphatically, “it’d scare him into letting her go. I’ve got about forty-five people working a shift at the factory now. Well, a dozen are women. We couldn’t get them involved. But the men…. Let me get them out. We’ll find some guns. Turn them loose around Stone Creek.”

Rhyme could just imagine what thirty or forty amateur bounty hunters would do in a search like this. He shook his head. “No, this is the way to handle it.”