"We don't know that for sure," Sachs said.
"It does get a little thick 'round here," Jesse offered.
Ned said, "All that plume grass and tuckahoe and mountain holly. Lot of creeper too. You don't take that path, there's no way to get through here and make any time."
"We'll have to wait," Sachs said, thinking of a passage from Lincoln Rhyme's textbook on criminalistics, Physical Evidence:
More investigations involving a suspect at large are ruined by giving in to the impulse to move quickly and engage in hot pursuit when, in fact, in most cases, a slow examination of the evidence will point a clear path to the suspect's door and permit a safer and more efficient arrest.
Lucy Kerr said, "It's just that somebody from the city doesn't really understand the woods. You head off that path it'd slow your time by half. He had to've stuck to it."
"He could've doubled back to the riverbank," Sachs pointed out. "Maybe he had another boat hidden up-or downstream."
"That's true," Jesse said, earning a dark glance from Lucy.
A long moment of silence, the four people standing immobile while gnats strafed them and they sweated in the merciless heat.
Finally Sachs said simply, "We'll wait."
Sealing the decision, she sat on what was surely the most uncomfortable rock in the entire woods and, with feigned interest, studied a woodpecker drilling fiercely into a tall oak in front of them.
... chapter nine
"Primary scene first," Rhyme called to Ben. "Blackwater."
He nodded at the cluster of evidence on the fiberboard table. "Let's do Garrett's running shoe first. The one he dropped when he snatched Lydia."
Ben picked it up, unzipped the plastic bag, started to reach inside.
"Gloves!" Rhyme ordered. "Always wear latex gloves when handling evidence."
"Because of fingerprints?" the zoologist asked, hurriedly pulling them on.
"That's one reason. The other's contamination. We don't want to confuse places you've been with places the perp has been."
"Sure. Right." Ben nodded his massive crew-cut head aggressively, as if he were fearful of forgetting this rule. He shook the shoe, peered into it. "Looks like there's gravel or something inside."
"Hell, I didn't have Amelia ask for sterile examining boards." Rhyme looked around the room. "See that magazine there? People?"
Ben picked it up. Shook his head. "It's three weeks old."
"I don't care how current the stories about Leonardo DiCaprio's love life are," Rhyme muttered. "Pull out the subscription inserts inside.... Don't you hate those things? But they're good for us--they come off the printing press nice and sterile, so they make good mini-examining boards."
Ben did as instructed and poured the dirt and stones onto the card.
"Put a sample in the microscope and let me take a look at it." Rhyme wheeled close to the table but the ocular piece was a few inches too high for him. "Damn."
Ben assessed the problem. "Maybe I could hold it for you to look in."
Rhyme gave a faint laugh. "It weighs close to thirty pounds. No, we'll have to find a--"
But the zoologist picked up the instrument and, with his massive arms, held the 'scope very steady. Rhyme couldn't, of course, turn the focusing knobs but he saw enough to give him an idea of what the evidence was. "Limestone chips and dust. Would that've come from Blackwater Landing?"
"Uhm," Ben said slowly, "doubt it. Mostly just mud and stuff."
"Run a sample of it through the chromatograph. I want to see what else is in there."
Ben mounted the sample inside and pressed the test button.