"But that's not our problem. There's nothing more--"
"I don't think he did it."
"Killed Mary Beth? I agree. The blood shows she's probably alive but--"
"I mean, killed Billy."
Rhyme tossed his head, to flick an infuriating tail of hair off his forehead. "You believe that man in the tan overalls story that Jim mentioned?"
"Yes, I do."
"Sachs, he's a troubled boy and you feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him. But--"
"That doesn't have anything to do with it."
"You're right, it doesn't," he snapped. "The only thing that's relevant is the evidence. And the evidence shows there's no man in overalls and that Garrett's guilty."
"The evidence suggests he's guilty, Rhyme. It doesn't prove it. Evidence can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Besides, I've got some evidence of my own."
"Such as?"
"He asked me to take care of his insects for him."
"So?"
"Doesn't it seem a little odd that a cold-blooded killer would care what happened to some goddamn insects?"
"That's not evidence, Sachs. That's his strategy. It's psychological warfare, trying to break down our defenses. The boy's smart, remember. High IQ, good grades. And look at his reading matter. It's heady stuff-- he's learned a lot from the insects. And one thing about them is that they have no moral code. All they care about is surviving. Those are the lessons he's learned. That's been his child development. It's sad, but it's not our problem."
"You know that trap he set. The pine-bough trap?"
Rhyme nodded.
"It was only two feet deep. And the hornets' nest inside? It was empty. No wasps. And the ammonia bottle wasn't rigged to hurt anybody. It was just so he'd have some warning when a search party was getting close to the mill."
"That's not empirical evidence, Sachs. Like the bloody tissue, for instance."
"He said he had been masturbating. And that Mary Beth hit her head and he wiped the wound with it. Anyway, if he raped her what would be the point of a tissue?"
"To clean up afterward."
"Doesn't fit any rape profile I know."
Rhyme quoted himself, from the foreword of his criminalistics textbook, "'A profile is a guide. Evidence is--'"
"--'God,'" she completed the quotation. "Okay, then--there were plenty of footprints at the scene. Remember, it was trampled. Some of those might've been the overall man's."
"There are no other prints on the murder weapon."
"He claims the man wore gloves," she countered.
"But no leather grain prints either."
"Could've been cloth. Let me test it and--"
"'Could have, could have....' Come on, Sachs, this is pure speculation."
"But you should've heard him when he was talking about Mary Beth. He was concerned about her."