Her favorite point to make when she’s cynical. A print is scanned into IAFIS, and the computer doesn’t know if it’s looking at a rock or a fish. The automated system doesn’t think. It knows nothing. It overlays the characteristics of one print on top of the matching characteristics of another print, meaning if characteristics are missing or obscured or haven’t been correctly encoded by a competent forensic examiner, there’s a good chance a search will come to nothing. IAFIS isn’t the problem. People are. Same is true of DNA. The results are only as good as what’s collected and how it’s processed and by whom.

“You know how rare it is when prints are even rolled properly?” Lucy rants on. Her tone bites. “You get some Deputy Bubba in a jail taking all these ten-print cards, still doing centuries-old shitty ink-and- roll, and they’re all dumped into IAFIS and are crap, when they wouldn’t be if we were using biometric optical live scanning. But no jail’s got money. No money for anything in this fucking country.”

Scarpetta leaves the gold coin inside its transparent plastic envelope and looks at it under a lens. “You want to tell me why you’re in such an awful mood?” She’s afraid of the answer.

“Where’s the serial number so I can enter the gun into NCIC?”

“That piece of paper over there on the counter. Have you been talking to Rose?”

Lucy gets it, sits before a computer terminal. Keys start clicking. “Called to check on her. She said you need checking on.”

“A U.S. one-dollar piece,” Scarpetta says of the magnified coin so she doesn’t have to say anything else. “Eighteen seventy-three.” And she notices something she’s never seen before in unprocessed evidence.

Lucy says, “I’d like to test-fire this in the water tank and run ballistics on it through NIBIN.”

The National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network.

“See if the revolver’s been used in any other crime,” Lucy says. “Although you’re not considering what happened a crime yet and don’t want to involve the police.”

“As I’ve explained”—Scarpetta doesn’t want to sound defensive—“Bull struggled with him and knocked the gun out of his hands.” She studies the coin, adjusting the magnification. “I can’t prove the man in question on the chopper was there to harm me. He never trespassed, just tried.”

“So Bull says.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think this coin has already been superglued for prints.” Through the lens, Scarpetta examines what looks like pale white ridge detail on front and back.

“What do you mean, if you didn’t know better? You don’t know better. You don’t know anything about it or where it’s been or anything except Bull found it behind your house. Who lost it’s another story.”