“I do know it’s never been assumed the sand came from there. At least not the nearby beaches of Ostia. I don’t know what he did. Maybe the sand is symbolic, has meaning. But I’ve seen magnified sand. I’ve seen magnified dirt. And I’ve never seen this.”

Dr. Franz manipulates the contrast and magnification some more. He says, “And now it gets stranger.”

“Maybe epithelial cells. Skin?” She scrutinizes what’s on the screen. “No mention of that in Drew Martin’s case. I need to call Captain Poma. It all depends on what was deemed important. Or noticed. And no matter how sophisticated the police lab, it’s not going to have R&D-quality instruments. It’s not going to have this.” She means the LC-SEM.

“Well, I hope they didn’t use mass spec and digest the entire sample in acid. Or there won’t be anything left to retest.”

“They didn’t,” she says. “Solid-phase x-ray analysis. Raman. Any skin cells should still be in the sand over there, but as I said, I’m not aware of it. There’s nothing on the report. No one mentioned it. I need to call Captain Poma.”

“It’s already seven p.m. over there.”

“He’s here. Well, in Charleston.”

“Now I’m more confused. I thought you told me earlier he’s Carabiniere. Not Charleston PD.”

“He showed up rather unexpectedly. In Charleston last night. Don’t ask me. I’m more confused than you are.”

She’s still stung. It wasn’t a pleasant surprise when Benton appeared at her house last night and had Captain Poma with him. For an instant, she was speechless with surprise, and after coffee and soup, they left just as abruptly as they had arrived. She hasn’t seen Benton since, and she’s unhappy and hurt, and not sure what to say to him when she sees him—whenever that might be. Before she flew here this morning, she considered taking off her ring.

“DNA,” Dr. Franz is saying. “So we don’t want to screw this up with bleach. But the signal would be better if we could get rid of skin debris and oils. If that’s what this is.”

It’s like looking at constellations of stars. Do they resemble animals or even a dipper? Does the moon have a face? What is she really seeing? And she pushes Benton from her thoughts so she can concentrate.