I’m not sure why titanium would show up, and I’m baffled by the presence of zirconium and scandium. They aren’t everyday metals. One is commonly used in nuclear reactors, the other in the aerospace industry.

“I didn’t want to tell you what I’d found,” Ernie says, “until I’d verified it with a buddy of mine at ORNL.”

Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is one place we turn when we have extraordinarily unusual questions in the field of materials science. In other words, if we can’t figure out what something is made of and why, then we reach out to ORNL, MIT, Caltech, even NASA. A good example is the very thing I’m supposed to talk about tonight—the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. A typical crime lab wasn’t going to determine why a heat shield failed.

“And he literally just called me as you were on your way down to see me,” Ernie is saying. “You’ve heard me mention Bill. He works in the superconductor lab they’ve got down there and sleeps about as much as you do,” he adds because it’s not even four in the morning. Do you know what panguite is?”

“I don’t think so,” I reply. “In fact, I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about.”

“This.” He indicates a black-and-white image on a monitor that at 500X looks white and lumpy like misshapen molars.

CHAPTER 41

PANGUITE WAS DISCOVERED SEVERAL years ago when geologists at Caltech were analyzing pieces of a meteorite that fell in northern Mexico in 1969.” Ernie leans over to pull up a sock that’s been eaten by his cowboy boot.

“I’ve never heard of a mineral called panguite,” I reply.

“Named after Pangu, the god that split Ying from Yang or something,” he says as my incredulity grows. “And what Bill says is just because panguite was recently discovered doesn’t mean it’s not present in other meteorites that have struck the earth. You’d have to go around testing space rocks in every museum in the world to know.”

“How can you tell we’re talking about a meteorite?” I indicate the monitors across the top of the room. “And you do realize how completely illogical this is? Molly Hinders certainly wasn’t struck by a meteorite while she was watering her yard on Labor Day. Not that there’s a case on record of anyone being struck by a meteorite but had she been? I would expect a lot more than a small burn on her scalp, and she certainly didn’t die of blunt-force trauma. She’s clearly an electrical death.”

“The metals we’re seeing are significant,” Ernie points out. “Especially zirconium and scandium, but also iron, titanium et cetera.”

“But there could be other explanations for finding them.”