A pause and I imagine him looking, then his surprised voice, “Well hello! The acoustics are so amazing in this building? I couldn’t hear an earthquake, and then I had my blinds closed because it’s so depressing out. And whoops! I forgot we’re having a flood. And I’m sending a note to Jen now about swapping out the truck if that’s all right with you.”

It isn’t really. Jen Garate is the forensic investigator I hired last year after Marino walked off the job at the CFC and signed on with the Cambridge Police Department. She can’t begin to take his place and never will. She wasn’t a good choice with her tight clothes and bling and insatiable craving for attention. I can’t stomach her flirting and flippancy. I’ve been meaning to begin the process of letting her go but the summer has raced away from me.

“All right,” I concede to Bryce. “Tell her a response team is headed here as we speak and she’s not to interfere or get in the way of their vehicle.”

“A response team as in SWAT?”

“Please just listen, Bryce. I’ll pull my truck over as far as I can so she can go around it and park the SUV in front of it. Then she can get out and so can I. She’s not to come inside the house. She’s to call me the instant she arrives and I’ll meet her at the kitchen door and we’ll exchange keys.”

“Got it. I’ve just told her to head toward you in one of those amphibious boats they use for the Duck Tours and I’m kidding.” He doesn’t seem to breathe while he talks incessantly. “But it’s so unfair. I just had everything washed the other day. Our entire fleet was all shiny and white and perfect, and now this?”

“Yes you do a great job keeping our vehicles clean which is exactly why I’m fairly sure the dust sample I collected came from somewhere else and was transferred to the inside of the truck. It’s important to tell Ernie that.”

“I love dust bunnies.” Bryce says it as if he’s talking about his favorite pet. “Well I mean as long as they’re not inside my house. But they wouldn’t be. Anyway who knows what story your little dust bunny will have to tell. Hair, fur, skin cells, fibers and all sorts of ticky tacky frick and frack that people track in and out of everywhere.”

I ask him to explain to Ernie that an unusual projectile, an arrow was also left inside the truck, and under a lens I can see dirt, debris and glue.