“How big?” I continue to talk in a vague way but pressure is building inside me and heating me up.

“Five by three millimeters from a bead that I’m guessing was about the size of a small pearl. Probably about nine or ten millimeters, which is consistent with what they called trade or slave beads. Supposedly Christopher Columbus swapped them for supplies and permission to sail through unfriendly waters. Don’t be impressed. I just found it on the Internet. Beads like yours were also the major currency for the slave trade in West Africa. You know hand over some fancy trinkets and sail off with a ship full of gold, ivory and stolen human beings.”

“You referenced colors.” There can be no question that what he’s describing isn’t remotely similar to the quartz-like metamaterial I found on Lucy’s property.

“Shades of blue with a little bit of green,” Ernie says and I think of the cockroach wing.

I’ve seen no insects dead or alive inside this house except for the flies, and I’m reminded of the dust bunny inside my clean truck. I think of the debris adhering to the pelt-like fletching of the arrow left as a gory surprise. Evidence that’s transferred from another location, and maybe that’s true of the glass fragment too. Nothing I’ve seen so far would give me reason to think the broken bead came from inside this house, at least not from the rooms we’ve searched.

“Call me as soon as you have anything else,” I tell Ernie. “Jen should get to you soon …”

“She already did the minute she left the truck in the bay, and I need to get to that after a while too. Do you have any special instructions beyond what Bryce has passed along?”

“Work as fast as you possibly can.”

“I’m slitting open one of your packages as we speak.”

“I’m curious about a possible shared origin.” I’m so cryptic I’m almost unintelligible, and I’m getting angry. “Does that make sense?” I’m like an engine about to overspeed.

“Loud and clear. You want to know if some or all of it could have come from the same location.”

“And what type of one. As detailed and as quickly as possible.”

“If I can tell you where and give you an exact address I will.” He’s teasing and he’s not.

Ernie will get on this immediately because he knows me. We’ve worked together for years. He’s patient and he listens, and it’s just a shame I can’t say the same about Bryce. I get him back on the phone.

I tell him in a no-nonsense way, “I have ten seconds. When I was here this morning I didn’t see anything similar to what you and Ernie are describing.”

“You probably wouldn’t have.”