But where might such fragile ephemerae have been preserved this long and out of view? I’ve yet to see anything on the property that could be a time capsule. The house has been renovated and enlarged over the centuries, and the outbuildings are gone with not much left but the broken bricks and stones scattered beneath a backyard hedge I noticed through a window. Then the FBI helicopter thunders through my mind and I remember what Lucy said about ground-penetrating radar. The FBI was searching Lucy’s property for anything buried. Maybe the place to be searching is here.

I resist the impulse to get out of my SUV, to begin looking around. Benton and Marino will show up any minute. It wouldn’t be wise to wander the grounds alone, and I stay put with my doors locked as Ernie tells me what he’s found out about the early American fur trade. He says unusual fibers beneath a buffalo’s undercoat can be spun into a fabric similar to cashmere, and this is one reason the skins were a popular export until the end of the nineteenth century.

“Bottom line?” he adds as I watch the Escalade inch closer, faltering, lurching, as if something is wrong with the driver. “Everything we’re finding seems to be from the same context.”

Water sloshes around the oversize tires, beading on the glossy black paint. The wipers have been turned off, the back windshield fogged up and I don’t know how the driver can see. I’m about to bolt out of my SUV when the Escalade halts inches from my front bumper. It has me blocked in when it couldn’t be more obvious that I’m not merely parked here. I’m on official business with the engine running, the lights on. Not to mention I’m sitting inside.

I keep my eyes on the Escalade. I wait for someone to get out of it.

NO ONE DOES. The driver’s door doesn’t open and I decide the limo is Amanda Gilbert’s. Perhaps it dropped her off then drove away for some reason. Now it’s back.

“Where exactly did you find this buffalo fiber?” I ask Ernie.

“The arrow fletching,” he replies. “The dyed blond hair.”

“Human?”

“As you suspected, I’m sorry to say, because the implication is a pretty bad one. The hair is saturated with glue, so you can imagine what’s stuck to it,” he replies. “I can’t say whose hair. Hopefully DNA will tell us soon. Of course we might be talking the DNA of one of our early ancestors. The tissue and hair could be really old I suppose.”

“They aren’t. The excised scalp is dried but not mummified and has a slight odor of decomposition. My guess is it’s been in someplace moderately cool and dry but is relatively fresh.”

“How fresh?”