What has happened to Troy Rosado? What did Carrie do with him after she murdered his politician father, shooting him to death from aboard his own yacht while he was waiting on the water’s surface to begin his dive? I tell Ernie to make sure the DNA lab is aware of my grim suspicion. It would be like Carrie to partner with a disturbed teenage boy, to seduce him into doing her bidding. Then to thank him the way she does. Which is hideously.

“What do you know about the glue on the arrow?” My anger rolls to a boil. “Do you have a chemical analysis of that yet? Anything special?”

“Cyanoacrylate, good ole Super Glue.”

“What else?”

“So far it’s quite the trace evidence bouillabaisse.” Ernie sounds cheerful as he talks about the trash in life that he considers treasure. “Bovine hair, and remember I mentioned people used to keep cows in the basement. Also deer hair, which isn’t unusual. And I’ve found wool, cotton lint and other natural fibers, pollen, and pieces and parts of cockroaches and crickets. Plus potassium nitrate. In other words saltpeter in addition to sulfur, carbon and traces of iron, copper and lead that have sort of permeated everything,” he says and I understand why he’s in the firearms lab.

Saltpeter, sulfur and carbon are the basic components of gunpowder. Specifically black powder.

“What’s really strange are tiny globules of metal that was molten at some point,” Ernie says. “It’s what I commonly see on skin, especially around burns in electrocutions.”

“Possibly part of gunshot residue?” I think of the granule I saw that looked like a black sugar crystal.

“The molten metal is copper and unrelated to GSR in my opinion. Like I said I associate it with electrical burns we see in fatal electrocutions. I’m putting you on speakerphone now,” Ernie says. “We’ll let a real gun nut weigh in.”

“You’re sure it’s not gunshot residue, both burned and unburned powder that we typically see in shootings?” I rephrase my question. “In other words could the residue be from something contemporary? Is there some crazy reason GSR could have been inside my truck? And maybe that’s why it’s showing up in the lab?”

“I’d say no. I’d say it categorically.” It’s not Ernie talking now. “No one has cleaner forensic vehicles than we do and if the black powder in question is burned it would be very fragile. Chances are we wouldn’t be finding it.”

The deep midwestern voice belongs to Jim, the chief of the firearms lab.