“So the problem is that you don’t like raffia?”

“Raffia won’t test for prints,” she says. “And miraculously, when the mask was grabbed, each digit, including the thumb, touched only the raffia.”

I try to disguise my massive exhalation of relief as a cough. When I recover, I say, “You can’t get the prints from that? Are there other prints anywhere?”

“There are prints on some surfaces and on the fragment of a sex toy but they are all complicated by pressure distortion and oil and some unknown chemicals.”

“What chemicals?” I say, wondering how many other suspects are going to have very rare and very contraband toxins in their sweat.

“Don’t know yet. Lab’s working on it, though. Should be any time now.”

“Well,” I say, trying to sound innocent, “not having prints sure is a problem.”

“No, that’s not the problem. I didn’t say we couldn’t get prints. I said some materials won’t test. Lots don’t. Lots do, though. Window screens, most living plants, human skin. Hell, a spray of ninhydrin can bring up Confucius’s prints on a fortune cookie. Did you know that? It seems like something you would know, given your expertise in chemicals.”

I shake my head.

“I’m asking because the manner in which the mask was grasped—allowing the fingertips to touch only the part that will not hold prints—suggests familiarity with the process of fingerprinting. And I can’t think of anybody who would know these chemicals better than you.”

There is nothing I want more than to come clean. I want to tell her that the placement of the prints isn’t due to expertise or design but only to dumb luck. I want to tell her the whole story, that I’m on her side. That I want the Rat Burglar even more than she does. But I’ve lied to Nunes nonstop, I’ve omitted my involvement with Deke, I’ve broken and entered, I’ve assaulted an unconscious person, and tomorrow I’m going to try to shoot someone else. Tomorrow I might be a killer.

I can’t tell her anything. I’m in too deep.

“I don’t know anything about nin...”

“Ninhydrin. How about silver nitrate?”

“Nope.”

“Both of them test wood, and they both revealed very good prints. Unfortunately, they are palm prints.”

“Palm prints don’t indicate identity? That’s the problem?”