Dust to Dust

house sat empty, or the line of ownership of the house, or who lived there before Marcella.”
    “I can get ownership records from the county courthouse,” he said. “We can probably track down some answers about who lived there when. But does this new stuff help us in any way?”
    “I have no idea,” said Diane. “It doesn’t appear that any pottery was made there in recent years before Marcella moved in. It would seem to be too long ago to be involved in what happened to Marcella, but who knows? At any rate, I asked Justin Ambrogi at Archaeo-Labs in Arizona to send you the report. He also faxed a copy to the museum.”
    “The museum?” said Hanks.
    “Yes, Marcella works for us doing pottery sherd analysis.”
    “Oh, yeah, that’s right. What a twisted case this is. I’m inclined to think this bone pottery thing, although an odd thing for sure, is not related to her attack. But like you said, who knows? We may be looking for a frustrated artist. A mad potter.”
    Diane laughed. “Perhaps,” she said.
    She hung up the phone and stood thinking for a moment. It was a bit of information she didn’t know where to put. After a moment, Andie stuck her head in and said good-bye.
    “Bye, Andie. See you tomorrow.”
    Diane gathered her things together and started for the crime lab, hoping her crew would be there and not out somewhere working on a murder. Halfway there, she got an idea and took the elevator down to the basement where the DNA lab was located.
    Jin was there. So were the twins, Hector and Scott Spearman. They were dressed in jeans and pin-striped shirts with pointed collar flaps open at the neck, revealing gold chains. Hector’s shirt was yellow and Scott’s was green. She knew it was Hector because Hector was the older twin and he always wore a shirt color with a higher wavelength than Scott.
    Hector and Scott started talking immediately. They always appeared as if they were never let out of the lab and had to jump at any opportunity to talk with anyone other than Jin.
    “Hello, Dr. Fallon,” said Scott. “We were just discussing . . .”
    “The merits of using junk DNA . . . ,” said Hector.
    “For ancestry testing,” said Scott.
    When they were excited they spoke in that alternating way. She thought she might actually get dizzy listening to them, moving her head from one to the other. She understood how it might drive Jin crazy on occasion. They expounded on the disadvantages of using particular strands of DNA often referred to as “junk” because they no longer seemed to serve an active purpose.
    “I’m sure Dr. Fallon didn’t come down here for that,” said Jin. “What’s up, Boss?”
    “I was wondering if you could analyze the DNA in pieces of pottery,” said Diane.
    That stopped the three of them. They stood for several moments just staring at her with completely blank expressions.
    Finally Hector spoke. “It has to be something that was alive.”
    Diane laughed. “I’m sorry, I started in the middle of a thought.” She laughed again. “The pieces of pottery were tempered with human bone.”
    “Who would do that?” said Jin.
    “And why?” asked Scott.
    Diane gave a minilecture on what little she knew of pottery making, similar to the spiel she gave Hanks.
    “I honestly don’t know why the aboriginal inhabitants in Texas used bone for tempering. Nor do I know why the person who once inhabited Marcella’s house did. But do you think you could get any usable DNA out of it?” asked Diane.
    “The firing would have destroyed any DNA,” said Jin.
    “They were fired in a bonfire kiln, which has a much lower temperature than a regular kiln,” she said. “I know it’s still a high temperature, but I was just wondering.”
    “You know,” said Scott, “if the bases of the pots were thick—wouldn’t they have to be thicker than the sides?” He shrugged. “Anyway, if we could find some very thick pieces that just happened to be at a place in the fire where the temperature was lower . . . like sitting on the ground . . . I’m just thinking here.”
    “Yes,” said Hector, “perhaps the thick pieces might contain some strands that survived. Of course we would have . . .”
    “To use Jin’s protocol for shed hair,” said Scott.
    They looked at Jin.
    “What do you think?” Diane asked Jin.
    “It never hurts to try, but I don’t really hold out any hope. But we may get a paper out of it.” He grinned. So did Hector and Scott.
    “I’ll send you some