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time, my knees about to give out. I found an empty plastic wastepaper basket. Then I found two silvery coins. I bent close to them. One was a deutsche mark. I didn't recognize the other one and touched nothing.
    Marino seemed a mile away, standing in the container's opening.
    "My car key's in my case," I called out to him through 'the surgical mask.
    "Yeah?" he said, peering inside.
    "Could you go get the Luma-Lite? I need the fiber-optic attachment and the extension cord. Maybe Mr. Shaw can help you find somewhere to plug it in. Has to be a grounded receptacle, one-fifteen VAC."
    "I love it when you talk dirty," he said.

Black Notice (1999)

4
    The Luma-Lite is an alternate light source with a highintensity arc tube that emits fifteen watts of light energy at 450 uanometers with a twenty-nanometer bandwidth. It can detect body fluids such as blood or semen as well as expose drugs, fingerprints, trace evidence and unexpected surprises not evident to the naked eye.
    Shaw found a receptacle inside the warehouse, and I slipped disposable plastic covers on the Luma-Lite's aluminumfeet to make sure nothing from a previous scene would be transferred to this one. The alternate light source looked very much like a home projector, and I set it inside the- container on top of a carton and ran the fan for,a minute before turning on the power switch.
    While I waited for the lamp to reach its maximum output, Marino appeared with the amber-tinted glasses needed to protect our eyes from the strong energy light. Flies were getting thicker. They drunkenly knocked against us and droned loudly in our ears.
    "Goddamn, I hate those things!" Marino complained, swatting wildly.
    I noticed he didn't have on a jumpsuit, only shoe covers and gloves.
    "You going to drive home in a closed car like that?" I asked.
    "I got another uniform in the trunk. In case something gets spilled on me or whatever."
    "In case you spill something on you or whatever," I said, looking at my watch. "We got one more minute."
    "Notice how Anderson's conveniently disappeared? 'I knew she would the minute I heard about this one. I just didn't figure on nobody else being here. Shit, something really weird's going on."
    "How in the world did she become a homicide detective?"
    "She kisses Bray's ass. I hear she even runs errands for her, takes her brand-new fancy-schmansy black Crown Vic to the car wash, probably sharpens her pencils and shines her shoes:'
    "We're ready," I said.
    I began scanning with a 450-nanometer filter that was capable of detecting a large variety of residues and stains. Through our tinted glasses, the inside of the container became an impenetrably black outer space scattered with shapes that fluoresced white and yellow in different shades and intensities whenever I pointed the lens. The projected blue light exposed hairs on the floor and fibers everywhere, just as I would expect in a high-traffic area used to store cargo handled by many people. White cardboard cartons glowed a soft white, like the moon.
    I moved the Luma-Lite deeper inside the container. Purge fluid didn't fluoresce, and the body was a dejected dark shape sitting in the corner.
    "If he died naturally," Marino said, "then why's he sitting up like that with his hands in his lap like he's in church or something?"
    "If he died of suffocation, dehydration, exposure, he could have died sitting up:'
    "It sure looks wacko to me."
    "I'm just saying it's possible. It's getting tight in here. Can you hand me the fiber optics, please?"
    He bumped into cartons as he made his way in my direction.
    "You might want to take off your glasses until you get here," I suggested, because one couldn't see anything through them except the high-energy light, which wasn't in Marino's line of sight at the moment.
    "No friggin' way," he said. "I hear all it takes is one quick look. And zap. Cataracts, cancer, the whole nine yards."
    "Not to mention turning to stone."
    "Hub?"
    "Marino! Careful!"
    He bumped into me and