Felton looked at Bosch and nodded approvingly.

“Where’d you get her, Harry? She’s a keeper.”

Bosch looked at Walling. He, too, was impressed.

“Internet,” she said.

Bosch nodded though he didn’t believe her.

“And there is one other thing you should note,” Felton said, drawing attention back to the body.

Bosch stooped down again. Felton reached across the body to point at the hand on Bosch’s side.

“We have one of these on each hand.”

He was pointing to a red plastic ring on the middle finger. Bosch looked at it and then checked the other hand. There was a matching red ring. On the inside of each hand the ring had a white facing that looked like some sort of tape.

“What are they?” Bosch asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Felton said. “But I think-”

“I do,” Walling said.

Bosch looked up at her. He nodded. Of course she knew.

“They’re called TLD rings,” Walling said. “Stands for thermal luminescent dosimetry. It’s an early-warning device. It’s a ring that reads radiation exposure.”

The news brought an eerie silence to the gathering. Until Walling continued.

“And I’ll give you a tip,” she said. “When they are turned inward like that, with the TLD screen on the inside of the hand, that usually means the wearer directly handles radioactive materials.”

Bosch stood up.

“Okay, everybody,” he ordered, “back away from the body. Everybody just back away.”

The crime scene techs, the coroner’s people and Bosch all started moving away from the body. But Walling didn’t move. She raised her hands like she was calling for a congregation’s attention in church.

“Hold on, hold on,” she said. “Nobody has to back away. It’s cool, it’s cool. It’s safe.”

Everybody paused but nobody moved back to their original positions.

“If there was an exposure threat here, then the TLD screens on the rings would be black,” she said. “That’s the early warning. But they haven’t turned black, so we’re all safe. Additionally, I have this.”