I gripped the fiber-optics wand like a soldering iron. The intense pulsing blue light was as thin as pencil lead, and I began scanning very small areas.

"Anything?" he asked.

"Not so far."

His sticky booties moved closer as I worked slowly, inch by inch, into places that could not be reached by the broad scan. I leaned the body forward to probe behind the back and head, then between the legs. I checked the palms of his hands. The Luma-Lite could detect body fluids such as urine, semen, sweat and saliva, and of course, blood. But again, nothing fluoresced. My back and neck ached.

"I'm voting for him being dead before he ended up in here," Marino said.

"We'll know a lot more when we get him downtown."

I straightened up and the rapid-fire light caught the corner of a carton Marino had displaced when he'd fallen. The tail of what looked like the letter Y blazed neon green in the dark.

"Marino," I said. "Look at this."

Letter by letter I illuminated words that were French and written by hand. They were about four inches high and an odd boxy shape, as if a mechanical arm had formed them in square strokes. It took me a moment to make out what they said.

"Bon voyage, le laup-garou," I read.

Marino was leaning over me, his breath in my hair. "What the hell's a loup-garou?"

"I don't know."

I examined the carton carefully. The top of it was soggy, the bottom of it dry.

"Fingerprints? You see any on the box?" Marino asked.

"I'm sure there're prints all over the place in here," I replied. "But no, none are popping out."

"You think whoever wrote this wanted someone to find it.

"Possibly. In some kind of permanent ink that fluoresces. We'll let fingerprints do their thing. The box goes to the lab, and we need to sweep up some of the hair:on the floor for DNA, if it's ever needed. Then do photographs and we're out of here:' "May as well get the coins while I'm at it," he said.