“I came to talk to you about the uranium,” I said.
” That’s the first time I’ve ever found anything like that.”
She was opening a plastic envelope. “We’re talking twenty-two years.”
“We need to know which isotope of uranium we’re dealing with,” I said.
I agree, and since this has never come up before, I’m not sure where to do that. But I can’t do it here.”
Using double sticky tape, she began mounting what looked like particles of dirt on a stub that would go into a storage vial. She got vacuumings every day and Was never caught up.
“Where is the radioactive sample now?” I asked.
“Right where I left it. I haven’t opened that chamber back up and don’t think I want to.”
“May I see what we’ve got?”
“Absolutely.”
She moved to another digitalized scope, turned on the monitor, and it filled with a black universe scattered with stars of different sizes and shapes. Some were a very bright white while others were dim, and all were invisible to the unaided eye.
“I’m zooming it up to three thousand,” she said as she turned dials. “You want it higher?”
“I think this will do the trick,” I replied.
We stared at what could have been a scene from inside an observatory. Metal spheres looked like threedimensional planets surrounded by smaller moons and stars.
“That’s what came out of your car,” she let me know.
“The bright particles are uranium. Duller ones are iron oxide, like you find in soil. Plus there’s aluminum, which is used in just about everything these days. And silicon, or sand.
“Very typical for what someone might have on the bottom of his shoes,” I said. “Except for the uranium.”
“And there’s something else I’ll point out,” she went on. “The uranium has two shapes. The lobed or spherical, which resulted from some process in which the uranium was molten. But here.” She pointed. “We have irregular shapes with sharp edges, meaning these came from a process involving a machine.” -CP&L would use uranium for their nuclear power plants.” I referred to Commonwealth Power & Light, which supplied electricity for all of Virginia and some areas of North Carolina.
“Yes, they would.”
“Any other business around here that might?” I asked.
She thought for a minute. “There are no mines around here or processing plants. Well, there’s the reactor at UVA, but I think that’s mainly for teaching.”
I continued to stare at the small storm of radioactive material that had been tracked into my car by whoever had killed Danny. I thought of the Black Talon bullet with its savage claws, and the weird phone call I had gotten in Sandbridge which was followed by someone climbing over my wall. I believed Eddings was somehow the common link, and that was because of his interest in the New Zionists.
“Look,” I said to Eckles, “just because a Geiger counter’s gone off doesn’t mean the radioactivity is harmful. And, in fact, uranium isn’t harmful.”
“The problem is we don’t have a precedent for something like this,” she said.
I patiently explained, “It’s very simple. This material is evidence in a homicide investigation. I am the medical examiner in that case, and it is Captain Marino’s jurisdiction.
What you need to do is receipt this vacuuming to Marino and me. We will drive it to UVA and have the nuclear physicist there determine which isotope it is.”
Of course, this could not be accomplished without a telephone conference that included the director of the Bureau of Forensic Science, along with the health commissioner, who was my direct boss. They worried about a possible conflict of interest because the uranium had been found in my car, and of course, Danny had worked for me. When I pointed out that I was not a suspect in the case, they were appeased, and in the end, relieved to have the radioactive sample taken off their hands.
I returned to the SEM lab and Eckles opened that frightful chamber while I slipped on cotton gloves. Carefully, I removed the sticky tape from its stub and tucked it inside a plastic bag, which I sealed and labeled. Before I left her floor, I stopped by Firearms, where Frost was seated before a comparison microscope, examining an old military bayonet on top of a stage. I asked him about the punctured rubber he was having sputter-coated with gold, because I had a feeling.