by J. D. Robb
“I’ll make sure she’s covered. Nice family,” Peabody added, studying the group.
“Yeah. Welcome to New York.”
Eve tracked down Jake.
“All emergency evac devices are accounted for.” He passed her a file of security discs. “Those are from all cams on board. The list of employees, DOT officials, is labeled.”
“Good. Where the hell did those fireworks come from?”
“Well.” He scratched his head. “It looks like they were set off starboard side, probably the stern. That’s from figuring the basic trajectory from witnesses. But we haven’t got any physical evidence. No ash, no mechanism. Nothing so far, so I’m not sure they were set off from the boat.”
“Hmm.” Eve pondered and glanced out at the wide harbor.
“The NYPSD is crawling all over the place, and your CI team’s covering the crime scene. If it is one,” he added. “We’ve accounted for every DOT employee on board, and between your people and mine, we’ve been interviewing passengers, concentrating on those who are in the areas of the scene. So far, none of them saw anything. And you have to admit, hauling a body around would attract some attention.”
“You’d think.”
“What do we do now?”
As far as Eve could determine, there were two options. The killer—if indeed a murder had taken place—had somehow gotten off the ferry. Or the killer still needed to get off.
“Looks like we’re going to Staten Island. Here’s how we’ll handle it.”
It was going to take time, and a great deal of patience, but nearly four thousand passengers would be ID’d, searched and questioned before they were allowed to disembark at St. George terminal. Fortunately a good chunk of that number was kids. Eve didn’t think—though kids were strange and often violent entities to her mind—that the pool of blood was the work of some maniac toddler.
“It’s actually moving along okay,” Peabody reported, and got a grunt from Eve.
“The search is ongoing,” Peabody continued. “So far, no weapon, no body, no evil killer hiding in a storage closet.”
Eve continued to review the security disc on boarding on her PPC. “The body’s dumped by now.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how, but it’s dumped or transported. Two searches, and this one with corpse detectors. He, or an accomplice, used the fireworks as a distraction. Get everyone’s attention in one direction, do what you need to do in the other. Has to be.”
“It doesn’t explain how he got the DB out of the bathroom.”
“No.”
“Well, if it wasn’t a prank, maybe it’s a vortex.”
Eve shifted her gaze up, gave Peabody a five-second pitiable stare.
“Free-A ger here, remember. I grew up on vortexes. It’s a better theory than abracadabra.” On a sigh, Peabody studied the bright, tropical fish swimming behind the glass of an enormous aquarium.
“He didn’t toss the body overboard, then dive in and swim away,” Peabody pointed out. “Like a fish.” Noting Eve’s considering expression, Peabody threw up her hands. “Come on, Dallas. There’s no way out of the bathroom, not without walking in front of dozens and dozens of people.”
“In back mostly, since they’d be looking out at the water. If the blood currently being rushed to the lab proves to have come from a warm body—one we hope to identify through DNA matching—there has to be a way out and a way off, because he used it.”
“Parallel universe. There are some scientific theories that support the possibility.”
“The same ones, I bet, that support sparkly winged fairies skipping around the woods.”
“A mocker.” Peabody wagged a finger. “That’s what you are, Dallas. A mocker.”
“In my world, we call it sane.”
Jake joined them. “We’re about halfway through. Maybe a little more.”
“Find any vortexes, parallel universes or sparkly winged fairies?” Eve asked him.
“Mocker,” Peabody repeated.
“Ah . . . not so far.” He offered them both a go-cup of coffee. “No weapons, no blood, no dead body either, and so far everyone who’s gone through the ticker and the interview station is alive.”
“I’m going back on board,” Eve told him. “If we get a hit—any kind of hit—contact me. Peabody, with me.”
“Hey.” Jake tapped Peabody’s arm when she started to move off with Eve. “We’re probably going to put in a long one here. Maybe we could get a drink after we’re clear. You know, decompress.”
Flustered, she felt heat rise to her cheeks that was a giddy mix of pleasure and embarrassment. “Oh, well. Um. That’s nice—it’s nice, I mean, to ask and all that. I live with somebody. A guy. An e-guy. We’re . . . you know. Together.”
“Lucky him,” Jake said, and had her blush deepening. “Maybe, sometime, we can grab a brew, just on the friendly side.”
“Sure. Maybe. Ah . . .” She flashed a smile, then shot off after Eve.
“Did you forget what ‘with’ means?”
“No. In fact, I remembered exactly, in that I’m with McNab. I remembered even when Jake hit on me.”
“Oh, that’s different.” Eve shot out a sunny smile that had Peabody’s stomach curdling. “Let me apologize for interrupting. Maybe the two of you want to take a break, go get a drink, get to know each other better. We can always puzzle out whether or not we have a missing DB and killer later. We wouldn’t want a potential murder investigation to get in the way of a potential romance, would we?”
“I speak sarcasm fluently. He did ask me out for a drink though.”
“Should I note that in my memo book, on today’s date?”
“Jeez.” Sulk warred with smug as Peabody boarded the ferry with Eve. “I’m just saying. Plus I get double credits. First I get the satisfaction credit of being hit on by the sexy DOT inspector, and second I get loyal and true credit for turning him down because I have my personal sexy nerd. I hardly ever get hit on, unless you count McNab—which really doesn’t since we cohab—so it is noteworthy.”
“Fine, so noted. Can we move on?”
“I should get at least five minutes of woo. Okay,” she mumbled under Eve’s withering stare. “I’ll put the rest of the woo time on my account.”
With a shake of her head, Eve crossed the deck, now empty but for cops and sweepers, to speak to a crime scene investigator.
“Schuman, what’ve you got?”
She knew him to be a hard-bitten, seen-i t-all type, as comfortable in the lab as on scene. He’d shed his protective suit and booties and stood unfolding a piece of gum from its wrapper. “What we’ve got is about two quarts of blood and body fluids, plenty of spatter. Got some flesh and fibers, and a virtual shit load of prints. We’re gonna want to get it in for a full workup and analysis, but with the on-scene exam, we got your blood type—A Neg, and spot samples indicate it’s all from the same person. Whoever that is would be dead as my uncle Bob, whose demise went unlamented by all who knew him.”
He popped the gum, chewed for a thoughtful moment. “I can tell you what we ain’t got. That would be a body or a blood trail, or at this point one freaking notion how said body got the hell out of that john.” He smiled. “It’s interesting.”
“How soon can you tell me if the blood came out of a warm body, or came out of a damn bucket?”
“We’ll look at that. Wouldn’t be as fun, but the bucket’d make more sense. Problem being, the spatter’s consistent with on-scene injuries.” Obviously intrigued, he chewed and smiled. “Looks like a damn slasher vid in there. Whoever walked in living got sliced and diced, stuck and gutted. Then, you gotta say it’s interesting, went poof!”
“Interesting,” Eve repeated. “Is it clear to go in?”
“All swept. Help yourself.”
He went in with her where a couple of sweepers examined the sinks, the pipes.
“We’re looking at everything,” he told Eve. “But you’d have to have a magic shrinking pil
l to get out of here through the plumbing. We’re gonna take the vents, the floors, walls, ceilings.”
She tipped her face up, studied the ceiling herself. “The killer would have had to transport himself, the body, and a grown woman. Maybe more than one killer.”
She shifted to study the spatter on the stalls, the walls. “The vic standing about there. Killer slices her throat first; that’s what I’d do. She can’t call out. We get that major spatter from the jugular wound, partially blocked by the killer’s body.”
Eve turned, slapped her hand to her throat. “She grabs her throat, the blood pumps through her fingers, more spatter there, but she doesn’t go down, not yet. She falls toward the wall—we get the smears of blood—tries to turn around, more smears. He cuts her again, so we have the spatter on the next stall there, and lower on the wall here, so he probably stuck her, and she stumbled back this way.” Eve eased back. “Maybe tries to make it to the door, but he’s on her. Slice and dice, and down she goes. Bleeds out where she falls.”
“We’ll run it, like I said, but that’s how I read it.”
“He’d be covered in blood.”
“If he washed up at any of the sinks,” Schuman put in, “he didn’t leave any trace, not in the bowls, not in the traps.”
“Protective clothes? Gloves?” Peabody suggested.
“Maybe. Probably. But if he can get a DB out of here, I guess he could walk out covered in blood. No trail,” Eve repeated. “No drag marks. Even if he just hauled it up and carried it out, there’d be a blood trail. He had to wrap it up. If we go with protective gear and a body bag or something along the line, he planned it out, came prepared, and he damn well had an exit plan. Carolee was a variable, but he didn’t have too much trouble there either. He dealt with it.”
“But he didn’t kill her. He didn’t really hurt her,” Peabody pointed out.
“Yeah.” That point was something Eve had puzzled over. “And he could have, easily enough. The door doesn’t lock. Safety regs outlaw locks on public restroom doors with multiple stalls. He makes do with a sign, even though this had to take several minutes. The kill, the cleanup, the transport. And Carolee was missing for over an hour, so wherever he went, wherever he took her, he needed time.”
“A lot of places on this boat. Vents, infrastructure, storage. You got big-ass ducts for heating and cooling the inside cabin deals,” Schuman told her. “You got your sanitary tanks, your equipment storage, maintenance areas. We’re going through here, but it doesn’t show how the hell he got out of this room.”
“So, let’s find out where he went and work backward. And we need to find out who the vic was, and why she got sliced on the Staten Island Ferry. It had to be specific, or Carolee Grogan’s blood would be all over this room, too.”
For the moment, Eve thought, the best she could do was leave it to the sweepers.
Four
“Why didn’t he kill Carolee?” Peabody wondered when they were back on deck. “It would’ve been easier. Just cut her throat, and get back to business. It wasn’t as if he worried about covering up a crime. All the blood was a pretty big clue one had been committed.”
Eve walked toward the stern, trying to reconstruct a scene that made no sense. “I’m looking forward to asking him. I don’t think it’s just his good luck she can’t remember. Let’s see what the medical exam concludes after she’s done there. But the bigger question is, yeah, why bother to suppress her memory? And why would the killer have something on him that could?”
“Hypnosis?”
“I’m not ruling it out.” She leaned back against the rail, looked up at the twin smokestacks. “They’re not real. They’re show. Just to keep the ferry looking old-timey. Big. Way big enough for somebody to hide a body and an unconscious woman.”
“Sure, if he had sparkly fairy wings and an invisibility shield.”
Eve had to laugh. “Point. Regardless, let’s make sure they get checked out.” She turned when Jake walked toward them.
“We let the last of the passengers through the ticker. Two short. We’ve accounted for everyone, passengers, crew, concession. Two people who got on didn’t get off.”
“They just got off before we made port,” Eve corrected. “This ferry is out of service until further notice. It’s sealed by order of the NYPSD. Guards on twenty-f our/ seven. Crime Scene hasn’t finished, and will continue until they’ve covered every inch, including those,” she added, pointing at the smokestacks.
Jake lifted his gaze to follow the gesture. “Well. That should be fun.”
“Something this size, with this layout? There are places to hide, to conceal. He had to know the boat, the layout, at least to some extent.”
“Having a place to hide doesn’t explain getting out of that bathroom without anyone seeing him. Unless he has the cloak of invisibility.”
Jake’s remark got a quick laugh from Peabody and a cool stare from Eve.
“We work the wit and the evidence. We’ll be in touch, Inspector.”
“You’re leaving?”
“We’ll be following up with the security discs, Carolee Grogan, and the lab. The sooner we identify the victim, if a victim there is, the sooner we can move on the killer. You may want some of your men backing up mine on guard duty. I don’t want anyone on that ferry without authorization.”
“All right.”
“Let’s move, Peabody.”
“Ah, Detective? Should your situation change . . .”
Peabody felt the heat rise to her cheeks again. “It isn’t likely to, but thanks.” She scrambled to keep up with Eve’s long strides. “He hit on me again.”
“I’ll mark it down, first chance.”
“It’s markable,” Peabody mumbled. “Really.” She risked a look over her shoulder before they boarded the turbo. “I figured we’d be staying, going over the boat again.”
“We have enough people on that.” Eve braced herself as the turbo shot across the water. “Here’s a question—or a few. Why kill in a public restroom on a ferry in the middle of the water? No easy way off. Why not leave the body? Why, if interrupted by a bystander, spare that bystander’s life? And go to the trouble, apparently, to secret her away for an hour?”
“Okay, but even if we find the answer to any of the whys, we don’t answer the hows.”
“Next column. How was the victim selected? How was the method of killing selected? How was Carolee Grogan moved from the crime scene to another location? And straddling columns, why doesn’t she remember? How was the body—if there was one—removed? All of it comes back to one question. Who was the victim? That’s the center. The rest rays out from there.”
“The victim’s probably female. Or the killer. One of them, at least, is probably female. It makes more sense, given the location of the murder.”
“Agreed, and the computer agrees. I ran probability. Mid-eighties for female vic or killer.” She pulled out her ’link when it signaled, saw Roarke’s personal code on the readout. “Hey.”
“Hey back.” His face—that fallen-angel beauty—filled the screen as dark brows lifted over bold blue eyes. “You’re out in the harbor? The ferry incident?”
“Shit. How much has leaked?”
“Not a great deal. Certainly nothing that speaks of murder.” His voice, Irish whispering through, cruised over the words as she rocketed back toward Manhattan. “Who’s dead, then?”
“That’s a question. I’m hoping the lab can tell me. I’m heading there, and depending on the answer, I might be late getting home.”
“As it happens I’m downtown, and was hoping to ask my wife out to dinner. Why don’t I meet you at the lab, then depending on the answer you get, we’ll go from there?”
She couldn’t think of a reason against it, and in fact, calculated the opportunity to run it all by him. A fresh perspective might give her some new angles. “Okay. It’ll be handy to have you right there if I have to bribe Dickhead to push on the ID.”
“Always happy to br
ibe local officials. I’ll see you soon.”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Peabody asked when Eve stuck her ’link back in her pocket. “Having a guy.”
Eve started to shrug it off, then decided the turbo pilot couldn’t hear them. Besides, there was no reason not to take a few minutes for nonsense. “It doesn’t suck.”
“It really doesn’t. Having a really cute guy like Jake flirt with me has some frost, but knowing I’m going to be snuggled up with McNab tonight? That’s the ice.”
“Why do you always have to put you and McNab and sex in my head? It brings pain no blocker can cure.”
“Snuggling isn’t sex. It’s before or after sex. I especially like the after-sex snuggle when you’re all warm and loose like a couple of sleepy puppies.” She cocked her head. “I’m getting horny.”
“So glad you shared that with me. Let’s try to get this pesky investigation out of the way so you can go get your puppy snuggles.”
“You know, I’ve got this new outfit I’ve been saving for a night when—”
“Do not go there. Do not,” Eve warned. “I swear by all that’s holy, I’ll chuck you overboard, then order the turbo to run over you while you sputter in the water.”
“Harsh. Anyway, maybe that’s what the killers did, just chucked the victim in the water, then jumped in after the body wearing SCUBA gear.”
“If he was going to chuck the body in, why move it in the first place? He didn’t just want the kill, he wanted the body.”
“Ewww. I know, a police detective’s not supposed to say ‘ewww.’ But why would he want the body?”
“A trophy.” Eve narrowed her eyes.
“I’m not saying ‘ewww.’ ”
“You’re thinking it. Proof,” she added, “which strikes me as more likely than trophy. A body’s unassailable proof of death. Which, at this point, we don’t have. He does. Which brings us to another why. Why would he need proof?”
“Payment?” At Eve’s nod, Peabody lifted her hands. “But for a hit, it was messy and complicated. It doesn’t smell like a pro.”