“Then why hang the sign?”

“Okay, a flaw in the scenario, but-”

“And how did they transport a couple quarts of human blood? And where did Mrs. Grogan go for an hour?”

“Several flaws.”

“Stick with her,” Eve repeated. “Get their New York address. Let’s arrange for them to be taken back so she can get a full check at a health center, and I want a watch on them.” She glanced back. “If she saw something, someone, maybe whoever’s responsible for the blood will start to worry about her.”

“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!”