I could see the side of Pavlo’s face when he looked at the body of the young man the city had named John Doe #1. His expression didn’t change, but he swallowed hard and the lump of his Adam’s apple protruded farther before resting back in his neck as he pursed his lips and gulped in a breath of air.

He spoke in a whisper to the interpreter. “The boy is from his hometown,” the interpreter said. “Doesn’t know his name, but he has a brother on the ship, who made it off safely. Is maybe seventeen, eighteen years old, this one. Brother is Viktor. You will find him, please?”

Pavlo put his head down and stepped back.

“How do you say ‘I’m sorry’?” Mike asked the interpreter, who repeated the sentiment to the young man. “Tell him we’ve got to do it again, understand?”

The young man nodded his head.

“Jane Doe Number One,” Mike turned and said to me, since I couldn’t see the body that had been placed on the elevated lift for display.

Pavlo looked at the murdered girl on the gurney and seemed to be studying her face.

The interpreter gave us the English version of the phrases he had heard. “Says the girl looks familiar to him, but he doesn’t know anything about her. Doesn’t remember seeing her, speaking to her, on the crossing. But most of the girls kept to themselves, unless they were married or they had brothers and cousins on board.”

“Would you ask him,” I said, speaking softly, “if there is even a single thing about her that he remembers?”

The interpreter put his head closer to Pavlo, then turned back to us.

“Is pretty girl, no?”

“That’s what he said?”

“No, no. Is what I am saying. Pavlo says nothing. Tells me there were three hundred people on this ship, maybe more. Can’t remember meeting this girl. Me, I think you wouldn’t forget her. Is very pretty.”

“If I wanted to solicit the opinions of the Little Odessa Senior Citizens Lonely Hearts Club, I wouldn’t have started with an evening outing at the morgue,” Mike said to me under his breath as he closed the curtains.

When they opened again three minutes later, Jane Doe #2, one of the drowning victims, was displayed to Pavlo. I couldn’t see her, but knew that she had been cleaned up-her skin washed, all the grit from the beach gone, and her gnarled hair untangled by Pomeroy’s assistants after he had finished his meticulous dissection of her body.

The young man picked his head up and again, there was very little reaction. He talked to the interpreter, who turned to Mike to fill him in.

“This one he doesn’t know either. He and a friend tried to talk to her once, because she was very sick-how you say stomach sick?”

“Nauseous?” Mike said. “Seasick?”

“Yes, is that. Was very sick one day when sea is rough and being thrown up. But she seemed very shy and didn’t want their help.”

“But does he know even her first name? What city she’s from?”

The interpreter asked but drew a blank. “Pavlo says the young women slept in different part of boat, ate apart from guys, hardly no mix at all. Doesn’t know.”

Pavlo was sent back to reception and Mike guided in a second youth named Taras. Like Pavlo, he had been dressed in ill-fitting clothes that the NYPD must have picked up at the nearest thrift shop in Queens. This one was nervous and appeared to be frightened.

“What’s going to happen to him?” the interpreter asked Mike. “Is all he wants to know. What you going to do with him?”

“Coop, how do we tell the kid it’s going to get worse before it gets better?” Mike scratched his head.

“You tell him,” Mercer said, “that the first thing he has to do is help with this. Then I’ll take Pavlo and him inside and explain where they’re going tonight. There’s a facility in Nassau County that’s got beds. It’s actually not too bad.”

“C’mon, Taras,” Mike said. “Pick up your head.”

At the sound of the curtains rustling, Taras looked up at his shipmate. Immediately, startled and shaken, he stepped back, bumping into the interpreter and crying as he blurted out what he knew.

“The boy’s name is Gregor, he is telling me. They went to school together. Yes, he is Viktor’s brother and, yes, is he seventeen. They were very good friends.”

Mercer stepped over and encircled the young man’s slim shoulders in his strong embrace. “Thank him for us. Thank him for doing this. We know how hard it is.”

The interpreter conveyed the message, which was merely Mercer’s introduction to a further probe.

“Were they together last night? Did he see Gregor jump? Does he know why?” Mercer asked the questions slowly, hoping to get answers that would lead us firmly in a particular direction.

“No, is telling me. No. They got separated when the excitement-how you call it? When the hysteria started. Viktor, the older brother, was one of the guys who got upset when they saw the government boats, like a police boat, coming at them. Viktor is one of the ones who attacked the captain.”

The interpreter paused and raised his finger, getting more information from Taras while we waited. “Gregor followed Viktor, he is telling. Of course he followed his brother. That’s the last I seen of him, he says. He wants to stop now, okay, Mr. Mike? He’s had enough.”

“We’re almost done. Tell him,” Mike said, closing the curtain and signaling for the body of Jane Doe #1 to be raised again, “we just need him a few more minutes.”

When Mike was ready for Taras, Mercer had to nudge his body a few steps forward.

“Why are you crying?” Mike asked. “You know this girl?”

The interpreter said something to Taras, then turned back to Mike. “Is crying for himself. Doesn’t know girl. Me, I think he isn’t even looking. Is very upset, Mr. Mike.”

“And she’s very dead, okay? Pick up your head, Taras,” Mike said in as stern a voice as he could muster in the quiet of the morgue. “Look at her.”

Taras grudgingly raised his chin and spoke a few words.

“Doesn’t know her. Never saw before.”

Minutes later, his response to Jane Doe #2 was exactly the same.

“I can’t tell if he’s just shutting us down,” Mike said, “or he doesn’t recognize either of the women.”

“Let him get some sleep,” Mercer said. “We’ll have fresher recruits by morning. There have got to be people who were on that ship who’ll have something to give us, who’ll want something in exchange for information and help. He’s a kid, Mike. It’s not going to help us tonight to keep Taras here.”

It was like Mike to get on a case and set a relentless schedule for himself and everyone working with him. He lived alone in a tiny walk-up apartment not far from my high-rise, so small that he had nicknamed it “the coffin.” Since the death of his fiancée more than a year ago, he had driven himself even harder, trying to bury his grief by seeking those who had taken human lives without reason.

“Mercer’s right. Think long range. Let’s grab a bite,” I said, “and make a plan so that we can pick the aspects of this investigation that we want to concentrate on. We can’t do it all, Mike. There are scores of potential witnesses, and Donovan will welcome our suggestions. We’ve really got to pace ourselves. This could take weeks to sort out.”

Mike walked away from us, telling the interpreter that he would be free to leave as soon as the officers who were going to escort Pavlo and Taras to the Nassau County detention center arrived.

He came back, rubbing his stomach, and obviously too wired to call it a night. “Feed me, blondie. Nothing like a day at the beach to work up my appetite.”

“Want to shoot up to Primola?” I asked. The three of us spent a lot of time at my favorite Italian restaurant on Second Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street. The staff knew us and treated us like family, no matter when we dropped in, nor how casually we were dressed.

“Sounds good,” Mercer said. “Then I can drop Alex at her place and slip onto the drive. Vickee might even be talking to me if I get home before midnight.”