J. RoBB - The Lost

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 pill 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.

“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?”