The third book in the CSI: New York series, 2007

Thanks to Lee Lofland for his continuing help and his expertise.

SEVEN INCHES OF RAIN had fallen in Central Park. Worms inched out of warm mud in a doomed search for dry ground. Homeless men and women had long since gathered whatever possessions they had in makeshift bundles and made their way out of the park in soggy shoes and sneakers.

One of the homeless, a woman named Florence who was prone to delusions, wandered off the no-longer-discernable path and into the lake where she drowned, clutching a photograph of two dogs.

Signs were posted for people to stay out of the park, though the park seemed no more a victim of the deluge than the rest of the island of Manhattan.

But it would be all right, everything would be under control, if the weather got no worse. But it did get worse. Much worse.

The hard-driving September rain slapped against Dexter Hughes's rain poncho as he stepped over the river that rushed wildly next to the curb on the north side of Eighty-seventh Street. Thunder crashed in the 9 a.m. morning dimness. It was music; loud, drums, brass. Music.

He paused to catch his breath and to make sure his St. Paul medal was still around his neck and that none of his wares had escaped from the bulging plastic Bloomingdale's bags he held.

Nothing was lost. Dexter smiled. Yes, it was his kind of day. The radio had said it would probably be the heaviest rain the city had experienced in more than a century. Eight inches, maybe more, today alone.

The malodorous water rushed along the street next to the curb in front of him. An empty plastic pill bottle bobbed down the river. Dexter could make out a blue disposable razor, a filthy work glove, a discarded Metrocard, a mangled white ballpoint pen and the inch-high upper torso of a Betty Boop figurine.