II.

SPENCER PATRICK O'MALLEY.

'Vox Clamantis in Deserto'

(A Voice Crying in the Wilderness) Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

- Dylan Thomas.

CHAPTER FOUR.

In the Woods and on the Wall.

Spencer was looking into Kristina Kim's empty auto accident file, drinking his seventh cup of coffee, when the dispatcher buzzed him on the intercom. He had been thinking about Kristina all week, hoping she wasn't going to stand him up tomorrow night. He hadn't heard from her and it was now Thursday, a week after Thanksgiving.

After he heard from the other driver's insurance company last Tuesday, he called Kristina's room. When no one answered, he assumed she was in class. When he called from home Tuesday evening and again there was no answer, he assumed she hadn't returned from her Thanksgiving break.

But what if she had returned and was just blowing him off? The unsettled feeling didn't tie in with what he had been thinking when he had last seen her that Kristina seemed as pleased to say yes as Spencer was to hear it. Had he been wrong? He didn't think so.

'Trace, we just got a call about something at the college.'

'Something?' said Spencer absentmindedly. Then he became alert, then irritated. '"Something" is very vague, Kyle. What the heck does that mean?'

'Sorry, I don't have more information,' Kyle said. 'A student called up, real nervous, saying he thinks he may have found something that may belong to a person. Something like that.'

Spencer rolled his eyes. 'Like what?'

Kyle was quiet. 'Look, it's probably nothing, but go check it out.'

'Did you get a name?'

'Yeah. Milton Johnson's the kid that called.'

Spencer closed Kristina's accident file and stuffed it into his drawer. Then he got up. 'Kyle, who'd you send already?'

'Fell was in the area. I sent him.'

'Great,' Spencer muttered. Then, louder, 'Why don't you radio him and tell him I'm coming right over.' And then, quieter, while putting on his parka, 'Maybe, possibly, they think...'

On the way out, Spencer knocked on the chief's door. The door was slightly ajar, but Spencer had been trained never to presume, never even to nudge the door.

'Chief?'

A grunt from inside the office. That was a good sign. Spencer came in. 'Chief, I'm going to run down to the college. Some kid called about finding something weird.'

'Weird?' Chief Ken Gallagher said gruffly. Graying and overweight, he was sitting behind a shiny metal desk, and Spencer couldn't tell what looked more out of place, the desk or the chief. Spencer and Gallagher were both Irish, and in the spirit of Irish camaraderie, they occasionally had a drink of whiskey together. Spencer became certain the chief had a soft spot for him when Spencer was promoted to detective-sergeant, over others like his partner, Will Baker, who had seniority. But the chief was as brusque with him as with everyone else in the department.

'So what are you waiting for? The boys from Concord?'

'Certainly not, sir,' Spencer quickly responded.

'Good. Go check it out. Ask Will for help.'

Spencer didn't think he'd need his partner's help to examine a lost-and-found item. 'Yes, sir.'

Spencer was nearly through the glass exit doors when he turned around and called out to Kyle, behind the bulletproof glass of his dispatcher's office, 'Where?'

'What?' said Kyle.

'Where am I going?' Spencer shouted, walking back a few steps.

The dispatcher checked his log. 'In the woods, behind Feldberg Library. Between Tuck Drive and Feldberg.'

Spencer left. He didn't know where Feldberg Library was, but he knew Tuck Drive, leading down to the river, was a dark, winding road, nestled between hundred-foot-tall pines. He would drive there and hope to spot Fell's police vehicle a white Crown Victoria with cornflower-blue stripes.

As Spencer walked to his car, something began to gnaw at him. Feldberg Library. Hinman was close to the river, it was one of the half-dozen or so dorms in what was called the River Cluster. The woods near Hinman dropped down onto Tuck Drive below.

Hinman. Spencer walked faster.

His light blue Chevy Impala, rusty and beat-up, was parked on the side of the building next to the Hanover Country Club and golf course. For the last several years, the police and fire departments had shared offices in the modern building. Spencer had liked it better when police had their own space. In the old building the desks and the chairs were old, the floorboards were old, the window frames needed paint, the heavy wooden doors creaked, and the toilets had the high-up tanks and the nineteenth-century pull chains. It wasn't sterile and it wasn't clean, but Spencer considered it fitting for working and living in a small old town.

Backing out of his space, he made a right on Route 10 and drove carefully to the college. The roads, even covered with salt, were slippery. He made a right at College Street, getting momentarily stuck behind a double-parked driver waiting for a space. Spencer beeped the horn; the guy didn't move. One reeling, high-pitched noise from Spencer's red siren, however, and the other driver decided parking could wait.

The small Christmas trees that lined the common square in front of Baker Library looked festive with snow on them. At night the trees sparkled, with Christmas lights reflected in the snow on their branches. Spencer had sometimes seen the trees glittering on December evenings.

Tuck Drive was empty. He drove toward the boathouse on the Connecticut River but saw nothing. Not even Fell's police car.

The road, the trees, the boathouse were covered with snow. The town had had a week of freezing weather after the blizzard before Thanksgiving that had covered Hanover with twenty-six inches of winter. Last night, everyone had been expecting more snow, but only one or two inches had fallen.

Turning his car around, Spencer drove back up Tuck Drive. Through the trees up on a hill past the turning with the bridge hanging over the service drive, he saw a small crowd of people. He recognized Fell's hat and the black shirt of his uniform. Spencer parked his car on Tuck Drive, left the police lights flashing, and started up the hill.

'Wait, wait!' Fell yelled, when he saw Spencer. 'Careful.'

Fell was telling him to be careful. It was almost humorous, except that Ray Fell was very serious. As if Spencer didn't know how to be careful. Circumventing the cluster of people by about thirty feet, Spencer made his way up the hill.

Snow seeped into Spencer's boots, melting into his socks and making his feet first cold, then wet. Damn boots. Not worth the cow they were cut from.

'What's up?' Spencer said, coming up fast to Fell.

'I don't know yet,' replied Fell. 'I'm keeping the people at bay.'

Spencer looked at the handful of students gathered around, not moving anywhere except from foot to foot. They didn't look as though they needed to be kept at bay. One of the boys stood a little apart from the rest, looking forlorn. Spencer made a mental note. That was probably Milton.

'What's going on?' said Spencer.

'Don't know yet. I was waiting for one of you guys to arrive.'

'Where's your partner?'

'Out sick.'

'Where's Milton?'

'Who?'

'The student who called,' Spencer said patiently. 'Milton Johnson.'

Fell pointed to the forlorn-looking boy. Spencer nodded. 'Have you talked to him?'

'Yeah. He pointed me to over there.' Fell waved down the hill. 'I don't know, Sergeant Tracy. I think he's just imagining things. I didn't see anything.'

Feeling less patient, Spencer said, 'That's fine, Ray. I'll go check it out. Why don't you go to the car and get us police tape and some sheets, just in case, all right?'

'Sheets?'

'Yes, Ray, so we don't walk all over the evidence.'

Spencer watched him lumber off around Feldberg, then turned to the woods. The birches and the oaks were gray. The conifers were heavy with snow. Spencer saw old tracks on the ground, under an inch of yesterday's new snow, leading down off the path. He walked between two young Norwegian pines and stopped. His eyes followed the footprints, five, ten, fifteen feet down the hill to a cluster of conifers. There was something there. Squinting to see better, he reached into his pockets to get his notepad and pen. His hands were cold, and he kept fumbling while looking downhill. What is that? he thought, his heart beginning to thunder in his chest. What is that?

And then his hands fell to his sides. The pencil and the notepad fell from his hands.

Next to the evergreens at the end of a snow-covered mound, Spencer O'Malley saw two black boots poking up out of the snow.

No, he thought. No. He staggered on the path. No, they weren't boots. He was too far away. They were just black rocks, or hats, or bags, or junk left on the side of the road. He slowly made his way down the hill.

They're just black stumps. My imagination. It's working overtime. It's been a long day and I need a drink. He stood ten feet away from the mound and stared at the boots. Oh, God. Oh, shit. No.

Spencer liked the way Dartmouth Hall looked in wet weather, its sterling whitewashed walls highlighted by the wide ebony shutters, the building peeking through the soggy green trees like snow in spring. It was Dartmouth Hall that had gotten his attention when he first laid eyes on Hanover.

But in the wintertime, all Spencer saw was the black shutters peeking out of the snow, much like the black boots before him.

The shutters, however, didn't startle him, didn't frighten him, didn't reduce him to a derivative of a detective, of a human being, of a man. When he saw those boots, Spencer realized in an instant of self-loathing and fear that he wasn't a man, he was just a boy playing detective and hoping no one would catch him.

Spencer crossed himself and silently said two Hail Marys.

Fell was calling down to Spencer from the path. Spencer motioned him to come. They stood side by side. 'Did you bring the sheets?' Spencer said hoarsely and then cleared his throat.

'Yes.' He handed one sheet to Spencer. 'Do we need it?' He looked impassively at the mound.

Spencer laid the sheet out in front of the mound and then searched in his pockets for the notebook, and for a tissue. 'I think we may have found a body, Fell,' he said.

Fell looked closer. 'We did?' he said with surprise. 'Where?'

Spencer didn't find a tissue. His notebook was still on the ground up the hill. 'Ray,' he said. 'Do you see a pair of boots in front of you?'

'Boots?' He looked again. 'Is that what they are?'

'Well,' said Spencer slowly, 'what do they look like to you?'

'I don't know,' Fell replied. 'Is that what Milton was pointing to? I kind of looked where he pointed but didn't see anything.'

'No, I guess you didn't,' said Spencer. 'Look, make sure no one comes down here and go up and wait for me.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Just wait for me up there, Ray.'

Spencer stood motionless for a few moments and then slowly walked on top of the sheet to the mound. Up close, the boots were strikingly black against the white snow.

Everything else, however, looked to be in its natural place, and the mound looked like a snowdrift. Spencer instantly became convinced it was a snow-drift. He then recalled someone on Main Street wearing similar black boots a few days ago, and he squatted down to the mound, breathlessly relieved. It's not her, it's not her.

Spencer put on his leather gloves and started to scrape away at the snow. First slowly, then faster and faster, he frantically dug through the mound. He couldn't feel anything except hard old snow, and he was thinking, it's nothing, it's just boots, somebody played a bad joke, and then he felt something that wasn't snow.

Shutting his eyes, he brushed the snow away and felt a human hand through his gloves. His heart sank and he opened his eyes, emitting a low groan of pain.

It was Kristina's hand. Long fingers, stiff and unyielding, no jewelry. The beautiful nails were broken, the red nail polish chipped. The hand was neither clenched nor relaxed, just stiff in the deep freeze, like ice, or like meat. Spencer's head made a shuddering, jerky motion. He was unable to control it and was vaguely embarrassed by it, as he was by all things uncontrollable. He knew his head made that motion only under extreme duress. He knew now was the time to have his wits about him. Except for the jerking of the head, Spencer was outwardly composed.

He slowly took off his gloves, lifted her icy arm, took her hand into both of his, and held it.

Another anguished moan escaped his dry throat.

He gently laid her hand down and stood up. His head shuddered again.

Spencer stood in the woods with his arms at his sides and tried not to blink. He wished the crowd would move away. And Fell would leave too. Spencer wanted a little privacy with her. Before the examiner and the coroner and the undertaker saw her, before Concord and the major crimes unit at Haverhill saw her. Before the ground would see her, or the oven. His knees were shaking. Please, dear God, he whispered. Please let me take this like a man, let me do my job like a man. I know I can do this, he said. I know I can, and I will.

He willed himself to steady, and then listened to the woods. What had happened?

Not a branch out of place. Not an evergreen leaf, not a bush, and the snow covers everything. I mean, what did she do? Come here to die? Did she just walk over, lie down in the snow, and die? Did she stumble, did she hurt her head and lose consciousness, and then freeze to death? The mound is perfect and symmetrical. Only nature in blizzards blows mounds like this and then leaves them serene for the sun.

But the footsteps barely covered by snow showed that someone had been near her as recently as yesterday afternoon. Spencer squinted into the snow, trying to see better. To the right side of the shoe prints were other tracks. These were small, round, four-toed, and shoeless.

Spencer breathed deeply, nodded to himself, and went back up the hill to Ray Fell.

'What's going on there?' Ray was antsy.