'Really, nothing. I was just thinking that Kristina that could be my kid someday.'

'You've got two boys.'

'You know what I mean,' Will said. 'She'd been dead a while, the girl. How long you think?'

'When did enough snow fall to bury her?'

Will was silent. 'I think the blizzard Tuesday before Thanksgiving.'

Spencer nodded mutely. He couldn't bear to think of her in the snow for nine days. When he had left her last Tuesday in the afternoon, it had just started to snow. She'd been alive then. So sometime between 1:00 P.M. Tuesday and Wednesday morning when it stopped snowing, Kristina had died.

'Yeah. I think that's a pretty good bet,' he said at last. 'Before Thainksgiving.'

'It was so cold that night,' said Will. 'She must have frozen immediately. Did you see? No decay, no lividity.'

'Hey,' said Spencer weakly, in an attempt at humor. 'Maybe if we thaw her, she'll still be alive?'

Will shook his head. Spencer asked him to go notify the dean of students that there had been a death at the college and to interview anyone else who might have seen her in the last week or so. Then he remembered basketball. 'Will, do me a favor, too, and talk to the women's basketball coach. See if Kristina played in last Saturday's game.' He was just sending Will away; Spencer knew she couldn't have played. He had seen her shoulder.

Will was wrong about the lividity too. Spencer caught a glimpse of her back and legs as he helped lift her onto the stretcher. They were a mass of black bruises and marks, pools where the blood had settled after it stopped circulating. There was no decay because there was no rigor, and there was no rigor because she had frozen before rigor had had a chance to set in. In the hospital she would thaw and decompose at the same time.

Spencer felt very cold.

He waited to be let in at Hinman Hall's side door, and went upstairs. At the third floor, he stopped by Kristina's door and knocked. The door was not locked, but Spencer knew he had no right to enter without a search warrant.

Opening the door slowly, Spencer peeked into her room. The light was on. The computer was playing a screen-saver of some kind. The bed was not made. Books and clothes were scattered over the room. The clothes on the bed could very well have been the clothes she took off the night she died. A bottle of Southern Comfort lay on the floor near the bed.

Spencer badly wanted to enter the room and damn the protocol, but he knew better. What was the point of finding anything if he wouldn't be allowed to use it? The court would first throw the evidence out, and then the chief, egged on by the Concord prosecutorial zealots and sticklers for detail, would throw Spencer out. He'd be out on his ass, out of a job, and without a suspect.

Reluctantly Spencer let the door close.

And then he looked up and down the hall and knocked at the door directly across from Kristina's. A fastidious-looking Asian student opened the door. Spencer began to tell him who he was and what had happened, but the student calmly cut him off.

'Wait, wait, wait,' he said. 'You want to speak to him.' He pointed down the hall. 'Three-nineteen.'

'Why three-nineteen?'

'They were friends,' said the student and made a move to shut his door. Spencer put a foot out to stop the door and took out his badge.

'I don't like your attitude,' he said firmly. 'What's the name in three-nineteen?'

The student, looking at Spencer's foot inside his door and then at Spencer's badge, said, 'Maplethorpe. Albert. May I?'

Spencer took his foot away, and the door closed.

Spencer slowly walked over to 319. On the mauve door, next to the magnetic note board, there was an art representation of Anubis, the god of death, jackal-headed and frightening, and a Bulgarian proverb that said, If you wish to drown, don't torture yourself with shallow water.

Is there anything more I need to know about Maplethorpe, Albert} Spencer wondered, knocking on the door until it opened and a handsome, long-haired young man stood in front of him. He wore only black shorts.

Spencer showed his police badge. 'Are you Albert Maplethorpe?'

'I am, yes,' Albert said, pulling his hair back and tying it up in a ponytail.

'Were you friendly with a girl down the hall, Kristina Kim?'

The young man's black eyes flashed something at Spencer. What was that? 'Friendly, yes.'

'She was found dead today.'

Even in the dim light of the hallway, the young man looked as if he'd been hit, and hard. All the blood drained away from his face.

Without turning around, Albert said, 'Conni, come here. It's about Kristina.'

The girl came to the door. She, too, was barely dressed, even though it was winter. 'What's the matter? What's happened?'

'This is Detective...'

'Excuse me,' Spencer said to the girl. 'Could I get your name, please?'

'Conni. Constance Tobias,' the girl stammered. She was visibly nervous. In a way, she reminded Spencer of twitchy Milton.

'What's happened?' Conni said in a small voice.

Turning to her, Albert said, quietly, 'They found Kristina dead today.'

Conni broke down. She cried so immediately, so furiously, and so hard that Spencer was taken aback. Albert's arm went around her shoulder. 'It's all right,' he whispered. 'It's all right.' Conni cried harder.

Spencer watched her very carefully. In a matter of seconds, Conni went from apparently normal to hysterical.

Clearing his throat, Spencer said, never taking his eyes off her, 'I'm terribly sorry. You knew her.'

'Knew her?' sobbed Conni. 'She was our best friend.'

Our, echoed Spencer to himself. Well, this is interesting.

'I'm sorry again. I'll try to be brief.'

Conni could not stop crying. She was shaking, and her nose was running. Albert's comforting hand on her shoulder did nothing to stifle her sobs. In fact, she sobbed harder.

Spencer watched them carefully. Conni Tobias was a small, pretty girl, pretty, that is, theoretically. It was hard to tell at this moment whether she was pretty or not. Her face was wet and red.

She was wearing a tank top and short shorts. She was thin and big-breasted. Spencer looked down at her bare feet, and then into the room behind her. He was trying to see some shoes.

His gaze reverted to Albert, who was muscular without being brawny, and good-looking without being perfect. Spencer noticed a small gold hoop in Albert's left ear and an elaborate tattoo on his left arm. That was interesting. Tattoos were rare on Dartmouth College students; Spencer stared at it. It was the picture of Anubis, this time with wings, and underneath him the initials KM.

'Nice tattoo,' said Spencer. 'Who's KM?'

'My mother,' said Albert. 'Kay Maplethorpe.'

'I see,' said Spencer, suspicious. 'Couldn't just write "Mom," huh?'

Albert flashed his teeth at Spencer. 'Pathetic for a guy to write "Mom" on his arm.'

'Disagree,' said Spencer. 'Love for your mother is a commendable thing. The sort of thing that will get you elected to public office.'

'Thank God, I will never run for public office,' said Albert.

Conni was still crying. Spencer was wary of people who reacted too swiftly to devastating news. Paling was good and nonreactions were good. From mothers and fathers he expected hysteria. From friends he expected less, yet this girl was giving him more and more and more.

Also, nobody had asked what had happened to Kristina.

'Are you sure?' said Conni. 'Are you absolutely positive about her?'

'Miss Tobias,' Spencer said evenly, 'it is my job to tell the difference between people who are dead and people who are alive. Your friend was found frozen in the snow, where she had obviously been a number of days. We don't yet know how she died, but we are sure that she is, unfortunately' he swallowed; the word stuck in his dry throat 'dead.'

'Would you like to come in?' asked Albert.

Spencer leveled his gaze at Albert. He could've meant come in so that the students curiously poking their heads out of their rooms won't be privy to our informal talk, or he could've meant come in because you look like you need to sit down.

'No, thank you,' said Spencer. 'I was wondering if Kristina had a dog.'

'Dog?' said Conni, sniffling. 'Yes. Dog. She's got a dog. Where's Aristotle, Albert?'

They both looked back at the room and then at each other.

Spencer waited. 'Is Aristotle the dog?'

They nodded.

'Funny name for a dog. Did you misplace Aristotle?'

'Why do you ask if she had a dog?' asked Conni, wiping her face.

Spencer made it his policy never to answer questions from people who had no business asking them. He didn't answer this one.

'Do you know where the dog is?'

'It's not here,' said Albert.

'That much is obvious. It's a big dog. Maybe a Labrador, isn't it?'

'Yes, how did you know?'

Again he did not answer.

When Spencer was young he had had a golden retriever, old and half-blind. The dog had died in the wintertime. Its slow-moving paws on the snow in their backyard were etched into Spencer's childhood memories.

'Albert, Conni,' Spencer said firmly. 'All I want to know is whether you've seen the dog and where the dog might be.'

'Maybe Jim's got her,' said Conni uncertainly.

'Jim Shore?'

'Jim Shaw. He's her boyfriend,' Conni said mournfully. 'Did she fall?'

'Fall?' Spencer was instantly alert. 'What do you mean?'

'Nothing, nothing,' Conni said quickly. 'Just thought maybe that's how she died.'

'Where would she fall from?' Spencer never put his notepad down.

'The bridge,' said Conni. 'That awful bridge she walks on.'

'The bridge at the side of Feldberg Library?' He remembered driving under the bridge; he also remembered walking across the bridge in a procession after the paramedics who were carrying Kristina. 'Why would she fall off the bridge?'

Albert shook his head. 'She walks the ledge. There and back.'

'Why would she do that?'

Shrugging, Albert said, 'For fun. She'd have something to drink and then walk that stupid thing.' Albert shook his head violently. 'We just thought she might've fallen off this time.'

'How often did she do that?'

Albert and Conni both shrugged. 'Once in a while.'

'While drunk?'

'Yeah, the drink steadied her,' said Conni.

'Steadied her?' Spencer wrote it down on his pad. He breathed in heavily before asking the next question. 'She was naked when we found her.' When I found her. 'You know why she might be naked?'

Albert said simply, 'She walked the ledge naked.' He paused. 'Did she fall?'

Spencer answered this time. 'No, she did not fall. Why would she walk naked in the freezing cold?'

'We don't know,' said Conni, sniffling. 'We've been asking her that for three years.'

'I see. Where does Jim Shaw live?'

On the first floor, Conni told him. Spencer informed them that they had to dress at once and come to the police station to answer a few more questions. He then turned to go.

'Oh, one more thing,' he said. 'Do you know where her parents live? I need to call them.' When they didn't answer, Spencer said, 'We need someone to come identify the body.'

Conni started to cry again. Albert looked terrible. 'Her father is dead. We don't know where her mother is,' he said.

'I see,' said Spencer. 'Do you know where her home is?'

Albert turned away from Spencer and toward Conni. 'Conn, do you know? Where Kristina's from?'