'Who were you afraid might call you?'

'I don't know. Kristina. Albert. Whoever.'

'Surely if they needed to talk to you they could just come to your room?'

'There was nothing I could do about that. But I could turn my phone off.'

'I see,' said Spencer standing up. 'Is the phone turned back on?'

'Yes.'

'So what you're saying is on the night of your ex-girlfriend's murder, somebody tried to reach you and couldn't.'

Jim didn't say anything. Spencer left the room.

'So what do you think, detective?' said Will to Spencer when they were alone in the hallway.

'I think I'm going to go home, Will, and collapse into my chair. What do you think?'

'I think I'm going to go home and collapse into my bed,' Will said.

'Drive the kids back first, will you?'

Spencer headed home feeling the day in his bones. He thought of stopping for a nightcap at Murphy's Tavern. He didn't want to be drinking alone. But he didn't want to be talking to anyone either. And at Murphy's, everybody knew him. Whether he wanted to or not, he would have to do some talking. Tracy this, Tracy that. Given the choice between drinking alone and talking, Spencer went home.

He thought of calling his mother. He missed her. He had missed his mother most of his life. He didn't blame her for it, he just missed her. The emptiness Kristina's death brought him made him colder, made him want to call home, hear his mother's voice, hear his father in the background, saying, 'Can I? Can I? Can I talk to my son now?'

Mom, he wanted to say, if I'm found dead, promise me you'll come and not leave me to lie on a metal gurney in a drawer.

Spencer's throat hurt.

His tiny apartment was dark and sparsely furnished. In the bedroom, a frameless bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and in the living room, an old couch, a TV, a coffee table, and his only housewarming purchase a plush La-Z-Boy chair.

Plopping himself into the La-Z-Boy, Spencer reached down to the floor and lifted up a bottle of whiskey. Good old-fashioned Jack Daniel's. He was simple in his drinking taste. He was not a wine drinker, he was not really a beer drinker. He liked whiskey.

Spencer thought of drinking straight from the bottle, but two things stopped him. It did not look good for a detective-sergeant to be seen by God drinking straight from the bottle, and two, he remembered the bottle of Southern Comfort on the floor of Kristina's room, a bottle and no glass.

So he got up and went into his so-called kitchen really just a little enclave with a stove and fridge and got himself a plastic glass that said, Look Who's Thirty, from a birthday party the guys in the department had thrown him six months ago, and brought it back to the chair. Taking a swig, Spencer let his head fall back and his eyes close. Immediately the image of Kristina's black boots shot up, black against the white snow. Black and quiet, yet ... screaming. Screaming for answers, screaming for help, screaming for life.

Except she hadn't screamed. Spencer was willing to bet a week's salary the autopsy would show there hadn't been much struggle in Kristina's last meeting with death.

Eyes still closed, Spencer took a long sip of whiskey and swilled it around his mouth. After midnight on Wednesday, November 24, Kristina Kim emptied a bottle of Southern Comfort, undressed to the bone, ruffled the hair of her dog, and in her new black leather boots walked out into the snow onto the bridge, onto the stone wall. She walked to the end of the bridge, jumped off the ledge, and then instead of going back home, walked on farther into the woods, lay down on her back into the snow, legs together, arms spread out as if learning to fly, closed her eyes, and died.

Spencer opened his eyes and looked around his dark living room for a few minutes, at the shadows on walls, at the dim light coming from Allen Street, at the square shape of the TV.

Then he got up, threw on his parka, and left the house.

He walked quickly, looking mostly at the snow on the ground and at his feet. He walked straight down past the Dartmouth Green, past Sanborn Library, and made a left onto Tuck Mall. An old Dartmouth cemetery was on the left. The streetlights near the cemetery were broken, and Tuck Mall looked ominously lit by a few yellow bulbs on the right. Tuck School of Business was right in front of him, but he needed to get behind it, so he hung a left, walked past the Feldberg parking lot, past a common field in front of Hinman and McLane halls, and saw the bridge in front of him. Exposed, bare, dark. There was a streetlight at the head of the bridge and one on the other end. The middle of the bridge wasn't well lit. Spencer looked to his right. The tall glass windows of Feldberg Library shone white light on the trees and the snow and the bridge. Spencer saw students behind those windows, peering into their books. Thoughtfully, Spencer looked at the windows and the students, and then at the bridge.

He took a few steps forward and then leaned over the ledge. It was pitch black, he couldn't see a thing, but he knew there was a steep slope running down to the concrete drive below. Spencer slowly walked across the bridge, touching the rough stone of the wall, and then slowly walked back. Checked his watch. It had taken him ninety seconds. He walked to the middle of the bridge and looked up at Feldberg. He saw the windows and the students clearly; if they pressed their faces against the glass, they could see him just as clearly.

He walked back to the far end and tried to lean over the side. He couldn't the ledge was too high at this end. Not believing what he was about to do next, Spencer walked back to the start of the bridge, where the wall only came up to his upper thighs, and jumped up, checking his watch. Snow covered the ledge. Spencer hoped the snow wasn't slippery, nor crusted with ice. He slowly inched his way along the ledge to the darkness and conifers on the other side. His arms were out for balance, and he stepped very carefully onto the hard snow. Finally, he was there. Checking his watch again, Spencer discovered it had taken him over two minutes to walk the wall.

He jumped down, and with his racing heart went around Feldberg, into the darkness behind it. His steps were deliberate and hesitant, for he could not imagine anything being so eerily quiet, so still, so black. The trees didn't move; he just saw their outlines and shadows. There was hardly any light coming from Feldberg. The stairway lights had been turned off. Spencer couldn't see the path, couldn't see the conifers, couldn't see the police tape up ahead. Nothing. He listened to the still darkness, saw the immobile trees. They know, Spencer thought. They know what happened. Look how quiet they are; they're standing there, thinking, We're not saying. No one's asking us. We're not talking. But we know.

His chest was heaving. He heard noise, human noise. It was coming from seventy-five feet below on Tuck Drive; Spencer knew that intellectually. Emotionally, however, the voices were in the woods, they were drawing closer, and they were coming for him. There was someone in the woods, in the tall dark trees, hiding out, waiting for him. Standing there, Spencer felt himself one step closer to death. One day, one month, one year.

He couldn't even turn around. Backing up the path as fast as he could without tripping over his feet, Spencer put his hand on his chest to steady his heart. He was panting. When he was at the bridge, he turned around and walked as fast as he could back home.

Fifteen minutes later, back in his chair, Spencer swallowed his drink in big, hungry gulps. The whiskey burned his throat.

What would possess a naked woman to step into the darkness? Wasn't she cold? Didn't she want to go back home?

Spencer willed his eyes to stay open. Had someone closed Kristina's eyes? Had someone closed her eyes to make it look like an accident? A killer wouldn't close his victim's eyes. Killers weren't usually this sensitive. But if her eyes were closed, it might look like she just fell asleep. The killer might have been someone extremely considerate, or extremely calculating.

Or both.

Another swig, and the drink was now gone. To get more would've required more effort than Spencer was prepared to make. The emptiness and the aching he was feeling inside could not be filled with whiskey. He was sure it could not be filled with Southern Comfort, not even a whole bottle of it, and he was sure Kristina's emptiness couldn't have been either.

Kristina hadn't deserved to die.

But what did Spencer know? He hardly knew her. Maybe she had deserved to die. Maybe dying had been her only redemption. But somehow he doubted it. Her dying didn't seem redemptive, it just seemed like dying.

Dying young.

Dying before one's time, dying too soon, not meant to die, why her, no, too much, too much to bear, too much to endure alone, she was in the prime of her life, she was full of life, she was so full of life, she hadn't even had any babies yet, but God knows she wanted to, God knows they were trying, Andrea, Andie. You were too young to die. I hope you remember our honeymoon, our five days in Paris, sitting in the pit of the underground because the subways were paralyzed by bomb threats, walking in the rain around Versailles, eating baked Alaska on the boat trip on the Seine, and making love on an old bed that creaked. Five days. We made plans to come back to Paris when it wasn't rainy season, maybe sometime in the spring. But spring came and you were already dead, head-on, hundred-mile-an-hour collision, when we found you, you were in the backseat of your killer's car, right through your windshield and his windshield. If he hadn't died, I would've killed him myself. You were the passenger; your girlfriend, the driver, she survived. But she was nothing to me. I didn't find her in the backseat of another car. Just you.

What killed Kristina? Andie, I kind of liked her. She reminded me a little of you. The hair, or the eyes. The sweet smile. You had a pair of black leather boots, but you weren't unceremoniously buried in the snow for nine days with nobody looking for you. When you died, we all knew. You didn't lie there for nine days without your family mourning you.

How long is Kristina going to be in the morgue, pre-autopsy, post-autopsy, before someone claims her thawed-out body, before someone steps forward and says, It's me, she's mine, can I have her? I love her and I'm going to miss her. She is my daughter, God, my only girl! Or one of seven, she is my sister, my only sister, or my oldest. She is my wife. She was my wife, and I loved her and I buried her and myself along with her, and for the last five years I've been trying to claw out of the grave, little by little, inch by inch. I thought I was doing pretty good, and you, Kristina, made me look forward to Friday, but now I'm looking forward to nighttime again, to the oblivion of the night, or to the high noon of the day, when the sun is too bright for me to grieve much.

Spencer fell asleep in the chair. When he awoke, just before dawn, he stumbled up and went to sink into his bed. The days of his falling asleep, clothes and all, in the chair, night in and night out, were over.

Spencer woke up around nine o'clock on Friday morning, about an hour late for work. He had a terrible headache. A strong cup of coffee, white and sweet, usually cured it fast. There was no coffee in the house, though. Spencer kept it that way deliberately. Got him out of the house fast. Today was no exception; there was a lot to do.

Today Spencer put on his only suit. It was similar to the one he had worn to Andie's funeral. Showered, shaved, white-shirted, and somber-tied, Spencer left his apartment, where there was no coffee and no food, and went down to the local Mobil Mart, where the smell of fresh brew almost made Mobil Mart homey.

He called in to the police station from his car radio and then drove to the Hanover city hall and courthouse, where he obtained a search warrant for Kristina's room.

While on the phone with Kyle, Spencer asked the dispatcher if Concord had been notified of the homicide. Kyle said he didn't know but he thought so. Fell was supposed to be taking care of that. Friday was Chief Gallagher's day off from the office. Friday was Gallagher's day to play golf, to drive to Haverhill forty-five miles north to the Major Crimes Unit, or sometimes to drive to Concord. Spencer asked Kyle what the chief was doing today. Kyle said he was taking his daughter to the mall to buy her a confirmation dress or something.

Just great, thought Spencer. We've got a possible murder and the entire investigation is in the hands of a thirty-year-old Irish small-town cop, Will, a former male nurse, and Raymond Fell, the guy who gives police cameras to his aunt in Cleveland. 'When the Concord men come, tell them I'm at the college, and get me on my radio, okay? Where is Fell now?' Fell was in his patrol unit somewhere around Lebanon. 'I hope he called Landers. I need the victim's room dusted.'

'Yeah,' Kyle said. 'Ed called this morning. He'll be up around noon.'

Spencer's first stop was the office of admissions in McNutt Hall, where he asked to see Kristina's college entrance application. He needed to find out if she had relatives. The admissions clerk was reluctant to give him the records, which apparently were confidential. Spencer had to assure the earnest girl that confidentiality was no longer an issue. What was more important was having Kristina properly buried when the time came. The clerk was suspicious and relented only after her supervisor was called. She pulled Kristina's admissions application. Spencer took it and sat down in one of the big plush couches in the comfortable and quiet room.

Last name, Kim. First name, Kristina. Any other names? NO, the application said. Birthdate, November 22, 1972. That's right, she'd just turned twenty-one, Spencer thought.

I remember when I turned twenty-one. My six brothers and my best friend Matt and I went to Port Jefferson and got tanked. There was a fight some kid was forcibly undressed, then beaten right on Port Jeff's Main Street. Drunk as I was, I actually had to make an arrest. I had to call for help because I couldn't drive the two punks to the station myself. That was my twenty-first birthday.

Kristina's twenty-first birthday was the second-to-last day of her life.

Spencer continued reading the application. It gave some address in Brooklyn, New York. Spencer would have to check it out. He skipped down. He needed the next of kin. Ah, here it is mother's name: Katherine Morgan. Address: unknown.

Unknown? Spencer quickly looked down for the father. John Henry. Deceased. Siblings: none.

Things were worse than Spencer had imagined. But at least there would be no parents claiming the body of their beloved daughter. God, though! Somebody had to claim her. Spencer felt it was his personal responsibility to ensure that someone came forth for Kristina.

Her application raised more questions than it answered. Katherine Morgan? John Henry what? John Henry Kim? What did it mean?

Other information on the application was even less helpful. Kristina had gone to a preparatory school in Brooklyn Heights. She received financial aid through grants, a small loan, college work-study Red Leaves and the rest of tuition, room, and board came from her maternal grandmother, Louise Morgan. No address for Mrs Morgan, though. Was that the grandmother who lived on Lake Winnipesaukee?

Spencer quickly checked Kristina's high school transcripts and her SAT scores; all were very good. She wasn't just a jock.

He decided to go to the Dartmouth infirmary on North Main Street near the former Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital to check Kristina's emergency contact information. Louise Morgan was listed as the only emergency contact. Spencer knew there was no point in calling the number. Louise Morgan was dead.

Without leaving the infirmary, Spencer called information for Brooklyn.

'Kim,' he said. First name or last? Any first names? He was going to say Kristina, but that was idiotic, so he said no.

No Kims in Brooklyn Heights, the operator told him. How about Morgan? He got three Morgans. Phone calls to each yielded him two message machines and one I don't know any Kristina, sorry. He hung up on the recordings. What was he going to do, say, I'm sorry, but this is Spencer O'Malley with the Hanover, New Hampshire, Police Department. If there is a member of your family named Kristina Kim, please call me at blah blah blah. Better yet, why didn't he just tell the truth? If there is a member of your family named Kristina Kim, she froze to death in the snow and is lying in the Hanover town morgue waiting to be claimed. Very good, Spencer. God Talk about disappearing without a trace. Maybe it really was an accident. Except for her few close friends and me, did anyone even know this girl was alive?

He decided to try something else. He called the private school she had gone to. Kristina Kim? No, sorry. Oh, when? Four years ago? Hold on? Ah, yes, Kim, Kristina. Yes, she went to our school. Home address was the one Spencer had in hand. Do you have a home phone for her? Yes, but from four years ago. Better than nothing, said Spencer. He called that number only to be told that it was disconnected and there was no new number. Another dead end.

Now was the time to use the search warrant. Her room surely would contain more information than his two hours at the college had yielded him.

But he couldn't go to the room alone. He waited for Will Baker to meet him with the fingerprint man from Concord.

Spencer did not eat as he waited impatiently for Ed Landers with his gloves and talcum powder and Will Baker with his notepad and his plastic bags. Time was ticking away. While waiting, Spencer placed a call to copy desks of the New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Times, and New York Newsday and asked them for help. A girl, listed with a residence in Brooklyn, had been found dead under suspicious circumstances and there was no family to contact. Could they maybe run something?

Then Spencer took a walk to Kristina's bridge. It was daylight and the bridge didn't look mysterious at all. He didn't get up on the wall this time, he just walked slowly across the bridge, made a right at the conifers, and strolled the meandering path to the death scene. He proceeded to take off the yellow tape. There was no death scene anymore. Just the trees, and the snow and the cold pines. And ruffled snow where Kristina had been. Spencer stopped briefly on the path and looked down to where she had lain buried. This place was eerie, even in daylight. A little farther, Spencer went off the path and made his way carefully through the woods, coming down to Tuck Drive. He looked around. Tuck Drive was nestled in the valley of two steep wooded hills. He had just come down from one. Spencer crossed the road and slowly trudged up the other, making his way past the sharp, low-hanging branches of trees, brushing past the needles of the conifers. The snow soaked his good-for-nothing boots. He emerged panting and wet at the secluded westernmost end of Webster Avenue. The first house on his right was Phi Beta Epsilon.

How fluky, thought Spencer, knocking on the door. Someone yelled for him to come in. He went in and showed his badge to a grungy guy in oversized clothes sprawled out on the couch. 'Is Frankie Absalom here?' he asked.

Frankie wasn't in, Spencer was told. He'd gone home for the weekend.

'Please tell him,' Spencer said, 'that Detective Spencer Patrick O'Malley was looking for him and needs to talk to him about an urgent matter as soon as he returns.'

The guy in the living room nodded and went back to his book, but Spencer couldn't let it go. 'Listen,' he said. 'Sorry to disturb you, but we dug a body out of the snow yesterday, and Frankie was one of the last people to see this girl alive. I need to speak with him urgently. Can you help me?'

The grungy guy shook his head. 'Can't help you, man. Don't know where he lives in Boston. Try his friend, Albert something.'

'Albert Maplethorpe?'

'Yeah, him. They hang out together. Albert will know.'

'I asked him. He doesn't know.'

The guy shrugged; his fingers never left the pages of the book he was reading.

Spencer left Epsilon House and jogged back to McNutt, where he pulled Frankie's application and got his family's address and phone number. He called, using his calling card, from a public phone on the first floor. The building was quiet.

'Hello? This is Detective Spencer Patrick O'Malley from the Hanover Police Department. Is Franklin Absalom there, please?'

'Yes. Is everything all right?' said a concerned maternal voice.

'Everything's fine, ma'am,' replied Spencer. 'I just need to talk to Frankie for a couple of minutes.'

'I see. Yes. Yes, of course. He's still sleeping, I think, let me hold on, please.'

Spencer heard 'Franklin!' being shouted several times before a groggy voice came on another line. 'Yes?'

'Frankie?'

'Yes.'

'This is Detective Spencer Patrick O'Malley from the Hanover Police Department. Do you have a couple of minutes?'

'Yes.' Frankie didn't sound groggy now.

'Could you hang up, please, ma'am?' said Spencer. 'This will only take a couple of minutes.'

The mother's nervous voice said yes, and then the other phone was hung up.

'Frankie, how long have you been down in Boston?'

'I never came back after Thanksgiving.'

'Why not?'

'I just I don't know. I needed some rest.'

'I see. Well, I'm sorry to bring you bad news.' Spencer paused. 'Do you know why I'm calling?'

There was no answer. Spencer waited.

'Frankie?'

'I hope everything's all right.' His voice was unsteady.

'No. Kristina Kim was found dead yesterday.'

Frankie breathed in sharply, and for some minutes all Spencer heard was erratic breathing, punctuated by dry moans.

'Frankie?'

'Y-y-yes?' His voice was broken and quiet. 'God, I '