A few more minutes passed. Spencer looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Ed and Will were probably waiting for him.

'Frankie, I'm very sorry. Very sorry to bring you bad news. Just a few questions, and I'll be on my way.'

'How?' Frankie interrupted. 'What happened?'

Spencer didn't mind answering this time. Frankie seemed to be taking Kristina's death to heart. Spencer felt sympathy for him.

'She was found in a three-foot-high drift of snow.'

'Was she ...' Frankie couldn't continue. After a while, he said, 'Was she hurt?'

Hurt? What a strange question.

'Like ... how do you mean?' Spencer said slowly.

'I mean ...' Frankie was having trouble getting his words out. 'I mean, was she, you know, hurt?'

Spencer considered the question again, his eyes widening. Rummaging in his pockets, he told Frankie to hold on while he found his microcassette recorder and turned it on close to the receiver. Then he answered, 'Frankie, she was found dead under snow. Does that fall into the category of hurt?'

When Frankie didn't answer, Spencer asked, 'Or do you mean, was she raped or butchered?'

'Yes,' Frankie quickly replied.

'No,' Spencer answered just as quickly. 'She wasn't butchered. Now, are you up to a few questions?'

'Oh sure,' Frankie said. 'I'm sorry. This is just ...' He sobbed. 'Awful. Just awful.'

Spencer said, yes, and then asked Frankie when was the last time he remembered seeing Kristina.

'Kristina?' Frankie said, as if hearing her name for the first time. 'Last time?'

'Yes.' Are you buying time, Frankie? thought Spencer, wishing he could see Frankie's face.

'Well, I haven't been back this week.'

'Frankie!' said Spencer firmly, beginning to lose his patience. 'Please. The last time you saw her.'

'Okay, let me think ... I guess before I left for home.'

'Right. When was the last time you saw her?'

'I'm trying to remember.' His voice had a different quality to it from before. 'We played cards on Tuesday night.'

'The last time you saw her, Frankie,' repeated Spencer.

'Yeah. Tuesday, I guess.'

'You guess?' Spencer said, exasperated.

'Yes, that's right.'

'Frankie, listen to me very carefully now. I don't have a lot of time. A girl's been found dead. I don't want to have to come to Boston to get you, and I don't want to think you're keeping secrets. So let's have it. Last time you saw her.'

Frankie breathed in and out several times before he answered. 'Tuesday. Or was it Wednesday morning?' Frankie paused and then said quietly, 'I saw her walking the bridge.'

Yes. Still clutching the tape recorder, Spencer pressed his left hand to his heart. Yes.

'You did,' Spencer finally said. 'Good. What time was that?'

'Let's see.' Frankie said as if he were buying time. 'Let's see now. I guess it must have been around one a.m. or so. Maybe one-oh-five. Around there.'

'One, one-oh-five. That's pretty precise. How'd you know?'

'I looked at my watch and thought of going back home 'cause it was so late, and then looked out the window and saw her.'

'Why did you look out the window?'

'I I was waiting for her to walk the wall.'

'Were you watching her?' Spencer asked hesitantly.

'No. It's nothing like that. More, like, watching out for her.'

'Okay, tell me what happened. Everything.'

'Right. Everything. Okay.'

'Frankie, are you covering up for someone?' Spencer said loudly.

'No, no one.'

'Because if you are it could make you an accessory to murder.'

'Of course. I know that. You don't have to tell me that. I understand. Listen I told you everything. Last Tuesday, we finished playing cards. I won, as usual. But there was some tension in the room. We were all on edge.'

'Yeah, I heard something about that.' Spencer tried to hurry Frankie along. 'You were supposed to meet Albert in your room.'

'No I wasn't. It was a mix-up.'

'He says you forgot.'

'Yeah, and pigs fly out of my butt. I never forget anything. Especially,' Frankie said, half-mocking-suggestively, 'meeting Albert in my room.'

What was that supposed to mean? Spencer wanted to meet this Frankie. 'Got it,' said Spencer. 'Was Kristina sober?'

'Stone sober. I know that. I know that for a couple of reasons. I kissed her good-bye, I smelled her breath. She was lamenting there was nothing to drink Murphy's was closed.'

With a pain in his heart, Spencer thought, she used to go to Murphy's too?

He willed his mind back to Frankie, who said, 'We offered her a beer, but she took a Coke instead. So I knew she was sober.'

'There was a bottle of Southern Comfort in Kristina's room.'

With a tone of distaste, Frankie said, 'Yeah, she liked that stuff. We gave her a bottle for her birthday. But she never drank that bottle, never even took it with her.'

'How do you know?'

'I know because Tuesday afternoon when I was in Conni's room, the bottle was on her desk. She had to move it off to make room for our books.'

'How did you know it wasn't Conni's?'

'You kidding?' Frankie laughed. 'Conni is strictly a beer drinker.' Then he corrected himself: 'Only since she's turned twenty-one, of course.'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' said Spencer. Time was ticking by. He had to go.

'Conni had been feeling bad that we had given Krissy a bottle of liquor. She said Kristina wasn't happy about it. We had talked about that for a few minutes.'

'There was a spilled bottle of Southern Comfort in Kristina's room.'

'There was? Huh. Well, maybe Conni brought it to Krissy after poker.'

'Yeah,' Spencer drew out. 'Maybe. Go on.'

'During poker, I was sort of needling Kristina to walk the wall. It's a really sick thing she does, but the guys at Epsilon love to see it, so I goad her on every once in a while, and sometimes she does walk it. Not often. But sometimes. She's gotta be pretty drunk, though. They collect by the window at Feldberg and watch her. It's this thing.'

'Do you watch her?'

'Nah,' he said casually. Too casually. 'I'm usually last in line. As I said, I don't watch her so much as ...' He stumbled on his words. '... watch over her,' he said, haltingly. 'It's really dangerous, but it's a thrill for everybody. I just kind of watch her to make sure ... well, it doesn't matter '

'To make sure what?'

'Nothing. To make sure she doesn't stumble. That Tuesday night, she said she might do it. So I waited.'

'But she was sober.'

'How long does it take to get a little tipsy?' Frankie asked. 'If Conni brought her the bottle, it would've taken Kristina no time at all.'

Spencer asked why Frankie had egged her on to do something so patently dangerous. If she fell, she'd be killed.

'I guess,' Frankie said slowly. 'You should have seen her on that thing, though, man. She glided across it and back like an angel. She had God on her side when she was there.'

'I'd say the odds were against her.'

'Yeah. She used to say, our whole life is against us. She crashed on Monday night in her car. She could've been dead then. I had a good feeling about her when she was walking. She was very steady. She put on a real show. And she always turned around and walked back on the ledge. But anyway, that night I wasn't sure if she was going to do it, and I wasn't going to go back to Epsilon and tell the buds unless it was a sure thing. They'd kill me.'

'Sure, to come out in a blizzard,' said Spencer.

'Yeah. And also I had work to do. So I went up to Feldberg. I always study up there. It's real quiet, and I like my spot. It's on the second-floor lounge, smack dab overlooking the bridge. I moved a table next to the window and a chair. I like it, it's secluded. That's where I was.'

Spencer was silent. His breath was short. He knew he was hearing about the last minutes of Kristina's life, and he couldn't bring himself to question Frankie, nor hurry him along.

'By the time I saw her,' Frankie said, 'she was already halfway down the bridge, and very wobbly. Very. I got a bad feeling in my chest right away, watching her. I actually opened the window, but decided against yelling. I was afraid to scare her further. So I watched for a few seconds, and then she tripped. She just kind of slipped on the snow, and fell over, I nearly jumped out of my skin, I didn't have enough time to react, to do anything. She slipped, but held on to the wall and climbed back up and just lay there for a few seconds. She must've been so scared.'

'She lay there naked in the snow?'

'Yes.' Frankie shrugged. 'I know it sounds weird. But she was a philosophy major. There are men in Tibet who pierce their bodies or eat swords or walk on hot coals and don't get hurt. She had this gift. She successfully steeled her body against the cold.'

Not in the last battle of her life, thought Spencer.

'I watched her,' Frankie continued, 'I was still panicked. Then I saw her jump four feet down off the wall, and she never does that. She usually turns around and walks back. I understood that she must've been very scared. She was at the end of the bridge, I was real relieved. I shouted something at her. Like, hey Krissy, well done, you crazy kid. Something like that.'

'Did she hear you?'

'I really thought she did. I really did. Because she stopped and looked around, kind of. She looked up and then into the woods behind Feldberg. I thought she didn't know where my voice was coming from. So I yelled at her again. She looked around her.'

'And then?' Spencer was stiff, his fingers gripping the phone.

'And then she walked out of view down the path behind Feldberg.'

'Into the woods?'

'I don't know. I guess. I didn't see her then.'

'What did you do?'

'I thought, silly girl. I shook my head. Kind of remembered that she was scared shitless of the dark. Whenever we walked her dog behind Hinman Hall, she hung on to my sleeve and didn't let go.'

Spencer was shuddering, the hand holding the tape recorder was shaking. He was remembering the black timber of the ancient Douglas firs.

Frankie continued, 'I closed the window, and tried to look at my books some more. But it was late '

'How late?'

'Plenty late. I wrapped up my books '

'Right then and there?'

'Yes. I was tired. I closed them all up. Put them into my backpack, put on my coat, zipped in, put my gloves on, put the hood on. How long would you say that all took me?'

'Maybe five minutes?'

'Maybe. Seven, or so. Eight? No, not as much as eight. No, wait, I went to the bathroom first. Yes. So maybe fifteen minutes. Yes, that's right '

'You were in the bathroom for ten minutes?'

'About, yes. I washed my hands, too, washed my face. Eight to ten minutes. That would make sense, because when I got back to Epsilon, it was, like, one-forty.'

'About half an hour after Kristina disappeared into the woods?'