'How long has the money been in her account?'

'Since last Monday.'

Spencer thought about it for two seconds. 'What would've happened to her money if she had died without this letter?'

'What always happens to the money,' replied Mr Carmichael. 'It would've gone to her closest living relative.'

Spencer held his breath. 'Like a ...'

'Husband. Sure. Or a child. I don't know the line of succession that well.'

'I think Speaker of the House is third,' said Spencer.

Mr Carmichael just stared at him.

'A husband ... or a child,' Spencer repeated. 'Does ex-husband count?'

'I don't think so.' Mr Carmichael's eyebrows came together. 'Isn't that all kind of moot, anyway? Now?'

'Yes, yes, I suppose it is.'

But did the Speaker of the House know about the notarized letter that made it all moot? There was no husband and there was no child. Who would have been third?

Spencer left the bank with Krishna's belongings in a bag under his arm.

He knew what had prompted Kristina to write a brief will. It had been written on the heels of a nine-million-dollar inheritance and a near-death on Monday evening. No one but her and Mr Carmichael knew she had written it, of that Spencer was sure. Without that will, who would have gotten all of Kristina Sinclair's money?

Back in his car, Spencer called in to the station. The dispatcher told him to go to Hitchcock. The medical examiner was there, waiting for permission to perform the autopsy.

'Permission from whom?' Spencer asked the medical examiner when he got to the dungeon of the hospital.

'Permission from her family,' the medical examiner replied. Dr Earl Innis was a short, balding, heavyset man perpetually out of breath.

'Her family,' repeated Spencer. 'I see. Well, her father is dead, her mother is God knows where, and she's got no siblings. She does have an ex-husband, though. Would you like me to contact him?'

'Yes,' said Innis.

Spencer nodded. Howard Kim, I don't know how you felt about your recently exed wife, married at sixteen, dead at twenty-one, but I'll soon find out.

He called the New York operator from Dartmouth-Hitchcock and gave Howard's new address in New York City. He got an answering machine. Spencer looked at his watch. Six-twenty. Mr Kim should be just strolling in from work. 'This is Detective O'Malley from Hanover, New Hampshire, calling for Howard Kim. It's about '

The phone was picked up. 'Yes,' said a voice, in a slightly accented English.

'Mr Kim?'

'Yes?'

'Hello, sir. It's about Kristina Kim, your ex-w '

'Yes? Is everything all right?'

'No, sir, I'm afraid something terrible has happened,' said Spencer.

The voice on the other end said, 'Is she dead?'

'I'm sorry. Yes. Would it be possible for you to drive up?'

Howard Kim's voice was faint. 'I'll be there at ten-thirty. I'm leaving now.'

'Come to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Ask the front desk to page Detective O'Malley or Dr Innis.'

Howard hung up, and eventually Spencer hung up, too.

He had four hours to kill. It had gotten dark, and that usually meant the end of the day.

The end of the day meant drink. But his day was not nearly done, so he drove to Everything but Anchovies instead, and had a bowl of chili and a turkey club. Then, because he had the time, he had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And then two helpings of rice pudding. And then, because he had so much food in him to absorb the liquor, he went around the corner to Murphy's and had two double Southern Comforts on the rocks. It was strong stuff. How could she have drunk it?

Spencer looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty. The medical examiner from Concord was waiting to do the autopsy. Spencer was waiting for Howard. Ed Landers was back down in Concord in his lab doing his work. Will had long gone home.

Spencer walked past the little Christmas trees in the town square, and past Baker Library. He made a left onto Tuck Mall and walked to Hinman Hall in the snow. It was Friday night, the Friday night he had been going to take Kristina to Jesse's on their first date. Instead Spencer was waiting for permission from Kristina's ex-husband to cut her open to see if there were any clues inside her to the nine million dollars she had left her three best friends.

CHAPTER SIX.

Disposition of the Estate

Spencer called Will Baker, asking him to come back to work. 'I've brought the three kids back to the station. I want to play show and tell with Kristina's safety-deposit box contents. Come on, Will, just for an hour.'

'Really for an hour, O'Malley? Tell it like it is.'

'Actually for the rest of the night, Will. She is going to be autopsied tonight.'

Fell had long finished his shift. It was late Friday night, and there still was no one from the Concord DA's office at Hanover. 'Explain that,' Spencer said to Will.

'I can't. I have no explanation.'

Spencer called Fell at home. 'Raymond,' said Spencer calmly into the phone, 'I'm looking around the headquarters, and you know what I don't see around here?'

'No, sir, what?'

'I don't see our friends from Concord, Ray. Do you know why that is?'

Silence on the other end of the phone. Spencer turned his eyes to the ceiling and cursed out loud. Will placed a helpful hand on Spencer's shoulder. 'Ray?'

Silence.

'Ray!' much louder.

Will got the phone away from Spencer. After five minutes of listening and nodding, Will hung up the phone and said, 'They're not here.'

'No! Really? I don't believe it.'

'It's true. They're not coming.'

'Not coming. This is interesting. Are they deeming our matters here not important enough? Did he call them?'

Will, trying hard to cover for Ray, said, 'Didn't call them, per se.'

Spencer's eyes widened. 'Did he forget to call them?'

'Didn't forget.'

'Will,' said Spencer, 'it's been a long day, and this is not a party. I don't want to play charades. What exactly did Fell do? Per se.'

'He called them, but it was after six when he did, and they had all gone home.'

'What do you mean, all?'

'Don't you remember last weekend?'

'All too well.'

'Everybody who worked was promised time off this weekend.'

'Yeah, except me. But he didn't call them until six?'

'No, he got busy. Says he did everything else.'

'What everything else?' Spencer shouted. 'There was nothing else to do!'

'Tracy,' said Will quietly. 'What are you hyperventilating about? It's a homicide case, and it's all yours till Monday.'

Spencer calmed down. That was true. That wasn't such a bad thing. 'Ours, Will, ours.'

'Yours, partner. I got family obligations this weekend.'

Spencer thought about it. 'That's too bad, Will. You should see what I found.'

'In her room?'

'Oh, no. You know her room was bare.' Spencer paused. 'But her safety-deposit box wasn't.'

Will widened his eyes. Will didn't usually get excited about evidence, but the divorce decree and the will excited him. Then the ever cautious Will said, 'But the coroner hasn't determined the cause of death, has he? Conceivably, she could've lost consciousness and frozen.' They were talking in hushed tones. The door to the questioning room was open and they could see Conni's and Jim's backs.

'It's possible, yes. But I'm telling you my instincts are out on this one. She did not fall into the snow and die flat on her back with her arms outstretched and her eyes closed by Providence.'

'O'Malley, sometimes your instincts are wrong. Remember the Hammonds?'

Spencer remembered. When they were still patrolmen, he and Will had frequently rounded up a quiet, diminutive Mr Hammond because Mrs Hammond called up screaming to the dispatcher. Every Saturday the wife was badly bruised, and he was too. She would scream at them to take him, to book him, to hold him in jail overnight because she was pressing charges in the morning. The husband never said a word against his wife, never offered a word of explanation for why he beat her. He rarely spoke.

One Saturday night, Spencer and Will came to the house a little before the time of her customary phone call and witnessed a crazed and obviously drunk Mrs Hammond beating the shit out of a cowering Mr Hammond with a one-quart aluminum pan and then beating herself in the face with the same pan before staggering to the phone. They rang the doorbell immediately. The pot was still in her hands. She was surprised they had come so quickly and couldn't understand why they had to arrest her.

Till the very last Saturday, Spencer had maintained that Mr Hammond was the very profile of a habitual wife abuser.

'All right, all right,' Spencer said tonight. 'The Hammonds broke my instinct bank. But who would've known?'

'No one. All I'm saying here is keep an open mind, O'Malley. Things look one way here, but we don't know shit, and those kids out there, they're likely as not completely innocent.'

'You won't say that after you see this.' Spencer pointed to the manila envelope.

'Can't wait,' said Will.

The five of them sat in the questioning room. Conni sat between Albert and Jim, their chairs huddled close together, across the round table from the two detectives, in an icy stand-off. There was nothing in the bare room to look at except one another.

Spencer began. 'It has come to my attention that there were a few things you guys left out yesterday when we spoke at such length. Anyone care to comment?'

But the three of them wouldn't be roped into anything. They sat there Albert impassively, Jim sullenly, Conni watchfully and did not say a word.

Spencer passed the divorce document to them and then Kristina's will and watched them as they read, as they shifted in their seats, or remained completely calm, or stared at him with amazement.

'Kristina was married?' gasped Conni.

'Kristina had nine million dollars?' exclaimed Albert.

'I thought Kim was a strange name for her,' said Jim. 'What was her real name?'

'Sinclair,' said Spencer. 'Kristina Morgan Sinclair.'

'We roomed together for two years and she never told me she was married. Jim, did you know she was married?'

He shook his head. Albert did too.

'Nine million dollars,' said Jim.

'Nine million dollars,' echoed Albert.

'Where would she get that kind of money from?' asked Conni. 'She was always so broke.'