'She was broke,' Spencer agreed. 'Her grandmother left it to her. Kristina came into nine million dollars on Monday, wrote out a will on Tuesday, and died early Wednesday morning. And left all her money to you.'

Conni put the letter down on the table. 'This is ridiculous. I didn't know about any money.'

Albert said to Spencer, 'None of us did.'

Jim remained quiet. 'It doesn't matter. We can say what we like, right? Point is, she left us her money and then she died. Looks like she was killed.' Jim suppressed a large, pained sound; it came out as a low gurgle. 'But, detective, it could've been an accident. She drinks and she goes out there in the cold. She could've lost consciousness.'

Nodding, Spencer said, 'She could have, yes. But something tells me she didn't. Call it my gut instinct.'

'You may be right,' said Jim. 'She was terrified of the dark.'

Spencer nodded.

Will asked, 'Why would Kristina not turn around and go back the way she came? That's what I want to know. What would make a frightened and cold girl continue into the woods?' Spencer nudged Will under the table and shook his head. He didn't want Will to say anything about Frankie's seeing Kristina on the bridge, not yet.

'Maybe she got scared, maybe she screamed,' said Conni, giggling nervously. 'I would've.'

Will shook his head. 'I don't think so. Screaming would've gone along with struggling, and there was no struggling.'

'She couldn't have struggled very much even if she wanted to,' said Jim, his mouth tense, his eyes glistening. 'She'd been hurt badly in a car accident.'

Conni said, 'Maybe ' and Spencer cut her off. 'Listen, it's great that you guys want to play amateur sleuths here, but can we get back to the money?'

'There's nothing to get back to,' said Albert.

'Yeah,' said Jim. 'We didn't know about it.'

'Didn't, huh?'

'She had money in the bank. So what?' said Conni, refraining from biting her lip while she spoke.

'What Detective O'Malley is trying to say,' interjected Will, 'is that it's worrying that the person who wills a fortune to three people just happens to die less than twelve hours later.'

'Why is that so odd?' said Jim. 'We didn't know about the money, so it doesn't matter.'

Spencer stared at Jim, who didn't take his eyes off Spencer. He did not fidget or wince. Maybe Jim didn't know about the money, thought Spencer. But Albert gave me exactly the same look, and Conni, though nervous, doesn't seem nervous at all about the money, as if she is nervous about something completely different. Maybe none of them knew about the money. How odd. Can this kind of money have nothing to do with her death? I refuse to believe it. He peered at them more closely, hoping to unnerve them by his stare. They didn't move.

Jim said, 'I mean, I know it looks bad for us and everything, but I'm telling you, her dying and the will it's just a coincidence.'

'Coincidence, huh? Let me ask you this who would've gotten her money had she not left a will?'

Conni stared at Spencer. She seemed more relaxed than the day before, but she couldn't help fidgeting. Albert was exactly the same as the night before composed and sensible. Jim was tense, but not nervous.

'How do we know?' Conni said. 'Maybe her ex?'

Shaking his head and getting up from the table, Spencer said, 'No. She divorced him, so he's not entitled to anything. Someone from her family?'

Albert, Conni, and Jim exchanged puzzled looks. 'I think she told me her father was dead,' Conni said tentatively.

'And she was an only child,' added Jim.

'Kristina said her mother was deranged or something.' Albert lowered his voice. 'She told me something about her mother needing a lot of medication to stop screaming.'

'She told you that?' Conni asked, turning to Albert. It was the first time she had looked at him since they sat down.

'Why was her mother screaming?' Spencer asked Albert, cutting Conni off. There was going to be no jealous bickering at his interrogation table.

'She didn't say,' Albert replied.

'If there is a mother, then she would be entitled to Krishna's money,' Spencer said.

Shaking his head, Albert said, 'Guess so.' He was pale and his dark eyes seemed darker than usual.

Their reactions unsettled Spencer's stomach. They seemed naturally surprised, then concerned and helpful. What was it about Kristina that they had failed to mention? Spencer was hard pressed to remember the confrontation with Jim. Oh yeah, Jim found her and ran away. And Conni was unaccountably missing from her room for half an hour. Albert came to Kristina's room after midnight to say good-bye.

'I don't understand,' said Conni. 'Why would Krissy leave us her money? We don't want her money. She knows that.'

'Does she?' asked Spencer. 'Does she know that?'

'Of course she knows that,' Jim said irritably. He seemed to have gotten braver with his friends around him, though Spencer noted there was no love lost among the three of them. There was a cold, impenetrable being sitting in the spaces between them, pushing them apart with its long sharp fingers.

Spencer shrugged. 'You were the closest thing she had to a family. Nine million dollars. That's a lot of money to be split three ways.'

They didn't say anything. Spencer got a strange feeling while watching them. They seemed to be thinking about things other than Kristina's money. Albert was still pale, and his black eyes shone. Conni was biting her lip, while Jim looked defiantly straight at Spencer, as if to say, screw you. Hell with you. I did nothing wrong, and my life is already pretty much ruined. I don't care what you think or what you do with me. Jim didn't have to say a word, but his challenging wounded gaze screamed at Spencer across the white Formica table.

After a few minutes Albert asked, 'What do you want from us, Detective O'Malley?'

'I want to know what you three were doing between twelve and two a.m. Wednesday morning, November twenty-fourth. That's it.'

Conni shifted hard in her seat. Jim rolled his eyes. Albert stared straight at Spencer. 'What do you want to know, detective?'

'Well, this is what I have so far Jim says he was in his room all night, but no one had seen him after eleven, and when Conni tried to reach him at one, he didn't pick up the phone. Albert says he was watching a movie in the lounge, but when Conni went in to look for him he wasn't there. The kid Tim had been asleep for half the movie, so he isn't sure of anything. And Conni was admittedly out and about on campus looking for Albert in the snowstorm, gone from her room for forty minutes. What does this all mean ?'

Kyle stuck his head into the room. 'Sorry to bother you, but the chief wants to see you pronto.'

'Tell him we're in the middle of a '

Widening his eyes, Kyle said, 'Now, the chief said. Now.'

Spencer shot up. 'We'll be right back.'

'Are we free to go?' asked Jim.

'Wait. We'll be back in a minute.'

And then Spencer and Will left Albert, Conni, and Jim alone.

Kyle was waiting for them outside. 'How did I do?' he asked.

'Great, Kyle,' Spencer told him. Just the timing sucked.

Will went to the bathroom and to call his wife. Spencer went into a small dark room, adjoining the questioning room, turned on the monitor, sat down in a chair with his face to the two-way mirror, and listened.

At first they didn't talk much. Jim kept saying the police had no right to keep them there, and they could go anytime they pleased unless they were actually charged with something.

'Do you want to be charged with something?' asked Albert.

'What are you talking about? Of course not.'

'Then shut up.'

Jim gave Albert a withering look.

Conni said, 'It's horrible that she left us her money. Horrible.'

'Yes,' Albert said. 'It really is. How could she have left us her money?'

'It's horrible she's dead,' said Jim. 'That's the horrible part.'

Yes, the other two agreed. That was horrible.

They sat for a while after that, staring at their hands.

'Well, what are we going to do now?' said Conni, looking hopefully to Albert, as if he had all the answers.

'I don't know what you guys are going to do, but I know what I'm going to do.'

The mirror was across from the three of them, but Albert got up, paced absentmindedly around the room for a few seconds, and then sat down with his back to the mirror, across from Conni and Jim. Spencer couldn't see Albert's face, nor Conni's. Getting up, he moved a few feet to the left so that he could watch them at an angle.

'She is dead. I don't want her money,' said Albert.

'Really?' said Conni.

'Really,' Albert answered firmly. 'She was my friend, and it's awful enough she is dead, without compounding her death by profiting from it,' said Albert quietly, and Spencer wasn't sure if it was meant genuinely or ironically. 'I don't want her money.'

'You were never much for money, were you, Albert?' Conni said.

'Never. You know how I feel about it. The less I have, the better I feel. I'm sure in large doses it ruins you.'

'But what are you going to do? She meant for you to have it.'

'No,' said Albert, and again Spencer wished to hell he could see Albert's face. 'She did not mean for me to have it.'

There was a pause, a silence, in the staccato conversation. Spencer watched Conni and Jim, and they watched Albert. Conni's face was tender; Jim's was cold.

Interesting, thought Spencer. There's something I haven't yet been privy to here. They've kept me out of their little secret, and by God, I'm going to find out what it is.

When the sound of Albert's words stopped lingering in the air, he spoke again. 'I'm going to donate my share to Red Leaves House.'

'You are?' said Conni incredulously.

'Yes. Why does that surprise you?'

'Because, Albert, you don't have any money.' Conni laughed. 'You've never had a penny. It's us who don't need her money, but you ... you could actually use some.'

'I don't need to use her money,' Albert said bitterly. 'I don't want her money. I won't know what to do with it, and plus, I want to earn my money honestly. I'm going to earn my money,' he corrected himself, and ran his right hand through his black hair, adjusting his ponytail, which for some reason began to irritate Spencer.

'It was nice of her to think of us,' said Conni.

When was she going to cry again? wondered Spencer. When is that giddy, emotional girl going to break down again over the death of her best friend? There was nothing on Conni's face that resembled bereavement.

'Where do you suppose she got that money from?' asked Jim.

'Yeah, and why didn't she leave any to her ex-husband?' said Conni.

'I can't believe she had a husband.' Something must have just occurred to Jim, because he started up from his seat and then sat back down in a hurry, looking restlessly around the room. He seemed upset and shaken.

'What's the matter, Jimmy?' asked Conni.

'Nothing, nothing,' he quickly said. 'Forgot to ask the detective something.' Pause. 'Forgot to ask him when she got divorced from this Howard Kim.'

'Oh, Jimmy, who cares now?' said Conni. 'It's all just water under the bridge. She's dead. What are you going to do, be mad at a dead person?'

'Why not?' said Albert. 'You are.'

Conni flushed. 'I'm not mad at her, Albert. She's dead. I'm not mad at her anymore.'

'No, I'll bet you're not,' Albert said quietly, but Spencer heard him, and Jim heard him too, for his gaze weakened.

He looked away, saying, 'Back to this money thing. You're going to give your share to Red Leaves?'

'Yes,' said Albert. 'They could use it. That place meant everything to her. And she meant everything to the girls she took care of. Why, they got more attached to Krissy than they did to their own babies.'

'Yeah, you're right. It did mean a lot to her,' said Conni. 'Well, I certainly don't need her money. How would it look for a penniless orphan to give her money away but for me to keep it?'

'Like you had some sense,' said Albert. 'I feel wrong taking it. You should keep it.'

Conni raised her voice. 'I'm not going to keep her money what are you, kidding me?'

'Think about traveling to Europe. You always wanted to do that.'

'Albert, I always wanted to do that with you,' Conni said with emotion.

'You still can, babe.'

'Albert Maplethorpe, I certainly don't want to travel through Europe with you on her money.'

'That would be ironic, indeed,' said Jim. He was wearing a black sweater out of which he kept obsessively picking light dog hairs.