'Good. Can we begin? I'll have Ralph wheel it in.'

Spencer leaned against the wall for support. Had the word it made him feel suddenly queasy? He waited five minutes for Kristina's body to be brought over to the cold room. Glancing at him, Dr Innis, said, 'Detective O'Malley, I don't have all night. Are we ready?'

'I'm I'm ' Spencer stammered. His back was still against the wall. 'I'm sorry, doctor, if you could excuse me for just a minute.' Spencer turned and walked out of the room.

He walked down the corridor to Will and Howard. 'Will, can I have a word with you?' he said. They went inside a small waiting room, and Spencer closed the door. He handed the white lab coat to Will.

'What's this?'

'Will?' Spencer said. 'Feel like staying here for three hours?'

'No,' was Will's quick response.

'Go on. You know one of us has to be in there.'

'This is why I'm glad you're detective-sergeant and I'm just plain detective.'

'As detective-sergeant then, I'm ordering you to go in there.'

'No, thank you. You go. You live for that stuff.'

'You're confusing me with Ray Fell.'

'Yeah, well, where is he when you need him?' said Will, shaking his head. 'O'Malley, it's ten at night.'

'Tell me something I don't know.'

They looked at each other. 'Will, this is important,' said Spencer.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' Will sighed. 'All right. Let me call my wife. Tell her I'm not coming home anytime soon.'

It had been several years since Will stayed with Spencer all hours of the night. Spencer wished there had been more of those hours he missed Will.

He shook Will's hand. 'Will, you know I'd do it, I'd go in,' Spencer said quietly. 'But I just can't on this one, okay? Wish I could. I just can't.'

Patting him gently, Will said without artifice, 'Tracy, I don't get you at all sometimes. But you don't have to explain.'

Wordlessly relieved, Spencer smiled.

'Should I wait for the death certificate if you aren't back?'

'I'll be back, don't worry.' Seeing Will's slightly disappointed face, Spencer added, 'We'll wait for it together, okay?' Despite the morbidity, he understood Will's anticipation. It wasn't every day they waited for a death certificate. Even rarer when they didn't know what was going to go on it.

When Spencer came out into the corridor, he said to Howard, 'What do you say we go check you into a hotel, and we'll talk there?'

Howard, his bloodshot, tired brown eyes rimmed with wire glasses, nodded. 'I usually stay at the Hanover Inn,' he said.

'That's fine,' said Spencer, thinking, usually?

When he and Howard were at the Hanover Inn, Howard said to Spencer, 'Your partner seems like a good officer. Wish we had more like him in New York.'

You once did, Spencer wanted to tell him. You once had me. But then my wife died. And who wanted me then, except a town of ten thousand people in the middle of the mountains?

Spencer wanted to help Howard with his bags, but Howard didn't have any. 'I came too quick. Didn't even pack,' Howard said apologetically, as if Spencer would somehow mind not being able to help him with his luggage.

'Doesn't matter. Want a cup of coffee?'

'Yes. Maybe some dinner, too. Have you eaten?'

'I have, but I'll have some coffee.'

They went to the hotel's Ivy Grill. Howard ordered a shrimp cocktail and a steak. Spencer ordered a whiskey and a coffee and drank them alternately. One sip of whiskey, one sip of coffee.

Howard was staring at him. 'Don't want to go to sleep,' Spencer said as a non sequitur, by way of explaining. Explaining what?

'No explanation necessary,' said Howard coolly.

Or even wanted, thought Spencer. 'So Howard, tell me, how does a sixteen-year-old white girl marry an Asian lawyer from '

'Hong Kong.'

'- Hong Kong, a good ten years her senior?'

'We were in love?' Howard said as a question rather than an answer. 'We could not wait to be together?'

Spencer raised his glass. 'My condolences to a grieving ex-husband.'

Silence.

'You said earlier you were married in name only.'

Howard fumbled with his fork, which fell to the floor. He had shown little interest in eating his shrimp cocktail. The Ivy Grill was nearly empty; it was getting ready to close. 'Kristina was a very nice girl,' said Howard, trying to stay composed. 'I tried to help her as much I could.'

'I don't doubt that. When was the last time you saw her?'

'Sunday afternoon.'

Spencer for an instant thought he meant this past Sunday and was filled with a kind of insane hope that maybe, just maybe, things weren't what they seemed. Maybe she had gone home, was alive for her last Thanksgiving, had some turkey, spent time with her family ... was alive for a few more days.

'Sunday before Thanksgiving,' added Howard. Spencer sank back into his upholstered chair. 'She gave me the divorce papers.'

Spencer didn't know what to ask next. He tried to focus himself by taking a sip a gulp of bourbon. 'When did you see her last?'

'Like I said, Sunday before Thanksgiving.'

'Yes. Yes, of course. I meant, what were your whereabouts on Tuesday night, November twenty-third?'

'Am I under suspicion, Detective O'Malley?'

'As much as anyone else is. We have to question everybody. That's our job. You said so yourself.'

'Is that why you called me here? To question me?'

'Yes,' said Spencer. 'You were her husband until a week ago. What kind of law do you practice, Mr Kim?'

'I practice business law in Chinatown, detective. For your information, I was in court until eight o'clock in the evening, and then I was home.'

'By yourself?'

'No, wait. Last Tuesday? I went out to dinner with one of my clients.'

Spencer wrote it down in his notebook. 'His name?'

'Her name,' Howard corrected. 'Anna Chung.'

Spencer looked up from his notebook. Howard stared back calmly. 'Yes, Detective O'Malley. I have a life.'

'The ink was not dry on the papers.'

'I told you, we were not married in the proper sense of the word.'

'How were you married then?'

Howard thought about it. 'Improperly,' he finally said.

The waiter took away Howard's shrimp cocktail untouched, and brought him filet mignon, medium rare, with a baked potato and garden vegetables.

'Eat, Howard,' Spencer said. 'I'll be brief. It's been difficult getting information from people who are supposed to be her friends and/or ex-husbands. Everyone is tight-lipped, uncooperative, or downright hostile. As if I should just mind my own business, really. As if it's none of my concern that this girl is found dead at twenty-one, dead in the snow for nine days while her friends merrily or otherwise go about their business, without bothering to check or notice or report that their friend is missing. Well, I'm going to tell you, it is my business. And I don't want to make an example out of you, Mr Kim, but I've just about had enough. I've had no sleep, I'm very tired, and the girl is, after all, dead. And I will bet my mother's house that she is not accidentally dead, no matter that you and her friends would like me to think so.'

'I do not want you to think anything, Detective O'Malley,' Howard said coldly.

'Wait.' Spencer had a sip of coffee. 'So if I have to drag you to the police station and keep you there until you answer every question to my total satisfaction, I'll do just that and be happy that at least I'm keeping you up, too. Do you understand? Or would you like to call your lawyer?' Spencer finished.

Howard Kim slowly took a bite out of his steak, chewed it, swallowed it, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and then said, 'I understand.'

'Good.'

'You think her death was not accidental?'

'It's a hunch I have. Call it my man's intuition. There was no reason for her to be dead. Other than she was naked in the year's worst snowstorm. You'll see the autopsy report will bear me out. She was killed.'

'Were there marks on her?'

'Not that I saw. There could've been. She might have been drinking.'

'Yes.'

Spencer studied Howard for a measured moment, and then said, 'She liked to drink?'

Howard nodded. 'She was a college student.'

'Yeah, so what? I like to drink too,' said Spencer. 'You don't find me naked and dead.'

'You weren't unlucky.'

'Wrong. I wasn't killed. I'm plenty unlucky.' Spencer took a quick sip from his whiskey glass.

'Detective,' Howard said quietly. 'I have an alibi.'

'Will Anna Chung support it?'

'Yes,' said Howard, even quieter.

'Okay,' Spencer said. He believed him. 'Still, you haven't explained.'

'Yes?'

'Why would she marry you?'

'Love?'

'Not love.'

'Would you believe necessity?'

Spencer thought it over. 'You got her pregnant?' he asked incredulously.

'Well,' said Howard, wiping his mouth and throwing the napkin into the uneaten meat, 'she was certainly pregnant.'

Spencer tried not to breathe so he wouldn't miss a thing. 'What does that mean?'

'I mean, she was pregnant when we married.'

'But not by you.'

'That is right.'

'God! Well, by who then?'

Howard was silent.

'And why wouldn't she marry him instead of you?'

'I do not know,' said Howard.

'Who was it?'

'I do not know.'