'Doctor, I would say freezing to death is not dying of natural causes.'

'She did not freeze to death. She died, and then froze.'

'Really?'

'Yes. Did you want a different answer?'

'No, that's exactly the answer I expected.'

'Well, you were right. Congratulate your instincts.'

Spencer waited. The doctor did not offer any details, standing in the anteroom to the autopsy quarters, a small hospital-white area with glass windows, glass doors, and fluorescent lights. A cold room.

Coughing, Spencer said, 'Dr Innis, umm, the cause of death?'

'Ah, yes. Would you like to see?'

Spencer shook his head violently. 'No.'

'Fine.' The doctor began to take off his soiled gloves. Spencer was repulsed.

The doctor did not speak until the gloves were off and in the garbage container. Spencer felt better.

The doctor said, 'Death by asphyxiation. She was smothered.'

Spencer couldn't even say he was surprised. He had been saying those words in his head for the past twenty-four hours. The doctor's verdict was but a hollow echo of his own thoughts. Having seen nothing, having felt nothing, having not cut through any flesh or watched or smelled any part of a young woman's corpse, Spencer had thought, death by suffocation.

'I can't say I'm surprised,' he said finally.

Dr Innis raised his eyebrows. 'No? Perhaps you should also be a medical examiner, Detective O'Malley. You seem too cynical to be in your line of work. A young woman dies and you immediately suspect foul play? Hope you haven't shared your thoughts with anyone. In a court of law, the defense will say I was but a pawn in your hands.'

Spencer smiled wanly. 'Weren't you, doctor?'

Dr Innis didn't find that amusing. 'Do you want to know what happened to her, or not?'

'Yes, yes, of course,' said Spencer. 'Tell me.'

'The subdural matter around the brain showed signs of muscle-fiber softening, which began before she froze. If she just fell asleep in the snow, her brain would not decompose until her body temperature was too low to sustain bodily functions, so by the time she died she'd be nearly frozen anyway. No, she died, and then froze fast but not fast enough to stop the supersensitive brain tissue from deteriorating. Normally, losing a degree and a half per hour, she'd cool to the temperature of the environment in twenty-four hours and start to lose rigor in another six or so. But it's freezing cold, the wind-chill factor must have been well below zero Fahrenheit. I remember that night. The papers said it was the coldest night in seventy years. So now she's losing more like a degree and a half a minute. She must have cooled to the temperature of her environment in an hour. Voil no rigor, no decomposition, and the lividity in her back is mild when you consider she'd been lying prone for nine days. Anyway, freezing slowed the more advanced dying process in the brain but didn't stop it. During the past twenty-four hours while the rest of the body thawed and decomposed, the brain was achieving ... skeletal decomposition, so to speak.'

Innis seemed satisfied he had to explain all that to Spencer, who nodded politely but hadn't heard anything he didn't already know. 'I see. That makes sense. Anything else?'

'Yes. A telltale sign of suffocation.'

'The eyes?' said Spencer.

'Yes, how did you know? Did you know what to look for?'

Yes, a dead naked girl with black boots and nine million dollars, and stuck in the middle of a jealous quadrangle. I'm real good at finding that. Spencer shook his head. 'No, not really.' He wanted not to show how upset he was.

'Yes, the eyes,' said Innis. 'The capillaries were broken. Broken from the pressure on the head that is caused by the severe pressure on the pulmonary artery in the neck and the absence of oxygen from the head for a time long enough to cause cessation of the functioning of the parasympathetic system and subsequent heart failure. The pressure on the eyes was so great they actually hemorrhaged up into the temporal lobes. You sure you don't want to see?'

Spencer was hurting. 'Someone with great strength?' he said, his voice breaking.

'No, not at all. She was trying very hard to breathe. She fought for every last breath. The effort nearly ruptured her pulmonary artery.'

'Yeah,' Spencer said, struggling to speak normally. 'She just couldn't fight him off.'

'Do you know it's a him, detective? No, she couldn't fight. Her left shoulder was severely incapacitated.'

'Yes, yes.' Spencer nodded. 'That was from the day before. She'd been in an accident.'

'Well, that explains some of the injuries they looked a little old. She had a broken right rib, and a cranial contusion. I'm surprised she was able to function. Did she go to the hospital?'

'No. She didn't want to.'

Dr Innis wiped his brow. 'Too bad. It would've saved her life.'

'How do you figure?'

'Because the hospital would've never let her out. The shoulder especially. That shoulder was an awful mess. She would've required surgery on it she had an infected multiple fracture.'

Spencer was unable to speak.

Dr Innis looked as pleased as if he'd just found the killer, not told Spencer that Kristina was weak.

'She was in bad shape,' Innis said. 'Which is why anyone, including my seven-year-old granddaughter, could've overpowered her. She couldn't struggle except with her right hand.'

'Do you think,' Spencer asked haltingly, 'that she struggled? There are no marks on her.'

The doctor smiled. 'That's where you're wrong, detective. You do need the state medical examiner, after all. And I thought I might be out of a job with you knowing all you know and still nodding away there. There are marks on her. There's a large wound at the back of her head, on the occipital lobe. Slight subdural hematoma. She probably lost consciousness.'

'She was hit?' Spencer exclaimed. God, Will was right, it was a rape-murder.

'Maybe. I think she was pushed, or she fell.'

'Fell?'

'Yes. She could've been backing away, tripped and fallen, hit her head on a log, a stone. It wasn't a sharp object, it didn't penetrate the skin, but there was bruising. This is just my theory, you understand. Or she was shoved. She fell, hit her head, became dazed, maybe unconscious for a few seconds. From then on it was easy. There are two symmetrical marks on the insides of her upper arms and two marks on her chest, just above the thoracic cavity. Contusions with broken blood vessels below the skin. What does that tell you, detective?'

Spencer thought about it for a moment. 'Someone sat on her arms and chest. Knee marks.'

'Exactly. Knee marks. Now, this girl, she was fighting for her life, trying to breathe '

Spencer interrupted, 'What was she suffocated with? A hand?'

'No, no, that would have left a nice imprint on her face. No, it was a large, absorbent object. There are no specific points of pressure from fingers on her face. Maybe a pillow? Any twelve-inch-square pillow would do.'

Spencer couldn't look at the doctor.

'Detective O'Malley,' Innis said, his manner becoming gentler, 'I found something under her nails. Her killer might have been scratched up, gouged.'

'What was under her fingernails?'

'Blood,' replied the doctor. 'Small hair fibers.'

'Ahh. Why didn't you say so?'

'I was waiting for you to ask.'

'What color hair?'

'I did not examine it that closely, detective. I have a microscope, though. Would you like to take a look yourself?'

Spencer almost said yes. But what did he know about hair samples?

'Do you have a sample for me to compare it against?' asked Innis.

Spencer almost said yes, and then stopped. They were just three stupid kids. He shook his head, and then thought of something. 'Are you ruling out it was a female?'

'I never rule anything out, detective, unless I'm absolutely sure.'

'Well, a female couldn't have raped her.'

'Who said anyone raped her?'

'She wasn't raped?'

'No.'

'No? You're sure? You're absolutely sure?'

'Am I sure?' Innis chuckled. 'This is my job. Do I ask you if you're sure how to write a ticket, or interrogate a suspect? She wasn't sexually assaulted, there is no tearing of her vaginal walls, there's no sperm '

'He could've used a condom,' Spencer said.

'Who? The killer? What, before he raped her, he could've said, excuse me while I put this on? Very thoughtful of him. Did he ask her to hold the pillow while he was adjusting the rubber, or did he put the pillow under her bruised head for added comfort? No, detective, I already told you, whatever the motive was, sex wasn't it.'

Spencer wished it had been. He couldn't believe it, but he was wishing she had been brutalized by a total stranger.

Bowing his head, Spencer said, 'I'll give you something to work with as far as hair and blood samples.'

'Oh, you have something? Good. I'll get it to the lab.'

'Which lab do you mean, the DNA lab in Cellmark? In South Carolina? Why, that takes months!' Spencer exclaimed.

'We'll do a simpler blood and hair test in Concord.'

'How long will that take?'

'You're very impatient, Detective O'Malley. A minute ago you didn't have a case.'

'That's where you're wrong, doctor. I've had a case since yesterday. I just didn't have any evidence. How long?'

Dr Innis thought about it. 'A few days. Maybe a week.'

'Faster than that.'

'Detective, New Hampshire is a state of a million people and has only one medical examiner me. Hanover is a town of ten thousand. You'll wait.'

Spencer bit his lip but would not raise his voice at the coroner. 'Was she drunk?'

'Drunk?' Dr Howard said, panting, surprised. 'Why do you say that?'

'Was she?'

'I don't think so. I mean, I won't know till the blood work comes back, but there was nothing in her stomach, completely empty.'

Nodding, Spencer said, 'When will you know for sure?' But he would have bet his paycheck the last time in her life Kristina Sinclair Kim walked the wall, she was sober.

'I told you, detective-sergeant,' Dr Innis panted. 'A few days.'

'All right. Is the death certificate ready?'

'You'll have to wait for me to fill it out. I just finished with her.'

Spencer sat down in one of the chairs, muttering, 'I'm doing a lot of waiting at two in the morning, aren't I?'

Dr Innis heard him, because he turned around and said, 'And I'm still working at two in the morning, detective.'

'As am I, doctor,' said Spencer.

'No, Detective O'Malley, now you're just waiting.' And with that he left and Spencer was alone in the cold, stark room.

He was tired and his thoughts drifted, wandering to Kristina, walking backward in the snow, down the slope, why would she get off the path? And then, she's pushed, and falls, and can't breathe, she's trying to fight, but she can't breathe. Spencer's heart was aching. He tried to think of something else, of Howard Kim, of his marrying a girl he didn't know to live in America. Marrying Kristina Sinclair and taking her father's money. Where was Katherine Morgan Sinclair now? Address unknown. Spencer thought about John Henry Sinclair. Had he taken his own life? It seemed likely, with his only daughter in a scandal. But what could be worse than a sixteen-year-old marrying an Asian man she'd never met and moving to New York? Maybe he really had died of heart failure. Spencer's own heart was weakening just trying to wade through the muck. Spencer needed to find Katherine Morgan Sinclair.

Kristina, Kristina ... did you fight? Did you rage and scream into the good night, did you flail and gasp for your every last halting breath? Were you surprised by death?

Spencer drifted off, his head drooping to the side, and was awakened some time later by Dr Innis, who held a manila envelope under his arm.

'Here it is,' he said mildly. Spencer started, rubbed his eyes. He felt like shit, heavy-lidded and drained. Dr Innis, on the other hand, looked refreshed and alert. He wasn't sweating anymore and he wasn't panting. He even had a glow to his cheeks. This man must thrive on cutting people open in the middle of the night, thought Spencer. There is a word for night creatures like that. Anne Rice wrote about them.

'I did a preliminary analysis of her blood,' the doctor said. 'I was right. There was no alcohol in her system at all.'

Spencer nodded, his eyes burning. 'What time is it?'

'Five-thirty,' the doctor replied. 'You should go home and get some sleep. I'll have the lab work for you by Monday, all right? You can hang in there till Monday, can't you?'

'What choice do I have?' said Spencer, standing up and reaching out for the death certificate. Dr Innis pulled his hand back. 'It's not ready. I can't figure out the time of death. No rigor, no decomposition until yesterday in the morgue, no stomach contents. Also the photographs and x-rays are not ready to go in the case file. I'll send everything to your office Monday.'