'Well, why should you come?' Conni said mildly. 'The district attorneys don't come.'

'Of course they don't. But they ...' Spencer was stumped. They what? They don't wake up with sweats?

'What, detective?'

'Spencer. Call me Spencer.'

'AH right, Spencer,' said Conni. 'Why did you come?'

'I came ...' He looked down at the gray countertop. 'Well, you know, I've been thinking of you a little bit.'

'You have?' She smiled. 'Good or bad?'

'Neither. I've been thinking of you here, been thinking of you back at Dartmouth, too. Do you ever see your old friends?'

'You know, I was just going to ask you the same question. Do you ever see my old friends?'

'No, never. Haven't been back to New Hampshire since the sentencing.'

She fell quiet, as if she were struggling with how to find a way to say what she wanted and needed.

Spencer wanted to help her, but he didn't know how either. Years of work had made him adept at interrogation, not conversation. And years of no personal relationships had made him wary and introverted.

They sat there for what seemed like a long time, while Spencer battled with himself. Finally he looked at her and quietly said, 'You didn't do it, did you, Constance?'

Conni's voice cracked when she replied. 'No,' she said.

Spencer nodded. Somehow he was finding it easy to believe her. 'You did try to kill her a year before her murder?' In his detective mode, Spencer was more comfortable.

'Sort of, but not really.'

'So why did you plea-bargain?'

'It was either that or face a life sentence on conviction. Five years somehow seemed better than a life.' Conni bowed her head.

'Conni, if you didn't do it, you should've stuck to your guns and gone through with the trial. Taken the stand. Told your side. Innocent people don't usually get convicted.'

'But sometimes they do, don't they?'

'Sometimes,' Spencer allowed.

'Spencer, listen, there's nothing I can tell you except the same old thing, and you must be so tired of hearing it.'

Spencer, who'd heard the same old thing day in and day out for the last two years, nodded.

Conni leaned into him. 'Go look up Albert, Detective O'Malley. Look up Albert. See what he's up to these days.'

Spencer's face hardened and he leaned back. 'I doubt Albert's up to much.'

'Look him up, detective. Find out what Albert Maplethorpe is doing these days.'

Placing his hands palms down on the table, Spencer sighed. 'What do you think he's doing these days, Conni?'

'I don't know,' she replied. 'But he has never come to visit me here.'

'Did you think he would?'

'I thought he would, yes.' And she almost started to cry; her eyes remained dry, but her face became contorted.

'I'm going to tell you something, detective, something I haven't told anybody before today, not even my brother, not my parents, not Jim, nobody.'

She paused.

'The night Krissy died, I ran out. I was half crazed with anger, with jealousy. Kristina and I had just had a big fight. I went looking for Albert, but he was nowhere to be found, and neither was Kristina. It was just too much coincidence, and it was always the same. When she was missing, so was he, and vice versa. And now again.'

'What time was this?'

'After one. Maybe one-ten, one-fifteen.'

Spencer was trembling. 'Go on.'

'You don't understand what I was feeling. I had called Albert's room at twelve-forty five. Busy. I called again, and again, and again. Busy, busy, busy. Finally, I went up there a little after one. You think I didn't knock on Kristina's door? Of course I did. Only the dog was there. Then I ran down to the lounge. Tim was there, but Albert wasn't. I didn't stay long, but there was no noise in the hall, no noise coming from the bathroom.' She paused. 'I did notice a beer bottle on one of the tables. But it could have been anybody's.'

'It could have, yes. But it could also have been Albert's.'

'Yes, but where was he? How long does it take a guy to pee? I ran back upstairs, called his room again, called Frankie, called Jim. I was crazed. I thought he and Kristina were together. I took my coat and ran outside.'

'You didn't just run outside. You put on your coat.' Spencer was thinking about hiding the pillow Kristina had been killed with.

'It was snowing outside. I just threw it on.'

'Did you put a pillow under your coat?'

'A pillow? What are you talking about?'

'A pillow. A little twelve-inch-square pillow. Soft. Just enough to cover Kristina's face with.'

Sighing, Conni said, 'No, I didn't. Can I tell you what happened?'

Gently Spencer said, 'Please.'

'We'd just had a fight.'

'I know. Your skin was under her nails.'

'Yes, we had a fight. It was terrible, I don't know what came over me. She had as usual denied everything ' Conni paused, hurt and conflicted. 'Well, not everything. I think she really was trying to tell me the truth. I just didn't want to hear it. That's why I got so upset. I thought, sure, tell me the truth, I want to know, but when she told me, I just freaked. I realized I didn't want to know. I wanted to believe Albert. Why should I believe her? He was my boyfriend. Who was she to me?'

'You must have suspected it was true about them.'

'I didn't want to think about it, Spencer,' Conni said firmly. 'I chose not to think about it.'

'Why?'

'Why?' She seemed upset by the question. 'Because,' she answered sadly, 'then I would've realized that Albert was lying. I would've realized that he had every reason to lie and had been lying to me for a long time, and if I realized that, I would have had to break up with him and I didn't want to break up with him. You know?'

Spencer was incredulous. 'Even if it meant living an out-and-out lie?'

'Yes,' said Conni quietly. 'Even if it meant that.'

Spencer had nothing to say.

Conni continued, 'Anyway, after we had the fight, I left, but then I couldn't find him, then her, and I I just went crazy. I ran out, looking for them.

'I ran out, first to the parking lot, then down the stairs that led to the boat ramp, then back up the stairs, and I went to look for her on her bridge. I didn't see her or him. I started calling her name. I went to the end of the bridge and looked to my right.' She swallowed. 'You know, I thought I saw something. Someone. I wasn't sure. I don't know if you've been back behind Feldberg at night. It's dark.'

Speechlessly, Spencer nodded. He knew the darkness behind Feldberg.

'But still, I thought I saw something moving in the woods. I slowed down and moved down the path. There was no path anymore, only snow, and my footsteps made no sound. Suddenly I got scared. I can't explain it. Just scared. Like I was a child out in the dark with the boogie man. It was whisper-quiet. Then I heard something. Or thought I heard something.' Conni coughed. 'I thought I heard the breaking of branches down the slope in the woods. Like footsteps.'

Spencer stopped breathing, hanging on to her every word. 'The noises, they could've come from down below, from Tuck Drive.'

Shaking her head, Conni said, 'No. There were branches breaking. And they sounded very close. So close that I thought I might walk into someone. I stopped hearing the footsteps because my heart was pounding too hard, you know?'

Spencer knew.

'I had forgotten my anger, my jealousy, everything. I was just terrified. I stopped walking and listened for the noise again. There it was, but much farther away now. It was the sound of someone walking fast through the forest, toward the dorms.'

'Did you see anything?' said Spencer, literally at the edge of his seat.

'You mean who or what it was? No. It could have been a wild animal. But it didn't sound like one. Not that I know what one sounds like. I just know what a person sounds like. And this sounded like a person walking fast through the thick bushes. I didn't hear any footsteps, only branches breaking.' Conni paused. 'The noise got fainter and fainter and eventually died out. Weird as it sounds, I wasn't any less scared. There was something else I feared. Like ... badness. Evil. I can't explain it.'

'You don't have to,' said Spencer. He had no doubt at all that Conni Tobias was telling the truth. 'Did you turn around and go back?'

'No, I didn't,' she replied. 'Not then, anyway. I was just so scared in the darkness. There was no other noise coming from down the hill. I didn't think there was anyone else down there. I just wanted to see if I was right, if there were footsteps, or if I was just imagining awful things, the way people sometimes do in the dark.'

Spencer nodded.

'I was taking little steps, keeping to the path behind Feldberg, trying not to make any noise myself. I reached just about the place I first heard the sound come from. I stopped and looked down the hill, but it was very dark. Not pitch-black, you understand. The trees were pitch-black. But there was light coming from some of the windows in Feldberg. The snow reflected light back to me. It wasn't dark dark out. I could see the white snow and the cluster of pines about twenty feet down the hill. I took a few steps, then a few more. I wanted to see but didn't. Do you know what I mean?'

'All too well,' said Spencer, holding his breath.

'I walked down to that cluster of trees. It took me, like, I don't know, five six minutes maybe. I'd take a small step, then stop and listen. Another small step. Listen again. There was no noise, I just wanted to be sure I hadn't gone deaf or something.' Conni swallowed hard and stopped looking at Spencer.

He was transfixed on her face.

'I was about five feet away when I saw, I thought I saw, I wasn't sure, it's only later that I can say I saw, but back then, I wasn't sure at all of anything, I thought I saw ... a pair of black boots.'

Spencer breathed heavily out and fell back against the chair. 'No,' he whispered.

Conni still didn't look at him. 'I couldn't even place them at first. They made no sense to me. They were like two ink blots, I couldn't place them at all. They almost looked like small tree stumps, or ears sticking out of the ground. But I stopped walking because I got scared again. I was paralyzed. I couldn't take another step. Even before I realized what they were I couldn't take another step.'

Spencer said nothing, breathing heavily, almost panting.

'It took a couple of seconds, but I remember my thoughts exactly, because when it became clear to me that the black things looked like boots, it took me a second to place the boots, and the very next second I pushed back so hard, I fell in the snow and couldn't even get up. I crawled on my hands and knees up the hill, scrambled. Then I turned my back on what I'd just seen. I don't know how I turned my back, but it was like trying to frantically wake up out of a nightmare. I've never been so scared in all my life. When I was at the top, I stood and, never turning around, ran back home. I wasn't walking hurriedly on the bridge, detective, as Frankie said. I was running with all my might. Thank God I left my door open. I couldn't have used the key, my hands were shaking so badly. No one was there. It took me a while to calm down. Then I called Albert's room, busy. Frankie's room, Jim's, no answer. Then I went down to the lounge again and found Albert. I was so relieved to find him. He told me he'd been in the lounge all along, and I believed him.'

Spencer didn't say anything for a long time.

'Did you see her?' he asked at last in a small voice. Naked, dead, with the snow falling on her.

Conni shook her head vigorously. 'Absolutely not. I never got past the black boots.'

Spencer wanted to splash water on his face. That's why Conni hadn't looked for Kristina when they came back from Thanksgiving. She had known there was no point.

'Conni,' he asked, 'why did you keep this to yourself? Especially in the light of what followed? Had it been nothing, I'd understand your not telling anybody, but since Kristina was found dead, why didn't you say something?'

'Like what? To who?'

'Why didn't you say something to Albert that night?'

'I was really, really scared. I was physically sick the whole night, and then we left and I tried hard not to think about it. I started to think maybe I was wrong.'

'Why didn't you say something to Albert the next day, in the morning, so you could both go and check it out?'

Conni bowed her head. 'I couldn't tell Albert. I don't know. I couldn't tell him.'

'Why?'

'I don't know.'

'I don't buy it.'

'It's true.'

'Why didn't you tell your lawyers this? Why didn't you say you were innocent?' As Spencer said it, he thought, not so innocent. And in that instant, he stopped feeling sorry for Conni, stopped pitying her.

'How could I prove I was innocent?' Conni said. 'The circumstances were against me. I'm seen running from the scene of the crime, I can't account for nearly an hour of my time, which happens to be the time she died. And you were convinced I was covering something up.'

'You were,' interjected Spencer.

She nodded. 'I was. Plus my face is under her fingernails. What do I have, except my word? Albert testified against me,' she said broken-heartedly. 'Jim testified against me. You testified against me.'

'I was wrong.'

'You didn't think you were wrong.'

'Doesn't make me any less wrong.'

'You weren't on my side, and I knew it.'