'You don't know? What the hell does that mean?'

Howard didn't answer.

'Where do you come in?'

'I come in on a boat. Not literally. My family, originally from Pyongyang '

'Where?'

'North Korea,' Howard said, with a slight edge to his voice, as if he were offended Spencer O'Malley didn't know where Pyongyang was. 'My family immigrated to Hong Kong in search of work. I went to a British university there to become a lawyer. Kristina's father bought textiles from my father. I finished school in Hong Kong. I wanted to go to England, but England was very difficult. America was my first choice, but America was even more difficult. I am a business lawyer; I worked with my father, but I did not like it. Kristina's father could not help me for a long time. It is very hard. Everybody wants to work in America. In 1997 there will be even more people who will want to come here from Hong Kong. You know the British must give it back to China.'

China, right. 'Go on.'

'Then her father '

'John Henry Sinclair?'

'Yes. Her father comes to Hong Kong about five years ago. He asks me if I still want to come live in America. He says he can work it out, if I marry his daughter. We would live in New York, where I will work and she will finish high school. At the end of five years, I can become an American citizen, and she will be twenty-one, and we can get divorced. We need to stay married that long the immigration officials, they are very strict these days about arranged marriages '

'Yeah, especially between a Korean man and a young American girl.'

'Especially, yes. So we stay married. Kristina goes to private school in Brooklyn Heights. I go to work for a good law firm. I am still with them.'

'So the divorce you both wanted it?'

'No. She wanted it. I said okay. I applied for citizenship there were no problems.'

'If she hadn't asked you, what would've happened?'

'Nothing. I was ...' Howard thought about it. 'Indebted to her father. I would have done whatever she wanted.'

How nice, Spencer thought. Everybody got what they wanted.

'Where's the baby?'

'The baby?'

'Yes, the baby.'

'It was stillborn.'

'Oh.' Spencer fell quiet.

'I do not know the family very well. Not at all, really. Never met Kristina's mother, just talked to her on the telephone. I deal with the father. He ' Howard paused. 'He was a very, very upset man. He did not talk to Kristina at all. He told me it was better his daughter married an important man, a lawyer, one of the father's colleagues, not such a disgrace.'

Spencer was appalled. 'You mean that was better than the truth?'

'I think so.'

Spencer flagged the waiter for another drink, and a minute later, having forgotten what he'd ordered, flagged him down again. He finished them both and ordered another, all the while thinking, well, that explains Red Leaves House.

'Did you know she worked at a home for pregnant teenagers?' Spencer asked.

'Yes, she told me.' Howard bowed his head. 'Poor Kristina.' He suppressed a dry sob. 'Will that be all, detective? I am very tired.'

'Just a few more minutes, Mr Kim. Why did you keep in touch with her after she went to college?'

Howard coughed. 'Part of the deal. Her father gave me money for her. I paid for her college education.'

Spencer shook his head. 'You didn't.'

'Of course I did.'

'Really? That's strange. I was under the impression her grandmother paid for it.'

Howard blanched and moved forward in his seat, then backward, against the back of the chair, and got a nervous bend at the corner of his mouth. He tried to sound calm when he said, in a shaky voice, 'That's not possible. Every year I gave her money. I know. Twenty thousand dollars a year for four years. I was very careful. She had a tendency to always spend more money than she was given. Her father warned me against giving her too much. She will use it for ill means, he said. I found out how much she needed for her tuition and room and board, subtracted her scholarship and work-study. I gave her money every year.'

'That's ironic,' said Spencer. 'You weren't the only one very careful about giving her exactly twenty thousand dollars for four years.'

'What are you talking about, detective?'

'There were letters from her grandmother in her safety-deposit box. She gave her tuition money every year, too.'

Howard shook his head violently. It was a good thing he wasn't still eating, Spencer thought the steak would've flown out of his mouth. 'It cannot be,' Howard said. 'It just cannot be.'

Shrugging, Spencer said, 'Maybe she invested wisely and ended up with nine million dollars.'

Howard looked at Spencer suspiciously. 'What nine million are you talking about?'

'It came from her grandmother,' said Spencer. The look on Howard's face there was something awful in it, something failed and shamed and spent.

'Grandmother?' Howard came to. 'Ah, yes. Maybe. How do you know?'

'It was wired to her from a bank in New Hampshire. There was a copy of Louise Morgan's will in Kristina's safety-deposit box, dated late August. The will clearly stipulated Kristina as the sole benefactor of Louise Morgan's liquid fortune. Louise Morgan's money all went into a trust for Kristina, hers when she turned twenty-one.'

'Why?' said Howard. More like gasped. Opened his mouth and gasped the syllable out. 'Why?'

'How do I know? I ask the questions. You're supposed to have the answers.'

'I do not know anything. I told you, I only knew her father, and he told me nothing. He told me how to take care of Kristina. That is it. We had a deal. I took good care of her, I thought. I watched over her. I thought.' Howard bowed his head. 'But I did not. I did not watch over her enough.'

'No,' agreed Spencer, debating with himself whether or not to have another drink. 'You did not.'

They sat in silence while the waiters put the chairs on top of the cleaned tables and prepared to wash the floor.

Howard must have felt the need to explain, because he said, 'What do I know, Detective O'Malley? I am a textile factory manager's son from Korea. I was grateful to Mr Sinclair for the opportunity to come to America. It was my dream. I did not ask unwelcome questions. He told me this must be so and it was. I did not show my curiosity. I was right not to do so. Kristina's mother would sound very sad when she called. I felt sorry for her.'

'She didn't call often?'

'No. Then she stopped calling. I think Kristina felt bad about that.'

'She loved her mother?'

Howard nodded. 'She loved her mother.'

'What happened to John Sinclair? He is listed as deceased on Kristina's college application.'

'Yes. Yes.' Howard rubbed his head. 'The last time Mrs Sinclair called, she told us he had died, from heart failure. She sounded very sad.'

I bet she was, thought Spencer. She lost her husband and her only daughter. 'Sad' was an understatement.

'Was there a will?'

'What?'

'John Sinclair did he leave a will?'

'Yes, of course. A man of his means does not die without a will.'

Spencer waited. Howard continued. 'I was sent a letter by the executor's attorneys saying that I was to receive a yearly sum of fifty thousand dollars for the next six years. That was two years ago.'

'Now isn't that nice. What about Kristina? What did she receive?'

Howard looked away before he answered. 'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Nothing.'

'His only daughter, and nothing?'

Uncomfortable, edgy, Howard cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and said, 'He had disowned her.'

'He what?'

'Disowned her. He drew up a legal document, signed by himself and his wife, and disowned her.'

Spencer badly wanted to wet his throat. 'John Sinclair disowned his only daughter?'

'Yes.'

'In legal terms, does that mean that she's not entitled to any of her parents' assets?'

'Right.'

'And,' Spencer slowly said, formulating his racing thoughts as he spoke, 'they're not entitled to any of hers?'

'I do not know. I suppose so. Detective O'Malley, pardon me, but what does this all have to do with Kristina's death?'

Reluctantly deciding against another drink, Spencer said, 'Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Kristina's accounts are chock full of dollars, she divorced you her only direct beneficiary and her parents '

'Parent,' Howard corrected Spencer. 'John Sinclair is dead.'

'- parents have disowned her. This is getting crazy. And she does not die intestate, a fluke, an act of Providence. She leaves a do-it-yourself will.'

'With no mention of me.'

'Oh, no, she mentioned you. She left you her grandmother's house.'

Howard was silent. 'Who did she leave the money to?' he said stoically. Spencer could've sworn Howard was holding his breath.

'Her three friends. Who did you think she was going to leave her money to?'

He let his breath out. He seemed greatly relieved. 'Nobody. I think you should talk to them.'

'You can be sure I'll do that. In any case, it's all moot. They don't want to keep the money.'

'Not to keep it?'

'They want to give it to Red Leaves House.'

Howard fell back in his chair. 'God, that is so peculiar. So strange.' He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. 'It just makes no sense.'

Spencer leaned forward. 'Did you want that money, Howard?'

'What can I say? I would not have minded having some of it.'

Spencer did not have his man. That much was obvious. As a matter of procedure, Spencer would check out his alibi, but he had no doubt it was good.

They sat for a while longer. The floor was washed. The bill came and was paid. Their table had long been cleared. He looks as exhausted as I feel, thought Spencer, feeling pain behind his eyes that wanted desperately to close and wake up back on Long Island with all this behind them or in front of them. It really didn't matter, as long as it wasn't around them. Spencer made a mental promise to himself as soon as this was all over to go and visit his family. Maybe for Christmas.

'I think they were from Connecticut,' Howard finally said.

Spencer remembered the Greenwich Time he had found in Kristina's closet. Getting up, he said, 'Thank you for coming, Howard.'

'Yes, of course. When do you think the body will be released?'

'Tomorrow. You can get her tomorrow. I'm going back to the hospital now, to talk to the coroner.'

Spencer was expecting Howard to say he wanted to come, but Howard didn't. He looked spent. Spencer was also spent, but he had to go. It was worse than sitting on the Long Island Expressway looking for speeders. In those days, he had been the speeders' friend because he used to go to sleep. But now he had to keep moving in spite of how he felt.

He left Howard at the Inn and got into his car. It was well after midnight. Will was at the hospital, wanting to be home with his family. Ray was home with his family, wanting to be at the hospital. Nutty old Ray wanted to be down in the coroner's quarters looking at decomposed corpses. Would Innis even be able to tell if Kristina had first died and then frozen?

'Yes,' said the doctor in answer to Spencer's question. Though the autopsy anteroom was forty-three degrees, Earl Innis was sweating profusely and frequently wiped his wet forehead with the sleeve of his white lab coat. It wasn't totally white, but Spencer didn't want to think about that. Will had gone home as soon as Spencer came to relieve him.

'Yes?'

'Yes,' Innis said. 'The answer is yes. She did not die of natural causes.'