Free Cold Winter Rain by Steven Gregory

or affirmation or a neurological twitch.
    “ Did Kris seem particularly religious?”
    She shook her head slowly.  “No, I wouldn’t say so.  We have an FCA -- Fellowship of Christian Athletes -- chapter here, and some of my girls participate, but I don’t recall that Kris did.  Of course, we are a church-affiliated school, so perhaps more of the athletes here are observant than, say, would be the case at a state university.”
    “Which church?”
    “ Episcopal.”
    “ Not Catholic?”
    “ No.  I suppose you’ve met Kris’s mother.  I understand that she is quite devout.  But Kris didn’t seem to be.  More like her father, I guess.”
    We sat without speaking.  Through the big old windows of the student union building, I could see students moving about the campus with a purpose.  To ward off the damp and chill of the Alabama winter, many wore technical outer gear that would have sufficed for a Himalayan expedition.
    Into the silence, the coach said, “I think you should talk with Kris’s roommate.”
    “ So do I.  The chief – excuse me, the director of campus security – didn’t think it was necessary, though.”
    “ I wouldn’t want to get into any trouble with the police, Mr. Slate.  But if you were back in my office in, say, thirty minutes, and Kris’s roommate just happened to be there too, I couldn’t stop you from talking, could I?”
    She smiled, stood, and stretched.  “This cold weather makes me want to be in front of a fire on a blanket.  See you around, Slate.”
     
     
     
    Akilah Ziyenge was just under six feet tall.  Her hair was in braids, and she spoke with a British accent.  We talked in the assistant women’s soccer coach’s office.
    “How long were you and Kris roommates?” I asked her.
    “ Just this year.  Kris was a freshman.  I’m a junior.  Coach K likes to have the younger girls room with the older players.  And we’re both goalkeepers.”
    “ You’re both tall.”
    She smiled.  “Yeah.  Right position for us.”
    “Do you know Kris well?”
    “ We share a suite – separate bedrooms.  But I consider us roommates.  I know her pretty well.”
    “ Where did you last see her?”
    “ In the suite.  She came earlier that day to pick up some things.  She was with her mother, and I thought she was going home for the weekend.”
    “ What day was that?”
    “ Thursday.”
    “ Okay.  Was that unusual?  For Kris to come by with her mother?”
    “ I don’t know.  I’d seen her mother here before, but it wasn’t common.  Not sure her mother had ever just come by to pick her up.  I saw her Dad more often.  He’s a soccer fan, you know, really into sports.  He was always hanging around.  Sometimes came by to watch practice.”
    “ Did Kris get along well with her mother?”
    Akilah nodded slowly.  “As far as I know.  I mean, I don’t know of any big arguments they had or anything.  Yeah, they weren’t much alike in a way, but they got along.”
    “But then Kris came back that night?”
    “ After she left with her mother?  No.  Like I said, she took books and her laptop and some clothes like she was going home for the weekend.”
    “ Do you remember anything special Kris said or did while she was there?  Anything she and her mother were talking about?”
    “ No.  Nothing they said.”  She shook her head.  “No.”
    “ Something else?”
    “ Not really.”
    “ All right.  Was Kris seeing anybody special, any guys or anything, that you knew about?”
    “ No, not Kris.  She told me her Dad wanted her to concentrate on school and soccer this first year.  She really tried to put her head down and work hard.  She said her Dad told her if she didn’t do that at least this year, she’d never know what she could do.
    “ I mean, it’s not like, she’s not a toad, though, you know?  We hang around a little with some of the guys on the men’s team, but nothing serious like that was going on.”
    “ And you’d know,