"But you did."

"I don't have to talk with you, pal."

"Of course you don't," I said. "You know anybody she might have been dating?"

"I got nothing else to say."

"What a shame," I said.

"So just shove f.u.c.king off, pal."

"You bet," I said. "How'd you feel about her marrying Nathan Smith?"

He tapped me on the chest with a long forefinger. "I told you once to take a walk. I'm not telling you again."

"Actually you told me to "shove f.u.c.king off." You didn't say anything about taking a walk."

Roy looked a little confused. But he was a tough guy, wasn't he? He changed the jabbing finger into a flat hand on my chest and shoved. I didn't move. There was no point to this. He wasn't going to talk to me anymore. I was just being stubborn.

Roy said, "You don't want to f.u.c.k with me, pal."

"Why not?"

"Because you're real close to a lot of trouble."

"You?" I said.

"Yeah. Me."

"Roy, you couldn't cause me trouble if you had a bulldozer."

Roy was maybe an inch taller than I was, but ten pounds lighter. He thought about it. But he didn't do it. Instead he said, "Ahh," and dismissed me with a hand gesture and turned back toward the house.

"We'll talk again," I said.

He kept going.

As I went back to my car I saw the nose of the Explorer around the corner on a side street. I thought about going over and grabbing one of the shadows. But that was just irritation. It wouldn't produce anything good.

Nothing else had.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Susan had decided we should ride bikes. So we rented a couple, to see how we liked it, and set out.

"We'll just ride along the river a little ways," Susan had said. "And then we can sit and have our little lunch, and then ride back. It'll be fun."

"Did you know that bike riding is a threat to male fertility?" I said.

"That doesn't matter."

"How about a threat to potency?"

"That would matter," Susan said.

We rode past the Harvard Business School on the Boston side of the river, heading into town. The balance was still a little shaky, but I knew it would come. There wasn't room on the trail to ride beside each other. Bikes coming in the other direction couldn't get by. So I trailed along behind her, admiring her b.u.t.t in its spandex tights. It was not fun. I hadn't ridden a bicycle since I was a kid in Wyoming, and after five minutes on this one I was glad I hadn't. We went over the Weeks footbridge to the Cambridge side again, and stopped and sat on benches near the Harvard women's boathouse. Susan took a brown paper bag out of her backpack and began to set out finger sandwiches.

"There," Susan said. "Was that fun?"

"What would be fun about it?" I said. "We're not even together while we're riding."

"You're just afraid you'll fall off and embarra.s.s yourself."

"I thought you thought I was fearless," I said.

"About stuff that matters," she said. "But when it doesn't matter, you hate doing things at which you're not accomplished."

"Shall I lean back, Doc, and recall my childhood?"

Susan took a small bite of her egg salad sandwich. "I have all the information about you I require," she said. "Tell me about the Nathan Smith business you're working on."

"There's a lot wrong with the Nathan Smith business," I said. "First of all, there's someone following me."

"Dangerous?"

"No," I said. "It's a what's-he-up-to tail, rather than a try-to-kill-him tail."

"Oh good," Susan said. "Do they know you've spotted them?"

"I don't think so," I said. "They're still being covert. If they knew I'd made them they wouldn't bother."

"And you think it relates to the Nathan Smith murder?"

"Started shortly after I took the case," I said.

"Do you know who they are?"

"They're connected to a company called Soldiers Field Development Limited, the CEO of which is on Mary Smith's invitation list."

I took a second finger sandwich from the bag.

"What's here besides bread and ham?" I said.

"b.u.t.ter."

"b.u.t.ter?"

"Well, not exactly b.u.t.ter. I sprayed it with one of those no-calorie b.u.t.ter-flavored sprays. Same thing."

"Jesus," I said.

"Is it possible that it's a coincidence, the surveillance and stuff? Or maybe connected to another case you were involved in? A loose end somewhere?"

"Always possible," I said. "I leave enough loose ends. On the other hand, what do you shrinks think about coincidences?"

"They occur, but it is not a good idea to a.s.sume them."

"That's what we sleuths think about them, too," I said.

"So if this were the open-and-shut it seems to be," Susan said, "why would anyone follow you?"

"Why indeed?" I said.

"Do you have a theory?"

"Nothing so grand," I said. "The tail aside, there's a lot I don't like about this. I don't like how lousy Mary Smith's alibi is. I don't like the sense I get that there's a lot I'm not being told."

"By whom?"

"By Mary Smith. By a guy named Roy Levesque that she was in high school with. By a guy named DeRosa who says Mary asked him to kill Nathan. By the woman I talked with at Nathan's bank. Nice woman, Amy Peters."

"As nice as I am?" Susan said.

"Of course not," I said. "She has information, or at least a theory, that she's not sharing. So does Mary Smith's PR guy. I'd also like to figure out why a stiff like DeRosa is represented by an attorney from Kiley and Harbaugh."

"But you have a plan," Susan said.

"I always have a plan," I said.

"Let me guess," she said. "I'll bet you plan to keep blundering along annoying people, and see what happens."

"Wow," I said. "You shrinks can really read a guy."

"Magical, isn't it," she said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

I was on the low doorstep of a three-decker on Lithgow Street off Codman Square, looking for Esther Morales. She opened the door on my second ring, a small tan woman with bright intelligent eyes.

"Si?"

"My name is Spenser," I said. "I'm working for Mary Smith. You do her housecleaning."

"I clean for Mr. Smith," she said. "Fifteen years."

"Not Mrs. Smith?"

"She come along. I clean for her, too."

"The police think she murdered her husband. What do you think?"

"I think I am very impolite. Please come into my house."

"Thank you."

She took me to the kitchen in the back of the house and made me some coffee. The woodwork and cabinets were stained a dark brown and gleamed with many coats of varnish. The vinyl tile flooring was made to look like quarry tile and gleamed with many coats of wax. I sat at a glistening white metal kitchen table and drank from a mug with a Red Sox logo on it.

Esther Morales sat across the table from me and had some coffee, too.

"Are you with the police?" she said.

"No," I said. "I'm a private detective hired by the lawyer who represents Mrs. Smith."

"So you are trying to help Mrs. Smith?"

"I'm sort of trying to find out the truth of what happened," I said.

"She killed him."

"You know that?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what you know," I said.

"Mr. Smith was a very nice man. He was very pleasant. He paid me well and gave me nice presents on the holidays."

I nodded.

"Then she came," Esther said.

"Yes?"

"She is not nice."

"How so?" I said.