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what 1 just said."
    "Nance, when we talked about this last week——"
    "Last week you asked me about a news headline,
John. Now you're talking about helping the man's killer."
    Her voice was rising, so I thought I should lower
mine.
    "Nancy, you mentioned loyalty to your boss
before. Well, I have some loyalty to Steve Rothenberg, too. Besides,
I'm really talking about trying to find out who shot Gant because I
don't think Spaeth did."
    Nancy's face seemed to close down. "You've
already made up your mind, haven't you?"
    "About Spaeth's innocence? Yes. But——"
    Nancy reached for her totebag and started to stand.
"Do what you feel is best, John."
    "Wait a minute."
    She stepped around the table. "I said, you
should do what you feel is best, and it's obvious that means you
should take on this case. But I can't . . . I have to get out of
here. I'll call you."
    I swiveled in my chair. "Nancy——"
    "I'll call you." she repeated over her
shoulder.
    The owner was trying not to look from Nancy to me as
she strode out of the restaurant. The waitress, who'd been in the
kitchen, came through its door and glanced only at our table before
asking brightly if she should bring a dessert menu. 1 told her 1
didn't think so.
 
    Chapter 3
    THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up in the bedroom of my
rented condo on Beacon Street.
Woke up alone,
and more than a little angry. The way I saw Nancy's blowup the prior
night, she was upset at me for just doing my job.
    After using the bathroom, I thought I'd try to burn
off those feelings and clear the mind for business. I stuck my head
out the kitchen window to gauge the temperature. Too warm for the new
hooded sweatshirt I'd bought, a quarterbacks hand muffler as front
pockets against the coming arctic winds. Instead, I pulled on running
shorts, a cotton turtleneck, and a T-shirt over the  turtleneck.
Before lacing up the Brooks HydroFlow running shoes, I reached for
some tube socks and the knee brace I now have to wear on my left leg.
    Downstairs, I crossed Beacon to the Fairfield Street
pedestrian ramp over Storrow Drive. Heading upriver along the
Charles, I used the macadam paths that had recently, and stupidly,
been divided into "travel lanes" by a white, broken line
painted down the center. There were a dozen guys in dark pants and
yellow T-shirts, some picking up trash and bagging it, others cutting
brush and piling the branches near a nondescript minivan. If you're
not a river regular, you probably wouldn't notice that during
summers, the landscapers are male and female teens wearing orange
tops, while the fall and spring folks are all older men in yellow
ones. Reason? The younger workers constitute summer help from the
city schools, the older workers, trusted inmates from the county
jail, with the guy who tries never to leave the driver's seat of the
minivan a uniformed sheriff's officer there to guard them.
    Our tax dollars at work.
    Passing the Boston University railroad bridge a mile
later, I thought I had the situation with Nancy under control. I'm
dense about some things, and somehow I'd badly misjudged her reaction
to my taking Alan Spaeth's case. She'd let me wonder about it for a
day or two before calling to explain what I'd missed and then bury
the hatchet. Seemed reasonable, if regrettable, and as I turned at
Western Ave to head back downriver, I moved on to organizing my day.
    I'd have to start in South Boston, either with
Lieutenant Robert Murphy on the homicide itself, or with Vincennes
Dufresne, the owner of the boardinghouse where Spaeth used to live
and his alibi witness might still. Weighing things, it seemed to me
that Murphy was less likely to be in, but easier to reach, and the
earlier I visited the rooming house, the sooner I might find Michael
Mantle.
    I finished my run with a sprint of a hundred yards or
so from the Mass Ave bridge back to the Fairfield ramp, feeling a lot
better than I had starting out.
    After one shower and two English muffins, I changed
into a blue suit,