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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 butt 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 embarrass 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.
    “Butter.”
    “Butter?”
    “Well, not exactly butter. I sprayed it with one of those no-calorie butter-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 assume 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