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don’t see how the wife could have done it; she was definitely not there.”
    â€œI never thought much of the wife as a suspect,” Don said, “though I suppose she could have doctored the drink and somehow gotten the cork back in and the bottle all sealed up, which is a bit far-fetched.” He reached for money to pay the bill, gesturing to cut my protests off. “Next meal’s on you,” he said. We got up from the booth as he went on talking. “It didn’t seem to me she had a motive worth anything, in spite of the son’s suspicions; she lacked opportunity; and the only circumstantial evidence against her is that she knew he took those pills. I know, I know, poisoning is supposed to be a woman’s crime, but you certainly couldn’t prove it by me.”
    Outside, I pointed to my bike. “Yeah,” he said, “Reed told me about that. I brought my helmet.” He must have left it near the door; now he waved it at me.
    I stood there stunned, looking idiotic, which was how I felt.
    â€œDo you mind dropping me off near the station house? I like riding on motorbikes.” I was so obviously unhappy, he patted me on the shoulder.
    â€œDon’t tell me you don’t have a license or something.” I shook my head. “What’s the problem? Did you just learn to drive this thing?” He was really puzzled, and I could see that for the first time I was worrying him.
    â€œI’m not sure you’ll fit on the back,” I said. “It’s a small seat, and I’m pretty large.” It was the truth, and the only excuse for my hesitation, but I hated to have to say it.
    â€œShit,” he said. “I’ve ridden on smaller seats in back of bigger people. Let’s go. And if I fall off because there wasn’t enough room, I promise not to sue you.”
    Gritting my teeth, I put on my helmet and got on the bike. He slid up easily behind me and, as soon as I had it started, put his arms around my waist. “Just keep straight on,” he shouted in my ear. “I’ll tap you when we hang a left.”
    There was nothing to it, really—nothing. I wished I didn’t like his arms around me, I wished I wasn’t so fat where he was holding me, but mostly I enjoyed it. He got off near the station—not wanting to be asked about his lift, I suspected—and told me he’d be in touch. I told him where I was staying, and he said, “You know my numbers,” and was gone.
    I followed his directions to the college, feeling as if I’d just been given a gift. Wake up, Woody, I told myself. Wake the fuck up! He’s a policeman, and he’s probably got a neat agenda of his own. All right, he’s doing Reed a favor, but don’t let him get you on his side without a struggle. You may not end up agreeing about who done it. Remember that, Woody, I said to myself. But I felt a small glow, like the glow I’d felt with Kate, only a bit more electric. You watch out, I told myself, or you’ll start acting like all those fool women you have to track down or whose husbands you have to track down. Shape up, I told myself.
    To sober up, I made myself think about digoxin, the oldest and most widely known way to bump someone off quickly. It’s the poison of choice in many books with murder plots, because it’s so easy to get hold of, relatively speaking. The book of poisons I had looked up foxglove flowers in said as the source of digitalis, it was the oldest cardiac medicine, used hundreds of years ago to treat something they called dropsy and we call congestive heart failure. It’s readily available, even as a pill, but if push comes to shove you can buy foxgloves at a florist and extract the stuff yourself. Haycock had been given enough to kill ten people, maybe twenty. Now that was a sobering thought.
    But it was the sight of the college that really sobered me. It looked like the set for one of