Hunt hadn’t invited Keydrion to attend this meeting with Turner, so they had to bring another chair over to add to the circle. Turner, after a barely cordial greeting to Hunt, fell into the role of his voluble and friendly self after he recognized Carter and Juhle. Lorraine Hess had met up with Jaime and Lola Sanchez outside on the street and they came in together a few minutes after Turner. The last arrival, and the only one to make any kind of a stink-when she saw that Alicia Thorpe was in attendance-was Ellen Como. But Hunt got her calmed down and seated her next to him on his right. Juhle took the left seat. So around the circle, it went Juhle, Roake, Alicia, Mickey, Al Carter, Lorraine Hess, Jaime and Lola Sanchez, Turner, Keydrion, Ellen Como, and Wyatt Hunt. In the relative chill, all of the latter arrivals kept their coats on.

The low hum of conversation gradually faded to silence and all eyes went to Hunt. “I would thank all of you for coming down here tonight,” he began, “but the truth is that none of you actually did so because I asked you to. In fact, you’re all here for your own very good reasons, and they’re all about your own self-interest. Some of you-Mr. Carter, Mrs. Como, Ms. Hess-want to make your claim to all or a portion of the reward. Some of you-Mr. Turner, Mr. Mugisa, Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez, and again, Mr. Carter, want to make sure that the police understand and believe your alibis for the night of the two murders, and let’s make no mistake, the same person killed Dominic Como and Nancy Neshek.”

“That’s right. And she’s right here,” Ellen Como blurted out. “We all know that.” Looking across to Juhle, she pointed at Alicia. “I don’t know why you’re not arresting her, Inspector, why you haven’t done it already. Can there be any doubt? We all know what she did and why-”

Hunt held out a hand toward her. “Mrs. Como, please.”

“No, she’s right, Hunt,” Jaime Sanchez said. “What the hell?”

Hunt shot his gaze around the circle. “Inspector Juhle is here to make an arrest tonight, all right, but he’s promised it’s not going to be Alicia Thorpe unless we fail to provide him with somebody else.”

“What are you saying?” Turner demanded. “That one of us-?”

“I think you can figure that out for yourself, sir,” Hunt said.

Next to him, Ellen Como stood up. “I didn’t come down here to have to take this kind of abuse. I’m the victim here. My husband was the one who was killed. Doesn’t anybody care about that? I’m not going to be any party to this.” She turned toward the door and pushed her chair out of her way.

“Mrs. Como!” Hunt spoke up. “No one’s accusing you of anything. Sit back down. Please. We need every one of you here if we’re going to get to the truth.”

Straight across from Hunt, Lorraine Hess said, “Are you really saying that one of us killed Dominic? And Nancy too?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hunt said. “One of you.”

“But I was… I was with my son…”

“I didn’t say you, Ms. Hess”-Hunt took in the group-“or all of you. I said one of you.”

“And you intend to prove this,” Turner said, “to Juhle’s satisfaction? Right here, right now. How do you intend to do that?”

“By comparing the stories you’ve told and seeing where they don’t agree. But also, a little bit,” Hunt replied, “by the process of elimination. You, for example, Mr. Turner. Mr. Mugisa drove you home right after the COO meeting on the night Nancy Neshek was killed. You’ve got your son and your wife and the other kids who were there building their homecoming float who will swear that you were with them until you went to bed. No one’s suggested that you’ve done anything different, and you can prove that. So you didn’t kill Ms. Neshek, and therefore you didn’t kill Dominic.”

Turner sat back, shaking his head in derision. “Well, of course I didn’t. The idea’s ridiculous.”

“The whole concept is ridiculous,” Jaime Sanchez said. “Lola and I went to dinner after that meeting, and then home together.”

“Where did you go to dinner?” Hunt asked.

“The Hayes Valley Grill. We walked there from City Hall. They know us there. I’m sure I’ll even have a credit card receipt.”

“And after that?”

“Jesus Christ!” Turner raised his hands as if in exhortation. “Inspector Juhle, is this the kind of questioning that Mr. Hunt thinks is going to get us anywhere? Do you have any reason to believe that Jimi and Lola Sanchez are any kind of even potential suspects in either of these murders?”

Juhle said, “No, sir. No, I don’t.” He turned to Hunt. “If this is your idea of breaking the case, Wyatt, maybe you should send these good people home and let me go about doing my job, which is arresting my suspect.”

Hunt kept his cool. “Mr. Sanchez,” he said, “my apologies to you and your wife. I was using you as an example of Mr. Turner’s point about the process of elimination, which I think we can all agree is not too satisfying. Far better is the question of the information we’ve received, and where what one person told us is contradicted by somebody else.” Now Hunt turned in his chair. “For example, Mrs. Como. You told me that your husband was in love with Ms. Thorpe and that-”

Ellen cut him off and snapped back at him. “He was. He told me. There wasn’t any doubt about that.”

“No, not about that bare fact. Your husband was in love with her, okay. But Alicia swears that they didn’t have a physical relationship.”

“Well, she’s lying. What do you expect?”

“I’m not lying,” Alicia said, as Roake put a restraining hand on her arm.

Hunt turned to Ellen and went on. “How do you know Alicia’s lying?”

“Because they were caught in the office.”

“Making love, you mean?”

“Fucking, is what I mean. Fucking is what they were doing, not making love. Don’t try to dignify it.”

“And where were they doing this?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, physically, where were they having sex in the office when they were caught?”

“I don’t know. How would I know?”

“So how did you know about it in the first place?”

“Well.” Her brow clouded, then cleared. “Lorraine told me. I think I even told you that, didn’t I, Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes, you did. So, Ms. Hess.” He came around to face her. “Let me ask you. Where in the office did you discover Mr. Como and Alicia having sex?”

Hess had straightened in her seat, her hands on her lap. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t the one who saw them. It was one of my people, one of the young women.”

“Do you remember who, exactly?”

“No. It seemed like everybody knew kind of all at once. You know how offices are.”

“So you, Ms. Hess, didn’t really know for sure firsthand about this physical side to Alicia’s and Dominic’s relationship?”

“No. Not firsthand, no.”

“And yet you gave this information to Mrs. Como?”

“I thought she needed to know.”

Ellen Como spoke up again. “I did need to know, God damn it.”

“Yes, well, and Ms. Hess made sure that you did, didn’t she?”

“She’s a friend. Of course she did.”

“Of course.” Hunt took a breath, shifted again in his chair. “Mr. Carter, as Dominic’s driver, you must have been privy to many of his private thoughts and even secrets, isn’t that true?”

“I like to think so.”

“Did you ever have occasion to hear him talk about Alicia Thorpe?”

“Yes, frequently, since she started driving him mornings.”

“Was he in love with her?”

“Yes. At least, that’s what he told me.”

“And did he also tell you any details about his love life, if any, with her?”

Carter came out with a dry chuckle. “Only the fact that he didn’t have any love life with her.”

“That’s not true!” Mrs. Como exclaimed. “I know he-”

“No, ma’am. It is true as I know it.” Warming to his topic, Carter brought in the rest of the circle. “He laughed about it, how he had this pure love that neither of them were going to do anything about. They talked about it. How seeing her every day, not being able to touch her, knowing he was never going to be able to touch her, it was just breaking his heart.”