"Yes."

Juhle lowered his voice. "Mrs. Palmer. It would be very helpful to our investigation," he said, "if you could tell us specifically everything you can remember about the time between leaving your home and arriving at your sister's house."

Again Mrs. Palmer looked at her attorney, and this time he nodded and let her respond. "All right. As I've already told you, I left at four. I don't remember any traffic problems or really exactly what time I got to Vanessa's, but I'd be surprised if it was five yet."

"Where did you park there?" Shiu asked. And Juhle, who just wanted to keep her talking, shot him a warning glance.

But she answered him. "Just in the driveway. But I don't know if anybody saw me. I didn't talk to anyone."

Shiu couldn't seem to let her alone. "How about phone calls?"

She shook her head. "There really wasn't anyone I needed to call. I'd already called Vanessa, so she'd know I'd be there, and George was…" The mention of her husband's name took an immediate and, to Juhle, somewhat shocking toll, from which she recovered only after a small but unmistakable struggle with herself. "He was going out to dinner, as I said." Looking from Shiu back to Juhle, she sighed again, and went on. "Anyway, I'm afraid I didn't do much. The driving had made me sleepy, so I must have just dozed off for a while, but eventually, I picked up Vanessa's copy of Sunset, and they had this recipe for stuffed chicken breasts that looked delicious, and I decided to surprise Vanessa and make it for dinner, so I went shopping."

"Let's go back just a second," Juhle said. "You said you'd already called your sister?"

"Yes."

"Was this from home?"

"No. The car. I usually called her when I got about to JV's. Just to say we were still on."

Juhle looked over at Shiu, wondering if his partner had picked up the import of this admission. If Mrs. Palmer had used her cell phone on the freeway passing through Mill Valley between four and five o'clock, they could pinpoint her location within a mile or two by finding the cell site that had picked up and relayed the call. If she were really in Mill Valley, it was much more unlikely that she had returned back home to San Francisco to shoot her husband and his mistress. If on the other hand, the call had come from the city-or, better, from near her home-they were in business.

But he couldn't give her up that easily. The motive was too good, the symmetry too perfect. They had too much invested. They still had the groceries, the wine, the difficulties with that story. It was still possible.

"Okay, let's go back to your grocery shopping," he asked. "Where did you do that?"

"Just the Safeway there in Novato. I don't know the exact address, but it's back a freeway exit from Vanessa's."

Shiu spoke up. "What time was this, would you say?"

"I don't know exactly. Six? No. I think I napped until six. Closer to seven, I'd say."

Shiu kept at it. "Did you have any discussion with anyone there?" he asked. "Anybody who might remember you?"

Evidently, Washburn had endured his own silence long enough. "Inspectors, excuse me," he said. "Might I suggest you ask my client if she used a Safeway card to make her purchase?" Again, it was clear they'd had this discussion. He looked expectantly at Mrs. Palmer.

"Yes," she said, "I did."

"So there'll be a record of that?" Juhle said.

"With her name on it, and the exact time, as a matter of fact." Washburn sat back, rested an ankle on his opposite knee.

Shiu, his frustration now at full simmer, said, "What about Adriano's?"

Mrs. Palmer turned to him. "What about it?"

"You called your sister and told her you'd forgotten to get any wine, and you were going to go by Adriano's to pick some up."

For a moment, Mrs. Palmer's weary brow clouded again. She sank back into the cushions of the loveseat, then brought her hand up to her temples and squeezed them. "Adriano's," she said.

Shiu prompted her. "The liquor store."

"Jeannette." Washburn leaned over and touched the arm of the loveseat.

"No. It's all right, Everett," she said. Coming forward, she almost managed a smile. "It's hard to remember what you didn't do," she said. Then, to Shiu, "I didn't go to Adriano's. I went back to Safeway. I remembered that I'd forgotten to get some cash when I paid for the other groceries, and they have an ATM at the cash registers, so I just went back there instead."

This time Juhle was up to speed. "And used your card again?"

"Well, my Safeway card, and then I paid with my ATM."

Hunt reached Juhle on his cell phone just as the inspectors were leaving their interview with Everett Washburn and Jeannette Palmer. He'd tried him at home first, and Connie had told him that he wasn't there and, no, he probably hadn't had dinner, either. She'd talked to him while he was stuck in traffic on the bridge, and he was going to be working late. By the time he got done, she'd be putting the kids down-not Juhle's favorite time. If Hunt wanted to meet up with him someplace, Connie thought Juhle would probably welcome his company.

Having finally given up on getting his "either way" phone call from Andrea Parisi, Hunt told Juhle that he'd gotten stood up and that the evening yawned open before him. If Shiu would drop him at the Tong Palace on Clement, they might salvage some remnant of this otherwise shitty night.

Now, as the ancient waitress at the dim sum place had done every five minutes or so since they'd sat down, she came by with another tray of delicacies. Hunt and Juhle pointed at what they wanted-sign language was the lingua franca here-and soon their table had plates of shrimp wrapped in transparent wontons, fried oysters, little steamed bundles of dough stuffed with seafood or meat or vegetables, a plate of siu mei, rice noodles with spicy pork. This was their third round, and their enthusiasm for the food hadn't dimmed much. Juhle held his hands apart to indicate a large bottle and said an actual word, "Asahi," while Hunt lifted the teapot and pantomimed for a refill.

"So Jeannette didn't do it?" Hunt said.

Juhle, on five hours of sleep, sagged at their corner table. He tipped up his tea and made a face. "Not if she called her sister from Mill Valley at four thirty and was paying at the Safeway at both seven thirty and quarter to eight. She didn't drive all the way into Marin, then remember, Oh, yeah, I was supposed to shoot George and his girlfriend tonight, so she turned around and went home, did the deed, then turned around again and went back to Novato."

"That does seem unlikely."

"At least. Besides, her neighbor on Clay Street who saw the car parked by her driveway? That was at seven thirty, when she was pretty definitely at the Safeway. You know Everett Washburn, the lawyer? No? Well, he somehow got the manager up there to go back and find her receipts and fax them down to him at his office. We're going to go back and check ourselves, but I'm not optimistic. She was there."

"So who's that leave?"

"As suspects? Approximately the whole world."

"Not me." Hunt held up his right hand. "Monday night, I was down in Palo Alto with my dad. He'd vouch for me."

"All right, except you. And probably Connie, who was feeding me dinner at the time, so I guess she's out, too. Everybody else, though."

Popping an oyster, Juhle chewed and thought for a moment. "The problem is, I can't understand Staci Rosalier being there if it wasn't personal. I mean, it had to be about her."

Hunt shrugged. "Maybe she was just there."

"But why?"

"I don't know. She wanted to do it in the wife's bed. He wanted to do her in the wife's bed. Any combination thereof. Whatever, he knew his wife was going to be gone, he's trying to get away with that much more for the thrill of it. Maybe it was just bad timing."