The Hunt Club

"That sounds fair. One way or the other."

She nodded. "I'll call."

12

Predictable in retrospect, unforeseen at the time, the result of the interrogation at JV's Salon was that as soon as Juhle and Shiu left, Vanessa had called her sister and told her that whether or not she realized it, she was a suspect in the murder of her husband. The inspectors had made that abundantly clear.

By the time they left Adriano's, Shiu-showing by now nearly constant signs that the pressure to identify a suspect was affecting his judgment-was actually arguing that he was more than halfway to thinking they should go and have a discussion with one of the assistant district attorneys. Right now. They should lay out what they had on Jea

Juhle wasn't against either of those alternatives per se. In fact, he more than halfway believed what he'd been raving about to Shiu on the drive up-that they'd all but solved the case in a day. But regardless of the pressure to press charges against Jea

True, they had a window of the wife's time that they couldn't account for and during which she could conceivably have committed the murders for which she had a strong and even compelling motive-assuming she'd known about Staci Rosalier in the first place. But the fact that she probably hadn't gone to Adriano's to buy wine didn't come close to telling them anything about what she did do during those critical four hours. Besides, they hadn't even put the screws to Jea

Or anything.

After convincing Shiu that they had to talk to her again-and soon-Juhle called her on his cell phone to see if she'd be able to give them an hour or perhaps more of her time. This was when he learned that Vanessa had called her. Jea

But their drive back down to the city was significantly extended when a deer decided to take a break from his rural environment on the Marin Headlands and seek a bit of impromptu urban culture, perhaps some nightlife, down in San Francisco. To do this, of course, he had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. The three-mile crossing, ultimately successful with the help of a California Highway Patrol six-car escort, tied up traffic in both directions on the bridge for nearly four hours.

Everett Washburn was pushing seventy and affected a homespun style-baggy brown dress pants, red suspenders, an over-wide rep tie under a wrinkled rack sports coat. A walrus mustache and a florid, frankly beefy complexion gave him a vaguely Captain Kangaroo-ish appearance, although Juhle thought that the blue eyes under the mane of snow-white hair were about as warm and inviting as glacier ice. If Mr. Green Jeans pulled one of his dumb stunts on this guy, he'd take a bite out of his ass. Then again, Juhle realized, the lawyer had his game face on as he pulled open his front door, six or eight feet below street level under the Café de Paris. Ostentatiously, he consulted his watch.

"Eight-oh-six," Washburn said by way of introduction. "I really should bill the city, rather than my client, for the time I have been kept waiting after you scheduled our appointment for which I had to drive all the way from Redwood City."

From the way he said it, Redwood City might have been a hundred miles or more from where they stood, when in fact, it was more like thirty, most of it freeway and none of it, today, deer-ridden. "If Mrs. Palmer wasn't such a valued personal friend as well as my client, and if it had not been her wish to cooperate in every way that she could in your investigation, I never would have remained until this ungodly hour. I had a heart attack two years ago, and my doctor has recommended against me working outside of business hours. But she wants her husband's killer caught. That above all. I assume you have some identification. May I see it, please."

Juhle had, in fact, offered to cancel the appointment when it became apparent that they weren't going to make their time, but Washburn had blustered about his drive, the fact that he'd already come into the city just for this one interview. He was a very busy man and didn't know when he could guarantee a return trip. If they wanted to talk to his client, they were ready to cooperate fully today, whenever they could. Afterward, he would try to be flexible, but it might be a while, and of course, he wouldn't allow his client to talk to the police again without his presence. In short, he'd played them.

And now was doing it again.

Tempted to call the whole thing off and dare the old bully to let his client come before the grand jury on her own if she wouldn't talk to them, Juhle bit his tongue. It wouldn't help. He and Shiu had to move somewhere on this investigation, and until they could eliminate or implicate Mrs. Palmer, they'd be treading water.

Washburn had them and he knew it.

He practiced law from the basement of an old Victorian building and now without another word led them down a dark and narrow hallway with suites off the left side only. At the end, the hall opened into a wider but still small receptionist's station. Behind this was Washburn's office, a comparatively spacious octagonal room with windows on six sides and books in every other inch of wall space. There was no desk, no sign that business was conducted here. To all appearances, they were in a living room-lots of living greenery, Oriental rugs, low tables, and a couple of seating areas. Outside, through the windows, dusk had nearly settled, but the room was well lit with shaded lamps.

Jea

"Mrs. Palmer, how are you holding up?" Juhle began.

Obviously, she'd been coached to say nothing without her attorney's approval. Now she looked sideways at Washburn, a mute question.

Which he answered. "Frankly, inspector," he said, "she'd be better if she didn't have to deal with the absurdity of evidently being considered a suspect. And it is an absurdity."

"Are you going to let her talk?" Shiu asked.

"Of course. I told you she wants to do everything she can do to help you with your investigation. Isn't that right, Jea

"Completely."

"All right," Juhle said. "Then maybe we can make this easy on all of us."

"It's already been far too difficult," Washburn said. "Too u

Again, Juhle resisted the temptation to get tough with this lawyer. There was no point in getting into a pissing contest with him, which seemed to be what he was trying to provoke. Instead, Juhle again looked Mrs. Palmer in the face. "Yesterday," he began, "at your home, we asked you about what you did on Monday afternoon, and you told us you had driven up to spend the night with your sister, leaving about four o'clock to avoid the traffic. Is that about right?"