"When did we start allowing Republicans in San Francisco?"

"You'd be surprised. Last time the president came out here to raise some money, guess who hosted the party?"

"So what were his politics? Hanover's."

"He didn't have politics so much, per se. He had clients. But wait a minute." Jeff went back to his terminal, hit a few keys, then sat back in satisfaction. "There you go. When memory fails…"

Glitsky came forward in his chair. "What'd you get?"

Donnell White, a midthirties black man with an upbeat demeanor, managed the Valero station on Oak and Webster. He wasn't the owner, but he worked afternoons six days a week. He took one look at Cuneo's picture of Missy D'Amiens and nodded. "Yeah, she in here all the time, every week or two. She must live nearby."

"Not anymore." Cuneo told him the news, then went on. "But the question is whether you saw her come in on Wednesday and fill up a portable gas container."

"Not if she come in the morning." He looked down again at the picture, scratched his short stubble. "But hold on a sec."

They were standing out in front by the gas islands, and now he turned and yelled back into the garage area, where some rap music emanated. "Jeffie, come on out here, will you?"

When there was no response, White disappeared back into the station. After a few seconds, the music stopped and White and Jeffie emerged back into the late-afternoon sun. Jeffie was young, as sullen as White was effusive. Apparently bored to death, his eyes rolled upward as he slouched with his hands in his pockets, listening to why the cop was here. Finally they got to the picture and he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Could have been her."

Something about the phrase struck Cuneo. "What do you mean, could have been? It either was or it wasn't."

He shrugged. "Hey, some woman get some gas." He looked to his coworker. "Who you said you lookin' for?"

Cuneo jumped in. "It might not have been this woman?"

He shrugged. "I'm eating lunch inside. She fills the thing and not her car. Put it in the trunk."

"She put the portable container in her trunk?"

He fixed Cuneo with a flat stare. "What'd I just say, man? Yeah, she put the container in her trunk."

"What kind of car was it?"

Again, the eye roll. "Maybe a Mercedes? I don't know. Coulda been. Something like that."

Cuneo held the photograph out again. "And would you say it was this woman or not?"

Jeffie looked more carefully this time, took it in his hands and brought it closer to his face. "I seen her… this woman, before, I think." He kept looking. "Mighta been her, but if it was, she had her hair different. But I don't really know, 'cept she was white and fine-lookin'. Big jugs, no fat. Nice butt."

"You remember what she was wearing?"

The young mechanic cast his eyes to the sky again, then closed them. "Maybe a blue shirt, kind of shiny. Oh yeah, and sunglasses. She never took the shades off." He pointed at the picture again. "It could have been her, now I look at it. It's hard to say. But maybe not."

This time, cocktail hour Friday night, Maxine and Joseph Willis were both home at their place a few houses down from where Paul Hanover's used to be. They were drinking manhattans in stem glasses and going out to meet some friends for dinner in a while, but Cuneo didn't pick up any sense that they resented his visit. They invited him in, offered him a drink, which he declined, and then Maxine explained to Joseph again about what she'd told Cuneo the night before. As she talked, the three of them drifted back over to the space by the front window.

"I'm here about the same thing again, I'm afraid." Cuneo took out the picture and handed it across to her. "We want to be sure that Missy D'Amiens was who you saw. I wondered if you'd mind looking at this?"

Maxine put her drink on a side table, then took the newspaper cutout. Looking out the window for a second-revisiting the moment-she came back to the picture and nodded her head one time briskly. "Yep," she said, "that's her all right."

Joseph, maybe forty-five years old, was physically much smaller than his wife. Short and very thin, he probably didn't weigh 150 pounds. His shoulders barely seemed sufficient to hold up his head. What hair he had, and it wasn't much, he wore in a buzz. He was wearing rimless eyeglasses, a red bow tie over a starched white shirt, red paisley-print suspenders and brown tweed pants. But in a quiet way he managed to project a sense of confidence and inner strength.

He placed his drink carefully next to his wife's, then peered at the picture over Maxine's arm and shook his head, speaking with absolute certainty. "That's Missy D'Amiens, certainly, but I can't swear she was the woman we saw the other night."

Maxine frowned deeply, looking over and down at him. "What are you saying, Joseph? That sure was who she was."

Joseph put a hand lightly on her arm. "Could I please see the picture myself?" He was the soul of mildness, holding out his other hand. When she gave it to him, he crossed over to the window and stood where the light was better, studying it for the better part of a minute. Finally, he raised his eyes, looked directly at Cuneo and shook his head. "I'm not sure."

Cuneo emitted a long, low, single-note deep in his throat. Maxine crossed over to Joseph and pulled the picture from his hand, holding it up close to her face. While she was looking, Cuneo asked Joseph, "Where was her car, again, exactly?"

Pointing out the window, he indicated the same place that Maxine had shown Cuneo the night before. "Just across the street over there, five or six cars down, by the light post."

"And what kind of car was it? Do you remember?"

"I'm not sure. Dark, certainly. Black."

"It was a black Mercedes," Maxine said, "C-type."

Joseph turned to her, placed his hand on her arm again and said, "It might have been that, after all. I didn't pay too much attention."

"You weren't looking at the car, were you?"

He gave his wife a tolerant smile. "Perhaps that, too." Back to Cuneo. "In any event, she went to the car and we all went back to our drinks. Speaking of which…" He picked up both drinks and gave his wife hers.

"Did you see her do anything at the car?" Cuneo asked.

Joseph silently consulted with his wife, then shook his head. "No. She just went to the door."

"Not the trunk?"

"Not that I saw. Maxine?"

"No. She just got in and drove off."

Cuneo's low hum had developed a melody, but the song remained unidentifiable. "Let's get back for a minute, if you don't mind, to whether or not it was Missy D'Amiens. Mrs. Willis, you say it was?"

"I thought it was."

"But do you remember last night, when we talked, you said you thought you might have been mistaken? Do you remember that?"

She didn't like the question and straightened up to her full height. "That was when I heard that she'd died in the house."

"Right. So you reasoned that she must not have left. So maybe it was someone else out on the street here."

"Or she left and came back later."

"Sure, which is what she must have done, if she was in the house when it burned. But your husband now says he's not sure it was her at all."

The husband spoke up. "It might have been. But there was something…" He moved back a couple of steps, so he was standing in the jutting alcove of the front bay window. "I saw her as she came out of Hanover's place and I remember first thinking, 'Oh, there's Missy.' But then, something about her walk…"

"Her shake, more like," Maxine said.

He shrugged. "I don't know what it was exactly, but something made me form the impression that it wasn't Missy."

"You knew her, then? Missy?" Cuneo asked.

"We'd spoken on the street a few times. We're neighbors, after all. I can't say we had a real relationship of any kind. But I knew who she was."