“Okay. So starting that evening. He gets home around six thirty. He sees Peggy.”

“Then he goes and visits her . . .”

Tamara Robbins, number nine. Anne got the distinct impression that Tamara wanted a count for adultery for Standing Raleigh. Anne studied the women at the table—four of whom had wedding rings. The cheating counts for something.

Ferris’s hand and smile went up. Again with the golf etiquette. “Before we get there, he sees his wife and children. And Peggy is trying to loosen the latch on the garage door.”

“Correct.” Mustache and mullet, Jim Keller, number two, nodded. He wanted things to hurry along and Anne figured he had his mind made up already. “Which would explain her coming out later—”

“And why there are no fingerprints,” Anne interrupted. “Remember we only have his testimony claiming she was soaping up the latch.”

“Mrs. Malone, I appreciate—”

“Right, we don’t know,” Pilar Golondrina, number twelve, echoed.

“It’s convenient, that’s all.” Anne cracked down on the Life Saver with her molar. I’m close. If I can get these women to dare with me . . .

Ferris ignored them. “So after an hour he leaves and goes to Miss Goodfellow’s apartment.”

Anne stopped short of rolling her eyes. None of this is in dispute.

“Can I ask the room?” It was Dale Caruthers, number five, a bank manager from the Park Cities wearing a blue Valentino shirt with white cuffs. “Did y’all think she was covering his tracks?”

Anne wanted to blurt out how that didn’t matter, but the question felt like bait. He was trying to agitate the women on the jury.

“This ain’t about Miss Lucy.” Carla Mirlo, number ten. She had the tired, saturnine frown of an older housekeeper. “It’s about him and his lies.”

“I felt like she was protecting him somehow,” Mary Crane, number three—retiree, busybody—warbled.

“Like she was in love with him and she couldn’t let it go?” Caruthers asked, egging her on.

Honestly—Anne threw a hand at her temple—the mistress did it? That’s your theory? It’s a misdirection. Anne had the women on this, so she didn’t say anything. Let Caruthers hang Raleigh on implausible love-triangle theories.

The foreman dentist conceded the point. “I suspect there’s more to that story.”

Anne’s eyes darted around the table. Those two, Ferris and Caruthers, are in cahoots.

“Let’s keep retracing Raleigh’s steps and see if we can all agree—”

But Anne didn’t have the patience. “The important window is eight fifty-three to eleven forty-three.” She pulled out her notebook. She had written out the timeline.

“Well, before we—”

“That’s from the receipt at the Texaco to the 911 call,” Anne interrupted. “So even if you believe the note he left for the librarian at ten thirty—”

“Hang on—”