“I’m not suggesting for a moment that we let old Leek get off scot-free. But not everything has to bollix up in the courts.”

“Pete—”

“McKay and I took a nice little drive over to the home after confession time was over. I set him up with one of the home’s management and told him to spill out his dirty deeds. Then I left. I’m waiting to hear back from them. If they decide not to bring charges against him, what case do I have?”

“You can press them to charge McKay.”

“If it’s necessary.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this!”

“I also told McKay to place a call to the Board of Nurses’ Examiners. Tell the board that he suspects Tandy Roberts of using his license number—”

“But he knew she was doing it.”

“So he suddenly got an attack of conscience. Let’s concentrate on what we know. Leek gave Tandy his license number as a way to guarantee her silence. She knew about his embezzling…discovered it by talking to the old folks. At first, Tandy used the information to blackmail him into an affair. Eventually, he got her pregnant.”

“He got her pregnant, too?” Marge shook her head. “That’s three pregnancies. Girl’s a fertile Myrtle.”

“Three pregnancies?” Decker said. “When was number two?”

“When she was eighteen, still living in New York.”

“How’d you find that out?”

Not wanting to rat on Cindy, Marge smiled mysteriously. “We all have our sources.”

“Margie…”

“It’s not important how I found out. What is important is we now know this girl, Tandy Roberts, supposedly lost three babies in a relatively short period of time.”

Decker said, “Lost them? Leek said she aborted.”

“Lost? Aborted? Who knows?” Marge shrugged. “Tandy sounds unstable to begin with. First starving herself, then eating her way to obesity. And she used to talk to herself. If we throw in all these lost or aborted babies, it adds up to one psychologically compromised girl.”

“You interviewed her, Margie. Did she seem really crazy?”

Marge tapped her foot. “Actually, she seemed very sane. A typical self-obsessed California girl.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“We have a motive,” Marge said. “Tandy doesn’t have children and neither does Marie Bellson, who was going through menopause. They were once great friends. Maybe they became great friends again with a common goal. They both cracked at the same time, each one working up the other one until they both went nuts and did the ultimate grievous sin. Isn’t there a psychological term for that—two nuts working each other up?”

“Yeah, two nuts working each other up.”

Marge gave Decker a sour look. “I’m sure they’re in cahoots together. I just feel it.”

“Their bond to each other being they both lost babies.”