Decker smashed his fist into a waiting palm. “I’m pissed. She’s going to walk with probation, I just know it. The girl is crazy. Probably homicidal crazy. She needs treatment! And she needs to be confined while she’s in treatment! We can’t let her out on the streets, and that’s what’s going to happen unless we have more dope on her. We can’t let her walk!”

“Think McKay has anything to do with Marie’s disappearance?” Pomerantz asked.

“You mean do I think McKay killed Marie?” Decker shrugged. “Who knows? I’ll tell you this much. I think McKay knows more than he’s letting on. I just feel it. The trick is how to get it out of him without Beltran pulling the plug.”

“Soon as he realizes we’re fishing for something bigger than accessory, he’s going to pull the plug,” Pomerantz said.

Decker kept hitting his palm with his fist. “Why did Leek agree to help Tandy out? Surely, he had to realize that embezzlement is a far less serious charge than being an accessory to murder and kidnapping. How’d she talk him into coming down to the hospital at midnight and helping Marie dispose of a dead body?”

Marge said, “She obviously has a lot of power over this guy.”

“Lots and lots of power. I’ve got to believe she has something bigger on him than just embezzlement!”

“Like what?” Marge said.

“I don’t know!” Decker punched his palm again.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Marge said. “As if he’d tell?”

“Funnier things have happened,” Decker said. “Why don’t you ask him, Marge? He seems to like you.”

“Fine.” Marge led the men as they came back into the interview room.

“What now?” Beltran asked.

“Couple more questions,” Marge said. “Please just bear with me, and then we can call it quits.”

“I can get out of here?” McKay asked.

“You discuss that with your lawyer.”

“But you said no jail time,” McKay began to protest.

Beltran said, “Lawrence, let’s finish up this interview, and then I can work on the bail, all right?” To Marge, he said, “Can we get on with it, Detective?”

“Leek, something’s…it’s all right if I call you Leek?”

“It’s fine.”

“Leek, all of us here can’t really understand why you helped Tandy out.”

“I told you she had dope on me.”

“Leek, there’s a mighty big difference between embezzlement and accessory to a murder.”

“So what are you saying, Detective?” Beltran asked.

“I’m just trying to figure out why he’d give Tandy—a girl who’d been blackmailing him for two years—ammunition to use against him.”

“My client’s motivation for accessory is irrelevant.”

“Maybe I was trying to get on her good side,” McKay said. “You know…pick up where we’d left off now that she looked so good.”