Decker punched the “off” button of the portable tape recorder. It rested on the hospital night stand between a plastic pitcher of water and the nurse’s call button. Marge’s message to him through Hollander was: Bring the damn confession tape with you when you come, or don’t come at all. Decker made it a point never to enrage a convalescing woman.

Even though Marge’s color was pasty, her head still wrapped in yards of bandage, she was looking better. Her eyes remained red and swollen, but at least they were focused and alert. Instead of the dehumanizing hospital gown, she wore her own terry-cloth robe—pastel pink dotted with white fuzzy things.

“So, beautiful,” Decker said, “what do you think?”

Marge had a lot of ideas, but it took her a while before she could verbalize them. They’d taken her off the monitoring equipment, unplugged her from the IV, but trauma and traces of Demerol slowed her agile wit. It took effort to think, even more energy to speak. When she did, her voice echoed in her head.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that it’s not total bullshit. That Earl was there when all the shooting went down.”

“I agree,” Decker said.

“But I really can’t see Earl wasting Linda,” Marge said.

“Ditto.”

“The others…” She shrugged. “One thing sticks in my damaged brain, Pete.”

“What’s that?”

“Earl mentioned blowing them away with a shotgun,” Marge said. “And he mentioned the little gun—no doubt the S and W. But Earl never mentioned using the handgun. And he didn’t know who it belonged to.”

“Where did the thirty-eight come from?” Decker said. “Big question mark in my notes. Know what else was odd? The kid seemed confused as to who he killed first. He kept saying Rolland Mason, but the way he talked made me think that he plugged Luke first. He kept on coming back to killing Luke.”

“Yeah, but we know Luke was probably plugged by a .38 before he was hit with the pellets,” Marge said. A tinny whistle sang through her head, then shut off as abruptly as it had come on. “I’m trying to visualize this scene…I don’t know if it’s water on the brain or what, but the whole thing seems screwy.”

“One of those family tiffs that went haywire.” Decker thought a moment. “Okay, let’s try to reconstruct it. Luke, Linda, Carla, and Rolland are all in the kitchen. Linda, Rolland, Carla on one side, Luke on the other—a confrontational lineup. From what Earl said, Linda and Luke were the primary participants in this bout.”

“Then why were Rolland and Carla there?”