Didn’t even bother to wash it off, Decker thought. Just wiped it off with a Kleenex. As if Granny hadn’t cared anymore.

“Then what happened?” Hollander asked.

“We left.” Pappy stopped to think. “But it was Katie. Halfway through our trip up, I remembered Katie. If Sue Beth saw Katie in bloody PJs with us, she’d know that something was wrong with Linda. So I left Granny, Earl, and Katie at a motel ’bout twenty miles away from Fall Springs. I told my wife to put Katie to bed early, then come with Earl and make like nothing happened. Like we decided to take Earl with us after all.”

“That’s when Sue Beth saw you all for dinner,” Decker said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You left a little kid alone in a motel?” Hollander said.

“She was sleeping,” Pappy Darcy answered. “I told Granny to go back to Katie after she was done with dinner. And she did. Then, the next morning, she told me she fixed Katie up. That we didn’t have to worry ’bout her no more. I asked Granny what she did, and she told me she left Katie with her father—her real father. I asked her what she meant, but she didn’t say no further. Then, later on, after the police found Katie, I asked Granny what did she do with her. But my wife, she was completely gone by then.”

Completely gone by then? The woman had been a certifiable lunatic for years. Pimping her daughter-in-law, murdering her, then killing her own daughter—accidentally or otherwise. Decker tried to reconstruct Granny Darcy’s twisted logic. The old woman must have driven back to L.A., dropped Katie off in the Manfred development in the middle of the night. She probably left her in front of the Binghams’ house—she knew who Katie’s father was because she’d chosen him. Maybe the kid had been sleeping when she had left her alone. One thing Decker knew for certain was that sometime during the night, Katie had wandered away.

“Whose idea was it for Earl to confess?” Decker asked.

“Mine,” Pappy Darcy admitted. “I didn’t think the law would do no harm to the boy since he’s not a full-thinkin’ person…. I didn’t see no other way. Sue Beth started askin’ me if Granny and Earl was with me when I came up. I said, of course they was, but I knowed she didn’t believe me. Then she told me the police were askin’ her the same question. I got scared.”

“So you had a long talk with Earl,” Hollander said.

“Convinced him he was the murderer of his family,” Decker said.