“Bullshit. They all start off remorseful. Within a very short period of time, it’s ‘I don’t want to die. Save my fucking ass!’ I wouldn’t lose any sleep if they fried her.”

Decker nodded.

“Fried her big time.”

“Whatever.”

Marge paused. “You’re being rather mysterious.”

“I’m in pain.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Why don’t you call it a day?” Marge said.

“No, I’ll slug it out. I’m a man. I can’t admit weakness.”

Marge smiled.

Decker said, “When’s Berger going before the grand jury?”

“Originally, they had him down for next week. But the FBI keeps finding stuff. Apparently, Fisher/Tyne has not only been monkeying around with data—which is federal offense because they’ve been hacking into computer data banks cross-country—but the company’s also been covering up dubious results and negative side effects of their test drugs.”

“How?”

“They discount side effects as anomalies or just plain disregard the data. Ignore it. If a doctor says anything about the outrageous practice, the company hits the MD with a slander suit. Keeps the doc tied up with expensive litigation that encourages others to keep their mouths shut.”

“That’s not illegal?”

“Nope. But bribing is. FBI’s uncovered incentive bribes for looking the other way. Shockley is up to his ears. Scott has had the last laugh.”

She paused.

“Course that doesn’t bring Kenneth Leonard back to life. Poor guy. He finally decides to do the right thing and gets mowed down. Talk about bad timing.”

“Ironic,” Decker said. “Whole thing might never have been discovered if Azor hadn’t been murdered.” He exhaled forcefully. “And his murder had nothing at all to do with Fisher/Tyne.”

“It always boils down to a personal thing, doesn’t it?”

“Usually.”

Marge’s eyes met his. “Are you mad at me, Pete?”

“Mad at you?”

“For crapping out on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Marge sat down at Decker’s desk across from him. “When you called me over to help Bram, I hesitated. I didn’t want to do it.”

“It’s understandable. You weren’t gloved.”

“Neither were you.”

Decker shrugged. “Thinking about it later on, I wondered if I did the right thing by yelling at you to come over. There’d been rumors that he was gay. Suppose he was HIV positive.”

“Yet you didn’t think twice about it, did you?”

“Rightly or wrongly, no, I didn’t.”

“I really admire you.”

“Nothing to admire. Like I told Michael Sparks, I didn’t think, I just did what I’d been trained to do.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Decker smiled. “You’re imparting undeserved nobility to my character.”

Marge said, “His blood was clean.”

“Thank God,” Decker said. “I’m not saying Bram’s death has a silver lining. In fact, the whole thing is simply an ugly, useless tragedy. But…”

He swallowed.