Oliver couldn’t help it. He broke out laughing, swinging a look Marge’s way. “My Ph.D. in chemistry must be showing.”

Shockley frowned. “Are you putting me on, Detective?”

Oliver said, “Yes, sir, I am putting you on. I apologize.”

Shockley glared at him. Oliver flashed him the peace sign. “No disrespect meant.”

Mollified, Shockley folded his hands and said, “Besides, you wouldn’t get a thing out of the trial data. Just a bunch of numbers and figures. Impossible to interpret unless you’re intimately involved in the trials.”

Meaning you dumbshits couldn’t understand them anyway. Marge said, “What do you think about Sparks’s other colleague, Elizabeth Fulton?”

“I never dealt with her.”

“Never?” Oliver asked.

“Yes, I believe I did say never, Detective.”

Oliver said, “You spent lots of money developing and refining a drug like Curedon, right?”

“Researching and refining,” Shockley corrected.

“Yes, you’re right, of course. Sparks developed the drug.”

“Yes, he did.”

Oliver said, “Say you spend lots of money researching and refining a drug, and it turns out to be a bust. What happens?”

“We move on.”

“You take a huge loss just like that?” Oliver said.

“We move on,” Shockley repeated.

“Then how do you stay in business?”

“Our profits exceed our losses.”

Marge thought of something that Decameron had brushed upon. “How about this, Doctor? We all know there’re a million different names for the same aspirin tablet out there, right?”

“I’ve never analyzed all the different acetylsalicylic compounds. I can’t answer that yes or no.”

“You’re being picky, Doctor,” Oliver said.

“I’m being exacting.”

Marge was not about to be put off. “What if a drug proved to be safe and effective. But not much more effective than what’s available on the shelves.”

“Or what’s in the pharmacies,” Oliver stated.

Marge said, “Do you still market the drug?”

“I can’t answer that, Detective.”

“Not even evasively?” Marge asked.

Shockley smiled, but said nothing.

Marge said, “I mean why would drug companies spend all this money to put something on the market when it’s not a big improvement over what’s already out there.”

“Like we have a million types of cold medicines,” Oliver said. “Or a million types of toothpastes.”

“Or a million types of cola sodas, Detectives.” Shockley made quote signs with his fingers when he stated the word million. “Or all the different brands of cigarettes, coffee, orange juice, yogurt, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Different strokes for different folks,” Oliver said.

“I couldn’t have phrased it better,” Shockley said.

“Is Curedon more effective than what’s out there?” Oliver asked.

“Detective, we’re back to where we started.”

“Are the trials going to continue now that Dr. Sparks is gone?”

“I don’t know for certain,” Shockley said. “But I can’t see why they shouldn’t continue.”

“And you’d still be working with Dr. Decameron?”