“I’m not saying that Earl didn’t love you. In fact, he worshipped you, emulated everything you did. If you were in Spanish Club, so was Earl, if you were on the football team, so was Earl. So you couldn’t figure out why Earl would keep seeing this creep whom you hated. Little did you know how similar they were.”

Pode said nothing, but his body was trembling.

“Let’s go back to that fateful day in May. You killed you mother—”

“No!”

“Earl had left home, but he was still in contact with you—and with Cameron. You told Earl what happened. I mean if anyone could understand, it had to be Earl. But then Earl did a dumb thing. He told Cameron.”

“I need some air,” Pode said, suddenly gasping.

Decker turned the air conditioner on full blast.

“Want to get it off your chest?” Decker urged.

“Fuck off!”

“Now Weirdo Cameron had you by the balls. He started blackmailing not only you but your father as well. Cameron would make sadistic porno films—snuffs—and force your father to film them and use his old porno contacts to peddle them. If your father refused, Cameron threatened to tell the police how you murdered your mother—”

“No!”

“Ever see one of the films, Dustin? Ever see the look of abject terror on the girl’s face as she’s being sliced and tortured. Ever see flesh burn? Too bad the films couldn’t have featured the putrid smell of sizzling skin—”

“NO, NO, NO!” Pode screamed. “They were all staged, damn it! It was ketchup and Karo syrup…”

He sunk to his knees.

“Tell me about it, Dustin?”

“NO!”

“Then I’ll keep talking.” Decker glanced at his watch. “Wonder what’s keeping Detective Dunn and Mr. Smithson?”

He smiled, knowing the number she must be playing on Senior. Damn, she was good.

“Before I keep going, let me just read you your rights, just for the hell of it.”

Pode said nothing as Decker Mirandized him.

“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Pode didn’t answer.

“Where were we?” Decker pulled Dustin back onto the chair and leaned over his shoulder. “Oh yeah. Cameron made films, Earl and the Countess starred in them, and the proceeds went to pay off Cammy Boy’s sour investments. Damn son of a bitch always fancied himself as a bigwig producer artiste, didn’t he? Kissed up to assholes like Armand Arlington when they all thought he was a piece of shit.”

Pode let out low moan.

“When you protested, Cameron would threaten to blow the lid on you and your father. At first your dad was genuinely coerced, but then he started enjoying the extra revenue—helped pay off his gambling debts to the loan sharks. But the only problem was, the more money he had, the more he blew. See, Dustin, I know everything—”

Pode bolted up and began to pace.