“We like talked different languages. I mean we both talked English, but often it was hard to discern a path of communication between the two of us. I mean I loved my sister, but our interests were diametrically opposite…Am I coherent?”

“Yes,” Decker answered.

She looked at Marge again, then whispered to Decker.

“She was my mother’s daughter. I mean, understand my mother and you’ll understand Lindsey. Except…”

Her eyes went to Marge, then back to Decker.

“Except…” she said, “my mother is a bitch and Lindsey was Earth Mama. I mean, my sister was nice to everyone, even some reeeel turkeys—the kind that deserve to be stuffed on Thanksgiving.”

“She seemed to have been very well liked.”

“She was wonderful to me,” Erin said, her eyes watering. “And I’m no day at the beach. She was very proud of my head, you know. She wasn’t bright, but she was never, never jealous of my achievements. And another thing, I mean most older sisters would be embarrassed to ask their kid sisters to help them. Not Lindsey!”

“No?”

“Not at all!” Erin said. “I mean, I’d die if I had to ask someone younger than myself for help. I mean, it really kills me to ask Josh Berenson to help me with my algebra, but at least he asks me for help with his compositions so it all like balances out.”

“I can see that.”

“But Lindsey didn’t care a fig. Just walked right up to me and said, ‘Erin, I’ve got a little problem with the book report.’” She sighed. “Lindsey and I, we liked each other but didn’t talk too much. Mostly when we did, it was she trying to set me up. I wasn’t interested in the guys she’d get for me, you know. I like older men. I need someone mature.”

She leaned forward.

“I’ve had men in their forties come on to me.”

Her eyes swung from Marge to Decker, settling somewhere below Decker’s belt.

“I can handle that, too,” she whispered.

Thank God for Margie.

“Did Lindsey like older men?” Decker asked.

“Hell, no. Her boyfriend was a nothing. A nice guy but a nothing. I realize that’s a value judgment.”

“Did you ever meet her boyfriend?”

“Sure. She used to bring Chris around when my mom wasn’t home. Mom didn’t like him.”

“You know why?”

“Because he was a nothing. But my definition of a nothing is different from hers. A nothing to me means empty in the skulleruno. Mom’s nothing is synonymous with no money.”

“Do you think it’s possible that Lindsey and Chris took off together?”

“It’s possible.” Her voice had dropped an octave and she winked at him. “Anything’s possible.” She glanced at Marge. “Does she have to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Departmental rules,” he lied.

She frowned.