“For the moment, Dee’s still alive.” Marge slowed the car as she hooked around the twists and turns of the boulevard.

“Think so?” Oliver adjusted the air-conditioning up a notch. The wool of his charcoal suit was supposedly lightweight, but in today’s sticky, smoggy heat, the fabric was oppressive.

Marge thought a moment. “Either Dee whacked them or she’s running from the people who whacked them.”

“Either option ain’t good for the young-sounding Ms. Estes.” Oliver checked his hair in the vanity mirror. Still relatively thick and still in place. “Or is it Dr. Estes?”

“She didn’t say.”

“What exactly does Decker want?”

“To sniff out the Baldwins’ patients and see if any of them are violent psychos. We’re also supposed to find out all we can about Ernesto Golding and his problems, plus ask about a twenty-three-year-old named Ruby Ranger who was Ernesto’s girlfriend. But we have to be careful because we don’t have a subpoena and there’s a confidentiality problem.”

“Okay,” Oliver said, “so what’s the plan?”

“Just get her talking.” Marge stopped at a red light, then turned to face him and smiled. “Enthrall the words out of her, Scott.”

He straightened his tie and slicked back the salt-and-pepper hair that lined his temples. “Piece of cake.”

Marge turned the car right, onto Camden Drive, a street of large eclectic houses that sat on lots too puny for their size. The sidewalks were lined with magnolias that bathed the lawns and homes in muted light. When she hit Santa Monica, she realized that the street had turned one-way and she was going the wrong way. “I hate this city.”

“So do I.”

“Or maybe I’m just jealous because I can’t afford to live here.”

“I don’t mind not living here. I mind not being able to shop here.”

“You could always hit the sales.”

“Fifty percent off a fortune is still too high.” Oliver looked around. “We’re not too far away from Cindy’s, you know.”

“Now that would be a very bad idea.”

“I wasn’t thinking about anything, just stating a fact—”

“A very, very bad idea—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just concentrate on your driving.”

“Do you still see her?”

“We don’t stick pins in each other’s voodoo dolls if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m not asking if you’re enemies, I’m asking if you still see her?”

“What do you care?”

Sore point. Marge smiled. “You’re right. It is none of my business.”

“No, I don’t see her. Cindy’s idea, not mine.”

No one spoke.

Oliver said, “You passed the address.”

“I should concentrate on my driving,” Marge said. “Now I’m going to have to go around the block again.”

“God is punishing you for asking about Cindy.”

“That’s very medieval thinking. Besides, you brought her up!”