Marge checked her watch. “What time’s the funeral?”

“Six-thirty.”

She frowned. That gave her and Oliver just a little over three hours to make it into Beverly Hills, root through the Baldwin files, and make it back into the Valley. As it stood, they were looking at fifty minutes of absolute travel time, more actually because peak commuter time was just around the corner. “We’re not going to make it.”

“You’re excused. This new homicide changes things.” Decker looked at Wanda. “What do you have?”

She bit her lower lip. “It isn’t looking good, sir. The PEI office was completely cleaned out. Not a scrap of paper to be found.”

“What about the furniture?” Marge asked.

“It was still there,” Wanda said.

“That makes sense,” Decker said. “You take off quickly, you don’t take furniture.”

“I sent a tech over there to dust the place,” Wanda said.

“What do you hope to find?” Oliver challenged.

“I don’t know what I expected to find,” Wanda answered. “But what I got was surprising. The walls and the furniture were basically free of prints.”

“Basically?” Oliver asked.

“We pulled up about a dozen fingerprints…a couple of palm prints. Way less than expected.”

Decker said, “Someone wiped down the place before he cleared out.”

Oliver said, “You mean Darrell Holt wiped the place before he cleared out.”

“Yes, that is what I mean.” Decker took out his pad and paper. “Put the prints into the system. Let’s see if it spits back anything.”

“That’ll take days,” Oliver answered.

“Are you going anywhere?” Decker retorted.

“I’m only lamenting, Loo. So much for a quick solve.”

“I lament with you, Scott.” Decker tried to clear his brain. “What do we know? We know that the Baldwins were Holt’s therapists. According to Tarpin, Holt wasn’t one of the Baldwins’ success stories. We also know that Tarpin was involved with Holt and PEI. That’s what we know.”

Oliver said, “So if Holt’s the perp, we’ve got to ask ourselves what would Holt have to gain for whacking the Baldwins and Tarpin?”

Decker said, “You forgot about Ernesto.”

“I think he was wrong place, wrong time.”

“You think so?”

“I think so.”

“Okay. We’ll assume that for the moment, although I’m not convinced. But if it were the case, what would be Holt’s motivation for wanting the Baldwins dead?”

Wanda said, “Maybe the Baldwins had something on him?”

“Holt wasn’t running for Congress,” Oliver answered. “What could they have had on Holt that would have been more embarrassing than his association with PEI?”

“Maybe something from his therapy days?” Marge suggested. “A weird sexual proclivity that wouldn’t have played well with PEI?”

“Like he likes little boys?” Oliver asked.

“Or how about little girls?” Wanda said. “That girl who was working for him was definitely jailbait.”