“Officially?” Oliver put down one accounting ledger and picked up another. “I’ve got six checks made out to him, the earliest one dating three years ago.”

“For how much again?” Decker asked. “Five G’s per check? Don’t look at me like that, Oliver. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Oliver tried to soften his sneer. “The first one was for fifteen hundred, then two, then twenty-five, then five, then seventy-five. The last one was ten grand. That was dated six months ago. Maybe Moke had asked for even more and Baldwin finally balked.”

“You’re talking about the female Baldwin, right?” Marge was seated in front of Dee’s computer. “She wrote the checks to Moke.”

Oliver said, “Yeah, I’m talking about Dee.”

“But Dee didn’t write most of the business checks,” Decker said.

“Correct,” Oliver said. “Merv did most of the accounting—”

“Correction,” Maryam Estes broke in. “The accountant did most of the accounting. Merv just signed the checks.”

Decker looked at her. “How do you know that?”

She moved her head back and forth in twitchy little motions. “I had a couple of questions about my salary check. Merv told me to take it up with the accountant.”

“What kind of questions?” Marge asked.

“It was nothing serious. Dee forgot to pay me for a few extra hours when I filled in for her in group therapy. She wasn’t the best bookkeeper in the world. So I went to Mervin about it. It was all straightened out very quickly.”

“Who signed your salary check?” Oliver asked.

“Dr. Baldwin…Merv did.”

“Even though you worked mainly for Dee,” Marge commented. “See, that’s my point. Merv did most of the signing, but not when it came to Moke. Dee took care of Moke. I think she was the one who hired him on. She may have even kept her husband in the dark about him.”

“All the checks were drawn from the same account,” Oliver told her. “So even if it wasn’t Merv’s idea to hire on Moke, he should have known what was going on. The checks were for large amounts.”

Maryam gave out an exasperated sigh and stuck a novel in front of her face. Decker smiled at Marge, who smiled at Oliver. They had spread out over the entire office. The Baldwins’ partners desk was filled with patient files, stubs, ledgers, appointment books, and piles of papers. Oliver was doing the scut work, sorting and collating all the loose pages, Marge was at the computer, sifting through Dee Baldwin’s electronic files, and Decker was scrolling down files on Merv Baldwin’s desktop.