“Until we know everything, we need to be meticulous. That means going over the crime scenes again to make sure we didn’t overlook anything. We’ll need to reinterview the witnesses…canvas the area again. Maybe someone saw Holt go in and out of Dee’s beach condo even if the person didn’t see him the day of the murder. Also, we’ll need to question the boys at the nature camp again—one by one.”

“We questioned them one by one.”

“Notice I used the word ‘again.’ God is in the details. As far as I’m concerned, this is still an ongoing investigation. There could be dozens of people that we haven’t unearthed.”

“I hear you, Lieutenant. But right now, I’m too tired to think.”

“Yeah, weren’t you going to go home?”

“I was.” But Marge made no attempt to get up from the chair.

“Any reason you’re dragging your heels?”

“Fatigue.”

“And?”

“And, actually…I feel more competent here than I do at home.” Marge sighed. “At work, we’ve got some kind of method. You do an investigation, you follow a procedure. Sure, there’s a kink here and there, but mostly it’s…” She extended her right hand to mimic a beeline path. “At home…I don’t know…we make the rules up as we go along.”

Decker nodded.

Marge smiled. “It’s probably different when you’ve raised them since infancy.”

“No, not really.”

“C’mon,” Marge insisted. “You got history together.”

“Good history and bad history. You don’t think that Jacob has chinked some of Rina’s armor?”

“Poor Rina. How does she deal with it?”

“Rina’s low key. Not that she doesn’t ache, but…” He threw his hands up. “Outwardly, she’s very calm. It bugs the crap out of me. She should get apoplectic like I do.” He threw a pencil across the room. “Maybe she’s had too many hard knocks to be bothered by an errant teenager.”

“You always said that Jacob was the easy one. What happened?”

“Things came up. Life is full of surprises, Marjorie.”

“He’s a bright boy, Pete. He’ll be okay.”

“That’s what I tell myself.” He stacked up the papers. “Well, I’m feeling pretty nonfunctional. Maybe we should both go home.”

“And feel nonfunctional there?”

“We’ve made our beds, Margie. We might as well sleep in them.”

Eight in the morning, and there were already visitors in the house. Maybe they were relatives, because Rina thought a few of the women resembled Jill. There were also about a dozen teenagers. Maybe cousins, maybe friends of Karl’s, maybe kids from Ernesto’s class. They were talking in hushed voices, the boys looking at their feet, the girls wiping their red eyes with tissues. Within moments, a Jill look-alike approached her, looked her up and down, then managed a courteous nod. “I’m Brook Hart. May I help you?”