“I found out why they called him that,” Marge said. “His full name is Jervis Attarack Wenderhole. Attarack…A-Tack. Anyway we set up the appointment by phone tag. Since I’ll be going into the city, I’ll stop by the law offices and try to speak with Mackleby in person.”

Oliver knocked on the open door, then stepped into the office, wearing a brown jacket, white shirt, and a gold tie. Marge looked at him. “You look like you’re headed for Vegas.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “How’d the memorial go?”

“Freddie Vitton was a wealth of information. Rudy Banks used to torture Vitton’s younger brother, Cal Junior, when they were in school together. Banks went so far as to try to throw acid on his genitals—”

Marge said “Jesus” and Oliver said “Ouch” at the same time.

Oliver said, “What did Cal Senior do when he found out?”

“Apparently, Big Cal man never found out about the bullying,” Decker said.

“C’mon.” Marge looked up from her notepad. “He had to have known something.”

“According to Freddie, he probably did know something, but Cal J never confided in his dad, so Cal Senior never did anything. Freddie did mention that his father hated Rudy and if Rudy would have been implicated in Little’s death, Cal wouldn’t have hesitated to haul him in. Rudy was a punk and had run-ins with the law.”

“I don’t buy that. Big Cal knew about it. A good parent knows when something’s wrong.”

“He wasn’t a very good parent,” Decker said.

Marge said, “But how would Freddie know that his father hated Rudy if Junior never mentioned the bullying to his dad? And if Cal Senior hated Rudy because he was a local punk, why would he be talking about Rudy to Freddie?”

“Good point,” Decker said. “Freddie also told me that Ben Little was intervening on Cal J’s behalf. Maybe that’s why Cal Senior didn’t intervene. And eventually the situation was taken care of. Rudy was expelled. Since Arnie Lamar said that Big Cal wasn’t that comfortable with his son’s homosexuality, I could see Cal Senior letting someone else deal with the situation.”

Oliver said, “If Little expelled Banks, then Banks would have a reason to hate him.”

“But Banks had been out of North Valley for five years,” Marge told him. “He was already a punk rock star. Why would he wait so long to kill Little?”

Decker said, “Maybe he had finally amassed enough money to pay for the hit.”

Marge was making diagrams. “Banks torments Cal J, Little expels Banks. Then Banks kills Little…and then fifteen years later, Cal Senior commits suicide?”