Marge let the words hang in the air. Then she said, “What was Leroy Josephson’s role when you were recording with Primo? After all, he was the one who set you up with Ekerling?”

“Leroy acted as my manager. He’d push the demo to the radio stations.”

“Did he and Ekerling work together to promote you?”

“Now that’s a good question.” He thought a moment. “The few times that Leroy came to the studio, Ekerling shooed him out. Leroy was pissed, but he understood. Mostly they did their things, and they did them separately. Leroy did the legwork…talking people into listening to the demo. And we were finally getting somewhere.” His face darkened. “We was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Marge regarded the newspaper clipping again. “I want to go back to Rudy Banks because his name keeps showing up in our investigation. You told me that Rudy was pissed at Darnell for getting caught. Was Rudy also pissed at Ben Little for busting open the operation?”

“I don’t know if there even was an operation. Rudy just told me that Darnell used to run drugs for him. This was a year or two after Little’s death. I certainly wasn’t going to call Darnell and ask if it was true. I didn’t care if it was true. I was doing my own thing and I’m sure Darnell was doing his own thing and that was that.”

“This is all coming at me very fast. We’re going to have to go over this again…and again.”

“I figured that. I can’t give you much more time today, but like I said, I’ll come in and make a statement to the police. I’ll accept the consequences for my actions, but I’m not going to implicate Darnell in anything. As far as I know, he didn’t do anything.”

“I’ve talked to him. He’s hiding something.”

“If he is, I don’t know about it. All I did was help a friend, and now he’s dead. I’ve carried some kind of queasy guilt in me for a long time. I’m ready to get rid of it and move on. That’s the key to living in peace, Sergeant, the ability to recognize your mistakes and then to move on.”

CHAPTER 31

THE CALL WAS from Marge.

Going sixty-five on the freeway, Decker had reservations about driving while connected even though he had a hands-free option: too many people distracted for a nanomoment with dire consequences. The closest off-ramp was a mile away and would drop him deep in the Santa Monica Mountains. Reception would be challenging.