Oliver straightened up his shoulders and knotted his tie closer to his neck. “What I have is good because it actually has something to do with the Little case. Last I heard, we were working on that and not on Ekerling.”

“You’re annoying me,” Decker said. “Go ahead.”

“Rudy Banks was having an affair with Melinda Little.”

“Wow!” Marge was impressed. “That’s good.”

“Damn right,” Oliver said.

“The affair happened before or after Ben’s murder?” Decker asked.

“Before.”

“Man, Banks has had his dirty little fingers in just about everything,” Marge said. “How’d he manage to bag Little’s wife?”

Oliver said, “Well, we know Melinda was gambling behind her husband’s back. She probably needed money. Why not get it from Rudy?”

“Where’d Rudy get expendable money? Were the Doodoo Sluts that big?”

Decker said, “Marilyn Eustis told me they had cash, most of it spent on drugs.” He turned to Oliver. “How’d you find out about the affair?”

“Phil Shriner implied it.”

Marge stared at him. “What do you mean, implied it?”

Oliver shrunk back a tad. “He couldn’t actually tell me yes, because it was said to him in confidence, but—”

“So you don’t know if it’s true?”

“It’s true, Marge, he just won’t admit it because Melinda confessed her sins at one of those GA meetings where everything is confidential.”

“So how did you get it out of him?” Decker asked.

“I just made the leap and he didn’t tell me no.”

Decker said, “Scott, go over to Melinda Little and lie to her. Tell her that Shriner told you about the affair and what does she have to say for herself.”

Oliver shrank back again. “Uh, I’d like to get some independent corroboration first. Shriner told me that if I approached Melinda Little and told her that he blabbed the affair, he’d sue me and the department. I can pump Melinda on it and try to get her to admit it, but we need to leave Shriner out of it.”

“Back it up for a second,” Decker said. “Oliver, did Phil Shriner find out about the affair before or after the Little murder?”

“Melinda was in GA after Little died, so he must have found out about it afterward.”

Marge said, “If he’s to be believed.”

Abruptly Oliver hit his forehead with his hand. “I’m going senile. Shriner told me that he passed Rudy Banks’s name to Cal Vitton as a possible suspect for the murder.”

“He passed Banks’s name to Cal Vitton?” Decker was taken aback. “I didn’t see anything in Vitton’s note indicating that he interviewed Rudy.”

Oliver said, “So maybe Cal checked Rudy out and he couldn’t hold him.”