“I told you I hardly remember him—”

“Now who’s making shit up?” Oliver accused. “You ran drugs for him, Darnell. You and Jervis Wenderhole and Leroy Josephson—”

“Leroy’s dead, Jervis is working as a community counselor for the underprivileged, I’m working my ass off trying to bring home another trophy so I can keep my damn job and feed and clothe my kids. I had nothing to do with Dr. Ben’s death.”

He spun around and glared at the detectives.

“Sergeant, after you left my home, I thought of Dr. Ben and I cried. As an adult, I can finally see what that poor man was trying to do for me.”

His eyes got moist and he looked away.

“I never got no opportunity to thank him. Just a simple phone call to say, hey, your faith in me was not for nothin’…look at me now. I’m doing fine.”

“I believe everything you just told me, Darnell,” Marge said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you and Rudy ran drugs for North Valley High. It doesn’t change the fact that when Ben Little found out about it, he shut down the entire drug operation and expelled you from school.”

Arlington’s steely voice had returned. “If y’all got it so figured out, why wasn’t Rudy arrested for drug peddling at the time?”

“C’mon, Darnell,” Oliver said, “You know what happened. Rudy’s walking was probably part of the deal that Ben made so you wouldn’t get sent to Juvenile. If the operation would quietly cease, Rudy would disappear without charges and you’d be shipped off to Ohio with nothing on your records.”

Marge said, “It probably worked for a little bit. But you know Rudy, Darnell. You know that he wasn’t about to walk away from a cash cow. He went back to work using Josephson and Wenderhole.”

“And then Ben Little found out,” Oliver told him. “He was furious. He thought that you and Rudy were still running drugs behind his back. This time he was going to whack you hard, Darnell. Rudy said that Little had to be stopped and if you didn’t help get rid of him, Ben was going to expose you and this time you’d go to jail.”

“Must have really pissed you off,” Marge said. “You’d finally gotten your shit together, and Dr. Ben—the same man who expelled you from high school—was about to mess you up again—”

Darnell pivoted around, his face wet with fury, his eyes on fire with indignation. He spoke with a hiss. “You two jackasses ain’t worth a penny of what they’re paying you if that’s the best that you can come up with.”