“Lies-”

“Mama knew the score,” Decker said, talking over him. “Kicking the shit out of Earl just wasn’t worth getting barbecued for. Besides, there was always little old Dustin to kick around. She began laying off Earl. But that just made it worse for you, didn’t it, Dustin?”

“Filthy lies!”

“Earl thought he was helping both of you. He didn’t realize that Mama was still picking on you when he wasn’t looking. And you were too ashamed to tell him.”

Decker crouched in front of him, almost nose to nose.

“Let’s go back to May 1977,” he said.

Dustin gasped out, “No.”

“Mama was alone in her bed,” Decker said. “Earl had run away from home by then. There was no record of him in high school in ’77. Now I don’t know what the catalyst was but the idea hit you. Mama was sleeping one off, and you took a match-”

“No!” Pode yelled. “I mean, this is preposterous!”

“You set her bed on fire. Maybe you suddenly grew yourself a set of balls-”

“You don’t understand a thing!” Dustin blurted out. “My father…” He didn’t finish.

“She didn’t stay asleep like a good girl, did she, Pode? She tried to get out. No one was there to help her. Maybe someone even hindered her a little…”

“No!”

“No one blames you,” Decker said gently. “Man, I’d be pretty damn pissed if someone binged on hooch and then beat the crap out of me. And you must have been pretty pissed at her, Dustin. I mean, to go to all the trouble to take down the personal pictures in your dad’s house and destroy them after he died. But even that wasn’t enough. You had to burn down the whole house even if it meant losing money on resale. Now that’s an angry kid.”

Dustin shook his head feebly.

“You also blew up Daddy’s studio, didn’t you?”

“No!” Pode gasped. “That’s not true! I mean, none of it is true.”

“It’s all true,” Decker continued. “I’ve seen child abuse thousands of times, Dustin. I’m just moonlighting in Homicide. I usually work Juvenile, and you’d be amazed at how many cases I’ve worked on that tell your story.”

Sweat dripped down Pode’s nose onto his shirt.

“You hot, Buddy?” Decker asked.

“No.”

“Want a handkerchief?”

“NO!”

“Okay. Just take it easy.” Decker walked away. Don’t crack him before you read him his rights. He poked around another box and found a ledger that didn’t add up. “Who does your books, Dustin?”

Pode said nothing.

“Someone’s been fudging, huh? Skimming off the top. Trying to bleed a little out of legit profits to finance turkey films and shoddy real estate deals.”

“Shut up!”

“Nah, it wasn’t you. You’re too smart. But Cameron…” Decker paused. “He’s a dumbshit, isn’t he? Earl’s best friend whom you’ve always hated. But Earl liked him. Actually they were two of a kind. Weird kids. Neighbors used to say the two of them were inseparable.”

“I’m not going to say another word, Decker.”

“I’m not saying that Earl didn’t love you. In fact, he worshipped you, emulated everything you did. If you were in Spanish Club, so was Earl, if you were on the football team, so was Earl. So you couldn’t figure out why Earl would keep seeing this creep whom you hated. Little did you know how similar they were.”

Pode said nothing, but his body was trembling.

“Let’s go back to that fateful day in May. You killed you mother-”

“No!”

“Earl had left home, but he was still in contact with you-and with Cameron. You told Earl what happened. I mean if anyone could understand, it had to be Earl. But then Earl did a dumb thing. He told Cameron.”

“I need some air,” Pode said, suddenly gasping.

Decker turned the air conditioner on full blast.

“Want to get it off your chest?” Decker urged.

“Fuck off!”

“Now Weirdo Cameron had you by the balls. He started blackmailing not only you but your father as well. Cameron would make sadistic porno films-snuffs-and force your father to film them and use his old porno contacts to peddle them. If your father refused, Cameron threatened to tell the police how you murdered your mother-”

“No!”

“Ever see one of the films, Dustin? Ever see the look of abject terror on the girl’s face as she’s being sliced and tortured. Ever see flesh burn? Too bad the films couldn’t have featured the putrid smell of sizzling skin-”

“NO, NO, NO!” Pode screamed. “They were all staged, damn it! It was ketchup and Karo syrup…”

He sunk to his knees.

“Tell me about it, Dustin?”

“NO!”

“Then I’ll keep talking.” Decker glanced at his watch. “Wonder what’s keeping Detective Dunn and Mr. Smithson?”

He smiled, knowing the number she must be playing on Senior. Damn, she was good.

“Before I keep going, let me just read you your rights, just for the hell of it.”

Pode said nothing as Decker Mirandized him.

“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Pode didn’t answer.

“Where were we?” Decker pulled Dustin back onto the chair and leaned over his shoulder. “Oh yeah. Cameron made films, Earl and the Countess starred in them, and the proceeds went to pay off Cammy Boy’s sour investments. Damn son of a bitch always fancied himself as a bigwig producer artiste, didn’t he? Kissed up to assholes like Armand Arlington when they all thought he was a piece of shit.”

Pode let out low moan.

“When you protested, Cameron would threaten to blow the lid on you and your father. At first your dad was genuinely coerced, but then he started enjoying the extra revenue-helped pay off his gambling debts to the loan sharks. But the only problem was, the more money he had, the more he blew. See, Dustin, I know everything-”

Pode bolted up and began to pace.

“You don’t know a damn thing!” he shouted. “She would have killed us all! She was getting worse. She was paranoid when she was drunk. Thought everyone was out to get her. She was coming after us with knives! She once cut up Dad so badly…”

He leaned against a wall and started to weep. Decker let the sobs continue for a minute, then walked over to him and gently placed his hands on his shoulder.

“I understand,” he said softly. “Look, Dustin, none of this is your fault. It’s Cameron’s. He was the one who murdered. He murdered the Countess, didn’t he?”

Dustin sniffed and nodded his head.

“Did he tell you why he did it? He did it for money, didn’t he?”

Again Dustin nodded, as he dried his eyes on his shirt sleeve. The man had turned pathetic.

“She wanted a bigger piece of the pie, huh?” Decker asked.

“That’s what Cameron told me,” Dustin said in a weak voice. “He threatened to expose me if I told anyone.”

“Threatened you with what?”

“You know.”

“Your mother?”

Dustin nodded.

“Cameron’s evil, Dustin, a psychopath. He’s the one who talked your brother into killing Lindsey-”

“My brother never killed anyone. I told you it was all staged!”

“I saw the film, Dustin. The girl died. Your brother and the Countess killed her. Then Cameron went ahead and used the same gun that killed Lindsey Bates to murder the Countess and your brother.”

Either Pode didn’t hear him or Decker’s timing was off, because the broker didn’t react.

“Did you understand what I said, Dustin?”

The tear-stained face looked up.

“Earl’s dead, Dustin.”

Pode shook his head no.

“He was positively identified by dental records, Dustin. Cameron killed him-”

“No!” Pode screamed, drool slipping out of the corners of his mouth. “No!” He lunged at Decker, who sidestepped the attack, and went stumbling onto his knees.

“Cameron killed your brother. I know about it. Tell me where he is.”

“No, no, no!” He was wailing now. Decker let him cry it out, then helped him off his knees and back onto the chair.

“He couldn’t have killed Earl,” Pode argued desperately. “He told me Earl had left town. I just got a postcard from Mexico.”