"Take a seat, Miss Macy." Detective Day pulled out his chair and nodded to Detective Bevin. "Read Miss Macy her rights please, Tim."

"Why? Why have I been brought here?" Penny tweaked her head, her shoulders surged. She stood up, paced and said in a high-pitched whiney voice, "I don't understand..."

"It's protocol, Miss Macy. We have to read you your rights before we can begin." Day indicated her vacant seat. "Please sit down. By the time we've finished your legal representative will be here."

"I need legal representation?" The tone of her voice dropped a few octaves. Penny clutched her throat. Her left eye twitched and in alto said, "But I haven't done anything wrong."

David glanced at Tim. What the hell was going on with this woman? He frowned. "You know I've had an auditor in, Penny." He stared at her but her eyes kept darting from one wall to the other. "Can I call you Penny?" The question seemed to calm her. She nodded. "So you know what I'm going to ask you but, please let us read you your rights."

Tears rolled down Penny's face as they began reading and by the time, they had finished the pimple faced Legal Aide Solicitor was sitting beside her.

"I have your previous statement here, Miss Macy. We'll go through it again in a minute." Detective Day tapped the folder in front of him. "So... Penny. We know you cooked the books at Sykes."

Penny's face contorted; her mouth twisted in a grotesque way. She clutched her jaw as if to bring it back into place.

"You don't know that! I object!" The young attorney jumped to his feet. "You can't say that to my client."

David didn't have time for this. It looked like Miss Macy was going to have a seizure. He watched her face settle back to its normal façade, and then focused on the solicitor. "What was your name again?"

"Hammel Turner. Legal Aide. You can't accuse my client of fraud and embezzlement."

"Have you read the report, Mister Turner?" David threw it on the table in front of Hammel. "It's not why Miss Macy is here but I've a fair guess there could be a connection. If you'll let me get to my questions, I'd appreciate it because I haven't got all day and I don't imagine you have either."

Hammel jerked his head and opened the report. "Go ahead."

"Penny." Detective Day began again. "I'm not investigating the embezzlement problem but I am investigating the murder of Sally Parks. I need to go through your statement again and I want you to think very carefully about your story. Rohan Wayland is in the frame for this so if you have any knowledge of any of the goings on at Sykes which will confirm our beliefs or disprove them then I need you to come clean." He watched her squirm on her chair. "Please, Penny. Anything you know that can help us and I'll put in a good word where the embezzlement is concern."

Miss Macy wiped her face. Her lip quivered. She gripped the table and flung her head forward. In a man's voice she shouted, "Loose goose." Her shoulders jerked and her neck twisted as she squeaked, "Cooked chook."

"Huh." David's head jerked backwards. "What was that?"

"Nothing." Penny waved her words away. Her eye twitched again. "My goose is cooked, Detective." She tittered, smiled sweetly and took a breath. "What do you want to know?"

David wondered what the hell was going on. "Do you know anything, about anyone, which could help us with our investigation?"

"Okay. Have you got a lot of tape in that machine?" Penny settled in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "Sally was having numerous affairs. Bill Peters and Mercer Kennedy that I know of. She took an interest in Rohan Wayland but he didn't want anything to do with her. She'd intimidated him a lot but I truly don't believe he could kill her. He doesn't have that kind of courage though he's getting better."

Penny sneered. Her head juddered before she spoke again, "Both Bill and Mercer had fights with Sally that day. Bill threatened to kill her if she was having sex with Rohan too." She paused, gave him and angelic look and in a little girl's voice said, "I told you this in my last statement. Have you questioned Bill because he was so angry when I overheard that in the toilets? I think he killed her."

She nodded knowingly, and then thought some more. "I don't think he knew about Sally's affair with Mercer." Penny reached for the cup of water in front of her and took a sip. "It's not normal if you ask me," she said plainly and with great thought added, "You either have sex with men or women. Not both." Her face convulsed. In a deep breathless voice she murmured, "Try... Bi... and you will die..."

David and Tim eyed each other, shook their heads and shrugged. Tim struggled to hide his grin as he said, "Miss Macy. Please get on with your story."

"Yes. Yes." Suddenly Penny Macy was very normal again. She spoke as if no weird voices or behaviour had happened, "Mercer and Sally had a fight over the way Sally was going after Rohan. They had a punch up. Mercer threatened to cut Sally with her letter opener." Penny stopped speaking and pointed at the paperwork in front of the detectives. "That's also in my last statement."

"Yes, Penny. We've questioned Miss Kennedy about this already."

Penny smiled and thought some more. "I don't think there's anything else I can tell you. Oh! Yes, there is. Bill Peters was replacing his urine for someone who works high up in the defence force."

"You knew about that?" The detective shook his head in disbelief. "It's not in your last statement." He pinned her with his gaze. "Why didn't you tell us this before? Report it?"

"It was none of my business and it was an accident I found out about it." The screechy voice was back as she said, "I overheard Sally and Bill fighting over it." Penny clawed at her hands. Her head joggled. "In the toilets," she whined. "It was part of the same argument that they had over Rohan."

"So, Sally Parks knew about this too?"

"Yes. Yes, she did, Detective." Calm Penny was back. "Bill was getting money to do it."

"Did Sally Parks know what you were doing with the books?"

Penny firmly shook her head. Her right arm jerked and her left leg kangarooed.

"Don't lie to me, Miss Macy."

"No..." Penny growled. The husky male voice drawled, "She... Didn't... Know..."

David leaned forward and peered into Penny Macy's eyes. What the fuck was happening here? This woman wasn't right in the head. "I know you're lying to me."

"I'm... I'm... not lying," placid Penny said, and then added, "She didn't know."

"Miss Macy. I know you're lying about a lot of things so I'm going to tell you, my theory."

"Your theory?" she squeaked.

"Yes. My theory on why and how you killed Sally Parks."

"I... I... didn't!"

Detective David Day leaned back in his chair and smiled. "You did."

"Sally Parks knew a lot of things about everyone who worked at Sykes. She knew you were a gambler. You're in a lot of debt, Miss Macy. You've mortgaged your house and the banks are about to take it so you came up with a plan to create false invoices to cover for the money you were stealing from the company. Sally knew this too and was hinting to disclose you to Jack Benny. To top it all off, the day you were hiding in the toilets, the day Sally Parks was murdered, you heard her tell Bill Peters she was having sex with Joe Cartarney. Your fiancé. Your pot of gold. Joe's a wealthy man, Penny, and there was no way you could let Sally Parks get her hands on him and possibly stop him from marrying you."

David folded his arms and looked at Penny Macy as she tried to roll up in a ball, lurching and twitching on her chair. 'How am I going so far, Penny?"

She flicked her eyes up at him. Her face distorted. In deep tones she said, "Sally... tally... hit her in the ally..."

"What was that, Penny? You hit her in the ally?" David looked at Tim.

Tim mouthed, "Loopy."

David continued for the sake of the tape. "You took the Microtome from the lab. Rohan and Bill had already left. You pretended to go home, and then went back in through the carpark knowing Sally had driven to work and you waited. You already knew the security camera wasn't working because an email had been sent to you that morning. It was perfect timing. You hit Sally on the head and pushed her down the stairs. You made your way to the front of the building via the underground car park so you wouldn't appear twice on the CTV footage. You stood just inside the front door, out of camera range and pretended you'd just finished work. You took the Microtome home in your bag and washed it. Then with all the commotion the next morning you shoved it back on the shelf in the lab." David stared at her again but she seemed to be somewhere else. "Am I close, Penny?"

She speared her face at him, her head quaking as she hissed, "Dead... red... hit her on the head."

The officer by the door took Penny by the arm as her body went into spasm and jerked about. She chanted. "Sally... tally... hit her in the ally. Smother... mother. Silly old other. Slow... Joe's... gotta go. In his will... fed him pills..."

David looked at Tim open-mouthed. "Better send a car around to the old bastard's house and see if he's still alive."

They heard Penny's manic voice screech down the hall. "Never a wife... have no life..."

OMG!! Penny Macy is completely bonkers.

Who'd have thought she was a murderer.  Maybe she's a serial murderer.

Image belongs to The Simpsons