“Why didn’t Victor tell me?”Connor’s expression looked pained.
“Because Victor didn’t want trouble.You know how he was.He’d complain for two hours over a bad ref at the kids’ soccer game, but when something mattered, he’d say he could handle it.”
A flicker of pain crossed Connor’s face.“What happened at the house?”
“I was in the kitchen.The kids were upstairs.Someone knocked hard enough to rattle the door, and Victor went out onto the porch.I heard voices.Carl was angry.Very angry.”
Selena wrote down porch confrontation, kids upstairs, wife present.
“What did you hear him say?”Selena asked.
Marlene’s voice shrank further.“I heard him tell Victor he’d get what was coming to him.”
Connor looked at Selena.
Selena held his gaze, then looked back to the phone.“Those exact words?”
“I think so.Yes.He said Victor had made a fool out of him, and people who made fools out of him paid for it.Then he said Victor would get what was coming to him.”
“Did he threaten violence?”
Marlene sniffed down the phone.“Not directly.I thought it sounded like that, but Victor said it was just Carl being Carl.”
“Did Victor call anyone after that?A lawyer, an employee, a friend?”
“I don’t think so.He told me Carl liked to blow smoke, and I should forget it.”
Connor’s mouth tightened.“Marlene, I wish he’d told me.”
“So do I.”Anger entered her voice, cutting through the grief in one clean line.“I told him to.He laughed it off.He always laughed things off when he didn’t want me scared.”
Selena let a few seconds pass.
“Is there anything else you can think of that was out of the ordinary?”Selena asked.“Anything about Victor’s routine?Anyone else upset with him?Any strange calls?”
“No.”Marlene began to cry harder, breath catching between words.“No.Victor was always so upbeat.Everybody liked him.He was loud and stubborn and he forgot anniversaries unless I wrote them on the fridge, but he wasn’t cruel.He wasn’t a bad man.He was good… Why would anybody do this!?”
Connor cleared his throat.
The sound was rough enough that Selena looked at him.
He leaned closer to the phone.“We’ll speak with Carl Higgins.”
Marlene drew in a broken breath.“If it’s him, you promise me you’ll put him behind bars, Connor.For Vic.”
Connor did not hesitate.“I will get the son of a bitch who did this, Marlene.No matter what.”
Selena’s eyes moved to him at once.
That was the wrong promise.Human, understandable, and dangerous.
She stepped in before Marlene could build her hope around it.“Marlene, we’re not going to jump to conclusions yet.But we will speak with Carl Higgins, and we’ll do everything we can to track down your husband’s killer.”
A long silence came through the phone.
“All right,” Marlene said, though it did not sound all right.“Please don’t let my kids grow up wondering.”
“We won’t,” Connor said.
