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It was too much. It was all too much. The murder of an entire family. Sam’s mother-in-law arrested for prostitution and racketeering. Her brother-in-law dead from a fentanyl overdose. But she had a job to do, and damn it, she was going to do it, no matter the turmoil swirling inside her. “Let’s do this.”
They went up the stone stairs to a door that fronted a screened-in porch. They rang the doorbell. “Can’t even hear it from outside,” Sam said. “That’s my kind of doorbell.”
“Does it work?”
She hadn’t considered that, so she knocked hard on the door, hoping someone would hear them.
Two minutes passed before the inside door opened, and a man came out, doing the usual double take when he saw her there.
As she showed him her badge, she was so tired of getting that reaction, even if she knew it was part of her life forever now.
He pushed the door open.
“Lieutenant Holland, Detective Cruz to see Kelly Goodson.”
“She’s not able to see people right now,” he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sam summoned the patience she would need to deal with yet another grieving family. “We understand this is a very upsetting time for her, for all of you, but we need to speak with her. We can do it here or downtown. It’s up to her.” Sam hated this as much as the man staring her down did, but she couldn’t tell him that. “We’re not looking to add to your grief. We’re trying to get answers for the Blanchet family.”
“We heard it was a murder-suicide.”
Apparently, people were already spreading unfounded rumors. “The investigation is ongoing. May we please speak to Kelly?”
After a long pause, the man nodded and stepped aside to admit them to the home. “Wait here.” He gestured to a sitting room. “I’ll get her.”
They sat on a sofa to wait. A low buzz of voices came from other parts of the house. On the walls were photos of three children—two boys and a girl, who was quite a bit younger than her brothers. She focused on the older boy, who had dark hair, brown eyes and an impish grin. How sad he must be today.
The man returned with a woman who had the same dark hair and brown eyes as her son. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“Kelly, this is Lieutenant Holland and Detective Cruz,” the man said gently. “They want to talk to you about Liliana and the family.”
Kelly lowered herself to an upholstered chair that faced them and took a new tissue that the man handed her. Every movement seemed to cause her pain.
“Are you Kelly’s husband?” Sam asked the man.
He nodded.
“Your name?”
“Henry.”
Sam made a note. “We’re sorry to bother you at such a difficult time, but as I’m sure you know, time is of the essence in cases such as this.”
“Do you know what happened to them?” Henry asked.
“They were shot.”
Kelly let out a whimper of distress that had her husband putting his arm around her.
“As Liliana’s closest friend, we were hoping you might be able to give us some perspective on what had been going on with them lately,” Sam said to Kelly. “If anything was different or unusual.”
“I’ve been trying to think since I heard the news,” Kelly said in a tentative tone, “but I just keep coming back to Marcel. He’d been distant lately. Liliana didn’t know why, and she was upset about it. They’ve always been a very close couple until lately.”
“We’ve been told that he suspected she might be having an affair.”
Her mouth fell open, and her expression shifted to outrage. “Told by whom? That’s a lie. She was always faithful to him.”
