Page 42 of Little Last Words

“He sent her a text message one night when she was in the shower.”

“What did it say?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t read it?”

“Oh, I would have, for sure. When the text came in, I found out she’d changed the passcode on her phone. I couldn’t get into it. All the notification displayed was who the message was from. I tried to get her to show it to me, and she wouldn’t, so yeah, I flipped out.”

“When you say you ‘flipped out,’ how flipped are we talking?”

“Let’s put it this way. I guess we had a window open in the house. A neighbor overheard our conversation, and she called the police.”

“What did you say that made the neighbor involve law enforcement?”

“I said if Zachary ever contacted her again, I’d kill the guy. I didn’t mean it. It was … you know, a figure of speech. I was upset, and I felt like she was keeping secrets from me. Any other guy in my situation would have said the same exact thing.”

Maybe.

“What happened when the police came?” I asked.

“Not much. They asked what happened, talked to Penelope, asked if she was all right. I wasn’t arrested or anything. She told the cops it was all a misunderstanding. I thought we were okay, and then a week later, she left me. No note. No advance warning. Nothing.”

I put myself in Penelope’s place. A woman with a young child, living with someone she may have perceived as a ticking time bomb. Maybe he was one or maybe he wasn’t, but after what he’d just told me, it seemed possible.

And then there was the speech he’d given at the funeral service, asking for someone to step up, admit they had a hand in Penelope’s murder. I couldn’t decide whether it was all an act to deflect the finger of blame for Penelope’s murder onto someone else so it didn’t point to him, or if he was being serious.

After all, jealousy was as good of a motive as any.

And he’d just admitted he struggled with it by threatening to kill Zachary.

Several years earlier, a study I’d read found that most murdered women were killed by their partner, most as a result of domestic violence after a heated argument.

“Do you think Penelope felt pressured by everyone’s expectations of her?” I asked. “The reason I ask is because at the funeral service, you said no one in her family accepted you. And yet, she stayed with you for several years.”

“Angelica wanted Penelope to marry Zachary, and you’ve met the woman. She’s used to getting her way.”

Another telling reveal.

“I imagine Angelica didn’t make it easy on Penelope when she chose someone she didn’t approve of, right?” I asked.

He blew out a long, hearty sigh. “Let’s just say Angelica was good at finding ways to pressure Penelope into feeling she’d made the wrong choice.”

“By doing what?”

“Not giving Penelope her inheritance when she didn’t behave the way Angelica wanted. Angelica was the executor of the estate.”

“Did Penelope talk to you about her family life?”

“At first. I guess she would have talked more about it if I’d handled it better.”

“How so?”

“Sometimes I wonder if Penelope loved me like she said she did or whether she picked me just to piss her family off. I may not be like them, and I may not come from a prestigious background, but I come from a hardworking one, a faithful one. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for Penelope and Sadie.”

“Do you think the two of you were a good match?”

“I’d like to think our differences drew us to each other.”