“Okay, good luck today.”

“Thanks, baby.” I hang up with her after saying goodbye then shoot a quick message to Clay letting him know that Franny and I are good for tonight and that we should be up to his place by six.

After placing my cell on silent, I push back from my desk and walk out to get Greg. The years have not been kind to him; he looks weathered and beat down, like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then again, he’s carried around the weight of his wife’s death for years. I imagine that even if you know that you are not personally responsible, having the woman you love murdered in your home can make you feel like a failure.

As he and I get settled in my office, Mary comes in to join us, and before long, Greg opens up about Alice and the events that happened the day of her murder. None of the information is new to me, but hearing the story from him as he clutches a handful of Kleenex makes it feel more personal.

He tells us that between school and being a new mom, he could tell Alice was struggling, so he asked his mom the night before her murder to come pick up the baby so that she could have a break.

The day of the crime, he and Alice had a normal morning; they had breakfast, fed the baby, and when it was time for him to leave, he left Alice in the kitchen after giving her some money to get her hair done that afternoon. A little after he arrived at his job, where he worked as a security guard for one of the factories, he realized that he had forgotten his lunch at home, so he called Alice and asked if she could drop it off to him. She gave him a hard time and teased him about being forgetful but agreed to drop it off before her hair appointment.

About an hour and a half later, his friend Beau showed up at the guard shack, something he had never done in the past. He said he was out looking for a job and decided to stop by. Around one, with Beau still there, Greg called Alice when she still hadn’t dropped off his lunch but got no answer at home. He didn’t think much of it, he knew that she was going to get her hair done and figured that’s where she was and that she forgot about him, so he and Beau got lunch from the lunchroom at the factory.