“Hullo?”

“Carl Hausleder?”

“Who wants to know?”

I debated with myself whether to tell the truth or lie. I told the truth. “I am….was Marlenes husband.”

Silence.

After several long seconds that seemed minutes, he said, “What do you want from me, kid?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I read your name in the guest book from the funeral. And I just thought…... I don’t know what I thought.” Then I blurted it out. “You have any ideal why someone would kill Marlene?”

The silence felt icy.

Finally. In a small voice, almost a whisper, he said, “I guess I killed her.”

I screamed at the phone. “You what?”

Several people in the office looked at me in alarm. I shook my head and waved at them reassuringly. They went back to work.

“I lowered my voice, and breathed, “Mister, you had better explain yourself.”

“I didn’t mean that ‘I’ killed her. But my actions may have. I have a gambling problem, and I owe a lot of money to some very bad guys.”