When Chief Vern Thurman came knocking on Lester’s door to ask about Hess, the panic finally broke Lester. He didn't just snap; he splintered. In a blind, pathetic rage at his wife's endless mocking, Lester picked up a ball-peen hammer and ended his marriage in the middle of the kitchen.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_dilemma">Crocodile Paradox used in the show, or should we look into the in the later episodes?
Lester Nygaard had survived the crocodile, but he had become something far worse than a victim. He had become a liar in a town that wasn't built for them. The snow in Bemidji would keep falling, covering the tracks, but beneath the white, the ice was cracking. "Fargo" The Crocodile's Dilemma(2014)
Lester called the only person who had ever "helped" him. Malvo arrived just as Vern Thurman pulled into the driveway. What followed was the cold reality of Malvo’s nature:
Lorne Malvo was not a man who arrived; he was a man who happened to you. In the winter of 2006, he happened to Bemidji, Minnesota, sliding into town like a low-pressure system that brings only ice. When Chief Vern Thurman came knocking on Lester’s
The blood on the white linoleum was the only bright thing in the room. The Noose Tightens
Lester Nygaard was exactly the kind of man Malvo looked for—a man so compressed by his own life that he was ready to shatter. Lester was a life insurance salesman who couldn’t sell a policy to a drowning man. He lived in a beige house with a wife, Pearl, whose disappointment was so sharp it could cut glass. After a humiliating run-in with his childhood bully, Sam Hess, Lester found himself in a hospital waiting room with a broken nose and a soul that felt even worse. That’s where Malvo sat, calm as a frozen lake. wikipedia
Malvo didn't waste time. He walked into a lucky-strike strip club and put a knife into Sam Hess’s throat while the man was in the middle of a tawdry act. It was efficient. It was brutal. And for Lester, it was the end of the world he knew.