‘So go listen to it. You’ll see that…’
‘Listen,’ the officer interrupted Mary again. ‘You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…’
‘Look,’ Mary said back, her voice, once again, going up a pitch. ‘You need to go back in there and check the basement. This is all wrong.’
‘All I need to do is take you in to the station, lady,’ the officersaid, once he was done reading Mary her rights. ‘Which I’m going to do right now.’ He closed the door on her.
Seconds later, the officer and his partner got into the driver and passenger’s seats.
‘If I were you,’ the driver said, addressing Mary again, as he started the cruiser, ‘I’d start thinking about a lawyer… and a very good one.’
Ninety-Five
Mary didn’t have a lawyer, at least not one who she kept on a retainer. She’d never had any need for one. If her wedding con had gone to plan, the case itself would’ve sequestered the services of the District Attorney’s office, and she would have the top prosecutors in the state fighting for her.
This was different.
But the police officer was right. If she didn’t manage to clear this up quickly, she would need a defense lawyer, and a very good one at that.
At the police station, before putting Mary into a holding cell, they took her mugshot and collected her fingerprints, her DNA and samples of the blood on her skin for further analysis. Throughout the entire process, Mary didn’t say a word. She didn’t ask for her phone call either… not yet. What she did do was try her best to organize her thoughts and come up with a plan of action.
As it stood, Mary was staring into an abyss.
Circumstantial evidence put her at the wrong end of events… and that evidence had been witnessed by police officers. All they saw was a hysterical, semi-naked woman come running out of a house, half covered in blood, and holding a knife… a knife that shehadused to stab Quaddra with. As the officers entered the house, they would’ve found Quaddra on the floor inside the kitchen, swimming in a pool of his own blood.
Yes, there was the 911 call, which would score a few points for Mary, but Quaddra was a very intelligent man. He had probably shut the door to the secret basement once he came up from there, before following Mary into the kitchen – that was why the officers hadn’t found the basement yet. Once the officers found Quaddra in the kitchen, he certainly flipped the story around because in all honesty, he was the one injured, not Mary. It would’ve been very easy for him to spin a tale saying that she had gone mental on him and tried to stab him to death out of jealousy… greed… revenge… whatever… and that was why Mary was in that holding cell, instead of Quaddra.
‘Fuck!’ she cursed under her breath, as she buried her head in her hands. The way Mary saw it, it didn’t matter if she had a top defense lawyer or not, her only chance of getting out of this crazy mess was if she managed to convince a police officer, a detective, a CSI agent, whoever she could, to go back to the house and check the basement before Quaddra was discharged from the hospital. If Quaddra got back to the house first, he would need just minutes to take down that entire wall and make that computer with all that footage disappear. Once that was done, there would be no evidence of his crimes… and Mary wouldn’t be staring into an abyss anymore – she’d be falling into it, headfirst.
She needed to actnow.
‘Hey, I need to talk to someone,’ Mary called at the top of her voice, as she got to her feet, ready to slam her fists against the heavy cell door when she heard it being unlocked.
‘Let’s go,’ a young police officer said, with a jerk of the head, as he pulled open the door.
‘Go where?’
‘Interrogation room,’ the officer replied, signaling her to put her hands together so that he could cuff her again. ‘A detective wants to talk to you.’
Mary breathed in hope. ‘About fucking time.’
Ninety-Six
The interrogation room looked exactly like the ones that Mary had seen in so many movies before – rectangular, small, claustrophobic, with a metal table at the center of it, a large two-way mirror along one of its walls and, in the corner of the room, a video camera mounted high on the wall. The fluorescent light beaming down from the ceiling was at least fifty watts brighter than usual – designed to make the person being interrogated uncomfortable.
The officer sat Mary down at the table, but didn’t uncuff her hands. ‘A detective will be with you shortly.’
As soon as the officer left the room, closing the door behind him, Mary got to her feet and approached the two-way mirror.
‘Look,’ she addressed the mirror. ‘There’s no need for anyone behind this mirror to leave me simmering here for God-knows-how-long before coming in to talk to me. I’ve seen too many movies to know that that is standard practice. I know that first you’re supposed to observe my movements for signs of guilt before coming in here, but let me tell you right now – we’re losing valuable time. I have extremely important information that needs to be acted on now. And I meannow. If you guys miss this, a serial killer will walk free.’ She paused, trying to steady her voice. ‘Yes, you’ve heard it right – aserial killer. This isn’t a desperation play… this is fucking real. I promise you.’
Mary stayed facing the mirror for half a minute before sitting back down. Five seconds after that, the door to the interrogation room was pulled open again and a tall African-American man entered the room. He was dressed in a dark-gray suit that seemed too small for his frame. Mary had seen him before. He was one of the two men from the unmarked police car at her house, earlier that evening.
‘Mary Buckner?’ he asked, and Mary felt a sting in her heart at the sound of that name. ‘I’m Detective William Kendall with the San Francisco Police Department.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Mary said back, her voice anxious. ‘We really need to talk.’
‘So, it seems,’ Kendall said back, as he took a seat across the table from her.