A loud noise followed, as if the phone had been smashed against the ground.
Kendall stopped the recording. ‘The call was placed at 12:38 a.m.’ He informed Mary. ‘Five minutes before uniforms showed up in response.’
‘There’s no other 911 call for that address?’ Mary asked, her voice weak.
‘Nope,’ Choi replied. ‘This was the only recorded call.’
In the kitchen, last night, Mary had dropped the phone just as she had dialed 911… just as Quaddra had gotten to the kitchen. She had hoped that the call had connected, and she was pretty certain that it had once she saw the flashing police lights outside, but they weren’t there because of her call. They were there because of his. Her call had never connected.
‘That’s not right,’ Mary said, shaking her head at both detectives. ‘That was a fake call.’
‘It sounds pretty legit to us,’ Choi said. ‘Especially because that was exactly what several SFPD officers encountered as they arrived at the house – you, covered in the caller’s blood, holding the knife that you had used to stab him with.’
To Mary nothing made sense anymore. She could understand that Quaddra had weaved a pretty believable story to thedetectives to try to get him off the hook – the women on those Polaroids weren’t victims… they were actresses on test shots for one of his company’s productions… the same with the video or videos in that computer… just test reels – but where had those headshots come from? The detectives had said that they found them on the wall, right at the top of each column, but Mary knew that that wasn’t true – those headshots weren’t on that wall down in that basement – so how the hell did they get there? There was no way that Quaddra had time to stick nineteen headshots to that wall before he came after Mary in the kitchen. And even if he had somehow miraculously stopped time to add those headshots to that wall, they would’ve been covered in blood… because his hands were covered in blood. And who were the women that the detectives talked to on the phone? They said that they contacted all the actresses on those Polaroids and they were all alive and well. How was that possible?
‘My cellphone,’ Mary said, her pleading eyes meeting Kendall’s stare.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I threw my cellphone at Quaddra just as he was about to attack me when we were in the basement,’ Mary explained. ‘Did you find a cellphone on the floor somewhere? I took pictures of that wall before he came after me. I can prove that those headshots weren’t there. They weren’t at the top of each column like you said they were. And I never stopped recording when we were down there. You’ll be able to hear exactly what happened.’
‘No cellphone,’ Choi replied.
Kendall shook his head. ‘No, there was nothing on the floor in that basement except for blood.’
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Mary felt hope leave her.
‘Look,’ Choi took over. ‘Why don’t you just come clean and save us all a lot of hassle and a lot of shitty hours locked in thisroom? Tell us why you wanted to kill him? Was he an abusive ex-boyfriend? Someone who dumped you and you wanted your revenge?’
‘I was defending myself,’ Mary told them again, as tears finally broke through.
‘That story won’t fly, Mary,’ Choi said in return before pointing out the obvious. ‘You don’t have a scratch on you, while the dude in the hospital is covered in defensive wounds.’ He lifted his arms at her, simulating a person trying to defend himself from a knife attack. ‘Hands… arms…shoulders the lot. We have the 911 call with him begging for help and saying that a crazy woman was trying to kill him in his house… we have the attack weapon, covered in his blood andyourfingerprints… and we have six police officers who witnessed you exiting the house carrying that weapon.’
‘Arms?’ Mary asked, her eyes jittering from one detective to another. ‘I never touched his arms. And he was reaching for my throat. I got lucky placing the blade between his hand and my throat.’
Choi sniggered. ‘Are you saying that you just held the knife up and heraninto the blade?’
‘I know it sounds crazy…’
‘Oh, you think?’ Choi cut her short. ‘Just tell us straight, Mary – you went into that house to kill that guy.’
‘Quaddra,’ Mary said, her tone a crazy mix of anger and fear. ‘I’ve told you his name a thousand times. And he’s not “that guy”, he’s my husband.’
‘You see,’ Choi said, as he pressed his lips together and nodded back at Mary. ‘This is why I asked you if you were on any medications… maybe something anti-psychotic?’
‘I’m not psychotic, and I’m not on any medications.’ Irritation clearly coming through in Mary’s tone.
‘So, tell me something,’ Kendall said, as he reached forsomething else from the envelope before placing it on the table, facing Mary. This time, he retrieved an enlarged photocopy of a California driver’s license. ‘If you’re not psychotic and you’re not lying, why do you keep on calling him Quaddra when his name is Thomas – Thomas Cameron.’
One Hundred and One
Mary’s surprised and questioning eyes stayed on the driver’s license photocopy for several long seconds. All the information about Quaddra was correct – date and city of birth, address, and it was definitely Quaddra on the photograph, except the name read Thomas Cameron… not Quaddra Buckner. ‘That’s fake,’ she said, shaking her head at the detectives. ‘It’s got to be.’
Choi’s eyebrows lifted at her.
‘You don’t understand,’ Mary tried to remedy an argument that had already gone sideways yesterday. ‘Thomas is just a name that he uses when he doesn’t want anyone to know who he is.’
Kendall and Choi looked at each other.
