‘Let me get you another chair,’ Mr. J said as they entered the room.

‘That’s not really necessary, Mr. Jenkinson,’ Hunter replied. ‘I can stand, it’s not a problem.’

‘Please, I insist. It will take me two seconds.’

Once Mr. J left the room, Hunter pulled down the hood of his forensic coverall, walked over to the bookcase and browsed some of the volumes. The majority of them were business and finance books, with a few scattered ones on law, accounting and architecture.

Garcia checked the opposite wall, which was adorned by framed photographs and achievement awards.

‘Here we go.’ Mr. J re-entered the room, carrying a high-back chair, which he placed by the Chesterfield, before finally taking a seat behind his desk.

‘Thank you,’ Hunter said, taking the chair. Garcia took the Chesterfield.

‘We’ll try to take as little of your time as possible, Mr. Jenkinson,’ Garcia said, reaching for his smartphone. ‘Do you mind if we record this interview?’

Mr. J shook his head. It was time to put his A-game forward.

Once Garcia hit ‘record’, Hunter began.

‘Mr. Jenkinson, I know that what you’ve been put through will be hard to revisit, and I apologize for having to ask you to do so, but could you tell us as much as you can remember about the video-call you received. The more detailed you can be, the more it will help us.’

Mr. J looked down at his sun-beaten and wrinkled hands, which were tightly clasped and resting on the desk in front of him. After several silent seconds, he finally lifted his eyes to meet Hunter and Garcia’s gaze. For the next twenty minutes, he recounted only what he wanted to recount of the video-call, but he did it all in tremendous detail. Hunter and Garcia interrupted him sporadically to clarify certain points, but for most of it they simply allowed him to tell his story in his own time. As Mr. J reached the part where the killer asked him for his wedding date, he paused and looked down at his hands again. They were shaking. Embarrassed, he moved them to his lap and went completely quiet.

Hunter and Garcia waited.

In a faltering voice, Mr. J told them that he tried, but he couldn’t remember. He just couldn’t remember. Then, without realizing it, he whispered the words, ‘I’m so sorry’.

Neither Hunter nor Garcia said anything. They both knew that those words weren’t meant for them. They were meant for Cassandra. Guilt had already settled in and spread itself on to every corner of Mr. J’s body. Whatever psychological damage that video-call would cause him, the guilt that came from not knowing the answer to that damn question would make it a lot worse.

And that was when Mr. J finally realized what he had done – seventh of March was his son’s birthday. That was why the date kept on flashing so intensely inside his head when he was asked for his wedding date.

PING.

And just like that, as if a dark veil had suddenly been lifted from his memory, his wedding date appeared before his eyes, clear as daylight.

April tenth. He and Cassandra had gotten married on April tenth.

Mr. J’s eyes closed and he threw his head back as if he’d been stabbed in the stomach by a fire dagger.

Why? He silently cursed himself, his memory, his brain, his whole existence. Why couldn’t I remember that earlier?

He finished his account without ever meeting the detectives’ gaze again. He never told them about the demon’s hysterical laugh.

‘Could I ask you how long you were in in Fresno for?’ Hunter began once Mr. J was done.

‘I left here on Thursday morning.’

‘And before that, when was the last time you were away?’

Mr. J paused before deliberately but very delicately allowing his eyes to move up and to the right. He knew that both detectives would be monitoring everything about him, especially his facial expressions and eye movements. Textbook behavior psychology preached that if the eyes went up and to the left, the subject was trying to access his/her visual constructive cortex. In other words, trying to create a mental image that wasn’t there to start with. If the eyes moved up and to the right, the subject was searching his/her memory for visually remembered images – memories that did exist.

‘About three and a half weeks ago,’ he replied truthfully, his voice tired and defeated. ‘I had to fly to Chicago for a couple of days.’

‘Business again?’

‘That’s right.’

Hunter wrote the information down in his notebook. ‘Does anyone else, other than you and your wife, have a key to this house?’

Mr. J’s reply came with a very slight lift of the shoulders. ‘My son.’

‘No one else? A cleaner perhaps?’

‘No. Cassandra did all the cleaning herself, once a week,’ Mr. J explained. ‘She said it relaxed her. We use a pool cleaning company for the pool in the backyard, but they don’t have a copy of the key.’

‘Have you, your wife, or your son lost those keys recently?’ Hunter insisted. ‘Do you know?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. I’ve never lost my keys. I don’t think Cassandra ever did either. As for Patrick, if he has, he’s never told me about it, but I can ask him when I talk to him.’

Hunter nodded. ‘We’d appreciate it if you did.’

Mr. J didn’t say anything because he didn’t want the detectives in his office to become suspicious of how much he knew about police interrogations and interviews, but the line of questioning they were pursuing could mean only one thing – no signs of forced entry had been found all throughout the house. They had no idea of how his wife’s killer had got in.

‘You said that a hammer and chisel were used,’ Hunter asked, finally moving the subject along. ‘Are you sure it was a chisel, not a nail?’

‘It was a masonry chisel with a pointy end,’ Mr. J replied confidently. ‘Not a nail. I’m sure of that. But the hammer was a regular claw hammer.’

‘Did it belong to this house?’ Hunter asked. ‘Is that something he would’ve found inside a drawer, maybe?’

Once again, Mr. J shook his head. ‘No, neither the hammer nor the chisel belong to this house. He must’ve brought them with him.’ He regarded both detectives intensively. ‘From your line of questioning, I take it that none have been found.’

‘No,’ Hunter admitted. ‘The house and its grounds have been searched, but we’ve found nothing. In the morning we’re widening the search to include neighboring streets.’

The look Mr. J gave Hunter and Garcia was totally lacking in confidence.

‘How about Cassandra’s phone?’ he asked. ‘This psycho used her phone to call me. Have you found it?’

‘Yes,’ Garcia this time. ‘We found it inside the microwave in the kitchen.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s worthless. Even Forensics won’t be able to get anything out of it.’

Mr. J played dumb for a moment. ‘Can’t you contact her cellphone company? Ask them for a digital copy of the call?’

‘They won’t have any,’ Hunter replied.

‘How come?’

Hunter gave Mr. J the explanation he already knew.

‘We did find a black Asus laptop on the kitchen counter,’ Garcia said. ‘Did that belonged to your wife?’

Mr. J nodded. ‘It was Cassandra’s, yes.’

‘You said that the perpetrator was wearing a mask?’ Garcia asked, taking the subject back to the killer’s video call.

Mr. J nodded. ‘The fucking coward. Man enough to break into my house and murder a defenseless woman. Man enough to place a goddamn video-call to me just so he could play God. But not man enough to show his face.’

A vein on Mr. J’s forehead threatened to explode.

‘Could you describe this mask for us?’

Mr. J’s description of the killer’s mask was identical to the one Tanya Kaitlin had given them two days ago.

Garcia looked at his partner but said nothing. ‘And you also mentioned that the caller told you that calling the police would be a waste of time, is that right?’

‘Yes. He said that the police would never make it in time.’