The Caller

by Chris Carter

  ‘Any luck?’ Garcia asked Nicholas Holden, who for the past two hours had been dusting doors, windows, and all relevant indoor surfaces and objects.

  ‘Depends on what you call luck,’ he replied with a shrug, as he finished packing up his equipment.

  Garcia enquired with a subtle eyebrow raise.

  ‘How many people in this household?’ Holden asked almost rhetorically, as he’d seen plenty of pictures throughout the house.

  ‘The victim and her husband,’ Garcia replied.

  ‘No one else?’ The question was dusted with a little surprise.

  ‘Not according to the info we got.’ Garcia paused, thought about it, then rephrased. ‘Well, they’ve got a twenty-year-old son, but he doesn’t live here anymore. He goes to college in Boston. Why?’

  Holden nodded as if that information explained a lot.

  ‘From a simple pattern comparison, I can tell you that I’ve retrieved three different sets of fingerprints,’ he explained. ‘One of them belongs to the victim herself. The other two are undoubtedly male. Of those, one reoccurs prominently all throughout the house – kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, hallway . . . it’s everywhere. The second set doesn’t show up as much as the first one, but it still reoccurs frequently enough to suggest that neither of them belong to a stranger to this household.’

  Garcia scratched his chin. ‘The husband and the son.’

  Holden agreed with a head movement. He had just finished zipping up his bag when they all heard a loud commotion coming from outside the front door. Before anyone was able to react, a tall and well-built man with a shaved head pushed his way into the living room. The look on his face was a mixture of fear and bewilderment. Two angry officers followed him inside.

  ‘Sir,’ one of the officers said, hastily reaching for the man’s arm. ‘This is still an open crime scene and you’re contaminating it. I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.’

  The man jerked his arm away from the officer’s grip.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Hunter said, turning to face them and signaling the officers to let the man go. He didn’t have to ask. He recognized the man from the pictures on the mantelpiece. ‘We’re all done here, right?’ He looked at Dr. Slater.

  She nodded in response. ‘We’ve collected everything we needed. There’s no more risk of contamination.’

  The officers looked at each other before nodding back at Hunter and exiting the house.

  ‘Where is she?’ Mr. J asked in an unsteady voice, his crazed eyes searching the entire room.

  Hunter stepped forward to meet him. ‘Mr. Jenkinson, I’m Detective Robert Hunter with the LA—’

  ‘Where’s my wife?’ Mr. J cut Hunter short. His gaze moved past the detective to first find the lone dining chair by the east wall then the pool of blood underneath it. His wife’s blood. For a moment, he stopped breathing.

  ‘Her body had to be transferred to the coroner’s office,’ Hunter replied in a conservative tone.

  Mr. J didn’t ask for an explanation because he didn’t really need one. If there was something he understood very well, it was police protocol.

  Catatonically, he walked past Hunter, Garcia and Dr. Slater in the direction of the chair. Everyone and the world around him disappeared and all of a sudden there she was, sitting directly in front of him, her eyes full of fear and sadness, imploring him to know the simplest of answers. An answer he should’ve known.

  Slowly, his right arm extended in the direction of the chair, as if Cassandra was really still there. As if he could touch her face . . . caress her hair . . . wipe away her tears.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ The words escaped his lips without him even noticing it.

  In respect, no one said anything, giving Mr. J his moment alone.

  Dr. Slater silently signaled her team to leave.

  Mr. J felt his stomach pirouetting inside of him and his legs threatened to buckle under his weight. To steady himself, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When they reopened, just a couple of seconds later, Hunter saw something in them that no one else in that room did – tremendous anger, coated by unwavering focus and determination.

  ‘OK,’ he said, finally meeting Hunter’s gaze. His tone of voice was arctic cold. ‘I guess you want to ask me a few questions.’

  Fifty-One

  Back in his hotel room, with his face still buried in his hands, Mr. J had thought very hard about what to do next. He would’ve preferred to have left the LAPD completely out of it, and if he had seen any way around the problem, that was exactly what he would’ve done, but even with all his connections, he knew that there was no way he could pull that off.

  His second thought was to maybe pretend that he had never received that damn video-call in the first place. That would’ve given him some much-needed advantage over the LAPD. He knew that he could’ve made it back to LA by 2:00 a.m. His car was certainly fast enough and his radar detector system would’ve kept him from being pulled over. Once home, and without the interference of the police or a forensic team, he could’ve studied the undisturbed crime scene for as long as he needed. He could’ve crawled through his living room looking for possible clues before anyone got there. Clues that, if they existed, he knew the LAPD would’ve never shared with him. But most of all, he could’ve touched Cassandra’s face one last time before she was taken away from their home. He could’ve kneeled down in front of her and begged her for her forgiveness. Forgiveness he could never and would never give himself. Then and only then, he would’ve made the nine-one-one call and pretended that he’d just got back home from a business trip to find his wife murdered in their own living room. But that plan would’ve also collapsed at the first hurdle.

  One of the reasons why Mr. J was the best at what he did was because he understood how law enforcement agencies worked. He knew their protocol, their investigative procedures, their tricks . . . and the guidelines for such a case were simple – a married woman gets savagely tortured and murdered inside her own home without any apparent motive, and the ‘people of interest’ list would be headed by none other than the husband. Add to that the fact that the husband was conveniently away at the exact same time his wife was being murdered, and that he had no alibis to corroborate his story, and his life would be completely picked apart by the investigative team. They would easily obtain warrants to approach banks, Internet providers, phone and credit-card companies . . . whatever and whoever they wanted. His old emails and text messages would be read. His phone calls would be listened to. His bank account, his business, his trips, his expenditures, his friends, his medical records, all of it would be dissected into tiny little pieces. But even if Mr. J had an alibi, real or forged – and he could easily get an airtight one if he so wanted – he knew that that plan still wouldn’t work.

  In a murder investigation, one of the first things to be examined by the homicide team was the victim’s cellphone account. They would want to know with whom she’d been texting and speaking to recently, especially in the last few hours before her death. Mr. J’s cellphone number would’ve flagged up as the last number Cassandra had ever called, and at around the exact same time she was being murdered. Mr. J had no way of circumventing that. And that had been where he’d gotten lucky.

  The killer had used the video-call feature, instead of making a regular voice call. Though the dialed number would get logged in, no cellphone provider in the USA was allowed to store their clients’ video-calls. The LAPD, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, it didn’t matter, no one would be able to obtain even a text transcript of the call, because none existed, and Mr. J was well aware of that. Everything Mr. J had told the killer during that call would stay between him and the killer.

  With everything considered, Mr. J came to the conclusion that his best option was to tell the truth . . . or at least to a certain extent. After that, Brian Caldron would monitor the entire police investigation, while Mr. J ran his own.

  Fifty-Two

  Hunter peeked at t
he clock on the wall just behind Mr. J – 2:03 a.m.

  ‘Mr. Jenkinson,’ he said, his voice smooth and cordial. ‘We don’t need to do this right now. It’s perfectly OK for us to wait until the morning. I understand you’ve been driving for hours—’

  ‘And you think I’ll be more rested in the morning?’ Mr. J interrupted Hunter again. ‘You think I’ll be able to sleep?’ Hunter didn’t reply. Mr. J had a point.

  ‘I’m guessing you’ve either heard a recording of the nine-one-one call I made, or you were told how I came to know about what happened here. You know about the video-call I received.’

  Hunter gave him a sympathetic nod.

  ‘So if it’s all the same to you,’ Mr. J continued, his tone calm and rhythmically perfect. ‘I’d rather talk about it while everything is still fresh in my head. Sleep, if I were to get any, would bring dreams . . . nightmares . . . visions . . . images . . . whatever. Some of them would be real memories of what happened, but some would no doubt be just my mind going crazy on me. Things that weren’t really there. Things that I didn’t really see. Things that I should’ve said, but didn’t.’ He paused for a second, as if his last few words pained him too much. ‘The problem then is, in my head, there’s no way I’ll be able to discern between what really happened and what didn’t. All of it will seem as real to me as the people in this room.’ His gaze bounced from Hunter to Garcia to Dr. Slater and finally back to Hunter. ‘The longer we wait, Detective, the greater the risk of reality and fantasy getting mixed up in my head.’

  Though no one could ever say with total confidence how a person’s brain would react after such a traumatic episode, the nightmares and the images that Mr. J had mentioned would come, of that Hunter had no doubt. As a psychologist, he just couldn’t fault Mr. J’s logic. At the same time, everyone in that room was astounded and intrigued by how composed Mr. J appeared to be.

  ‘I understand,’ Hunter said, allowing his eyes to quickly circle the room. ‘Would you rather we talk down at the station?’

  ‘Why?’ Mr. J asked. ‘Is that necessary?’

  Everyone’s intrigue intensified.

  ‘No. Not at all. I just thought that maybe . . .’ Hunter left the suggestion floating in the air.

  ‘The room would pose a distraction?’ Mr. J picked it up, his gaze repeating the same movement as Hunter’s, except he chose not to look back at the chair and the pool of blood underneath it. ‘You’re right,’ he admitted. His eyes focused on a random spot on the floor in front of him and his composure finally faltered. ‘I don’t think I could do it in here.’

  Again, Hunter gave him a moment.

  Mr. J at last looked back up.

  ‘We don’t have to go downtown, Mr. Jenkinson,’ Hunter proposed. ‘We could use a local police station, or even one of the police vans parked outside if you prefer.’

  Mr. J considered the suggestion before throwing a new question back at Hunter.

  ‘Has any other room in the house been disturbed?’

  Hunter’s reply came with a slight lift of the eyebrows. ‘You’re the only person who’d be able to tell us that with any degree of certainty, Mr. Jenkinson, but as far as we can tell, this seems to have been the only room used.’

  Looking thoughtful, Mr. J nodded. His answer came several seconds later. ‘We could use my office, if you don’t mind.’ He indicated with a hand gesture.

  Seeing no reason why not, Hunter exchanged a quick look with Garcia.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Garcia said, padding his pockets over his Tyvek coverall. ‘I’ve got my notepad with me and I can use my phone to record everything. We’re set.’

  As Mr. J turned to lead the way, his gaze brushed against the photographs resting on the mantelpiece and he froze in place. The bottomless pit inside of him that had threatened to swallow him whole came back with the fury of a tornado. Right there, staring at the photographs in those picture frames, he felt his soul abandon him. The question asked by the demonic voice roared inside his ears like a new thunder.

  Your wedding anniversary, when is it?

  For a long moment, no one moved.

  ‘Mr. Jenkinson, is everything OK?’ Hunter asked.

  No reply.

  He looked to be pondering something inside his head.

  ‘Mr. Jenkinson?’

  ‘There’s something I need to ask. Something I need to know,’ he finally said, his gaze struggling to meet anyone else’s.

  Everyone waited.

  ‘My wife, I know that she was undressed.’ A new long, emotional pause. ‘I need to know. Was she . . .’ he stumbled on his next word and decided to start again. ‘Did this psycho . . .’ Still he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  ‘Mr. Jenkinson,’ Dr. Slater said, taking a step forward and pulling down the hood of her white forensic coverall. Her blonde hair had been bunched up into a disheveled bun at the back of her head, but it didn’t distract from how attractive she was. On the contrary, the messy look added a certain charm to it.

  Mr. J’s attention moved to her.

  ‘I’m Dr. Susan Slater.’ She kept her voice quiet and collected. ‘I’m the lead forensic agent assigned to this crime scene. I’m the one who was in charge of thoroughly examining your wife’s body before authorizing it to be transported to the coroner’s office. All I can tell you is that her body showed absolutely no external signs of having been sexually assaulted.’

  Mr. J breathed in that information. ‘No offense, Doctor, but that’s not exactly one hundred percent guaranteed, is it?’ He pinned Dr. Slater down with a gaze that could cut diamonds. ‘I’ll need to wait for the autopsy report to be certain, won’t I? Because technically speaking, this psycho could’ve still—’

  ‘This killer is not a sexual predator, Mr. Jenkinson,’ Hunter intervened, his voice firm and confident. ‘He’s not after sexual gratification.’

  ‘And how can you be so certain, Detective?’ Mr. J came back.

  ‘Because I’ve encountered hundreds of them before,’ Hunter said resolutely. ‘Their incessant quest for sexual pleasure is always the ultimate driving force behind what they do. The sexual act is never subtle. Never hidden. Always violent. It’s one of the first things that’s noticeable as we enter a crime scene.’ Once again, Hunter allowed his gaze to move about the room. ‘We have nothing like that here, Mr. Jenkinson. Given the fact that this killer was alone with your wife for who knows how long, if sexual gratification was what he was after, there was nothing to stop him from gaining it.’

  ‘That’s precisely my point, Detective,’ Mr. J countered. ‘We won’t know that for certain until we get the autopsy results.’

  Hunter didn’t want to reveal that now, with Cassandra Jenkinson, a non-sexual aggressor pattern had been established, because the ‘video-call’ killer had already claimed his first victim less than sixty hours ago. A victim he had also shown no sexual interest in whatsoever.

  ‘Mr. Jenkinson.’ Dr. Slater was the one who interposed this time. ‘In over twelve years as a forensic agent, I know of no sexual assault case where the victim has shown no external physical signs of it. Not one. There would’ve been something – dermal abrasions, traumas, bruises, scratches . . . something. There was nothing. Not even a tiny scuff. I promise you, your wife was not touched in that way.’

  Mr. J looked away as if he needed time on his own to go over every single word Hunter and Dr. Slater had said. His eyebrows lifted ever so slightly and that caused the light wrinkles on his forehead to deepen, forming a series of ridges that carried on halfway up his shaved head.

  From the quick report Garcia had given him outside, Hunter knew that John Jenkinson was forty-eight years old, but at that particular moment, he looked at least twenty-five years older. His eyes looked tired, with dark circles and heavy bags under them. His skin, dull and yellowish, gave everyone the impression that he’d spent half of his life sitting inside a locked room under strong fluorescent lighting. And the worst of all was that from now on every year would count for tw
o, maybe more. Hunter had seen it happen before countless times to spouses, parents, siblings, partners, children, whoever. People who had lost someone dear to them in an overly violent way tended to lose their path in life easier than most, and the years were never kind to those. People who had unfortunately witnessed that violent death for whatever reason usually suffered a great deal more, but Hunter could barely even begin to imagine the sort of physical and psychological devastation that people in Mr. Jenkinson’s shoes would have to endure for the rest of their lives. People like Tanya Kaitlin. People who were forced to watch a loved one being brutally murdered. The images they saw, Hunter was certain of it, would haunt their every living second until their last day.

  Mr. J finally looked back at Hunter and Dr. Slater. Their words from just seconds back at last seemed to have their desired effect. Before guiding Hunter and Garcia into his office, his eyes glassed over and he was only able to utter two simple words, but they came out full of meaning.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Fifty-Three

  Mr. J’s house office was about twice the size of Hunter and Garcia’s back at the PAB and a lot less cluttered. Its centerpiece was undoubtedly the antique mahogany partners desk, which sat just a few feet in front of a boxed-out window. The curtains, heavy and dark, had been drawn shut. A brownish-red, winged Chesterfield armchair was positioned in front and a little to the left of the desk, while two hand-knotted Persian rugs covered most of the floor. The east wall was taken by a very large bookcase, with every shelf packed to its limit with a mixture of neatly arranged hardcovers and paperbacks.