The Caller

Fifty-Five

This feels all wrong, Mr. J thought as Hunter and Garcia exited his office.

Despite feeling exhausted and emotionally drained, his brain was still able to ponder basic facts, and four of the most basic ones, when it came to this investigation, simply weren’t adding up.

One: He had been conveniently away at the time of his wife’s murder. Two: No signs of forced entry had been found, which meant that the investigation would have to consider the possibility that the perpetrator had a key to the house to start with. Three: The video-call he claimed he had received could never be properly verified. Even the detectives had confirmed that. And four: The note that was found inside Cassandra’s handbag could’ve easily been planted there to create the illusion that she was being stalked and to try to drag the investigation down a different path.

Considering those four facts alone, Mr. J knew that he was supposed to have been grilled like a rack of ribs at a fat men’s barbecue, but that just didn’t happen.

As he left his hotel late last night, he had begun thinking about what sort of questions would be coming his way. Questions about alibis to corroborate any of his stories. Questions about what sort of business or meetings he was supposed to have had back in Fresno. Names, phone numbers, schedules, addresses... everything. As the interview started, with questions about his last two trips and who had keys to the property, he thought that he was well en route to the expected grilling but, to his surprise, the line of questioning quickly moved on to something he could never have predicted. Neither detective seemed too interested in digging any deeper into his business trip.

To Mr. J, that was problem number one. Problem number two was that Cassandra had been murdered inside their own home without an apparent motive. No burglary. No obvious sexual assault. When Mr. J added problem number one to problem number two, and he was sure that the detectives he met had already done so, the main result was a big and shiny ‘crime of passion’, blinking right at the top of the list, but the interview hadn’t gone down that route either. They never asked him if he and Cassandra had been arguing a lot recently, or if he had any indications that she could’ve been involved in an extra-marital affair. They never asked him if he was involved in one himself, or even if any of them had talked about, or considered, a divorce. In fact, there had been no questions whatsoever concerning the state of their marriage after twenty-one years. What the detectives seemed really interested in was the video-call, and in as much detail as possible.

Why? he asked himself.

If they believed that the video-call had been fabricated, maybe it was because they were trying to catch him on a lie, make him contradict himself, but still...

Mr. J’s breath hitched within his throat, because that was when he realized the mistake he had made.