‘My husband,’ Mary replied, her voice rushed and drowning in tears. ‘Who was trying to kill me. He’s a serial killer.’
‘Your husband is a… serial killer?’ the officer asked, a lilt of sarcasm in his voice.
‘Yes,’ Mary said, as the officer grabbed her by the arms and helped her to her feet. ‘Check the basement in his office. The evidence is all there. He’s murdered nineteen women.’
The officer locked eyes with Mary, and he must’ve seen the fear in them because he frowned at her.
‘Go check,’ Mary urged him. ‘Please, go check.’
‘First, I need to place you inside a cruiser while we check the house for any more occupants, perpetrators or victims, OK? You said that your husband is in the kitchen?’
‘That was where he was… yes.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘No more attackers… only you?’
‘I’m not an attacker.’ Mary’s voice was desperate. ‘I was defending myself.’
‘OK.’ The officer nodded. ‘And your husband, what’s his name?’
‘Quaddra… Quaddra Buckner… but you have to check the basement… you have to.’
‘Trust me,’ the officer said, as he walked Mary to one of the police cars before helping her onto the backseat. ‘We’ll check everything. Don’t worry, OK?’ He paused and nodded at her. ‘Give me a second.’ He closed the door, without slamming it, and retrieved something from the cruiser’s boot before opening the back door again. ‘Here. Let me put this over you.’ He was holding a police high-visibility coat.
Mary had been so terrified and confused that she’d forgotten that she was almost naked. She leaned forward on the seat and the officer placed the coat over her shoulders before zipping it up at the front.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. ‘Do you need medical assistance?’
‘No.’ Mary shook her head. ‘It’s not my blood.’ As soon as she said those words, she realized what they would sound like to a police officer.
The officer looked back at her with concern. ‘So, I’m guessing that the blood on the knife that you were holding isn’t yours either, right?’
‘I was defending myself.’ Mary began shivering again, but this time it wasn’t fear, or cold. The shock of everything that had just happened to her was beginning to settle in.
‘OK, you just sit tight,’ the officer said, with a half nod. ‘I’ll be back.’
Mary had no idea of how long she sat on the backseat of that police cruiser, but it felt like an eternity. She saw one of the police cars leave and an ambulance arrive, closely followed by a new police car. This one wasn’t a black and white unit. Its red and blue lights flashed from its front grill and from inside its windshield. Mary had seen enough movies to know that that was a detective’s car, and she breathed out relief. The officer had probably found the basement and radioed it in. The two men who stepped out of the unmarked police car would be homicide detectives. Mary was sure of it. This nightmare was finally coming to an end.
Mary sat back on the seat and began concentrating on her breathing when she saw Quaddra, seemingly passed out, being wheeled out of the house and into the ambulance on a patient transport stretcher.
‘What the fuck!’ Mary’s eyes followed the stretcher all the way from the house until the ambulance. ‘Did Quaddra hit his head when he slipped on his own blood, or what?’
All of a sudden, the back door to the cruiser was pulled open again, startling Mary. It was the same police officer who had placed her on the backseat and covered her with the high-visibility coat.
‘Did you find the basement?’
‘Nope,’ he replied, his eyes widening at her while he nodded. ‘But I found a pretty battered and bloody victim in the kitchen. Stab wounds, funnily enough.’
‘But it’s there,’ Mary practically yelled at the officer. ‘The basement is there. Take me back inside and I can show you how to get…’
‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder,’ the officer cut her short.
‘What?’ Mary’s eyes ballooned up in their sockets. ‘Attempted murder? I wasn’t trying to kill him. He was trying to kill me. Didn’t you hear the 911 call?’
‘No,’ the officer shot back. ‘We don’t listen to emergency calls. We respond to them.’