In the Deep

by White, Loreth Anne

  What purpose would it serve?

  Possibly to veil the fact that she had killed her husband—stage an abduction with an accomplice to pretend she was really a victim? But her scam had been exposed because Lozza had shown up in hot pursuit, and they’d crashed?

  K9 tracking teams had been brought in. Another chopper deployed. Ground search and rescue assistance. The area was being scoured for the driver, who’d fled on foot, but the suspect had gotten a head start because everyone had been distracted by the fire, which had spread rapidly through the eucalypt forest in the wake of the explosion. Plus, the ensuing wildfire had obscured trace.

  Lozza slowed as she neared the bend where the Corolla had hit an animal and almost lost control.

  The memory flashed through her mind again as she passed the spot where she’d seen the injured animal rolling down the bank and into the woods.

  Lozza’s heart kicked as something struck her. She’d seen what she’d expected to see—an injured kangaroo being flung down the bank. But in her memory, the way it had gone down, the way the car had fishtailed—had she seen the rear door swing open for a moment before the Toyota Corolla had righted and gone around the bend? Lozza frowned and glanced up into her rearview mirror. The road was clear. She spun a U-turn across the highway and headed back.

  When she saw where the Corolla tires had punched into the soft sand on the side of the road, she pulled off and parked on the verge. She opened the door and got out. The scent of eucalypts was strong, the sound of beetles buzzing loud. A truck rumbled by. Lozza approached the bank, a sensation building inside her.

  She saw it, down at the base of some trees. The tawny brown . . . not a kangaroo.

  A blanket tied with ropes. She saw a bloodied human hand sticking out from the folds. The top of a head with dark hair. It moved.

  She was flung from the car. She wasn’t inside when it crashed and burned.

  “Ellie!” she screamed as she bounded and jumped sideways down the steep bank. The bundle moved again. The fingers twitched. Ellie was alive. Emotion seared into Lozza’s eyes.

  She dropped to her haunches. “Ellie, it’s okay, I’m here. Help’s on its way.” Lozza reached for her phone and called it in. She then fumbled to untie the ropes, and she drew back the blanket around Ellie’s face. Ellie stared up at her.

  “Don’t move,” Lozza whispered. “I’ve got you. Help’s coming.”

  She untied more ropes and carefully peeled back the rest of the blanket. Ellie moaned.

  “Where do you hurt?”

  Ellie moved her mouth. Her lips were dry. “All . . . all . . . over,” she whispered. “I . . . my leg . . . broken . . . hip . . . hurts . . . was hit . . . back of head.”

  Lozza heard sirens wailing, louder, louder. Closer.

  Ellie tried to talk again.

  “Shh, don’t say anything.” She took off her T-shirt, and wearing only her bra, she pressed the shirt against the bleeding wound on the side of Ellie’s head.

  “I . . . I freed my hand,” Ellie whispered. “Managed . . . to open the door . . . When . . . car swerved I spilled out.”

  Lozza nodded. “Yes, yes you did. Good job, Ellie. You’re going to be good. Hang on.”

  Ellie tried to moisten her lips, moaned. Her eyelids fluttered. “The photo—”

  “Shh, don’t talk. Save your energy. The ambulance is almost here.” They’d see Lozza’s car parked up on the road. She smoothed hair back from the victim’s eyes.

  “I know who . . . person . . . in the photo . . . with me and Dana . . . All this time . . . she . . . targeted . . .” Her voice faded. Lozza’s pulse quickened. The sirens grew deafening—they were almost here. Ellie’s lids fluttered. She moistened her lips, trying to speak again. Lozza leaned close.

  “Willow,” Ellie whispered. “She . . . she was . . . in the bar that night. Listening . . . her and . . . they . . . they did it together.”

  THE MURDER TRIAL

  Now, February. Supreme Court, New South Wales.

  Dana Bainbridge is pointing at me in the dock. Everyone in the room is looking at me. Tension presses down. My throat closes.

  Focus. Stay calm. Lorrington has got this.

  I’m a victim.

  Do not react.

  Breathe.

  “For the record,” says the Crown prosecutor loudly into the mike, which makes her voice echo and bounce around the heavy silence in the courtroom, “Ms. Bainbridge is identifying the defendant, Mrs. Sabrina Cresswell-Smith. The real Mrs. Cresswell-Smith. Married to Martin Cresswell-Smith for the past fifteen years.” She pauses. The court artist’s chalk scratches furiously on paper. “Also known as Willow Larsen, among the many fraudulent aliases she has used with her husband in their cons around the globe.” The prosecutor returns her attention to Dana.

  “Ms. Bainbridge, are you certain that the accused is the same woman in the photograph?”

  Dana leans close to the mike. “Yes. She was sitting right next to us at the bar counter—unnecessarily close because there was a vacant stool on her other side.”

  “What was she doing at the counter?”

  “Eavesdropping while busy texting with someone on her phone. She was a brunette then.”

  “Did Ellie mention the woman to you at the time?”

  Dana reaches for her water. She sips and carefully sets her glass down, using the moment to regather her composure.

  “Not at the time. But when Ellie phoned and asked if I still had digital copies, she mentioned that she thought the woman at the bar had earlier been seated next to their dinner party. Ellie, by her own admission, was arguing very loudly with her father that night. Mrs. Cresswell-Smith would have heard Sterling Hartley making Ellie an offer of money for any project Ellie chose. Ellie said she’d hung a framed print of the photo on her studio wall, and something about it had begun to bother her. You couldn’t see Willow—Mrs. Cresswell-Smith—very clearly in that framed photo. But she was much more visible in the copies shot with my phone.” She sips more water. Her hands are still shaky. “Ellie said someone had taken the frame off the wall while she was in a coma.”

  “Did she say why she thought the framed photo was taken?”

  I turn my head slowly and look at Ellie seated in the gallery next to Gregg. She’s staring at me. Gregg, too. The Crown team has chosen to not put her on the stand. I’m betting it’s because the Crown is worried she’ll sink the case—it’ll open her up to admitting she hated Martin and that she wanted to stab and kill him herself. Ellie on the stand would have given Lorrington the reasonable doubt we need.

  My memory swings back to that fateful wintry night in Vancouver over two years ago. Martin and I were in trouble. Because we were under investigation in Europe for several scams, we’d moved to the States, where I began parting rich women from their money by giving spiritual readings. I soon learned faith healing was more lucrative—people will try anything and give everything to get well again when faced with death. But then I came under legal scrutiny in the US for selling my Magic Drops—a purported “cancer cure” made of water and some herbs and a few drops of peroxide, which I flogged at nearly $1,000 per tiny vial. Which is why we’d then relocated to Canada and shifted the Magic Drops sales online with various distribution centers we could keep moving around. But complaints had been filed in Canada, and an investigation opened there, too. We needed a new plan—one last big con that would enable us to retire to some island without an extradition treaty.

  It was Martin’s idea for us to scope out the AGORA convention for potential marks we could lure into another one of his real estate scams. When Ellie and her father sat down next to me, it was a gift. Manna from heaven. I texted Martin, who was working another part of the hotel, and told him to start googling everything he could find on Ellie and her father. I stuck beside Ellie when she and her friend Dana moved to the bar counter. The more I heard, the more I realized she was the perfect mark. I knew it would require commitment on both our parts. A long con. Many months. Bu
t if it paid, it would pay big. Our last job. One final score, then we could lay low.

  So after Dana left the bar, Martin headed Ellie off near the washroom.

  We were in play.

  I confess I was nervous from the outset. The role for my husband required seducing and sleeping and living with the vulnerable heiress, who was also beautiful. Gentle. Artistic. Rich. Loving. I feared—more than a little—Martin could fall for her. I stalked them so that I’d know if something started to go sideways. I followed them in my Subaru. I tracked Martin’s movements. I had Martin install spyware on her phone so I would know their location whenever they went away together. I had cams installed in the Bonny River house, hidden in the clocks. Martin didn’t know I could watch him and Ellie via an app. I was right. I was losing Martin. But it wasn’t to Ellie.

  It was to Rabz.

  Little did I know that it would be our mark, Ellie, who would show me that my husband had been planning another final scam—a bigger one. Double-crossing me.

  Little did he know that Ellie had outed his secret to me.

  THE MURDER TRIAL

  Detective Corneil Tremayne is in the witness box. I don’t like him. I can’t read him. I think he has a mean streak. In earlier testimony he already outlined for the court the forensic details of the investigation, but Lorrington has called him back.

  “Sergeant Corneil,” says Lorrington, “can you recap a few facts for Your Honor? The hairs found in the Velcro of the Nike ball cap—who did they belong to?”

  The sergeant barely moves as he speaks. “As I mentioned earlier, they were synthetic hairs. From a wig.”

  “So they did not belong to the defendant.”

  “No, sir.”

  “The blood on the cap?”

  “It’s a DNA match to Ellie Hartley. The cap was bloodied in a prior incident and left in her garage.”

  “So not my client’s blood.”

  “No, sir.”

  “The blood on the knife?”

  “It was found to have been contributed by the deceased, Martin Cresswell-Smith. Plus, there were very small trace amounts that belonged to Ellie Hartley, also from the prior incident on their boat.”

  “Were any fingerprints at the old farmhouse found to be a match to the defendant, Mrs. Sabrina Cresswell-Smith?”

  “Negative.”

  Lorrington nods slowly. “Was there any evidence at all that the defendant was at any time inside that house?”

  “No, there is not, but she was working with a coconspirator who was inside the house.”

  “You’re referring to this mystery ‘bikie’ who was seen accosting my client?”

  “We believe he was working with Mrs. Cresswell-Smith. She used him to deliver contraband marked for Ellie Hartley as a way to make public her drug addiction and to pave the way to her possible death.”

  Murmurs come from the gallery.

  “Detective,” Lorrington booms suddenly, “you have not presented any physical evidence, any witness testimony, anything at all that actually links my client to this mystery biker. You have not presented any proof that she was instructing him. You have not even located this mystery man. Not only that, one of your key investigating officers, Constable Gregg Abbott, was sleeping with the defendant. Your other key investigator, Senior Constable Laurel Bianchi, has a history of violence, which she has confessed to in this very courtroom. She was forced out of Crime Command for physically assaulting and injuring a suspect in her custody. And she has the scar on her head to prove it. She also adopted the child who hid under the bed and witnessed the whole thing. Constable Bianchi is vehement—almost radicalized, one might say—in her personal crusade against male violence. Yes, she tried to leave her crusade and her tattered career behind in Sydney. Yes, she tried to lay low and rebuild in Jarrawarra. But then she met Ellie Hartley and saw bruises. By her own admission to the court, Constable Bianchi feared for the woman’s safety. I put it to this court Constable Bianchi had a hate-on for Martin Cresswell-Smith right out of the gate, and was not an unbiased investigator. Constable Bianchi also personally delivered the contraband drugs to the home on Bonny River. This was not an objective investigation, Your Honor, nor was it a clean or fair one.”

  He turns to the jury. “Murder consists of two elements. As I stated at the outset to this trial, there must be a proven intention to kill. And it must be proven that the defendant did in fact kill.” He pauses and meets the eyes of each jury member in turn. “I put it to this court that the prosecution has failed to provide evidence of the vital half of that equation. Yes, maybe it could be argued that the defendant—Mrs. Cresswell-Smith—wanted to kill the man she once loved, the man she’d lived with since she was around nineteen years old, the man who then cheated on her, who was embezzling funds she believed were hers, who was going to bolt with his lover to live in a country where there was no extradition treaty. Yes, it could be argued that Sabrina Cresswell-Smith was a con artist, that she defrauded and cheated people out of their money. It could even be argued that she’d come to despise her husband so deeply when she learned of his duality, his deception, his double cross, that maybe she did want to kill him. Perhaps she even intended to kill him. But”—he raises a finger into the air—“she didn’t.”

  Lorrington pauses and lets that hang. “Detective Corneil,” he says, turning back to the homicide cop, “is it at all possible that someone else could have hired the mystery biker or some other person entirely to kill Martin Cresswell-Smith—perhaps someone from his past who he’d double-crossed, or someone who was furious at being defrauded, or someone who’d posted signs all over Agnes Basin calling for his murder?”

  Silence.

  “Sergeant Corneil?” says Judge Parr.

  The detective clears his throat. “It’s possible, sir, but evidence of torture suggests—”

  “‘Suggests’!” Lorrington swings to the jury, his finger back in the air. “Did you hear that—‘suggests’? This is all they have? A suggestion?”

  As he turns to face Corneil, the court door is flung open. The barrister stalls. A legal aide comes rushing down the aisle and goes straight to the prosecuting side of the table. She leans down and whispers into the solicitor’s ear. The solicitor whispers into Konikova’s ear. At the very same time the journalist, Melody Watts, gets up and rushes out the door. So do two cops. Something is happening. What is happening?

  Before Lorrington can speak, Konikova is up on her feet. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”

  “What is this about, Madame Crown?” asks the judge.

  “We . . . we have a late-breaking . . . development. We have new evidence, a possible new witness.”

  “Objection,” barks Lorrington. He looks worried. I am suddenly afraid. “We were not informed of this.”

  “This is highly irregular, Madame Crown,” says the judge.

  “It’s only just come to our attention.”

  The judge irritably wags her hand at them. “Approach.”

  THE MURDER TRIAL

  Earlier that morning. Toomba, Queensland.

  Berle Geller watches television in her squat house with its corrugated tin roof that bakes under the Australian sun. The house is on the knoll of a derelict spread several kilometers outside the small rural town of Toomba in Queensland, close to the border with New South Wales. Flies buzz inside and a lazy fan paddles the air. A dog scratches itself at the foot of her recliner. Berle holds a tin of beer on her belly. Her husband is in the next room doing whatever it is that Herb Geller does, but Berle is glued to the reality show that is the Martin Cresswell-Smith murder trial. She’s convinced Sabrina Cresswell-Smith is guilty, but she agrees with the TV pundits that all the evidence against her is circumstantial at best. Besides, Berle has sympathy for the woman. That husband of hers sounds like a right asshole. Bastard. She’d have stuck him with a knife, too. Lord help her, but sometimes she feels like sticking a knife in Herb. Berle knows what rage feels like. She knows the taste of betrayal and failure.
She glances at the old wedding portrait of herself and Herb on the buffet. They had such dreams back then. Look at her life now. If she had a heap of money and her husband ran off with it, and with his mistress—

  Melody Watts appears on the screen.

  “Melody is back on, Herb!”

  Herb grunts from the other room.

  “You’re gonna miss it!”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it,” Herb calls from the other room.

  The camera zooms in on Melody Watts. She stands in front of the courthouse doors. She’s impeccably made up and sporting a fuchsia jacket that contrasts with her blonde TV hair. She’s so pretty.

  Berle kicks her dog with her swollen foot to stop it from scratching. She takes a sip of beer from her tin, riveted.

  “When the Martin Cresswell-Smith murder trial resumes this morning, Justice Geraldine Parr is expected to summarize the central arguments. We anticipate that Justice Parr will outline the key points of evidence given by each significant witness, and she will explain to the jury the relevant laws and how they relate to the case at hand. The next step will be the jury deliberations.”

  The screen splits and shows the male anchor behind a desk in the newsroom. “Thank you, Melody,” he says. “And NSW police have still not found an alleged accomplice or the missing Abracadabra?”

  “That’s right, Harlan. The mysterious ‘bikie’ with a neck tattoo continues to remain a key person of interest, and he continues to remain at large more than one year after the murder at Agnes Basin.”

  “Is there a chance Mrs. Cresswell-Smith will walk?”

  “As I’ve told viewers, Mr. Lorrington has been underscoring the weaknesses in the Crown’s case and presenting to the jury feasible alternate narratives. And as Lorrington told the court early in his opening statements, anything can happen in a jury trial. If jurors feel sympathy or identify with Mrs. Cresswell-Smith, or see her as a victim of her husband’s, they are more likely to find reasonable doubt and render a verdict of not guilty. The defense legal strategy has been to acknowledge that while Mrs. Cresswell-Smith is a clever and accomplished con artist, she is not a murderer.”