“Thank you, Melody,” the anchor says. Melody signs off and disappears, and the screen fills with an image of a Quintrex cuddy cabin boat. The anchor says, “New South Wales police are still asking members of the public who might have seen a boat like this under suspicious circumstances to please come forward. The number for the anonymous tip line is at the bottom of the screen. Police are also still looking for this man—”
A photo taken from CCTV footage of a bald man appears. Berle lurches forward in interest. While she’s watched most of the reporting on the trial, she hasn’t seen this photo. The screen splits and shows a better rendering of the tattoo on the man’s neck. Something begins to stir in Berle’s mind. Her heart begins to beat faster. She takes another swig of her beer, fixated by the close-up of the tattoo. It’s a rendering of a hummingbird. The screen flashes to a photograph of a fancy bronze watch.
“Police are also looking for a Rolex Daytona like this one.” Berle coughs as she swallows her mouthful of beer.
“Hey, Herb!”
“What?”
“Get in here, quick.” She’s on the edge of her chair.
He comes around the corner in a sleeveless undershirt that was once white. Berle points her tin at the screen. “That! That watch. I’ve seen it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our tenant, you idiot. That guy who rents the shack at the bottom of the farm.”
“I don’t deal with him, Berle. You’re the one who wanted to lease that dive. I’ve barely seen his face. He doesn’t come out when I’m around.”
She pushes clumsily to her feet and waddles hurriedly toward the landline phone that squats next to their framed wedding photo.
“What are you doing?”
She guzzles back the rest of her beer, plunks down the empty tin, and picks up the receiver. She feels feverish, excited. “We’re gonna be on TV, Herb. We’re going to be paid to be on television. We’re going to meet Melody Watts. In the flesh. Right here. She’s going to come here.”
“Are you nuts—who are you calling?”
“I’m calling the TV station. I’m calling Melody Watts. I’ve seen that watch on our tenant. He has that tattoo. He arrived over a year ago, and he parks that boat in the shed and just leaves it there with that old dirt bike of his. It’s him. I swear it’s him! He’s been laying low on our farm the whole time!”
Herb stares at his wife. The flies buzz about his head.
“Berle,” he says quietly, “if it’s him, you should call that Crime Stoppers number, you should call the cops, not Melody Watts.”
She puts the receiver to her ear. “We gonna be on TV, Herb.”
THE MURDER TRIAL
Now, February. Supreme Court. New South Wales.
It’s been five days since Justice Parr stood down the court after a highly unusual request from the Crown to bring forward late-breaking evidence and a potential new witness. Lorrington looks gray as court reconvenes this morning. He’s not a man who likes to lose, or to be seen to be losing.
The court officer opens the door. Everyone goes dead still.
He walks in.
For a moment I fear I’m going to faint. He’s come. I was hoping he wouldn’t. It means one thing. He’s turned state’s evidence. Worry tightens. I shoot a glance at Lorrington. He thinks he still has a plan. But he doesn’t, not now. He has yet to learn the depths of my deceit.
I have just become a barrister’s worst nightmare—the client who has lied to him.
The new witness swears on the Bible and takes a seat in the witness box. Dark hollows underscore his eyes. He’s tired. I bet the cops have been hammering him round the clock.
“Can you please state your name for the court?” says Konikova.
“Jack Barker.”
There is a stirring in the gallery. The place is packed with officers. Ellie sits close to Gregg. I wonder if they could be holding hands. A lot could have happened in the year that my case has taken to come to trial.
Konikova says, “Mr. Barker, can you describe to Your Honor how you know the defendant?”
“We met after her father died on the streets in Sydney. She was homeless. We became friends, hustled together on the streets—classic three-card monte, shell games. Slept in parks. Doorways.” He pauses and looks at me. “We were friends.”
I see Ellie whisper something in Gregg’s ear. She’s realizing I’d actually told her the truth about my mother and father, my history, that day she came to see me. It wasn’t just a con used to bond her to me. I learned to hustle on the streets. I learned from Jack. From my dad . . . “Watch the shells closely, kiddo . . .” You should have watched my game more closely, Ellie . . .
“So the two of you go way back?”
“Yes.”
“Did you stay in touch all this time?”
“On and off after she left Australia—she called me occasionally over the years, and made contact again when she returned to Australia to live in Jarrawarra. She arrived several months before her husband and the mark came.”
“The mark?”
“Ellie Hartley. She was the new mark. The new ‘Mrs. Cresswell-Smith.’” He makes air quotes. “As Sabrina explained it to me, Ellie technically wasn’t married to Martin because he and Sabrina already were—Martin had entered false information on the Nevada marriage forms.”
There is a murmur in the gallery.
“Order, please, silence,” calls the court officer. My gaze is riveted on Jack. I’m willing him not to go there—but he has to. Or why else would he be here right now?
“Can you explain to Your Honor why you went to Jarrawarra Bay?”
“Sabrina hired me.”
“Can you describe to Your Honor what Sabrina Cresswell-Smith hired you to do for her?”
“She wanted surveillance on her husband and the mark. She paid well for it. I’d left the navy with a dishonorable discharge and needed cash badly. She—Sabrina—felt her husband was up to something, and she said she was worried. So I followed them and reported on their movements when they were outside of the house.”
“What vehicle did you use to follow them?”
“A brown Toyota Corolla.”
More murmurs in the gallery.
“Order! Quiet in the court, please!”
The sketch artist turns a fresh page, her gaze flicking back and forth between Jack and me and her sketch. Reporters scribble furiously. I can almost feel the news vans hovering outside waiting with their big satellite dishes on top. Heat presses into the room.
“Did Mrs. Cresswell-Smith ever ask you to do anything other than surveillance?”
“She asked me to deliver a package to the Pug and Whistler marked for ‘Ellie Cresswell-Smith.’”
“Why?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Did you also follow a woman named Bodie Rabinovitch?”
He clears his throat. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Sabrina had been told that Martin was having an affair, but he seemed to be hiding it well. I’d previously only followed Martin when he was with Ellie. Or I’d follow Ellie when she was alone. When I followed Bodie Rabinovitch to Sydney, I captured both of them on camera.”
“How did Mrs. Cresswell-Smith react when you gave her these photos?”
He looks down for a moment. I see the tension in his neck. “Angry,” he says quietly.
“How angry?”
“Objection,” calls Lorrington as he surges to his feet. “Calls for speculation.”
“I’ll rephrase. What did Mrs. Cresswell-Smith ask you to do next?”
Silence.
“Mr. Barker,” says Judge Parr, “you must answer the question.”
He inhales. “She . . . she asked me to drown Martin.”
A reporter hurries out the door. The mouth of one of the jurors drops open.
I feel my body, my face, going hot.
“How?” asks Konikova.
“She came up with a plan. She recalled
Martin from Sydney urgently—he told his mistress it was his wife calling. Sabrina informed him that Ellie was onto him and they had to take care of Ellie in a hurry and pull the plug on the scam and clear the hell out of Australia.”
“What did she mean by ‘take care of Ellie’?”
“Kill her.”
“How?”
“Sabrina told Martin the best way would be to make it look as though Martin and Ellie had gone out on the Abracadabra and had an accident at sea. That way, when the boat didn’t return, a marine search and rescue effort would be launched, but no suspicions of murder would be raised. The ‘Cresswell-Smiths’ would simply be a couple who’d vanished at sea. Martin was to acquire a truck and trailer in a hurry and drive the rig from Sydney to Agnes Basin. Sabrina would pick him up from Agnes Basin, then drop him at Moruya Airport, where he’d collect his ute and drive home to the Bonny River house as though he’d flown home early. She said there would be no way to coerce Ellie onto that boat, so Martin was to drug Ellie—give her enough Hypnodorm and GHB to potentially kill her. I was to then meet him in the dark morning in his garage, which he’d leave open—she told Martin I was an old friend who’d do anything on the quiet for the right price. She’d already given me the ball cap and jacket and wig outside the Puggo. She’d taken them from the garage. The plan was to leave the house very early and people would see what they thought they were seeing. Ellie and Martin Cresswell-Smith heading out to sea. As you can see, I am of slight stature. With the wig I could pass as Ellie from a distance.”
“Where did the wig come from?”
“Sabrina bought it in Moruya. When we went out on the boat, Martin was to log on with marine rescue. Sabrina told Martin the plan was then for me to cover the boat name and registration markings with false ones, throw Ellie’s jacket and cap into the water near the FAD, and then we’d head up to the Agnes inlet mouth. Once in the inlet, we’d dock and load the Quinnie onto a trailer. Sabrina told Martin she would bring Ellie up to Agnes in the Corolla. She’d either be dead or comatose. We’d sink her body into a channel, where the muddies would finish her off. Then Martin and I would drive the boat and trailer back up to Sydney, where he’d get on a plane and leave the country ahead of Sabrina. I’d carry on north and hide the boat and trailer. Everyone would be searching for the lost couple at sea while Sabrina drove to Melbourne and boarded her flight to join Martin.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?”
He sips water. “No. That was the story for Martin. Her plan was to double-cross him. I was to drug Martin out at sea and dispose of him overboard, far offshore. Along with Ellie’s jacket and cap. I was then to slap on the false rego, then go up Agnes inlet and continue with the plan to drive north and dispose of the boat and trailer. And while we went out to sea, Sabrina would transfer all the funds from their joint offshore account—Martin had already moved it all in there. That’s what Ellie had seen when she got into his office. And then Sabrina was going to drive to Melbourne and leave the country before it was even known that the Abracadabra was missing.”
“But that didn’t work, either, did it?”
“No.”
“What went wrong, Mr. Barker?”
Silence.
“Mr. Barker?” says Judge Parr.
He rubs his brow. “As soon as Martin and I were seen going out—me dressed as Ellie—she accessed the online account and found that Martin had already taken all the money out of their joint offshore account. He’d robbed her blind. She panicked. Was furious. She called me on my mobile and told me to change the plan at once. She needed the account details from Martin. He’d been drugged already. So she told me to take him up to the abandoned farmhouse at Agnes and hold him there so she could drive up and get the information out of him herself when he came round.”
“What about Ellie Hartley?”
“Her intent was still to dispose of Ellie in the channel—both bodies in the channel at that point, once she’d gotten the account information out of Martin.”
“Was it Mrs. Cresswell-Smith who tortured Martin?”
He swallows. I feel sick. I know this is the end. Lorrington looks at me. I can see it dawning on him. I feel Ellie in the gallery looking at me. I feel all the cops staring at me. And the reporters and jurors. I sense the cameras outside, hovering.
“Mr. Barker,” says the judge again.
“Yes. She cut off his fingers while I went to get Ellie.”
“And did you ‘get Ellie’—Mr. Barker?”
“The cop—Constable Bianchi—arrived and surprised me. I was inside the house. I managed to flee out the glass sliding door with the clock cameras and the framed photo from the studio that Sabrina ordered me to get as well, but I didn’t have time to get Ellie.”
“What did you find when you arrived back at the abandoned house empty-handed?”
“She’d killed him.”
Gasps come from the gallery. Lorrington fires a look at me. I meet his gaze and do not blink. He’s vibrating.
“And did Mrs. Cresswell-Smith get the account information out of her husband?”
“He told her Ellie had taken the money.”
“Had she?”
“I don’t know. Sabrina killed him in a blind rage.”
“Is that why Sabrina went back to abduct Ellie?”
“Yes, and also because Ellie had phoned her friend and was acquiring a copy of the photograph. That photo was proof Sabrina had been in on the con from the day Ellie met Martin at the Hartley Plaza Hotel. She still had the mirroring app on Ellie’s phone. She could see and hear everything Ellie did with that phone. She’d heard Ellie tell Dana she was going to tell the cops right away. She was afraid she’d be exposed, and now for murder.”
“What happened after you saw that Mrs. Cresswell-Smith—Sabrina—had killed her husband, Mr. Barker?”
“I helped her put his body in the channel. She went back to Jarrawarra. I took the boat on the trailer north to Queensland and laid low.”
“One more question, Mr. Barker—you seem to be familiar with boats, in that you were able to take the helm of the Abracadabra and navigate her up the coast and into the inlet?”
He leans toward the mike. “I mentioned already that I was in the navy. I know boats. And the sea.”
Silence swells loud into the room. It shimmers and crackles at the edges like a dry forest waiting for a spark.
“Mr. Barker,” says Konikova slowly, quietly, “why are you telling all this to the court?”
“Because I didn’t kill Martin Cresswell-Smith. Sabrina Cresswell-Smith claimed to her lawyer that I had. And now I’ve been caught, I don’t want to take her rap.” He flicks a glance at me. “A friend doesn’t ask another to serve life for something he didn’t do.”
Lorrington glowers at me. His face is bloodless. His eyes are hot. He knows me for what I am now. A liar. A con.
You, too, should have watched those shells more closely, Mr. Lorrington, I say in my head, channeling my father’s voice. Life is a shell game, and in a shell game only the tosser wins. You’re either the tosser or the loser.
NOW
ELLIE
February. The Bigwig Pub, New South Wales.
Dana and Gregg are with me. We’re gathered in the dark, cool, intimate pub across from the courthouse with some of Gregg’s fellow police officers, some reporters, friends.
Jugs of beer and sparkling water and bottles of wine are brought to the table along with plates of food. The big television screen behind the bar has the volume turned up so we can all hear. On the screen we can see Melody Watts in the newsroom at a table with one of the SBC-9 News anchors, and he’s quizzing her on the “stunning” turnabout in the Martin Cresswell-Smith murder trial and the record-quick and unanimous verdict from the jury that found Mrs. Sabrina Cresswell-Smith, a.k.a. Willow Larsen, guilty on all counts.
“The matter has now been stood over for sentencing at a date to be fixed,” Melody Watts tells the anchor. “Negotiations around extradition
proceedings will also likely begin because Mrs. Cresswell-Smith faces additional fraud charges in the EU, the UK, the States, and in Canada.”
The anchor turns to the camera. “And this brings to a close our coverage of a murder trial that has mesmerized television audiences not only here in Australia, but also in Canada and the US, where the Cresswell-Smiths had strong ties and left a legacy of victims in their wakes. The battle between Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell-Smith ended ignominiously in a house of horrors in the dark mangrove swamps of the Agnes Basin estuary. The proposed marina development is now dead, and the land has been ceded to the state for a nature reserve on behalf of the Chloe Foundation created by Ellie Hartley in honor of her daughter, who drowned in an accident at age three in Hawaii.”
Everyone looks at me suddenly. I feel my cheeks heat. Gregg’s eyes are alive with emotion, hot with it. I give an embarrassed shrug. “Something good has to come of it all.”
Gregg kisses me fiercely on the cheek. He whispers in my ear, “You rock, you know that, Ellie Hartley?”
“This is Melody Watts signing off for SBC-9 News. Thank you for listening.”
And with that, it’s over. A whole violent and terrifying chapter of my life as a victim. But I fought back. I dug deeper than I could possibly have imagined, and here I am. My injuries from the car accident during my abduction over a year ago have healed. My lawyers in Canada managed to put a freeze on the monies Martin and Sabrina stole. Bit by bit the funds are being retrieved. Legal maneuverings around the fraudulent presales are ongoing. I have new friends. I have reclaimed my Hartley name. I am now Doug-free and drug-free and clearheaded. I am finally well.
“Ellie Hartley?” calls the server over the noise of the group. “There’s someone outside who wants a word.”
“Who is it?”
“A woman. She didn’t give her name.”
I push my chair back and stand up.
“Want me to come?” Gregg asks.
I shake my head and make my way through the packed pub. I step out into the balmy night. A woman comes forward. With surprise I see it’s Lozza.
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