by Vicki Tyley
One thing he hadn’t touched on was the question mark over the part Narelle had played in her sister’s disappearance. With speculation rife, many media reports painted her as the scarlet woman, a woman capable of stealing her own sister’s husband, a woman without conscience. But a small band of supporters had jumped to her defence, claiming she was no more than an innocent victim drawn into a web of deceit and betrayal.
A clap of thunder overhead startled Jacinta. The room darkened as the gathering heavy clouds blocked out the sun. The air, still and humid, felt claggy on her skin. The calm before the storm, she thought, standing and crossing the wooden floorboards to the open, double-hung window at the end of the room.
Leaning against the windowsill, she breathed in the heady perfume of her herb garden, the scent intensified by heat and rain. A simple pleasure in a complicated life.
She sighed and headed back to her laptop, realising her problems were nothing compared to those of the Croswell sisters. One was missing, presumed dead, while the other had married the man accused of her sister’s murder.
A fine film of sweat developed on her face as she trawled through website after website. Then she found it: the original court transcript for the first trial, Regina v Edmonds. Elated, she raced to download it as if it might vanish before her eyes.
Her jaw dropped. The document consisted of 283 pages of what appeared at first glance to be mainly verbose, longwinded legal prattle. She blinked, her eyes already gritty with fatigue.
Pulling her long, corn-blonde hair away from her face and neck, she pinned it in a loose knot on top of her head and then, gathering up the laptop and her notepad from the table, made herself comfortable on the daybed near the window. She had a long night ahead of her.
CHAPTER 4
Smiling to himself, Craig Edmonds closed his briefcase, turned off his desk lamp and stood up. If anyone had told him that after everything he had been through in the last decade he would ever find happiness again, he would have laughed in his or her face.
He had been to hell and back. Months in remand, accused of murdering his wife, had taken its toll on him, both mentally and physically. But the one constant through it all had been Narelle — his sweet, loyal Narelle. His own family had disowned him, but her belief in his innocence had been unwavering. He admired and loved her for that, but there were times when even he didn’t believe in himself. How could he, when no matter what he did, he couldn’t remember what really happened that night.
Was he capable of murder? Could he have mutilated his wife like they said he had? No, not under normal circumstances. He was sure of that. But why couldn’t he remember?
CHAPTER 5
Jacinta heard the front door close and touched her lips. Had Brett said goodbye? She had been so preoccupied with the Edmonds case that she couldn’t remember talking to him. What sort of mood had he been in?
She shook her head. Another black mark against her name. Much to Brett’s chagrin, she had spent the whole weekend reading, rereading and trying to absorb 283 pages of murder trial transcript.
Even without a body, the prosecution’s case had been incriminating, to say the least. Forensic testing had matched the blood and hairs found in the house and car boot to the missing woman. Craig Edmonds’ attempt to clean up the blood, his delay in reporting his wife missing, the life insurance policies and the gaping holes in his statement would have roused the suspicions of the most trusting of people.
However, the evidence from Kirsty Edmonds’ best friend, Grace Kevron, had been especially damning. According to her, Kirsty had phoned her during the week before she ‘went missing,’ saying she wanted to talk. They had met the next day in a café not far from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where Kirsty worked as a nurse.
Jacinta flicked back through the pages marked with bright purple Post-it flags until she found the record of Grace Kevron’s evidence.
It seemed Kirsty had told Grace that she and Craig were having problems but, other than saying she was scared of him and didn’t know what she should do, didn’t confide exactly what those problems were. Grace had also noticed what appeared to be relatively recent bruising on Kirsty’s lower forearm. When Grace had questioned her about it, Kirsty had jerked her arm back, reflexively covering it with her other hand and dropping it out of sight under the table. The conversation had ended shortly after that. And even though Grace had tried phoning Kirsty, she had neither seen nor heard from her friend since.
Nevertheless, even with the prosecution’s weighty arguments, Craig Edmonds’ lawyer had managed to instil enough doubt in the mind of at least one of the jurors to ensure his client wasn’t convicted. The evidence that wasn’t circumstantial was hearsay, and therefore could not be substantiated.
Yawning, Jacinta stood and stretched her body, stiff from sitting in one position for too long. Collecting the coffee pot from the table, she headed to the kitchen to replenish it.
While she waited for the kettle to boil, she paced back and forth across the kitchen’s slate-tiled floor with her arms crossed, mulling over facts and suppositions.
On the surface, it certainly seemed Craig Edmonds was guilty of, if not murder, hiding some terrible secret. But the question was, did he realise it? Had he been genuine in his claim that he had blacked out that night, waking the next morning without any memory of the preceding night? Or was it just a con to convince the jury of his innocence?
And if Craig Edmonds hadn’t killed and disposed of his wife, who had? No question, the blood splattered through the house and car boot had belonged to Kirsty Edmonds.
Jacinta shook her head, dropping her arms as she turned to the kettle. Only two people really knew what had happened that night: Kirsty and her killer.
CHAPTER 6
“Please, Grace,” Jacinta called through the closed door. “Just ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Don’t you think you owe Kirsty at least that?” If straight pleading wouldn’t work, playing the conscience card might. “You were Kirsty’s best friend. She trusted you.” She was overplaying it, but if it succeeded in getting Grace to open the door, that was all that mattered.
Jacinta had studied the transcript of Grace Kevron’s evidence in depth, but it was all too clean-cut. It didn’t really tell her what sort of person Kirsty had been. How deeply had her husband’s infidelity affected her? How devastating had the impact been on her marriage? What had been the state of the Edmonds’ marriage before then? Had Craig caused the bruising on Kirsty’s arm? Was there any other evidence he had harmed her in the past, physically or emotionally? Jacinta was brimming with questions to which only someone who knew the Edmonds intimately might be able to provide answers, or at least clues.
Grace Kevron, Kirsty’s purported best friend, was the obvious choice. She had moved house since the trial, but thankfully her phone number and address were listed in the White Pages. Almost too easy.
“Please, Grace,” she implored again, her voice tightening in frustration. “If you were Kirsty, wouldn’t you want your best friend to speak up for you? She can’t.”
The door remained shut. Sighing, she stepped back and turned to face the street.
From behind her, she heard the faint click of the door being unlocked. She spun around. A tall, angular woman stood in the narrow door opening, one hand against the doorframe, the other clutching the edge of the door. Her chin-length, straight, jet-black hair accentuated the paleness of her skin.
“What can I add to what I said all those years ago? There is nothing more,” said Grace, in a flat, resigned tone. “Nothing I could say will bring Kirsty back. Please just go.”
“No, wait!” Jacinta leapt forward as Grace moved to close the door, planting her palm against the polished timber. “I know how hard this must be for you, but if you can just give me a few minutes of your time…” Her voice trailed off, her eyebrows drawing together as she held Grace’s gaze.
Grace’s shoulders sagged as she dropped her hand, releasing the door, and without a word
gestured Jacinta inside. Grace, dressed in a loose, white, gauzy dress, seemed to float from the small entrance foyer into the next room on the left, making Jacinta wonder if she was just some ghostly apparition. She didn’t even dent the carpet. In comparison, Jacinta felt like she was wearing concrete boots as she plodded in her wake.
As if suddenly remembering her manners, but probably more to forestall, Grace offered Jacinta a cup of tea or coffee. While Grace busied herself in the kitchen, Jacinta waited in the white, bare-walled, sparsely furnished formal sitting room, seating herself in one of the contemporary, but austere, white leather armchairs just inside the door. She gathered her thoughts, hoping that the cold, almost clinical room wasn’t a reflection of its resident.
*
Brett Rhodes sat near the back of the conference room, his legs outstretched with his ankles crossed under the seat in front of him. A PowerPoint presentation of the latest product release of computer peripherals flashed in a blur of meaningless colour across the large screen at the front of the room. Even the booming voice of the presenter failed to grab his attention.
In fact, his mind really wasn’t on the job at all; hadn’t been all day. What had possessed him to open his big mouth and tell Jacinta about the Edmonds murder case? Worse still, that he worked with Narelle Croswell? Perhaps it was to get her attention. Well, it had worked, even if only momentarily, but at what cost?
Jacinta had backed off when he refused point-blank to introduce her to Narelle, but he knew it would only be a short reprieve. He knew her too well to think she wouldn’t pursue the story with the same dogged determination she applied to everything else in her life. That same trait that had drawn him to her in the first place.
Funnily enough, it was at a new product release, similar to the one he was at now, that he had met Jacinta Deller. She had been seated in the front row, her brow furrowed in intense concentration, when he first spotted her. But it wasn’t until the session was well underway that he really became interested.
Initially it was because she was asking questions that he considered extremely basic, like ‘what is the function of a hub?’, leaving him curious as to why an obvious amateur would be attending a presentation aimed at IT professionals. But when she stood her ground, undeterred by the barely disguised sniggers and the occasional guffaw from those around her, he wanted to know more.
At the mid-morning break, he had searched for her amongst the people milling around the tables set out with row upon row of white cups and saucers, plates of cakes and bite-size savouries. The panicky fluttering in the pit of his stomach when he couldn’t immediately see her passed as soon as he glimpsed her collecting brochures and specification sheets from the table just inside the double doors.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up his cup of coffee and, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible, wandered her way. He was taken aback when she continued looking through the papers on the table, completely ignoring him. Of course, now he knew from experience that she hadn’t done it intentionally.
If the theory that men could only focus on one thing at a time while women were capable of multitasking held, then either Jacinta was a man, or she just didn’t fit the stereotype. And with her long blonde hair, her petite but curvy figure, her button nose and deep-blue eyes that sucked you right in, he vouched she wasn’t a man. More like a shortened, freckle-faced Barbie doll with attitude. Not that he would ever tell her so.
After much throat-clearing and cup-tapping, he eventually attracted her attention. She looked around at him, starting in surprise to find that she wasn’t alone. Then she smiled, her whole face lighting up.
He could smell her perfume, a light floral scent. The fluttering sensation in his stomach returned, worse than before. He remembered standing there like a paralysed idiot, unable to speak or breathe for what seemed like an eternity.
Just then the presenter called everyone back to their seats, rescuing him, or rather her, from an awkward situation.
He spent the next hour and a half fidgeting, unable to concentrate on anything more than the back of the blonde head in the front row, mentally rehearsing what he was going to say to her — if he could stop acting like some fumbling, lovelorn schoolboy.
The session ended at noon, providing him with what he thought would be the perfect opportunity to ask her to lunch. But she seemed to be in too much of a hurry to bother with him, scarcely pausing as she turned him down flat, glanced at her watch and strode off. Dejected and feeling like he’d been kicked in the stomach, he had walked head down through the hall to the exit.
About a week later, he had received a call. It was her. It was Jacinta. Caught by surprise, he regressed to gibbering nonsense. They hadn’t been introduced, so how had she known who he was, or where to find him?
She laughed and reminded him that even though she didn’t know much about computers, she could read. It took him a moment to comprehend what she was talking about. He felt his face reddening, glad that she couldn’t see him, as he recalled the large plastic-encased tags detailing name and company with which each attendee had been issued on registration. How blind was he?
Somehow, he had managed to pull himself together enough to agree to meet Jacinta after work that day, at some bar he had never heard of in the city centre.
Over drinks, he learned that the only reason she had been at that IT product release was to cover for The Acacia Tribune’s AWOL regular technology columnist.
That had been over three years ago, and yet he still hadn’t fathomed her completely. She was as unpredictable as ever. And that was his predicament. Should he pre-empt Jacinta and get to Narelle first, forewarning her as well as apologising? Or should he do nothing except stand back and prepare himself for the inevitable fallout?
*
Waiting for Grace to answer, Jacinta leaned forward, setting her empty cup on the narrow, bleached-pine coffee table.
Grace stopped twisting the fine gold band on the little finger of her left hand and looked up. “I don’t even know for sure that Kirsty knew about the affair. I knew something was bothering her, but that’s all.” She dropped her gaze, adding in a half-mutter, “I only found out about it myself at the trial.”
Even after all these years, Grace’s disappointment that her best friend had been unable to confide in her was still evident. Had Kirsty known about the affair between her husband and sister? Reading between the lines, Jacinta felt sure that at least Grace thought she had. How could she not have?
So far, Grace had not revealed much more than what Jacinta had read in the trial transcript. Not surprisingly, she remained guarded, only divulging information already on public record. What had Jacinta expected? She was a complete stranger to Grace and, what was more, a journalist.
A different approach was called for.
“Grace…” She paused, waiting for Grace to lift her head, only continuing when she held her gaze. “Were you aware that Craig Edmonds and Narelle Croswell had married?”
For a few long seconds, Grace sat there frozen. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, her dark eyes suddenly widened, her jaw dropping as her mouth gaped in a giant ‘O’. She tried to hide her shock behind visibly trembling hands.
Jacinta had expected some sort of reaction, but nothing as dramatic as this. So, the wedding really has been kept hush-hush after all, she thought. She had searched the Internet for any mention of the wedding, but had not come up with one hit. Considering the hype surrounding the original case, that in itself was odd. But she would still have expected someone like Kirsty’s best friend to know about it.
With a horrible mixture of guilt and glee at provoking such a response, Jacinta took a deep breath, her mind racing as she tried to untangle her thoughts. One part of her wanted to reach out as a friend to Grace, but the journalist in her was spurring her on to strike while Grace’s defences were down.
Why not both? she thought, leaping to her feet and making her way around the coffee table. She couldn’t let the opportunity slip by.
She crouched beside Grace’s chair, still unsure of what she should say. Before she could open her mouth, Grace had dropped her hands and, with a fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, turned to Jacinta.
“That bitch! How could she do it? How could she do it to her own sister?” She shook her head, her dark hair grazing her pale cheeks. “Tell me, what sort of person could do that?” She stared down at Jacinta as if she should have all the answers.
Jacinta had no answers, only questions. What was she supposed to say? That only a cold, calculating person with no morals could do that? Was that what Grace wanted to hear?
In the end, what Jacinta thought didn’t matter. Grace had risen from her seat and was pacing backwards and forwards across the room, wringing her hands and talking to no one in particular.
Feeling like an eavesdropper, Jacinta remained crouched beside the vacated chair, listening and trying to make some sense of Grace’s incoherent ramblings. The news had clearly disturbed her, and most of what she was raving about centred on murderers and evil adulterers. What had Jacinta unleashed?
It soon became obvious that Grace held the same view as Brett in that Craig Edmonds, although not convicted of his wife’s murder, was guilty all the same. Nor did she consider Narelle an innocent party. Was it possible that the pair had been in it together, as Grace was implying?
Jacinta felt the beginnings of cramp nipping at her calf muscle. Flexing and bending her leg, she used the arm of the chair to ease herself up. She continued to watch as Grace, seemingly oblivious to Jacinta’s presence, swept from the room. Jacinta moved to follow her, almost colliding with Grace when she stopped abruptly and turned.