A hesitation rippled through my fuzzy memory.
The light turned green and the cab started to move.
“Wait!” I called to my driver. “Stop!”
He hit the brakes. I flung open the door and tumbled myself out into the snowy street. I ran carefully on my heels toward the hotel entrance.
“Hey!” I heard the cabbie yell behind me. I ignored him and pushed through the revolving doors into the hotel, my heart hammering.
THEN
LOZZA
Over one year ago, November 18. Agnes Basin, New South Wales.
Warm rainwater leaked down the back of Lozza’s neck as she crouched in the darkness, taking photos, her camera flash throwing the floating body into macabre relief. White skin against black water, the empty eye sockets, the nose-less face, open, lipless mouth. She clicked. Flash. Her brain circled around the words she’d heard shortly before they got this call.
“Ellie is not what meets the eye . . . That kind of woman can be the most dangerous when betrayed or wronged, because you least expect it. They can be deadly. Did you know that she stabbed her ex-husband . . . ?”
The sheer number of puncture wounds in this floater’s chest—about fifteen, maybe more—whispered of rage, unhinged violence. Red-hot passion—because you didn’t need to stab someone this many times to kill him. But the ropes, the severed fingers—was that planned torture? Sadism? And why no pants? Where was the boat? How’d he get here, into this channel?
Nothing about this made sense.
Lozza came to her feet and waited for Gregg to quit throwing up. Mosquitoes buzzed in clouds about them. Rain beat down steadily, and water dripped off the bill of her police cap.
“You good?” she asked.
He nodded, his face ghostly in the light of her torch.
“Let’s get back to the launch.”
She’d phoned it in. Reception had been spotty but she’d gotten through. They made their way back to the police launch.
Barney sat beneath the targa cover. Rain pattered and ran off McGonigle’s jacket in silver rivulets.
“ETA for forensic services and a homicide squad detective is about two hours,” Lozza said as they reached the boat moored to the jetty. “We need to cordon this area off while we wait.” She turned to Barney. “There’s a path leading off the end of the dock. Where does it go?”
“Abandoned homestead,” Barney said. “The Agnes Marina developers erected some scaffolding near the old house. It’s for prospective buyers who want to climb up to a platform and survey the view they’ll get from the new lodge when it’s built.”
Lozza turned to Gregg. “Cordon off the immediate area with tape,” she said. “We can extend the cordon as we get a better idea of the scope of the scene. I’m going to take a look down that trail. The decedent lost his fingers somewhere. My bet is he didn’t drown here, either, but was killed elsewhere, and then someone tried to dispose of him in this channel full of big muddies.” Lozza addressed Barney. “Want to show me the way to that old farmhouse?”
“Are you bloody nuts? No bloody way I’m going in there. Not to that place. Not now. In this weather? Hell no.” He made another sign of the cross over his body.
Thunder clapped and rain doubled in volume and velocity. Water bounced off the river almost a half meter high, creating a shimmering silvery cauldron as white lightning pulsed through the mangrove swamp.
Lozza left Mac manning the watercraft and radio while Gregg strung out blue-and-white crime scene tape, marking off the immediate area. She picked her way slowly along a narrow and dark path through the tangle of trees. A wet spiderweb caught her across the face, and she started. She wiped the sticky threads off and continued. Reeds snapped back, branches clawed at her jacket.
A lizard as large as a small dog scurried across her path. She stilled and controlled her breathing before continuing again.
Lightning flared simultaneously with a loud crack of thunder, and she saw the house. The thunder grumbled into the distance, the forest went black again, and the rain drummed down even harder, creating little rivers through the swamp. Lozza picked her way carefully along the wet path until she came upon the derelict building.
It was a single story with an old tin roof that clattered under the raindrops. A covered veranda ran around the house. Lightning flashed again and silhouetted the low building against gnarled trees.
She made her way to the front door. The porch floor was rotted, and the door hung on rusted hinges. She creaked it open.
A bat darted out and she ducked. The creature’s claws tangled in her cap and hair before it fluttered out into the swamp with a screech and a whopping of wings. Her heart hammered. She entered the building. It was sweltering inside the house. It smelled of urine and excrement and . . . something worse. Like putrid meat. She panned her beam across the room. It lit on a broken table. Two chairs with metal legs. A kitchen area with an old stove. She made her way deeper into the house. The heat and stench grew stronger. Lozza covered her nose and mouth with her arm. Rain clattered on the old corrugated metal roofing and dripped through holes, puddling on the floor.
She entered a room at the end of the passage. Her eyes adjusted as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
A chair in the middle of the room. A man’s boating shoe lay near the chair. Ropes hung down
