They reached the floater. Pressure built in Lozza’s chest. The body was definitely male. He lay facedown, arms flopping at his sides with the swell. The khaki shirt matched what Martin Cresswell-Smith had been wearing when he’d gone fishing four days ago. The head of thick blond hair was a match. Body was the right size and general shape, too. He’d been a decent-looking bastard—like a rugged and bronzed rugby god, with swagger and charm to match, when he chose to use it. But Lozza had glimpsed something dark and sinister beneath the skin of Martin Cresswell-Smith.
She crouched down at the edge of the bank and studied the scene, taking care not to slip down the slick bank or to touch anything right away. She knew the drill. She’d been with the New South Wales homicide squad for years before she’d relocated to the South Coast and returned to general duties. She still retained her detective status, although she was not referred to as Detective because she was not assigned full-time to investigative duties.
Another silvery sheet of lightning pulsed as Lozza tracked the beam of her torch slowly over the body.
Gregg said, “You think it’s him?”
Lozza definitely thought it was. But Gregg was right—nothing about that made sense. Martin Cresswell-Smith’s boat had been seen leaving the Bonny River boat ramp, which was a half hour’s drive down the coast. He’d logged in with marine rescue and told them he was heading out to sea in a southeast direction. If he’d had an accident at sea, there was no way his body could have washed all the way north up the coast and then into the Agnes River mouth and all the way into this channel via Agnes Basin.
“And if this is him,” Gregg said, “where’s his boat—where’s the Abracadabra?”
“Gregg, shut up a minute. Please.”
He swatted at another mosquito. Flies buzzed over the corpse. Lozza panned her flashlight over to the man’s left hand. A wedding band embedded with a red stone encircled the floater’s ring finger. She’d seen that ring before. On Martin. But there was no Rolex on the floater’s wrist. Martin Cresswell-Smith had gone missing with a very expensive bronze-colored Rolex Daytona.
Gregg clouted another mosquito. His violent movement made the beam of his flashlight dart across the mangroves. A black thing exploded out of the darkness. Gregg sidestepped a terrified shag, his foot going down too close to the edge of the bank. He slipped and fell into the water with a loud splash. Gregg swore and scrambled wildly to get back out, bumping the body. It lolled onto its back.
Gregg froze.
Lozza went dead still.
Empty eye sockets stared up at them. The corpse’s lips and nose had been shredded off. The tender areas of the groin were gone. Replaced by a writhing mass of sea lice. But it was something else that snared Lozza’s focus.
The hook of a silver hand gaff had been sunk deep into the decedent’s chest. On the handle in black letters was the word Abracadabra. And what appeared to be stab wounds from a knife punctured the shirt all over the man’s torso. He’d been stabbed easily fifteen times. Lozza leaned in, bringing her flashlight beam closer. A dark ligature mark circled the man’s swollen neck. There were more ligature marks around the wrists. A rope was still tied around the bare ankles. Lozza’s heart beat slow and steady. Her attention shifted down the length of the man’s right arm. He was missing three fingers. Cut nice and clean above the joints. Neater than a mud crab’s work.
Gregg sloshed and clambered out of the water and up onto the bank. He took two steps into the grass, braced his hands on his knees, and retched.
Lozza returned her attention to the rope around the decedent’s ankles. Polyprop. Bright yellow and blue. Not Barney’s. If she were a betting woman, Lozza would bet that the rest of this yellow-and-blue line had been used to anchor this victim to something heavy underwater, where crabs and fish and sea lice and other mangrove critters would have picked his bones clean in a few more days. And then the bones would have disarticulated and buried themselves deep in the soft silt. There’d have been nothing left to find of this body. Except Barney and his crab pot had come along and gotten tangled in a killer’s lines.
Her mind shot back to Ellie—her apparent memory loss and strange actions. A sick feeling filled Lozza’s gut. Had she played them? Was she still playing them all? Every goddamn step of the way?
Because this sure as hell was no deep-sea fishing accident. This was no ordinary husband missing at sea. This was murder.
Lozza reached for her phone to call it in. While she and Gregg were the first responding officers, this would need to be run out of State Crime Command.
And right now Ellie Cresswell-Smith was the key person of interest.
THE MURDER TRIAL
Now, February. Supreme Court, New South Wales.
I focus on keeping my hands in my lap as Molly Konikova, the Crown prosecutor, rises. The barrister positions her binder upon a lectern on the prosecuting side of the bar table. She’s tiny—birdlike—swallowed by her silk robe, which drapes around her like oversize black wings. Thin lips. Beaked nose. Bony, fluttery hands. Her hair, a dun color, hangs in lackluster strands to her jawline beneath her gray wig. Excitement jabs through me—she’s a cartoon, a caricature of ineptitude and weakness. Surely the jury of twelve sensible-looking citizens seated across the room from me in the dock will take my defense barrister far more seriously than this sparrow-creature? My barrister is tall and pale-skinned with a head of thick dark hair, physically toned, his judicial garb more elegant than sinister. A man who radiates a calm and sophisticated intelligence, a man who can read the minds of a jury and spin a con, because he is a magician himself.
Konikova eyes me. Her gaze is cool. Direct.
