THEN
LOZZA
“Thank you for coming in,” Lozza said as she seated herself at the table opposite Ellie. Gregg took the chair to Lozza’s left. “How are you feeling?”
The woman looked weak. Thinner. Very pale. Dark circles under her eyes. She still had a bandage on her brow. Lozza wondered if they were doing the right thing, bringing her in like this right out of the hospital.
Ellie’s gaze met Lozza’s for a brief moment, then twitched up to the camera near the ceiling. Clearly she was aware they were being observed. So was Lozza. She could feel Corneil’s eyes on them.
“I don’t remember anything more, if that’s what you mean,” Ellie said. “And I didn’t come in. I was brought in.”
Defensive.
Lozza nodded to Gregg. He pressed the “Record” button.
“Interview with Ellie Cresswell-Smith, November nineteen, 11:02 a.m., conducted at Jarrawarra Bay by Senior Constable Laurel Bianchi with Constable Gregg Abbott present.” She gave their ID numbers.
“I’m very sorry about your husband, Ellie,” Lozza said quietly. “I understand you’ve made a positive ID based on photographs.”
She nodded.
“Could you speak out your answers for the recording, please,” she said.
“Yes,” said Ellie with a flash of her eyes to the camera again.
“We’re still awaiting a positive DNA—”
“It’s him. I know it’s him.”
Lozza held her gaze. “You’re very certain.”
Ellie swallowed. Her nose pinked. “I could tell from those photos. I don’t have any doubt.”
Lozza nodded. “Okay, and you do understand that we need to ask you some questions as we conduct our investigation into what happened to your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea what might have occurred?” she asked.
“I already told you everything I know at the hospital. I didn’t go out in the boat with him.”
“But we have multiple witnesses who saw you going out, Ellie. Including Constable Abbott here. He saw you through a telescope.”
Her eyes ticked to Gregg.
A muscle on Gregg’s jaw pulsed.
“Let’s start with your memory of your husband’s premature return from Sydney, shall we? What brought him home early?”
“I don’t know. I don’t recall if he told me.”
“Did you perhaps phone him, tell him to come home?”
“Why would I? I was packed and ready to leave. I had a plane ticket. I wanted to be gone before he returned.”
“So you remember that now?”
She looked nervous for a moment. “I . . . guess I do. Bits must be coming back.”
“Why did you want to be gone?”
“He was having an affair. I’d gotten proof. I didn’t want to confront him because he could be violent. I’d also come to realize he was a con artist. He’d stolen everything I’d brought to the marriage. I . . .” Her voice faded and she stopped speaking. Two hot spots had formed high on her cheekbones.
“What was he doing in Sydney?” Lozza asked.
“Screwing his mistress and getting ready to flee the country with my money—hell knows. I plan to deal with the legal ramifications from home.”
Lozza’s gaze held hers. “His mistress being—”
“Oh, please, don’t patronize me. You people are searching my home as we speak. You probably already found the photos of my husband and Rabz that were in my studio. I’m sure you’ve already questioned her and everyone else who knows me and Martin, plus everyone who saw the boat going out, plus my neighbor. What else do you want from me? Am . . . I’m not a suspect here, am I?”
“We need to cover some bases, Ellie.” Lozza opened her file folder and extracted a few photos taken at the murder scene. “Do you recognize these?” She pushed toward Ellie the images of the blue windbreaker and the ball cap stained with blood.
“Yes. They’re mine. That’s blood on them.”
“Blood?”
“Martin’s, mostly. And probably some of mine. From when I stabbed him.”
Lozza blinked. “You’re admitting you stabbed your husband?”
“When we went out on the Abracadabra, right after I landed in Jarrawarra, I had an accident with the knife and cut Martin. I was wearing that jacket and cap. I left them in the garage. Ask anyone who was at the boat launch that day. Martin had gotten a foul hook in his neck, and . . . we both had blood on us. Witnesses on the cliff saw us coming in. Martin went to the hospital, so the doctors know about it, too. You’ll probably find my fingerprints on the fishing knife and gaff, too, because I picked them up with my bloodied hands that day.”
“How do you know about the gaff?”
“It was in one of the photos Detective Constable Sybil Grant showed me in order to identify the body.”
Lozza leaned forward. “Ellie, how did your jacket and cap end up in the derelict farmhouse at Agnes?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were wearing these items when you were seen going out with Martin on the Abracadabra on November seventeen.”
“I . . . I didn’t go out with him again. I wouldn’t have.”
“I told you—you were seen by several witnesses, including Constable Abbott.”
“Well, then, I can’t remember it. And I really can’t understand why I would have gone out with him again. I hated the boat. The first incident terrified me. Martin wanted it to terrify me. He won.”
Lozza said slowly, “So how do you think your jacket and cap with Martin’s and your blood got to the abandoned house in the mangroves at Agnes Basin where Martin was killed?”
“I have no idea.”
Gregg said, “Had you ever been to that abandoned farmhouse, Ellie?”
Her gaze ticked nervously to Gregg. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” asked Lozza.
She inhaled deeply. “The day I arrived in Jarrawarra, Martin drove me up to Agnes and took me into Agnes Basin
