It was killing me, and I was coping in all the wrong ways.” Her mouth tightened and her eyes turned shiny. “Look, I know you’re going to go digging up my entire life and you’re going to find out all the horrible things about me that are going to continue dogging me for the rest of my life, like how I was institutionalized for a while. So there you have it. Grief, loss, can all but kill you. It can drive you mad. But I did not kill my husband, Detectives, and I’d like to leave now.”
Lozza regarded Ellie for a moment, thinking of something else Rabz had said.
“Do you know the police in Hawaii thought she’d drowned her three-year-old daughter in the sea at Waimea Bay? Ellie took her out into waves that were too big.”
“Ellie.” Lozza leaned forward. “Can we go back to the clothes you said you were wearing when you first went out on the Abracadabra—the clothes that had your blood and Martin’s blood on them. You said you left them in your garage?”
She shifted in her chair and wiped her nose. “Yes.”
“And you don’t know how that jacket and cap ended up at Agnes Basin?”
“No. I left them in the garage with the cargo pants and shoes.”
Lozza made a mental note to check for the shoes and pants.
“And I don’t know what happened to them or how they got to Agnes.”
Lozza rubbed her chin. “So the blood on the—”
“It’s mine. And Martin’s. I told you.” The hot spots on her cheeks deepened. The atmosphere in the room was getting closer, warmer. Edgier.
Lozza said, “So there is a chance that you visited the abandoned house shortly after your arrival in Jarrawarra—you just don’t remember it?”
“Yes, that’s right. I might have. I don’t know. I can’t recall either way, but it’s possible.”
Lozza cursed to herself. Ellie had just driven a bus through any potential case to be made against her so far. If she’d been at the murder scene—inside that old house—she could claim that any DNA or fingerprints or hair or fiber evidence found at the scene might have come from an earlier time. Or from the earlier boating incident with the knife. She had a defense.
Lozza pushed two more photos toward her—the fishing knife and gaff marked with the boat’s name.
“Do you recognize these?”
Ellie drew them closer. “Yes, that’s the knife I used to cut Martin free of the fishing line when he got foul-hooked. And that’s the gaff I handed to him.”
“So you definitely touched this knife and gaff.”
“Yes, I told you. While I was cutting the line from Martin’s rod, the boat tilted and I slipped and cut his arm, plus the back of my hand.”
“How about this—do you recognize this?” Lozza showed Ellie another crime scene photo.
“That looks like the rope from the Abracadabra. It’s the same colors as the bowline Martin made me hold on the day we went out. It burned my hands.”
Lozza inhaled deeply. This meant any DNA that showed up on the ropes from the crime scene that was a match to Ellie could also be argued to have come from earlier incidents. Crown prosecutors would not be happy. Lozza eyed her, and the sinister sensation of being played intensified. Was this woman a deception artist herself? Like she claimed her husband was? Could it be wildly possible she’d used that first day out on the boat to set up a scenario that would later undermine any police evidence found in a crime? Lozza was getting a feeling that maybe this was less an interview with Ellie Cresswell-Smith than it was Ellie laying out a future defense on the record. An inkier thought struck Lozza—could Ellie have set out to swim with her and Maya in the sea that day? Could she have wanted for some reason for Lozza to see her bruises and meet her husband and sympathize? Could that have been part of some ploy, too?
Lozza showed Ellie the photo of the bald man with the neck tat again. Once more Ellie denied knowing anything about him or any package with drugs.
“I’d like to leave now,” she said.
“Just a few more questions,” Lozza said. “Who was the PI you hired to take photos of your husband and Bodie Rabinovitch?”
“Look, I’m really tired. I’m not feeling well. I’d like to go and buy a plane ticket and go home.” She started to push her chair back.
“Please stay seated, Ellie.”
“You can’t force me, Lozza. I know my rights.