Thin Blood (2 page)

Everything
pointed to her husband. If he’d had the word ‘guilty’ tattooed on his forehead,
it couldn’t have been more conspicuous. One small problem, though: there was no
body, and the evidence was all circumstantial.

Nevertheless,
that didn’t stop the authorities from charging Craig Edmonds with the murder of
his wife. The fact that he had changed his story did not help his credibility.
First, he denied he was in the house the night his wife went missing; then he
claimed he had passed out on their bed from too much drink in the late evening,
not waking until the next morning.

Brett paused in
his recitation long enough to take a breath, then continued. “An innocent man
wouldn’t have attempted to conceal evidence, would he? Why didn’t he report
Kirsty missing immediately, instead of waiting two whole days? His answer: he
panicked. What sort of defence is that?”

Even if Brett
had Craig Edmonds convicted of murder, two trials, both resulting in hung juries,
failed to do the same. Much to Brett’s disgust, the man — guilty or innocent —
had walked free.

All talked out,
Brett took a deep breath, crossed his arms across the back of the chair and
waited patiently for Jacinta to finish her scribblings.

If everything he
had told her was correct, it was indeed an odd case. Were the authorities just
keeping their options open by listing Kirsty Edmonds as a missing person, over
whose safety and welfare they held ‘grave concerns’, at the same time as they
had charged her husband with her murder? Twice.

And twice the
jury had failed to convict him. Not surprising, really. She knew that gaining a
murder conviction without a body was difficult, although not impossible.

Jacinta stopped
writing, setting the pad and pen on the table beside her laptop, and turned
back to Brett. “Thanks for that. How do you know so much about it, anyway?”

Brett rolled his
eyes. “Everyone who was around at the time knew about it. As I told you, the
media coverage was intense. I suppose there couldn’t have been anything more
newsworthy happening at the time.” He paused. “That, and the missing woman’s
sister, Narelle Croswell, is our credit officer.”

The ‘our’ he was
referring to was Woodridge Research, the market research company where he worked
as IT Systems Analyst.

For a moment he
held her gaze as if trying to decide if he should continue. “I may live to
regret telling you this, but what the hell, you’d find out one way or another,
anyway. Our dear Narelle married Craig Edmonds last October. Kept her maiden
name, though.” He watched her face, waiting for the information to sink in, the
corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk.

Her jaw dropped.
“You can’t be serious? Are you telling me Narelle married her sister’s accused
killer?”

“And oh yes, Narelle
and Craig were having an affair at the time Kirsty disappeared.”

“Jesus, Brett!
You can be a pain in the arse sometimes.” She hated the way he drip-fed
information to her. Was he deliberately trying to antagonise her? “So, is that
it? Have you told me everything?” She glared at him, her lips pressed together
in a thin line.

Brett held his hands up, palms out.
“No way!” Shaking his head vigorously, he backed away. “Absolutely not!”

From his
reaction, you would have thought she had asked him to assassinate the Prime
Minister. Instead all she had asked him to do was introduce her to Narelle
Croswell, the missing woman’s sister.

“You must have
some staff function or after-work drinks you could invite me along to. Then I
could introduce myself to her. You wouldn’t have to be involved.”

Brett’s face
paled. Behind his nervous eyes she could almost see the frenetic acceleration
of his brainwaves, looking for a way out of the predicament in which he had
landed himself.

“Look, she
doesn’t even have to know I’m a journalist.” She paused. “Not immediately,
anyway.”

“But… but,” he
stammered, “I thought the article you were working on was a general overview on
missing persons, not specific cases.” He glanced past her, and then back at her
face. “And anyway, I doubt the public would be interested in a rehash of that
old case. Everyone had had more than enough by the time it was all over. Why
would you want to dredge it all up again?”

He was right.
She had been working on an article about the 30,000 people reported missing in
Australia each year. And if Brett hadn’t said anything, she would still be
looking at that broader picture. She wagered that right about now, he was
kicking himself.

As for dredging
up an old case, he had a lot to learn about human nature. Mankind’s morbid
fascination with murder and intrigue verged on the voyeuristic. The more
gruesome the better.

Softly, softly
might be the better approach. “You’re probably right. I’ll just keep working
with what I have,” she said, waving a hand over the paper-littered table. What
she had was more than enough to get started. Brett could live for another day.

His face
softened, visibly relaxing.

After convincing
him that deserting her for his mates at the pub wasn’t a bad thing, she turned
her attention back to the laptop. Although a night out was tempting, her future success as a reputable investigative journalist was more important. And
Brett had unwittingly provided her with what could be just the boost she
needed.

First things
first: she needed to check the information he had given her. Typing “Craig
Edmonds” into Google’s search engine resulted in 618 hits. She quickly scanned
various news articles, all of which more or less covered what Brett had told
her.

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.

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?

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.

“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.