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“Unless her hair was pulled back,” Beckett said.
“Good point,” Quinn said. “The whole thing sounds very sketchy. No possible way anybody brings a case against Beckett on that evidence. You’d never win in court. The person in the water could have seen the car go in and tried to go in after it to help, then realized it was too dangerous and waded out again. If it was a boat ramp, that wouldn’t have been as dangerous as jumping off into unknown waters. Weird that they wouldn’t have called the police, though. Unless their phone wasn’t waterproof and it died. That could be. But wouldn’t you stick around despite the weather, if you’d seen a car go in? The police probably came pretty fast. The person would’ve heard a siren within—”
“Within minutes,” Beckett said. “They were there within a few minutes of the call.”
“I agree,” Megan said. “With all of that. Expect the police to dig deeper now, though, to see what they can find out. And Abby did have that medication in her system.” She checked her notes. “Alprazolam.”
“Xanax?” Quinn asked. “How much?”
“A bit less than half a milligram,” Megan said. “It will have been higher initially, one presumes, depending on when she took it, but that’s a moderate dose. It shouldn’t have affected driving by itself, at least not to that extent.”
“Why didn’t I know that?” Quinn asked. “That makes a difference. Although you’re right that it wouldn’t knock you out or even make you that sleepy unless you’d been drinking, especially if you were used to taking it. I see a lot of drugs in court. You said she wasn’t drinking much, Beckett, but the reason she was taking Xanax might matter.”
“I didn’t tell you because it makes no sense,” Beckett said. “I told the cops it made no sense. I could hear what they thought—that she was anxious, so maybe she was suicidal and did it on purpose. But she didn’t have anxiety, she’d never been prescribed those meds, and, no, she didn’t have much alcohol in her system. Less than .02, nowhere close to drink-driving level, like she’d had a couple of drinks much earlier in the evening and had stopped hours ago, which she would’ve.”
“So what’s the explanation for the Xanax?” Quinn asked.
Beckett moved his hand in a gesture of frustration. “They said she probably got it from somebody else. That it’s common, friends sharing meds like that, but Abby was a PhD in medical laboratory science. Sharing meds would’ve gone against everything she was taught. Everything she was. And she didn’t like meds anyway. Didn’t like how they affected her. She was logical, too, and she knew heaps about brain chemistry. Serotonin. Dopamine. All that. That was her main interest, the brain. If she’d had anxiety and it was bad, shewouldhave asked for a prescription, or more likely have gone for therapy or done yoga, something like that. She wouldn’t have been ashamed. And she’d have told me.”
“And you didn’t tell the kids,” Quinn said.
“Of course I didn’t tell the kids! If that’s why she went off the road—if it was the pill, or worse, that she meant to, somehow, how could I tell them that?”
He couldn’t say anything more. He was cold. So cold. All the way through his muscles. All the way to his bones. And angry down deeper than that. He was murderous, ironic as it was. If there’d been somebody in the car with her—that changed everything.
Quinn asked a couple more questions, and finally, Beckett managed to say, “Either somebody went in after her and came out again, or somebody was in the car withher. Somebody with fast reactions if they got out, and who didn’t care that shedidn’tget out. Or somebody who was driving? Who grabbed the wheel and steered them onto the footpath? Those are the only possibilities, if the witness didn’t imagine it.”
“Sounds like it,” Megan said. “Unless somebody independently went swimming at the same time her car went in. In the Brisbane River, which is probably suicide at night, in the rain.”
“A wetsuit would look like a sea creature,” Quinn said. “And be dark and shiny. A wetsuit with a hood, even more. Maybe even fins and a PFD, which would make a person look hulking from a distance and give them a strange walk, like a sea creature. That’s how you survive in a major river at night, in a storm. Possibly.”
“It’s not James Bond,” Megan said.
“Better to consider all possibilities, surely,” Quinn said.
“Somebody saw the car, though,” Beckett said. “A witness whowason the record. That’s how the cops found out what happened in the first place. How could they not have seen this person as well? In their raincoat or their wetsuit or whatever it was?”
“They saw the car driving on the footpath, yes,” Megan said. “Got out of their car and ran ahead far enough to see the taillights as it went in, but at a distance. Stopped to ring 111, and were talking to the operator for some time. They could have missed seeing the person coming out of the water.”
“It’s very sketchy,” Quinn said. “It’s one person’s account, somewhat contradicted by another person. And the witness was extremely drunk. Wait,” she said to Beckett. “Cell phone records.”
“What?”
She made an impatient gesture. “They’ll be able to trace your cell phone records—the location data—and see that you weren’t there.”
“I’m sure theyhavechecked,” he said. “And found nothing. Wouldn’t you have checked?”
“Well, yes,” Quinn said. “But not every cop is as thorough as I am.”
He almost smiled, but he couldn’t. “I’m sure. Wouldn’t I have left my phone at home anyway, though, if I were planning on murdering my wife? I’m a reasonably practical person. Whowouldmurder somebody that way, though? You’d be too likely to die yourself. The Brisbane River’s no joke—it’s a navigable river, not some sort of stream—and in that weather? And somebody could’ve seen. Somebodydidsee.”
“Also,” Megan said, “escaping from a sinking car.”
“It makes no sense,” Quinn said. “None of it.”
“It doesn’t,” Beckett said. “Abby was a scientist. She was a mum. She had no enemies. Nobody who could possibly have wanted to kill her. Some rival scientist? Only happens in the movies. Besides, she was taking a few years off work to be with the kids. She was no threat to anyone.”
“The husband is always suspected,” Quinn said. “Always. Number One.”
