The Stalk Club (18 page)

Nelson
questioned him closely about Craig Thoms and asked him what his habits were, who
his other friends were and what he was like.  Bryce gave little information of interest
about Craig’s personal life and Nelson got the impression that Bryce was, if
not trying to protect Craig, then at least trying to minimise the damage he was
potentially causing him.  Bryce said that to his knowledge, Craig didn’t have
many other friends and he didn’t know much about his money situation and didn’t
ask.  Nelson thought about pushing him further but decided to remain with the
friendly approach for the time being.  He could apply more pressure to Bryce
later if it was required.

“Now
tell me about last Friday night,” said Nelson.

“What
do you want to know?” Bryce replied, feeling more comfortable, and why not, he
thought to himself, I have nothing to hide because I didn’t do anything.

“Just
run me through the night as it played out, from your point of view.  Leave
nothing out, no matter how unimportant you think it is.”

Bryce
began to recount everything that happened on that night, however he was fairly
limited in what he could say about Craig’s stalk as he had left to follow his own
mark before Craig did.  When he finished his story, Nelson sat back in his
chair tapping his pencil on his lips as he digested what he had been told.  His
gut instinct was telling him that Bryce was being truthful with him and yet he
still asked him a number of leading questions in the hope of getting him to make
a mistake or alter his story, however nothing changed.  When he was satisfied that
there were no holes in his story he led him back to the foyer and left him with
a pen and a statutory declaration form to formally record his statement. 
Natalie had been waiting where they had left her and Nelson led her to the same
interview room after signing her in.   She sat quietly in her seat while Nelson
sorted out his voice recorder, taking extra care not to erase Bryce’s file.  He
looked up at her and was momentarily lost in her cool green eyes but pulled
away and forced himself to focus on the job at hand. 

“Alright
Ms Bassett, thanks again for coming in.”

“Please
call me Natalie, Detective.  Ms Bassett sounds like my mother,” she said
smiling.

“Alright
Natalie.  I’m going to ask you the same questions I just asked Bryce.  I’d like
to know what you know about Craig Thoms and then I want you to tell me your
version of events from last Friday night.”

Natalie
began to tell him how she had met Bryce about six months previously and that
they had soon become lovers.  The thought briefly crossed Nelson’s mind that Bryce
must be a tiger in the sack to catch and keep such a hottie, but he kept the
thought to himself. 

Natalie
told him she had become involved with his circle of friends, which included Craig
Thoms, and had joined them in their regular stalking evenings.  As with Bryce,
she made no effort to hide her involvement in the game, and to the contrary, admitted
that she was intoxicated by it.  She told him that she enjoyed the thrill and
excitement of following strangers to see who they were, where they were going
and what she could find out about them.  She told him about the events of the previous
Friday as she remembered them.  It had been her turn to randomly choose each mark
for the group. When she mentioned Craig leaving to follow his mark, Nelson
questioned her closely, pushing her for details and a description of the man
she had sent Craig out to follow.  Nelson had realised during Bryce’s interview
that Natalie had been the only person apart from Craig to see the mystery mark
who Craig claimed to be the real murderer of Emilio Fogliani.  Therefore, Natalie’s
memory and description of him was vital to Craig’s version of events if he had
been telling the truth. 

She
stared intently at the blank wall to her left, trying to recall the images of
the man Craig had followed, but struggled to recall any distinguishing features.

“I
just don’t know.  I’m trying, but he’s just a blur in my mind.”

“What
did he look like?” pushed Nelson a little harder, a little louder.
”I only saw him for a few seconds.  He was just one face out of the hundreds
walking past the bar that night.”

”Try
harder, it’s important.  What did he look like?  How tall was he?  What colour
was his hair?”  Nelson demanded, his voice rising in tone and with a hard edge
to it.

“Maybe
medium height?  Brown hair, yes I think short brown hair but I think he was
wearing a baseball cap.”

“Any
emblems?”

“No,
he was too far away but I wouldn’t know one team from another anyway.  I’m not
really into sports.”

“What
about his clothes?  Tell me about his appearance.  How old did he look?” 

Natalie
tried again to remember.  “I’m not sure,” she started hesitantly.  “He was
probably wearing jeans and a jacket.  Probably a brown leather jacket or maybe
suede,   I’m sorry Detective,” she said throwing her wide in a gesture of frustration. 
“I wish I could be of more help to Craig, but it all happened so quickly.

“If
he was so plain and unremarkable then why did you choose him to be followed out
of all the people in the street?”

“Good
question.  I guess I just felt he looked a little sneaky.  He was moving a
little quicker than everyone else and yet he was looking down.  It’s all my
fault that Craig’s in jail isn’t it?”

“Why
do you think that?”

“Because
if I hadn’t chosen that guy for Craig to follow then none of this would ever
have happened.”

“So
you think Craig had nothing to do with this then?”

“Of
course not.  Why would he?”

“But
you’ve only known him six months.  How can you be so sure?”

She
thought for a moment at the question and Nelson thought he detected a shadow of
doubt cross her face before it quickly resumed its normal countenance. 

“I’m
sure.”

Nelson
continued to question her for another fifteen minutes but it added little to
her recollection of events.

“Ok. 
That’s enough for today I think.  I need you to make a statement about what we
talked about today and I’ll need your contact details in case I’ve got some
more questions for you.”

“Sure
thing.”

“And
in the meantime, you need to keep trying to remember, because apart from Craig,
you were the only person to see this guy.  If you remember any more details, no
matter how small, I want you to phone me immediately,” Nelson said sternly.

“I
will Detective.”

“I’d
also like you to work with one of our identification experts to try and develop
a likeness of the man you saw.  Will that be an inconvenience for you?”

“I’ll
do what I can to help.”

Nelson
ended the interview and led her back to the foyer where Bryce was waiting,
sitting with his hands clasped between his thick thighs.

“Oh,
one more thing.  You might be contacted by the media, asking about this case.  I
advise you to say nothing and to keep your heads low until this is sorted out. 
Don’t go giving any front page exclusives or you may end up facing charges
yourself for hindering the investigation.” 

Nelson
returned to HQ and found Robards at his desk.  He gave him a brief rundown of
the interviews he’d conducted with Bryce and Natalie before turning his
attention to what Robards had been doing.

“How’d
you go with forensics?”

Robards
had expected the question.  If he knew anything about Nelson, it was that he
always followed through.

“They
didn’t find any GSR on the clothes taken from Thoms’ apartment, or on the latex
gloves found near the scene of the crime.”  Robards waited for Nelson to smirk
or show some sign of superiority but he showed none.  He just sat at his desk
staring out the window. 

“As
I said before though,” he continued, “it doesn’t prove anything.  There could
be any number of genuine reasons for finding no GSR on the gloves or the
clothes.”

“I
know,” replied Nelson.  “But one thing it doesn’t do, is strengthen the case
against Thoms.  If the test results had been positive, it would have gone a
long way to discounting his claims.”

“So
where do we go from here?”

“Well,
whether Thoms pulled the trigger or not the game plan is still the same.  We
have to dig deeper and chase up all the loose ends and find out if there is
more going on here than meets the eye.  We need to discover if there is any
credence to Thoms’ claims that he was setup.” 

Robards
felt frustrated but tried to hide it.  He had heard the ‘chase up the loose
ends’ philosophy from Nelson a hundred times before.  He knew Nelson lived by
it, but it didn’t stop him from again suggesting an alternative. 

“I
think we should lean on Thoms again,” he replied hopefully.  “You might have
your doubts about him being the one, but if we keep at him I reckon I could
crack him.  I’m certain he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“We
can still do that.  The prosecutors gave me an iron clad guarantee that he’s not
going to get bail based on what we’ve already got on him.  He’s not going
anywhere.  And if he is guilty, then I’d like to have more evidence to support
that before we go back to him.  If he has been setup though, then I want to
know who did it and why.  If this mystery shooter exists then I want to find
him.”

“You
know, I still think it could be something as simple as a robbery.  I mean
Fogliani’s an old school hood and maybe Thoms stumbled onto him making some
sort of deal or something and took advantage of it.  Or maybe Thoms is a drug
dealer and he didn’t feel like doing a deal with Fogliani so he just shot him
and took the cash and the smack.  God knows it’s happened plenty of times
before.”

“Yes
it has and maybe you’re right, but we’ve still got to look at it from all
angles.”  Nelson got up and started to pace back and forth in the area between
the desks.  Robards watched him silently.

“Ok,”
started Nelson.  “This afternoon I want you to finish up interviewing the other
stalkers.  They’re due in about half an hour at the Parramatta station,” he
said after checking his watch.  “Make sure you push them hard for details about
Thoms’ personal life.  If you’re right and he had the balls to pull the trigger
on Fogliani then there must be some history to indicate that he’s capable of
that.  I didn’t get much from Bryce McKinlay or his girlfriend but maybe the
others will be prepared to give up a little more on him.  Push the angle that
if they aren’t fully frank with us right here and now they could find
themselves facing accessory to murder charges.  It might be a bluff, but it
will probably scare the shit out of them.”

Robards
smiled at the thought.  He was skilled at using leverage points on suspects and
witnesses and felt confident he would get every scrap of available information
out of them.

“I
want you to keep looking at Thoms, but I also want you to profile the other stalk
club members as well.  Speak to their co-workers, previous employers, friends
and ex-friends.  Get Bovis to help you.  I want to know everything about
them including what they have for breakfast.  If there’s anything out of the ordinary
in their pasts I want to know about it.  In particular I want to know if any of
them have a link to Emilio Fogliani, no matter how tenuous or unlikely it is.” 
Robards took notes as quickly as Nelson spoke. 

“Got
it.”  The way Nelson was rattling tasks off for him made him wonder if he’d be
working on this case for the next six months.  Nelson kept pacing, his mind
freewheeling, looking at the case from every angle.  Those within view of him
looked up briefly and went back to work.  They were used to his habits, each to
his own.

“While
you’re doing that I’m going to tackle the case from the other end by going and
speaking to an old colleague in the Gangs Squad to see what information he has
on Emilio Fogliani and his family.  Maybe he knows what they get up to when
they take their suits off.  It seems strange that the Gangs Squad didn’t show
any interest in this case.  Normally they jump on anything that’s even remotely
tainted with organised crime, but Crighton said they took a pass on this case
and I want to know why.  I’ll see you later.”

Robards
watched as Nelson grabbed a couple of pens and a fresh notebook and left in a
whirlwind of energy.  Robards was left sitting at his desk, pondering the case
and his future.  He wondered if the case would turn out to be the big success
he initially hoped it might be when Nelson first told him about it.  He tried
to pinpoint his doubts but couldn’t.  On the one hand, he agreed that the approach
Nelson was taking was sensible enough and couldn’t really fault his logic, but on
the other hand he couldn’t shake the vague feeling that he was missing
something, or maybe that Nelson was holding something back. 

Having
worked with Nelson before, he knew that Nelson liked to do things his way and
he often did things on his own.  Nelson always argued that it was just a matter
of being able to cover more ground separately.  But then there were also
rumours that Nelson had occasionally crossed the line to secure a conviction. 
Although Robards had never seen any evidence of this during the six months he
had worked with Nelson in Inspector VanMerle’s team, the mere thought of it
made him uneasy.  He knew of the stains on Nelson’s record and had no desire to
have them replicated on his own.