The Stalk Club (20 page)

“He
claims he’s been setup.”

“And
you believe him?”

“I’m
not sure yet,” Nelson replied guardedly. 

Nelson
returned to the office to find Robards working away at his desk.  As soon as he
saw Nelson he effused a look of self-assured smugness on his face.  Nelson reasoned
that either Robards had got laid in the last hour or so or that the case, from
his point of view, had taken a turn for the better.  Nelson guessed it was the
latter, but decided to deny Robards his joy and ignore him.  It would be
revenge for Robards making him wait for the news about the evidence the day
before.  He said a quick hello and dumped his notebook on his desk and went to
make a coffee in the staff kitchen.  He growled when he discovered that the
litre of milk he had bought that morning and put his name on, was already empty,
but had been placed back in the fridge regardless. 

“No
doubt someone’s idea of an amusing joke,” he thought to himself.  In disgust he
threw it in the recycling bin and used someone else’s.  He then returned to his
desk, turned on his computer and ignored the still beaming Robards.

“Thoms
didn’t get bail.  And I’ve found out some very interesting information about
him.” Robards offered after less than thirty seconds of painful silence.

“What’s
that?  He didn’t get bail?  Good.  Good stuff,” replied Nelson casually, continuing
to type an email, trying his best to torment Robards.  It was a small gesture
but Nelson had never considered himself a particularly big person.

“Yeah
and I’ve found out some good stuff.”

“Oh?”
 Nelson gave up his game and turned to face him.

“Yep,”
said Robards no less smug, despite the delay.  “I’ve been
doing
a little digging into his background.  I spoke to some people at the hospital
where he works.  The head nurse from the Geriatric ward says there have been
drugs go missing recently.  Now she didn’t come right out and say it was him
but she has her suspicions and Thoms was at the top of her list.  Apparently the
drugs only started disappearing when he started working the ward and other
wards have experienced similar problems when he worked in them.  Hard to
believe it’s all a coincidence.”

Nelson rubbed his chin as he listened, weighing up the
information.  “I suppose drugs go missing every day from hospitals though. 
I’ve met plenty of dodgy doctors in my time.

Robards ignored the comment.  “I also spoke with a former
employee, who’s a retired traffic cop named John Carmichael.  Thoms was
employed at his security business before he worked at the hospital.  It’s where
Bruce McKinlay still works.  Anyway he had some not-so-good things
to say about Thoms as well funnily enough.  He basically said that he was a
worthless piece of shit that he wouldn’t piss on if he was on fire.  His words,
not mine.”

“Not exactly a glowing character reference then.”

“No.  Anyway after six months of working there, Carmichael discovered Thoms had been pilfering equipment from the shop, so he sacked him.” 

Nelson sat quietly and listened.  Robards had his full
attention now. 

“But wait, there’s still more,” continued Robards,
enthusiastically attempting to impersonate an infomercial salesman.  “Carmichael also said that Thoms was always hassling him for money to start up an internet
porn business or something.  He said that he was desperate for financial
backers because he was always broke, but Carmichael didn’t want a bar of it.”

“Did Carmichael have Thoms charged over the thefts?” said
Nelson, backtracking to the earlier issue.

Robards looked slightly crestfallen at the question. 
“No.  Thoms returned the stuff so he didn’t proceed with it.  But it all adds
up.  I mean Thoms is probably a dirtbag drug dealer and maybe a user and has a
history of always being short of cash and stealing.  During his stalk he
probably stumbled onto a drug deal.  He waited in the bushes until it was
completed and then he popped Fogliani, grabbed the cash, and took off.” 
Robards looked to Nelson for a sign and was rewarded with a nod of his head.

“It sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah it does.”

“That’s good work Pete.  It looks like we’ve got a few
more questions to ask Thoms about now.” 

Robards smiled in agreement.  Nelson thought that it was
starting to fit too.  It fit well enough with the information that Raph Sanchez
had told him, in that Emilio Fogliani was possibly still involved in drug
operations of some kind.  Maybe Thoms
had
stumbled onto a drug deal.  And
yet the new information didn’t go close to filling in all the holes in the case
and in some ways Nelson thought it just added more. 

“But why did he tell the other stalk club members about seeing
the murder if he was the one who committed it?  Why not just keep the whole
thing to himself and not mention it at all?”

Robards thought for a moment and couldn’t think of an
immediate explanation.  “Probably because he’s an idiot.  I mean he left the
gloves too close to the crime scene, was caught on video and left his
footprints there, so he’s made a whole bunch of mistakes.  Or maybe he was
trying to impress them?  Maybe he was trying to get into the pants of the girl
I interviewed today, Jen.  She was pretty nice.  Blue eyes and dark hair always
does it for me.  What was the other one like, Natalie?”

“Yeah she’s good too,” Nelson admitted absent-mindedly. 
“Did you dig anything else up on Thoms?” said Nelson, dragging Robards’ mind
back on track.  

“Yeah, I found some other stuff, nothing too serious
though.  He’s got a couple of priors for drunk driving and a couple of assault
charges that didn’t make it to court.  But that’s the reason why we have his
fingerprints on the NAFIS database.”

“It’s hardly the record you’d associate with a cold
blooded murderer.”

“Maybe not, but maybe he’s just got into the drugs fairly
recently.  Drug users are capable of anything.”

“I can’t argue with you there.  Is that it?”

“Just about.  It’s probably nothing, but he was a suspect
for a vehicular manslaughter some years ago.”

Nelson looked at him quizzically.  “Tell me more.”

“The accident was about fifteen years ago but there were
file notes made on the case up until just a few years ago.  A couple of people
died.  It probably doesn’t mean much.  He must have been just a kid back then.”

“Can I have a look?”

Robards slid the printout across his desk and Nelson
scanned it.

“As you say, it’s probably nothing,” said Nelson as he
handed the sheet back to Robards.  “What about his stalking friends?  Were you
able to find out much about them?”

“No, not much.  They all look pretty clean.  None of them
have criminal records.  Bovis ran the checks.  I asked Carmichael about Bryce
McKinlay and he said he was a good worker and a stand-up guy.”  Robards hoped
Nelson wouldn’t ask him any further questions about the other stalk club
members, because beyond running their names through the on-line Criminal Record
database he and Bovis had done little else to investigate their pasts.  After
digging into Craig Thoms’ life and discovering his checkered past he remained
convinced of his guilt and that the focus of the investigation should remain on
him.
”Ok.  I think i
t’s time to talk to Thoms again.”  Nelson
checked his watch.  “Tell him and his legal counsel that we’ll be
re-interviewing him at the station at five p.m. sharp.  I’m going to grab
something to eat first.”

Nelson
returned ten minutes later with a ham and salad roll and waited for Robards to
get off the phone to Craig’s solicitor.

“How’d
you go?” he said through a mouthful.

Robards
smiled.  “His solicitor isn’t happy.  He said we’re trying to railroad his
client.”

“Railroad? 
Who says that anymore?”

“He
does I guess.”

Nelson
told Robards what he had found out about Emilio Fogliani.  After some
consideration he decided not to mention the behind the scenes political manoeuvrings
of Crighton.  Although Raph Sanchez may have been correct in his theories as to
why the case had been taken on by the Homicide squad, it was still pure
conjecture and didn’t overly interest Nelson at this point in time.  He had
other things to worry about.  He told Robards that Fogliani was still suspected
of being involved in the drug trade and Robards quickly saw the connection
between that and his theory that Craig possibly stumbled onto a drug deal.  If Robards
hadn’t already been completely certain about Craig’s guilt, then this new
information would have ensured it.

Nelson
left Robards to bask in his own glory and returned to his desk to quickly
prepare for his next interview with Craig Thoms.  He jotted down questions
based on the new information they had gathered and then decided to take a
closer look at Craig’s criminal history.  He scanned through the case notes for
each infraction.  The unsolved vehicular manslaughter case from fifteen years
previously piqued his interest.  He noted that as Robards had mentioned, there
had been a few brief file notes added to the case in the years after the
accident, with the final note being in 2009.

He also noted the name of the officer who had made the latest
file note - Sergeant John Soward.  Nelson pondered the name for a moment,
swishing it around in his mind to get a taste of it.

“Now there’s a blast from the past,” he said to himself.

Detective Robards led Craig Thoms and his solicitor Martin
Warnock from the holding cells up to the interview room.  Warnock’s lips were pursed
paper thin tight in annoyance at having next to no time to prepare for another
interview.  Thanks to the slow weekend bail court proceedings, his client had
only been returned to his holding cell at around four-thirty p.m. after
having spent most of the afternoon at the Parramatta Local court, waiting for
his case to be heard.  When his turn had finally arrived the Magistrate took
all of five minutes to summarily reject his bail application, much to his
solicitor’s chagrin.  Warnock had spent hours preparing a noble speech on
natural justice and wrongful confinement and had only got through the first few
pages of it before the Magistrate tired of it, silenced him with a wave of his
hand and denied the application.   As a result of bail having been denied, Craig
was due to be transferred to the Silverwater Correctional Facility on the seven
p.m. shuttle.  It was not something he was looking forward to.

Nelson was already waiting for them when they arrived,
thumbing his way slowly through the hard copy of the case file that was already
a half inch thick and growing rapidly.  Robards sat Craig down heavily in a
chair and took a seat straight across the small table from him.

“Right Mr Thoms, thanks for coming,” Robards said,
smiling at his own little joke.  “Let me start by telling you that I’ve been looking
into your life a little bit and I must say that I’m impressed, but not in a
good way.”  Robards went on to document the conversations he’d had with Craig’s
colleagues at the hospital which elicited no response from him or his solicitor. 
Robards then mentioned his conversation with Craig’s previous employer, John
Carmichael. 

“Carmichael said you were sacked because you were
stealing stock, probably to feed your drug habit I’d bet,” said Robards grinning.

“I don’t do drugs and I didn’t steal from Carmichael,” retorted
Craig indignantly.  It had been a long and exhausting day preceded by a
sleepless night and he felt like he was running on empty.  He took a deep
breath and tried to muster his last reserves of calm.  “I only borrowed a few
things to use in the stalking.  I was gonna return the stuff the next day but Carmichael noticed they were missing.  Ask Bryce, he knew.  He was a part of it as well.  I
took the blame cos’ I didn’t think there was any point in both of us getting
sacked.”

“You took the blame for it did you?  That’s big of you.”

“And Carmichael had it in for me anyway.”

“Did he?  Maybe that was because you were always hassling
him for money to invest in the porn site you wanted to start up?”

“Oh for fuck sake it wasn’t about porn,” snapped Craig, casting
aside his short lived calm as his raw nerves were again raked by Robards.  Martin
Warnock placed a hand on Craig’s forearm to try and calm him and maybe get him
to think first, for once, about what he said before committing it to the record
for all time, but it had no effect. 

“I was going to sell security equipment on the internet. 
You know, like nanny cams, listening devices, GPS trackers and stuff like
that.  It’s all the rage these days.  I was just looking for a partner with some
contacts in the industry and a bit of cash to help with the start up costs,
that’s all.  You’re trying to twist everything that happened.”

“And this is all just hearsay and conjecture,” piped up
Warnock bravely.

Robards ignored him.  “Come on Craig.  You’re among
friends.  Why don’t you stop playing games with us and tell us what really happened
that night.”  Robards waited theatrically for a response but got nothing but a
sullen glare from Craig.