The Stalk Club (21 page)

“Alright then, let me again go over what we’ve got on
you.  We’ve got the bloodstained gloves with your fingerprints on them and we’ve
got video of you, and the footprints which are a match with your boots, all of which
places you at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime.  We’ve got
missing drugs at the hospital with everyone pointing the finger at you, we’ve
got an ex-employer, a retired police Sergeant no-less, who says you were fired
for stealing and who thinks you’re a scumbag.  And to top it off, you’ve got a
criminal record for a couple of assault charges and DUIs and there’s an unsolved
vehicular double fatality that lists you as a prime suspect.  Now am I making
all this up?  Am I twisting all this like you said, just to make you look bad,
because if I’ve got it wrong somewhere I want you to tell me.” 

Craig made no effort to correct him and sat quietly
pondering his future, which was looking bleaker by the minute.  Robards
continued his assault, his voice louder, booming around the small room, leaning
forward so that their faces were separated by only a distance of fifty
centimtres.  “Now I’m no expert on human behaviour, but I reckon if we put all
this in front of a jury, it’s not going to take them very long to find you
guilty.  So why don’t you just save everyone some time here, tell us what
happened and tell us where the murder weapon is.”  Robards slammed his hand
down on the table for emphasis resulting in the pint sized Martin Warnock
visibly jumping in his seat.

“Detective, let me suggest that my client’s past issues
have nothing to do with this case and would be inadmissible in court.”

Robards turned toward him as if noting his presence for
the first time.  Warnock tried to bravely match Robards threatening glare but
had to look away after a few seconds. 

Nelson took a deep breath and sighed. 

“Look, Mr Thoms, if you want us to help you, you need to give
us something here.  You don’t have to be a genius to understand that right now
it’s not looking too good for you.”

Craig looked at Nelson who met his eyes and stared back
unemotionally. 

A strained look came across Craig’s face. 

“I didn’t do this.  What else can I say?  What do you
want me to do?”

“I want you to be straight with us right here and right
now.  You claim you were set up, well if that’s true then you must have some
idea about who would do that and why.  Who the hell would hate you this much to
go to all this trouble?” 

Craig sat in silence for thirty seconds as he weighed his
meager options.  He knew he had enemies, everyone did, but by revealing them he
would no doubt dig himself into a hole.  Still, he judged that it probably
wouldn’t be as deep as the hole he was already in, charged with murder and
facing a likely twenty years in jail.  He shook his head and wondered how his
life had all gone so badly wrong and which god he had pissed off along the
way.  He felt he had been backed into the tightest of corners and the only
person standing behind him was his skinny sexually agnostic solicitor, which
did little to comfort him.  He looked at Warnock for guidance and received a
small nod of ascension.   Warnock knew the case was going to hell and he was
going along for the ride.

“Ok,” Craig began.  “I have taken drugs from the hospital.” 
Martin Warnock emitted a small groan as his case went from a seventy-five
percent chance of being a loser to about ninety-five percent at the
utterance of those seven words.

“Tell us about it Craig,” said Nelson.  “Tell us
everything, for your own sake.”

Craig Thoms met Nelson’s even stare.  He began to tell
them about the drugs he had taken and how he had on-sold them to a man named
Harvey Petersham.  He had met Harvey when he had also worked at the hospital as
an orderly, before he had been later fired for stealing from patients.  With
his access cut off, Harvey had approached Craig and asked him to obtain the
drugs for him.  He admitted that the money on offer had been too good to say no
to, so he had agreed.  Harvey had provided him master keys for most of the drug
lockers in the hospital and instructions on what drugs to focus on.  

“It was only ever going to be a temporary thing,” Craig
offered in consolation.  “Just until I got enough money together to start up
the website.  I was almost there too.  I told Harvey that I was finished when I
met him on Wednesday night.”

“How did he take that?” asked Nelson.

“He wasn’t happy.  In fact he was off his nut.  Harvey’s only a weed but he claimed his friends wouldn’t be happy with me cutting off
their supply.”

“I knew it.  I fucking knew it.”  Robards laughed out
loud, slapping his knee with genuine exuberance, unable to contain his elation. 
“It all makes sense.”

“Oh?  And how’s that?” asked Craig, sneering and cocking
his head to one side.

“Well I don’t know why I need to explain it to you, but I
will anyway.  Firstly, you get this shit-brained idea about starting up the
porn site or whatever you want to call it, but you need money.  You try and hit
up old Carmichael but he tells you to get stuffed, so you steal a bit of his
equipment and probably flog it off to your friends on the side.  Then you get
caught and get sacked and start working at the hospital.  You still need money
so you start flogging drugs and medicines from the hospital and reselling them
to this Petersham guy, but then you hit the jackpot.  While you’re out stalking
with your mates last Friday, you got lucky enough to follow some dealer to St
Peters where you saw money change hands between the guy you were following and
Emilio Fogliani.  You waited until the coast was clear and then you waltzed up
to the car and put three bullets into Fogliani and made off with the proceeds. 
Too freakin easy.  It all makes perfect sense and we’ve got all the evidence we
need to prove it.”

“I didn’t do it,” Craig yelled back savagely.  “There was
no drug deal and I didn’t kill Fogliani.” 

Nelson studied his face looking for any sign that he was
lying.  “I’m being straight with you,” he said almost pleading, his lank oily
brown hair falling across his face. 

“Ok Craig, let’s start at the beginning again.  Try and
remember anything you left out.”

Craig Thoms told his story again, trying to squeeze every
ounce of detail from his memory.  He kept his eyes on Nelson and tried to
believe that he was trying to help him.  He needed to believe.

************

“Oh come on,” yelled Robards, his anger and frustration
boiling over, his arms pointing to the heavens in search of divine help.  “Most
of the idiots we arrest claim they’ve been set up don’t they?  It’s the
standard fucking response to getting arrested.  ‘Someone set me up.  The cops
planted the evidence’,” he mimicked in a sarcastic voice.  “It’s always the
same tune so why should Thoms play it any differently?  It’s the best excuse in
the world.”  Robards’ small, deep-set blue eyes flashed fire as he challenged
Nelson.  “But what I don’t get is why you’re listening to him?  I mean what is
it about him that makes you believe, even for an instant, that he was set up?  The
evidence is so strong and it points straight at him.” 

The interview had ended five minutes earlier and when
Robards returned to the interview room after escorting Craig and his solicitor
back to his cell, his anger had fissured its way to the surface.

“It’s not that I believe him,” answered Nelson evenly,
trying to counter Robards with calmness and control.  “I just want to be sure
he’s guilty, and despite all the evidence, I’m still not convinced.  There’s no
GSR on his clothes or on the gloves.  There’s no murder weapon, there is no
motive apart from your assumption that it was a robbery and there is no real history
of violence with this guy,” he said, ticking off his reasons on his fingers.  “There
are still major holes in this case and as I’ve said before I don’t want to get
to court and have some smart arse lawyer pull our case to pieces because they
looked harder at this than we did.”

“It’s not going to happen.  No-one is going to get him
off because he’s guilty,” returned Robards emphatically as he stormed around
the small room.  “The evidence is all there.  We found it.”

“I know, but it’s not enough.  I need to keep looking at
it until I’m satisfied.”

“And what about Crighton and VanMerle?  What’re they
going to make of this?” 

“I don’t care what they make of it,” snapped Nelson,
feeling the last of his patience evaporate.  “I’m going to keep looking at this
case until I’m convinced that Craig Thoms did it or I prove that someone else
did, and I don’t care what agendas anyone else has.”  Nelson stood up and looked
Robards squarely in the eyes, their faces only inches apart.  “I’m the lead Detective
on this case and what I say goes ok?”

“This case is fast becoming a fucking joke,” snarled
Robards.  He stormed out of the room, slamming the door violently behind him.  The
vibrations stung Nelson’s body and pounded on his ear drums.  It took all of his
remaining self-control not to go after him and start something he would no
doubt later regret.  He sat back down at the table, feeling the heat and
redness of the argument in his face and tried to relax his breathing.  After
five minutes he felt sufficiently calm to return his attention to the case.  He
reviewed the notes he had taken from the interview.  Loose ends glared at him
from every direction and plagued his thoughts.  He sighed loudly, snapped close
the case file and headed back to his desk.

The
traffic was light and Nelson made good time as he aggressively sliced through
the traffic, albeit not as quickly as when he had first sped to the crime scene
in the early morning hours of the previous day.  He was yet to meet a traffic
cop yet who wouldn’t let a fellow officer off, even though he’d tested their
patience on several occasions. 

His
slanging match with Robards came at the end of a long day and it was a signal
to him that he needed to take a break from the case and from Robards.
 He
was annoyed for having let Robards get to him and berated himself harshly for
not staying calmer in the face of the Robards’ tirade.  A dark mood descended
on him like a heavy curtain and negative thoughts about the case and the people
involved in it swam into his mind.

He thought about Craig Thoms, who would be about to
embark on his shuttle ride to Silverwater Prison and felt the weight of his
life in his hands.  He knew he would only let Craig Thoms go if he could
convince himself of his guilt.  Although the evidence was compelling, he was
unable to do this and the thought of being the lead Detective in a case where
an innocent man might be convicted of murder chewed him up like acid in his
guts.

He
pulled his car into the driveway of his rented Brighton LeSands house.  It was
only a few hundred metres from the Bay.  Unlike some of the McMansions that
neighboured him, it was a plain looking, single level house and the rent which
he split with his buddy and fellow officer Damian Polak, was very reasonable
for the location.  Polak worked at the Randwick Police Station and their
differing shifts meant they often didn’t cross paths for a week.  Polak had
gone through the Academy with Nelson sixteen years ago and was one of the few
people Nelson counted as a close friend.

Nelson
squeezed past his Cobra kit car replica that took prize position under the single
carport and made his way inside the house.  He checked the house in search of
Polak but found it empty and quiet and remembered that he’d gone to a mate’s
house to play cards.  Nelson gave a moments thought to going to the cards night
but decided against it as he knew he was verging on exhaustion and couldn’t
take yet another late night.  He threw off his work clothes and put on a pair
of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt.  He went to the lounge room and slumped into
the couch.  He wished there was someone else there, someone he could talk to
about normal stuff to take his mind off things but there was no-one.  There had
been other housemates who had come and gone over time and there had been women
in Nelson’s life who had also come and gone.  He felt like calling one of them
up for some much needed female company but decided against it.  None of them
had been able to overcome the callouts, the nightshifts and the baggage that
came hand in hand with police work and none of the relationships had developed
into anything sufficiently significant to compel Nelson to put their needs
ahead of his work. 

He
went to the kitchen, ignored the mess in the sink because he didn’t make it and
reached for one of the litre bottles of Johnny Walker on the shelf above the
stove.  He poured himself a generous shot and added some coke zero.  While he
was working he liked to limit his drinking, in an effort to keep his mind sharp
and engaged, but made an exception for himself on this night.  He often made
exceptions.  He swallowed deeply and felt the familiar and welcome burn begin
to seep through his body and the anxiousness begin to fade as it was searched
out and neutralised by the drink. 

He
refilled his glass and sat alone in the lounge room.  Through the haze of the
alcohol his mind returned to the case and he jotted some notes on a pad as he
planned his next moves.  He reasoned that if Craig was innocent then someone had
gone to a lot of trouble to set him up and he needed to focus on finding out
who that person was.  If it was a setup then the killing of Emilio Fogliani was
not a random or opportunistic act - like Robards wanted to
believe - but was planned, and unseen links somehow connected Craig’s and
Fogliani’s fates together.