The Stalk Club (19 page)

Robards
sighed aloud and focussed his thoughts on the case at hand.  Nelson had always
taught him to trust his instincts and so he set his jaw and decided to
concentrate on filling in the gaps that seemed to bother Nelson and prove once
and for all that Craig Thoms was the shooter. 

During
the course of the afternoon Grant McKinlay and Jennifer Nolan came to the
Parramatta Police Station.  Robards interviewed each of them and took their
statements.  As expected, they also confirmed Craig’s story about the stalking
that night, but were unable to provide a description of the man he’d followed
from Nero’s as they had both left before him to follow their own marks. 
According to their stories, each of them claimed to be nowhere near the murder
scene at the time it happened.  In short, they claimed they saw nothing.  Robards
could see no reason not to believe them, however as Nelson directed, he pushed
them hard for information on Craig and reduced Jennifer Nolan to a torrent of
tears, but even then there were no startling admissions.  

In
the brief time he spent looking into each of their pasts that afternoon he
found that none of the other stalkers had any criminal record, whereas Craig Thoms
had been a regular transgressor of the law.  Robards cast the other stalkers
aside in his mind as suspects and with the aid of a willing Constable Bovis plunged
deep into Craig’s history. 

Robards
spoke to several people at the hospital where Craig worked and it made him
smile.  He spoke to his previous employer, John Carmichael at Carmichael’s Security
and he started to laugh at his good fortune.   

Nelson
booked out an unmarked white Commodore for the afternoon and drove to the Hurstville
police station where a portion of the Gangs Squad was located.  The Gangs Squad
was established to target non-Middle Eastern gangs and organised criminal
networks.  The main crimes it investigated involved the possession and use of
firearms, acts of extortion, intimidation, drug trafficking and motor vehicle
rebirthing.  Despite sitting alongside the Homicide squad in the organisational
structure of the New South Wales Police Force they kept to themselves and
Nelson had little to do with them in the past.   

It
was just after two p.m. Sunday.  Nelson had considered attending Craig Thoms’
bail hearing, but decided his time would be better spent chasing up leads
instead of sitting in a courtroom watching a stream of human refuse plead their
innocence to the Magistrate.  The Gangs Squad was located on the second
floor
of the station behind locked security doors.  He had phoned ahead before he
left and was pleased to discover that Detective Senior Sergeant Raph Sanchez
was on duty.  Upon his arrival at Hurstville station, he phoned Sanchez from
the front foyer and within a minute Sanchez arrived in the foyer.  He was a tall
man of medium build with a large hooked nose and pockmarked face.  Sanchez had
been Nelson’s supervisor about eight years previously when Nelson was a
Constable working at the Randwick station.  They had got along well and Nelson
always admired Sanchez’s even handed management of the staff below him and
considered him to be his best boss in the force so far.

“How
are you Raph?” Nelson said smiling, taking the outstretched hand and giving it
a vigorous shake. 

“I’m
good.  How are you Nelson?  It’s been a while.”

“Yes
it has.  Too long.”

“You
look like you’re in good shape.”

“Thanks,
I wish I could say the same for you,” Nelson replied, gently poking the spare
tyre that had begun to inflate around Sanchez’s midriff.
Sanchez smiled good naturedly at the taunt.  “How ’bout we grab a coffee from
down the street?  We can talk in private there.”

They
walked down the street toward Westfield, stopped at a café and took a seat away
from the other patrons.  Nelson ordered a couple of cappuccinos and they reminisced
briefly about old times while they waited for them to arrive.

“So
have you come all this way to buy me a coffee or is there something else on
your mind Nelson?”

“You
always were sharp,” replied Nelson jokingly.  “Look, the reason I’m here is
about the Fogliani murder.  I’ve got the case.”

“I
know.  And let me guess, you’re here to ask me why the Gangs Squad hasn’t come
in and taken the case off your hands, or at least offered some assistance
seeing that Emilio Fogliani is part of an alleged underworld family?”

“Yeah
something like that.  I’ve already said you were sharp.”

Sanchez
smiled, sipped his cappuccino and wiped the froth from his lips. 

“You
know I’m not sure I should be talking to you about this stuff Nelson.  “If we
were interested in the case we would’ve come in and taken it.  It’s as simple
as that.  You know the drill.”

“C’mon
Raph.  We’re all on the same side here.  We’re playing for the same team.  I
just want to know if you’ve been looking at the Foglianis for anything.  I’m
not asking you to divulge anything you shouldn’t.  If Emilio Fogliani is a
cleanskin then that’s all you have to say.  You can’t get in trouble for
telling me he was clean can you?”

Sanchez
thought about it for a brief moment and then conceded the point.  “Alright, because
it’s you, I’ll tell you what you want to know.  But this didn’t come from me
ok?” 

Nelson
instinctively reached for his pocket to take out his notebook but stopped and
let his hand rest on the table.  The conversation was off the record, or at least
seemed to be because Nelson still has his digital voice recorder in his pocket which
was set on voice activation mode and would record the conversation well enough
for future reference. 

“In
short, Emilio Fogliani is, or I should say was, pretty much retired.  He was a
nasty piece of work in his prime, but that was some time ago.  Twenty years ago
he and his brother had their hands in a lot of pies but they gave all that away
apparently.  There’s some anecdotal evidence that he’s still involved with the
drug trade but we haven’t been able to turn anything up on it.  These days his
nephew Michael is the power and has steered the family into finance, although
apparently he still uses Emilio to open a few doors occasionally.”

“What
sort of doors?”

Sanchez
smiled.  “Well that’s where it gets a little complex.  In simple terms, Michael
Fogliani is the head of a company that specialises in investing and managing
funds, and probably laundering money, dirty money.  He used Emilio’s reputation
and old school contacts in the organised crime world to gather investors.  Our
best estimate is that the Fogliani family’s personal fortune is in the vicinity
of thirty-five million, but their company manages an investment portfolio of
around one hundred and fifty million and it’s growing each year.  It’s just
like any normal financial deal in that Fogliani’s company skims a few percent
in fees and charges off the top each year.  It’s a sweet deal.”

“I’m
impressed,” said Nelson genuinely, trying to get his head around the numbers.  “That’s
big money.  So are you guys looking at Michael Fogliani for that then?”

“Not
really.”

“Why
not?” replied Nelson, a perplexed frown creasing his face.

Sanchez
smiled broadly and shook his head like a genial father.  “Because he’s not
doing anything illegal!  The money he manages might be dirty but his investment
companies are legitimate, or at least appear to be.”

“What
do you mean appear to be?”

“Well
there are some questions about how he moves funds around the world, but if
anything, that is related to the tax law, not criminal law.  We’ve had meetings
with the Tax Office about it.  They say it comes close to skirting the Transfer
Pricing rules.”

“Transfer
what?”

“Pricing. 
Look, I’m no expert, but from what I understand it’s a technique where funds
are moved between related companies in different parts of the world, sometimes
using tax havens as a conduit.  The idea behind it is to minimise profits in
countries that have higher tax rates and take the profits to a country that has
low tax rates.  It’s not criminal activity.  It’s a grey area of the tax law
and it’s very difficult to substantiate any illegality.  Michael Fogliani has a
team of high priced accountants and lawyers and they’ve proven very effective
at making the family business look entirely legitimate.”

“So
he’s legitimately laundering dirty money,” said Nelson frowning. 

“Pretty
much.”

“So
even though you think he’s dodgy you’re not going to do anything about it?”

“Look
Nelson,” replied Raph becoming a little frustrated.  ”You understand as well as
I do that we’ve only got so many resources to go around and quite frankly there
are a lot of other organised crime groups that have way more impact on the
street than the Foglianis.  The Italian underworld families that may have once ruled
the roost in Sydney don’t hold much sway anymore.  They barely register as a
blip on our radar.  These days it’s all about the Asian gangs down in
Cabramatta, the Middle Eastern groups in the South and the Islanders who are
all over the place.  They’re afraid of no-one and they’re tearing up the streets
and we’ve got our hands more than full with them.  It’s all we can do to give
the public the impression that we have some kind of control over them when the
reality is that I’m not sure we do.”

“Yeah,
but still…”

“But
nothing Nelson.  When we compare the problems we have with them to what the
Fogliani family is up to, well, it doesn’t really rate very highly on our
things
to do
list.  And anyway if the Tax Office can’t find anything illegal then
we aren’t likely to.”

“Maybe
you just need to look harder,” said Nelson morosely.

“Maybe. 
But the Exec wants our strategies to focus on the more visible criminal
activity that makes the dirty money in the first place cos’ once it gets into
Fogliani’s investment company it’s as good as gone.”

Nelson
nodded and smiled tightly.  He understood only too well.  Over the years he had
watched first hand as resources had been cut time and time again from front
line policing as the politicians tightened the purse strings and the Police
exec placed an ever increasing emphasis on feel good, high visibility, preventative
policing, like education and marketing.  Despite all the tough talk, the police
force was in no position to chase up every crime that was committed, but instead
cherry picked what they calculated would give them the best bang for their
budget buck.  Any victim of a petty crime soon came to understand that chasing
up their complaint was not a priority.  

“So
what about the restaurants they own then?”

“They’re
legit too from what I understand.  They’re just a small part of the empire. 
I’m sure they’re profitable enough because Michael Fogliani wouldn’t run them
any other way, but I think they’re just a trendy place to woo clients and for
the family and their friends to hang out.  Anyway, what’s with all the
questions about the Foglianis?  I’ve heard that you’ve already got someone in
custody over this?”

“News
travels fast.  Yeah, we do, but I’m just following up on a few things.  Just
trying to make sense of everything and get a complete picture.”  Nelson said
the words but they sounded hollow in his ears.  Not much about this case made
sense. 

He
stared into the remains of his cappuccino and pondered what Sanchez had told
him. 

“You
look troubled,” said Raph.  “What’s up?”

“Not
sure.  It’s just that this case looks simple enough but a lot of it doesn’t
make sense.  For example, if Fogliani is retired then why was Crighton so keen
to bring this case into the Homicide Squad instead of just letting the LAC boys
handle it?  If the Gangs Squad wasn’t interested, then why was he?”

Raph
laughed aloud in genuine amusement, attracting sidelong glances from the other
patrons of the coffee shop.  “Jesus you’re naïve Nelson.”

“What
do you mean?” replied Nelson blankly.

“What
I mean is that you aren’t up to date with office politics.  Look, I’m only
speculating here, but I think Crighton grabbed the case
because
we
passed on it.  He thinks that if this case turns into something big, like a
gang war or something, and the Homicide squad’s in the middle of it and gets a
bit of glory, then he’ll look good and we’ll look bad.”

“Why
would he be hoping that?”

Raph
Sanchez rolled his eyes to the heavens.  “Because his boss, David Chaplin, the head
of State Crime Command is fifty-six, riddled with gout and expected to retire
in January.  So, maybe Crighton is trying to look good to the upper Exec and
get one up on our Gangs Squad boss, Detective Super Chisholm, who’s probably
his main rival for the job.  The stupid thing is, is that this little episode
shows you how out of touch Crighton is.  He thinks Emilio Fogliani was still a
player when he’s just an old man, a nobody.  Crighton is still living in the
fuckin eighties for god sake.”

“So
you don’t think this is gang related then?”

“I
doubt it.  But you’ve already got the guy in custody so surely you can work that
out for yourself can’t you?”