The Stalk Club (28 page)

As she walked down the busy street she thought of Manuel
Torres.  She felt a flicker of remorse at her betrayal of him but it quickly
passed.  He had served his purpose and had been a willing participant every
step of the way.  She searched inside herself for any remaining feelings she
had for him and found none. 

Michael Fogliani waited nervously for his niece to return
from her errand to the phone box.  He hoped that he hadn’t put her in any
danger, although he knew she was a capable young woman and running strange
errands was nothing new to her.  She returned within three minutes, but to
Michael it felt like an hour had passed.  She knew better than to ask questions
and wordlessly handed the unopened envelope to him.  It was better that she
didn’t know what was in the package anyway. 

He returned to his office and quietly closed the door. 
He cautiously opened the envelope as if it were laced with a liberal dose of
Anthrax powder, gently removed the memory stick and inserted it into one of the
USB drives on his laptop.  The laptop automatically detected the presence of the
memory stick and brought up fingernail size pictures of the photos.  Michael
double clicked on the first photo which expanded it to full size.  The first image
showed a man who seemed to be moving towards a car that Michael recognised as
his uncles’.  He recognised the car because he had been there when his uncle
bought it.  The man’s left was mostly blocked by his body but Michael thought
he could see that he carried a gun in his hand.  The second image showed what
appeared to be the same man moving away from the car.  The third and final
image was a zoomed in upper body shot of the same man.  Despite obviously
having been taken at night, in an area of limited lighting, the photographs
were of good quality and finely detailed under the circumstances. 

Michael stared closely at the face that confronted him
and inwardly seethed with anger.  There in front of him were pictures of his father’s
only brother being murdered.  His uncle’s ghost seemed to reach out from beyond
the grave and whisper in his ear to grab the gun which was stored in his office
safe, search the streets for his murderer and exact natural justice with his
own bare hands.  He fought for control of his emotions and calm eventually won
the day.  It was his trademark.  He could be just as hard nosed and cruel as
his father ever was, but while his father’s blood ran hot and his temper quick,
Michael’s blood ran cool, his mind calculating. 

The photos seemed legitimate, but he knew that any fifth
grader with an ounce of Photoshop ability could put Jennifer Hawkin’s head onto
Tiger Woods’ body in a matter of moments, so he was reluctant to believe the
authenticity of the photos without further supporting proof.

He sat in his office for the next half hour, quietly
thinking about his next move before settling on a course of action.  He picked
up a business card on his desk and dialed the number.

“Detective Nelson speaking.”

“Good Afternoon Detective.  It’s Michael Fogliani here.” 
He was smooth and in total control again.  “Firstly, let me apologise for the
way our first meeting went.  As you understand I am still grieving over my uncle’s
death.  It has been a difficult time for me.”  He sounded believable because it
was the truth.  His mother was still inconsolable even though she had never
particularly like Emilio, and his aunt, Emilio’s wife of forty-one years, had
been sedated and bed-ridden since his death. 

“It’s ok.  I can imagine things are tough for your family
right now.” responded Nelson evenly.  “What can I do for you Mr Fogliani?”

“Please, call me Michael.  I just wanted to know how your
investigation is proceeding.  I understand that you’ve arrested someone in
relation to my uncle’s murder.  Is that correct?”

“Yes it is.”  Nelson felt a moment of regret at not
having phoned him and personally brought him up to date as Crighton had
instructed him to do.  It was poor form and he knew it.  “I had planned on
calling you and letting you know but I’ve been tied up.”

“That’s alright Detective.  Detective Robards gave me a
call on Sunday afternoon to let me know.”

“Yes, yes of course.”  Typical Robards efficiency, let’s
give him another commendation.

“I’m grateful for all your efforts in arresting someone
so promptly.”

“Just doing my job.” 

“Do you think that’s the end of it then or do you expect
to make further arrests?”

Nelson hesitated before answering and Michael pondered
its meaning.

“I’m not really sure at this stage.  All I can say is
that we are continuing with our investigations.”

“Look Detective, I’m not asking you to divulge anything that
could endanger your case but my family once had some bad business dealings with
an ethnic group and I’m fearful that Emilio’s death is related to that and that
they may still be targeting my family.  I just need to know if I should be
hiring extra security?”

Nelson again hesitated before answering.  He felt there was
something wrong with the conversation but couldn’t pinpoint where his concern
was coming from.  He remembered Crighton’s words about keeping Fogliani
informed wherever possible.

“No Michael, I don’t think your family has anything to
fear.  The man we have in custody is Caucasian and does not appear to have any
ethnic background or connections with organised crime groups.  We think he
probably acted alone.  Our evidence against him is strong but he has made
certain claims about his innocence that we are looking in to.  That’s really
all I can tell you at this point.” 

“Thank you Detective.  That’s all I needed to know.  Oh,
and please let me know if there are any further developments.”

“Will do Michael.”

Michael Fogliani hung up the phone, quietly pleased with
the results of the conversation.  Detective Nelson as expected had given little
away and yet he had given up more than he knew.  He reasoned that although
Nelson had arrested someone in relation to his uncle’s death, he didn’t sound completely
convinced of his guilt.  That, and Nelson’s reference to the lack of ethnicity
of the person who had been arrested, fitted neatly with the story he’d been
told by the anonymous female caller an hour previously.  Fogliani re-studied
the face in the photographs.  The skin tone of the man in the zoomed in
photograph was definitely brown, not white. 

“Perhaps she was telling the truth,” he said to himself.

Michael Fogliani decided that it was time for him to take
action, although he did not make the decision lightly.  He reasoned that if ever
there was a time to step back into the past and get his hands dirty again then
this was it, to seek revenge for his uncle’s murder.

Over the past ten years he had tried to raise his family
above the ordinary criminal activity that had laid the foundation of their
fortune and which he was now rapidly multiplying through legitimate means.  It
hadn’t been easy.  Friends had been lost and sacrifices had been made along the
way.  He had given away a lot of the influence, power and networks that his
father and uncle had worked so hard to establish, but it had been worth it in
the end. 

He had put an end to most of the family’s illegal
activities, but not all.  Unbeknown to the Gangs squad and anyone else who
looked at the Fogliani family, they had quietly retained one of their most lucrative
illegal sidelines.  Every couple of months or so a Sydney based, deep sea,
fishing trawler made a slight detour from its regular fishing grounds to meet
up with a large, fast, cabin cruiser that was based in Vanuatu and operated
legitimate charters for wealthy holiday makers.  The small but precious cargo
of cocaine – with a street value of around eight hundred thousand dollars - was
passed to the trawler, sealed inside a watertight metal box and attached
magnetically to the underside of the hull.

At the first sign of trouble the cargo could be
jettisoned by a remote switch inside the cabin and collected later by remotely
triggering a GPS beacon located inside the box, although this had never been
required.  No money changed hands at the time of the exchange either.  Payment was
routed to the supplier through a myriad of related companies and transactions.  

The drugs were quietly and carefully offloaded in the middle
of the night and their distribution onto the streets of Sydney was handled through
a tightly controlled and trusted network of family friends.  It was a smooth,
low risk operation, which went unnoticed by the police and added some extra cash
flow to the Fogliani’s operations.  It was one of the last direct links the
Fogliani family maintained with the underworld community which came in handy at
times when men with special skills were required.   

Michael Fogliani rode the lift down to the basement of the
building.  Although reception was poor it was still sufficient to make a call. 
When he was sure he was alone he pulled out a phone.  It wasn’t his usual
mobile phone but rather a prepaid version that had been purchased with cash by
his niece for eighty dollars at BigW using a false licence.  In short it was
untraceable.  The voice that answered was familiar and trusted completely.

“Hi.  It’s me.  I have an urgent job for some of your
friends.  Can we meet tonight at the usual place?”

As Nelson slowly opened his eyes to the new day he felt
like he was closer to eighty-five years of age instead of his actual thirty-five. 
He successfully fought against the feeling of exhaustion that threatened to engulf
him and dragged himself out of his bed.  The previous days work had been long
and tiring.  He, Robards and Bovis had worked their new murder case until eight
p.m., studying the forensics reports and case notes made by the investigating
officers.  And then, despite his aching lethargy Nelson had steeled himself
with a large coffee and spent a further two hours working up a profile of Kylie
Faulkner’s past in the hope of linking her to Emilio Fogliani with some
tangible evidence.

He had experienced mixed results with his research.  Kylie
Faulkner was a cleanskin, in that according to the police databases she had
never been arrested or been a suspect in any crime, however there were some
parts of her life that intrigued Nelson.  He spoke to the aunt that old Sergeant
Soward from Batemans Bay had mentioned.  The aunt had had few good words to say
about Kylie and didn’t seem particularly bothered that she hadn’t heard from her
since she left fifteen years earlier.  She maintained that she had done
everything in her power to care for the girl but that one day she had just
upped and left without so much as a good-bye.  It seemed like a strange
conversation to Nelson and he sensed that there was more to the story.  He
tried to draw the aunt out and although she refused to go into any detail, she eventually
revealed there had been some sort of falling out.

Despite the late hour, he had also managed to contact some
of Kylie’s past employers, identified off her group certificate information
which had been provided by an Australian Tax Office liaison officer that Nelson
had worked with in the past.  They appeared to hold her in high regard, however
there were instances of erratic behaviour and on several occasions she had
taken long, unexplained absences from her work or had quit altogether at short
notice.  There were no reports of long term relationships with men, although one
of her previous supervisors had hinted that Kylie had led somewhat of a broad
minded and promiscuous lifestyle.  As Nelson sat on the edge of his bed, he
reflected on what he had learned about her and wondered if the profile was
indicative of a person capable of setting a man up for murder.  

Nelson quickly showered, grabbed a couple of pieces of
toast and headed back to Headquarters while it was still dark out.  He arrived there
just before seven a.m. and immediately made himself a large and strong coffee
in the hope that the caffeine hit would jolt his tired system into action once
again.  His plan was to keep his head down and fit in a few more hours working
the Fogliani case before VanMerle or anyone else noticed.

He sat at his desk and began to go through the case file,
certain that the answers lay somewhere buried within it.  He re-read Craig
Thoms’ statement and pondered about the identity of the person that he said he had
followed that night.  According to Craig, the man who he had stalked had been
the triggerman, yet only he and Natalie Bassett had seen this mystery man and
their descriptions of him were vague at best.  They had both worked with a
sketch artist to create a computerised likeness of the mystery man, but CISB
had been unable to come up with any meaningful matches on their databases of
previously arrested criminals to either likeness.  Nelson knew that identifying
the man Craig had followed would be pivotal in unraveling the case.  He made a
note to contact the N.S.W. Rail Authority to see if they had any security video
that might contain pictures of the mystery man at the Central or St Peters
stations. 

His other focus would be on finding out more about
Jennifer Nolan.  He reasoned that her presence at the apartment that was the
last known address of Kylie Faulkner had to be more than a mere coincidence. 
His plan was to find out all he could about her before bringing her in for a
formal interview on Saturday.  Although that would have been his first day off in
more than ten days, he was prepared to sacrifice it to progress the Fogliani
case.