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.
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.
Chapter 28
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 secondfloor 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 cafe 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
