The Stalk Club

Nelson had discovered her subterfuge.  She wondered why God continued to think of such ingenious ways of torturing and taunting her.

“Almost from the beginning I was working towards finding a way of getting him off.  I thought about removing some of the evidence to weaken the case on him but decided against it.  It would have been too risky.  There were too many people sniffing all over this case from the start and they would have known it was me, so I decided to focus on finding the real killer and who had set him up.  Looking back, I should have had vague suspicions about you from the start.  I mean call me cynical, but when was the last time you saw a beautiful woman hanging onto the arm of an overweight and unattractive guy with no money?  And you were the one who chose Craig’s mark for him.  It had to be you.  And yet for all your planning, here you are, sitting with a bullet hole in you and probably facing some pretty serious charges.  It’s certainly going to be ironic if you end up in prison and Craig walks free,” said Nelson with an amused glint in his eye.

Natalie’s mind recoiled at the thought of going to prison.  It was the exact antithesis of what she had been planning for the last three years and the thought of it sent a wave of nausea flooding over her.

“I don’t care what you do,” she hissed.  “I’m going to tell the whole world that he killed my parents.  It’s all I have left now.  Someone will listen.”

Nelson smiled like a benign father and shook his head.  “Well I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s not quite correct.”

“What do you mean?  You said you knew he killed my parents!”

“I said I knew that he was involved.  Let me tell you a little story, hopefully we have just enough time before the local cops arrive.  This story is about two young men who went out one night to celebrate after one of them had graduated from the Police Academy.  You see I’d been posted to Narooma straight from the Academy and Craig drove down from Sydney to see me.  One thing led to another and by closing time at the local pub we’d had way too much to drink.  I took the keys from him because I was trying to be responsible and I thought I was in better shape to drive than he was.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said halfheartedly, beginning to feel uneasy with the direction the conversation was taking.

Nelson continued as if he didn’t hear her.  His mind reached back into memories which were still clear in his mind.  “I was just a stupid kid filled with beer.  Anyway, I came around a corner a bit fast and a bit wide and……and that’s where you and your parents come into the story.  I didn’t see your car until it was right in front of me.  There was nothing I could do.”

Natalie’s faced blanched at the admission and her world continued its downward spiral into the abyss.  She had spent the last three years of her life hating Craig Thoms and plotting his downfall and the realisation that her energies may have been misdirected shattered her like a fragile wine glass.

“But I saw his face in my dreams, in my memories of the accident,” she said defensively, not wanting to believe.

“Maybe you did.  Craig was in the car, but he was on the drivers’ side in the back seat of his 4WD.  I was driving that night, Natalie.  It was my fault, not his.”  She searched his face, looking desperately for a trick, for a sign of a lie but saw none.  He had no reason to lie seeing that he already held all the cards.

“But I saw him,” she said, her voice faltering.  “He was laughing at us.”

“No,” responded Nelson firmly.  “He was laughing because he’d just opened a can of beer and sprayed it all through the car.  Sounds ridiculous now, but it was funny at the time I guess.”

Natalie looked inward and replayed the memories of the accident in her mind as she had done a thousand times before.  She closed her eyes and willed herself painfully back into her parents’ car again.  She looked up at the car that bore down on them and then for the first time, the full hazy veil seemed to lift from the scene and she saw Craig Thoms looking down at them laughing, or, laughing at something, from the back seat of the dual-cab 4WD, and there in the driver’s seat was another man, his face which had been turned towards Craig in the rear vision mirror slowly began turning toward her as they sped past each other in the night.

“I stopped the car and looked back to see where your car was but didn’t see anything at all.  I assumed you’d just driven off, so I did the same.  If I had known, I would have stopped.”  Nelson’s normally calm, unlined face, creased with the memory and Natalie instinctively knew that every word he spoke was the truth.  “Five minutes later I drove head long into a breathalyser team of my very own colleagues.  Craig and I both knew that if I was caught, it would probably be the end of my very short career.  Craig didn’t hesitate for a moment.  As we slowed down to queue up for the breathalyser, he swapped places with me in the car and then I slid out the passenger side door into a ditch beside the road and from there made my way home.  Fortunately for me it was a dark night and there were half a dozen cars in line waiting to be tested so no-one witnessed my escape.  Craig was tested and found to be well over the limit and was charged with drink driving.  He took the rap for me and lost his licence for six months, but he didn’t say a word to anyone about me being there.  Later that morning I dragged myself in to work still nursing a sore head.  I heard about the car accident and started to wonder.  I drove to the scene on the pretext of offering assistance.  I saw the skid marks on the road and realised what had happened.”

“Stop, please stop,” said Natalie quietly as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

Nelson ignored her, wanting to get it all out once and for all.

“I stood by the road for ages trying to decide what to do.  The other cops there thought I was feeling a bit squeamish because I was a new cop.  In the end I just drove away.  I phoned Craig and told him to change the tyres on his 4WD and dump the old ones where no-one would find them.   Sure enough, a couple of officers paid him a visit two days later but they didn’t have any evidence without being able to match the tyres and Craig didn’t say anything.  In time, it all blew over and I left Narooma as quickly as I could to put it behind me.”  Nelson felt relief after his admission of guilt.  He had never spoken of that moment to anyone but Craig Thoms before.  “Natalie….Kylie, I know my apology is a bit late, about fifteen years too late, but I am sorry.”

Natalie’s emotions fluctuated wildly with Nelson’s revelations.

“You’re a murderer!”

“No, it wasn’t murder.  I’ve seen murders.  I just drove over the centre line on a road by a couple of feet, that’s all, and then fate took over,” Nelson justified.  “Once it had happened there was absolutely nothing I could do to change anything.  It was just a stupid accident.”

“You could have come forward and acted like a man.”

“Maybe I should have, but that wouldn’t have brought your parents back or given you a better life.  The only thing that would have achieved would be to put an end to my career and possibly putting me in jail, and the thought of being a nineteen year old cop in jail didn’t sound too good, so I decided to protect myself and Craig.  Self- preservation kicked in I guess.”

Nelson waited for Natalie to respond but she just stared at him, trying to process all he had said.

“I know I did the wrong thing but I’d like to think that over the last fifteen years I’ve done some good in my life and I’ve made a positive difference in a lot of people’s lives through my work.  Would society have been better served by me spending five years in jail or me working my arse off to take cold blooded killers like Manuel Torres off the street?”

“I’m going to tell the fucking world that you killed my parents,” she hissed at him, spittle flying from her mouth in her enthusiasm for the idea.

“Are you?  I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Nelson replied evenly.

“Why?”

“Because it happened fifteen years ago and you have no evidence.  Trust me, I’m a cop and I’ve been through a few internal investigations in my time.  It’s my word against yours and Craig will support me, not you.  It will get messy for me, but I’ll survive.  On top of that, if you stay, you’ll probably be charged with conspiracy to commit murder among other things.  That can carry a pretty hefty sentence.  Admittedly the star witness is dead,” he said, again indicating Manuel Torres’ corpse on the floor beside him.  “And you’re a smart girl who has probably covered your tracks pretty well, so maybe you’d come out of it ok, but then again, maybe not.  It’s amazing what a team of Detectives can dig up on a person.  We tend to look after our own.  And finally there are the Foglianis to consider.  No doubt they’d be interested to find out you were involved in Emilio’s murder.  Maybe they’d come after you too.”

Natalie stared at him, weighing his words.  She hated to admit they made sense and she had the feeling that she had been backed into the tightest of corners.