The Stalk Club (25 page)

“Are
you Kylie Faulkner?” Nelson asked again, a little more firmly.  He judged the
age of the woman in front of him as being about thirty, which was the same age
as Kylie Faulkner would be now.   “I’ve been given this address.” 

“I
just told you that I’ve never heard of that name before,” she said becoming increasingly
defensive.  A woman moved into view behind the girl.  Nelson craned his head to
the side to get a look at her but his view was shielded by a large potted rubber
plant just inside the door.

“Is
everything alright Jen?”

“It’s
ok Simone, I can handle it.  Look Detective, I already gave my statement
yesterday.  I had nothing to do with this Emilio Fogliani thing.”

Nelson
turned his head and furrowed his brow as a seed of doubt began to grow in the
pit of his stomach.  Something about her answers didn’t sound right.  He got
the sinking feeling that he was missing something but he didn’t know what it
was.  “What do you mean, you’ve already given your statement?”

“I
gave my statement to a Detective Robards at Parramatta station yesterday.  My
name is Jennifer Nolan.”

It
took Nelson’s brain several moments to play catch-up.  He hoped he didn’t look
too stupid, standing in the doorway, speechless, but he took his time anyway.  He
soon joined the dots and realised who he was talking to, another member of the so-called
Stalk Club, Jennifer Nolan, the girl that Robards had browbeaten into tears the
day before.

“Can
I come in please Miss Nolan?”  Nelson said, trying to buy himself more time to
think and work out his next move. 

“Look, no offence Detective but I think I’ve answered
enough questions for the time being and I want to speak to a solicitor before I
answer anymore, ok?”

Nelson quickly searched for a reply that would stall her
but nothing came immediately to mind as the door was closed in his face.  Nelson
stood there for a further thirty seconds before making his way back to his car.

***********

On
the drive back to Headquarters, Nelson’s earlier smugness evaporated.  He now regretted
telling Robards to push Jennifer Nolan so hard in her interview, which had only
resulted in putting her offside and in no mood to talk to him.  He was also annoyed
at himself for being startled at finding Jennifer Nolan when he had expected to
find Kylie Faulkner and for having failed to sufficiently regain his composure
before she shut the door in his face.  As he gunned his car through a set of
orange lights he smiled tightly and resolved to start looking very hard at Jennifer
Nolan upon his return to HQ.   

It was the end of Kylie Faulkner’s final year of school. 
She had been planning on leaving Cooma and all its not so fond memories for a
long time, but after finding the letter addressed to her aunt from her dead
parents’ solicitor, her escape plans rapidly accelerated into reality.  Before
she did however, she knew she couldn’t leave without saying a special goodbye
to someone she had come to know intimately.  It had to be done.

While the other kids at her school prepared for their
graduation ceremony and made shallow plans for their summer break and their lives
beyond, Kylie bought a suitcase and quietly packed the very few belongings she
felt were worthy of taking with her into her next life.  She had declined the
invitations she’d received to attend the graduation ceremony and the after-party,
saying that she had an unavoidable family commitment.  This had disappointed a
number of her male classmates who had begun to realise that she had developed
nicely into adult womanhood.  On that mild, early December night she went to
bed smiling and excited, knowing that the end was near and the next day, if all
went according to plan, she would be on her way to a better place.

Of all the friends and enemies she’d made in her time at
Cooma
it was Lester who had come to hold a special
place in her heart and she wanted to give him something to remember her by.  As
regular as drunk clockwork, Lester noisily traipsed home at around one a.m..  She
had timed her departure with her aunt’s monthly road trip and for the first
time ever was pleased she would have Lester to herself.

He entered her room, as was his way, but to his great
surprise he found the light was on and that Kylie was sitting on the end of the
bed wearing only a pair of panties and bra, as if she was waiting for him.  He
went and stood before her, coming to the obvious conclusion that she had
finally succumbed to his natural charms. 

“Makes a nice change.  About time too.”

“Come here Lester, I’ve got something for you,” she said
coolly.

He approached her and let her loosen his pants and drop
them to the floor.  He looked down at her.  Normally her eyes were pinched so
tightly closed that crows feet were visible at their corners, but on this
occasion he was surprised to see them open, green, and staring flatly up at him. 
If his mind wasn’t dulled with enough alcohol to make the average man comatose
he would have realised something was desperately wrong.  Before he could think
further on these developments Kylie reached for a steak knife she had hidden
under her leg and slashed it across his unprotected testicles.  Lester screamed
wildly as pain lanced through him.  He looked at his torn and bleeding testes
and then at his attacker. 

“You crazy fucking bitch,” he yelled, his voice high,
enraged and broken.

She stood there ready with knife in hand, the anger and
rage that had built up from all the humiliation and abuse finally erupted and
turned her into a savage animal ready and willing to fight to the end. 

“Come on,” she taunted him.  “Come and get what you
deserve you sick bastard.”  The look on her face was enough to force him into
action and he ran from the house and into the street despite the blinding agony
he felt between his legs.

In hindsight Kylie was glad that Lester’s wounds were
relatively superficial even though he deserved to be punished further.  She
realised that if she had killed or seriously injured him it may have resulted
in jail for her or maybe a lifetime on the run.  That wasn’t what she wanted.  That
wouldn’t have been justice.  After she calmed down she washed her hands and put
her clothes on.  As she hefted her luggage she smirked at the blood on her bed
and the floor and wondered if that, combined with the several stitches that
would be required to hold Lester’s nuts together would be sufficient proof for
her aunt. 

“Probably not,” she said to herself as she walked out the
door.

She spent the remainder of the night sleeping at the bus
station and in the morning caught the first bus to Canberra.  After what had
seemed a lifetime but was in fact two years and one hundred and forty-nine
days Kylie Faulkner made good her escape.

*********

The next day Kylie met with the trustee of her parents’
estate.  He was surprised to see her turn up unannounced at his office, as
although he had managed her estate for over two years he had never bothered to
meet her or ensure that the money being paid to her aunt was in any way
benefiting her.  He was pretty much as Kylie had expected, middle aged, well
presented and confident, but Kylie saw him as a fat, lazy tick that made a living
from siphoning off the proceeds of people like herself.  She felt a cold malice
towards him because he too had played his part in her misery.  She contemplated
handing out a similar punishment to him, but decided against it, for the time
being at least.  It took her only ten minutes to convince him that it was in
his best interests to hand over the remaining estate money to her.  She calmly
explained to him that she was her parents’ only child, she was eighteen and for
the last two years her aunt’s boyfriend had been molesting her in any way he
saw fit while he was effectively being paid thirty thousand dollars per year to
do so.  She also said that if he didn’t hand over the remaining money she would
have no qualms in making life very difficult for him in any way that she could. 
Something in the implacable stare of her eyes convinced him of the wisdom in
complying with her request. 

After subtracting the money he had paid to Kylie’s aunt
and his own generous management and administration fees there was only one
hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars left of her parents’ initial two
hundred and seventy thousand dollar estate.  Although he was sad to see the
money go, he cut her a cheque which she took straight to the bank and deposited. 
In addition to the nine thousand dollars she had saved from working, she had
enough to start her new life.  That same day she caught the bus for Sydney. 

Slowly but surely Kylie Faulkner tried to put the
previous few years of her life out of her mind.  She enrolled at the University of Sydney, worked part time as a waitress and purchased a unit with the proceeds
of her trust money.  After she graduated she travelled and worked and attempted
to lead what she perceived to be a normal life.

And yet the more she tried to escape her past the more it
seemed to doggedly cling to her and remind her who she was and the tainted soil
she had grown from.  She had few if any close friends and found it difficult to
form long term relationships with men.  Adding to her misery were the flashbacks
of the day her parents died that continued to haunt her nights.

In the period immediately after the car accident she had
remembered little of it.  However, as time slowly progressed, horrific glimpses
of the past would sometimes rush through her mind as she was on the verge of
falling asleep.  Visions of swimming through cold dark water and the white
lifeless faces of her parents would shake her violently awake and leave her
unable to sleep for hours thereafter.

Unlike most memories that fade and blur around the edges
with time, the memories from the accident grew sharper and more vivid each passing
year and plagued her with their insistent nature.  Unbidden, fragmented pieces
slowly knitted themselves together in her mind and revealed to her more and
more of what happened that night.  The stress resulting from the flashbacks
caused her to consult doctors, psychologists and even hypnotists in an effort
to calm her mind and reduce their effect, but none of them were successful in easing
her torment.

Twelve years after the accident, Kylie Faulkner’s life
was steadily falling apart.  The dreams and flashbacks harassed her to the edge
of exhaustion and insanity.  In a final and desperate effort to save herself
she decided to embrace her memories and try to understand their nature and
meaning.  She wrote down everything she remembered from the accident and as the
flashbacks raced through her mind she grabbed snippets of extra information
from them and slowly built a fuller, more complete picture of the event in her
conscious mind.  She remembered the night more clearly, including that the
other car involved was a large battered 4wd and that it had appeared around the
blind corner, driving in the middle of the road with headlights and two bullbar
mounted spotlights blazing in the direction of her parents’ car.  The
flashbacks also revealed that her father had instinctively tried to shield his
eyes from the glare and in an effort to avoid the collision had swerved to the
left.  He had tried to steer the car back onto the road but it was too late.
The car slid off the shoulder and speared into the river.  She remembered
escaping from the car and swimming frantically upwards through the darkness as
her lungs screamed for air and then crawling up onto the riverbank through the
mud and reeds as the pain from her broken ankle sent raw jagged pain shooting
up her leg.   

In time, Kylie began to believe that there was a greater force
behind the flashbacks and that perhaps they were a sign, perhaps a plea from
her long dead but unresting parents, crying out for justice beyond the grave. 
It made sense to her and became her focus and her passion.  She spent time
investigating the accident during her waking hours and filled scrapbook after
scrapbook with newspaper cuttings, photographs of the accident and her own
notes.  She contacted anyone who had been at the scene of the accident, the
paramedics, the holiday park manager, the tow truck driver, and unashamedly
drilled them in search of extra information.  She contacted the Sergeant who
had attended the scene of the accident.  Armed with her new memories of the
accident she hoped to convince him to reopen the case and ultimately identify
the driver of the car that caused the accident and bring them to justice.   

She sat in Sergeant Soward’s office and told him about what
she remembered from that night and implored him to reopen the investigation.  He
pulled the case file and scanned through it, but despite her enthusiasm and his
sympathy for her he was unmoved.   

“I’m sorry Kylie, but we’ve got enough work to keep us
going for a year to come and seeing that you don’t have any real evidence, I just
can’t approve the reopening of a twelve year old case.”

“But there must be something you can do?  I’ve remembered
so much more now.  I can help you.  I could even work with you.”

Sergeant Soward studied her face.  He was moved by her
plea but the harsh reality of running an understaffed country police station remained
absolute in his mind.  If he relented for her, then other, more current work
would not get done.