by PD Martin
‘How so?’
‘I’m still not convinced this is in your best interests and now you’re playing it cool with a psychologist?’ Unlike me, Lily was a fully qualified and practising psychologist before she came to the Victoria Police. She could quit tomorrow and still consult as a forensic psychologist or even go back to her speciality from years back—treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But Lily believes in the system—serving the community in the best way possible. It’s one of the things we have in common…a sense of justice and a need to play a role in it. Even though what we do is all about the perpetrators and getting into their heads, it’s all done for the victims.
‘I’m fine, Lily. Honestly.’
Her level stare is unwavering, so I keep talking. ‘It was a long time ago, Lily. All I want now is justice—for John and all the other victims.’ I try not to think of my need for vengeance, of my anger that’s bubbling to the surface.
She maintains eye contact. ‘I’m glad Faulkner’s black-listed you. If he’d welcomed you with open arms, I doubt you’d stick to the profiling.’
I take a breath to protest, but Lily raises her hand in a stop signal. ‘Don’t even try to deny it, Sophie. The bastard who did this,’ she motions to the whiteboards, ‘deserves to rot in hell. But it’s not your place to put him there. No matter how much you want to.’
‘Lily, I don’t even have a gun.’
‘Really? What about the 9mm still registered in your name?’
‘Locked away in my parents’ safe. Where it has been for the past two and a half years.’
She looks me up and down, like she’s searching for the bulge of a weapon.
‘Come on, Lily. I’m not stupid.’
She shrugs. ‘Thought maybe you’d gone gun crazy…now you live in the US.’
I smile, happy she’s lightened the mood, and go with it. ‘Everyone’s packing over there.’
She gives a little chuckle before her face drops. ‘The stats really are scary.’
I sigh. ‘I know. I live it now. Higher murder rate, more firearm accidents and more cops killed in the line of duty.’
She nods. ‘I don’t envy you that.’
Some people say it’s not about the gun, but the person who wields it. And while that’s true, when a gun—when any extreme and final answer to a problem—is within reach, people make stupid choices. Instead of yelling or throwing a punch when they’re angry, they pick up the gun. One small movement of the index finger and lives are taken, lives are changed…forever. While I personally don’t deal with these types of homicides—my cases are generally extremely violent, people who would have killed with or without a gun—there are still people who make horrific split-second decisions because a gun is readily accessible.
‘You eaten?’ Lily leans against the doorframe to the study, effectively blocking my view of the photos.
I shake my head.
‘Good. I made us some pizzas. Easy to eat and talk.’
I follow her down the hall and into the kitchen. With each step the aroma of garlic becomes more intense, more enticing. On the kitchen counter stand a bottle of red, two wine glasses and two plates.
‘Do you know if Faulkner had anything to say about me being at the Bakers’ house today?’
‘Ooo, yeah.’ She lets out a sarcastic chuckle. ‘Rang me up and nearly busted my eardrum. He accused me of feeding you information.’
The thought’s enough to make me cringe. I know only too well what Faulkner’s like when he’s angry. ‘What did you say?’
‘I did the only thing I could…feigned ignorance.’
‘I’m sorry, Lily. Sorry to put you through that.’
She waves a dismissive hand at me before opening the oven door. ‘Faulkner’s never been too fond of me anyway.’ She pulls out the top pizza with a gloved hand. ‘The cops have pulled missing persons reports dating back from the mid-sixties.’
‘Lots?’
‘Uh huh. Hope you’re not too jetlagged. We could be at this for a while.’
‘I’m sure you’ve got enough coffee on hand to keep me going.’
‘That I do.’ She puts the pizza onto a wooden chopping board and starts cutting it with a pizza slicer. ‘This one’s vegetarian.’
Gourmet veggie—olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fetta, mushrooms, onions, roast capsicum. ‘It looks gorgeous.’
‘Thanks. Wine?’
‘Uh huh. I’ll do that.’ I open the screw-top wine and pour out two small glasses while Lily dishes up a couple of slices of pizza each.
‘So how many files?’ I ask as we’re walking down the hall to the study.
‘Forty possibles, which they narrowed down to twenty that they feel are more likely. Better fits. Homicide gave me the original forty for a second opinion.’
‘Good. And all the way through? In case the perp’s been active all this time we just haven’t found any bodies.’
‘Yup but it doesn’t look like we have any matches from around 1979 or 1980 to 2008.’
‘What about victims that could overlap?’
She turns back to me and stops. ‘You really think he holds them simultaneously?’ Her head’s cocked to one side in contemplation.
I shrug. ‘Just a hunch, I guess. Leave no stone unturned, right?’ I try to downplay the theory. It’s based solely on my vision and I’ve got nothing to back it up with.
‘We can look more closely at the dates and check it out.’ She leans against the wall. ‘Got some bad news from forensics today too. Nothing on the underwear, not that it’s a big surprise, given the state of the underwear and how much time had elapsed.’
‘True,’ I say, but I can’t hide my disappointment.
‘And no luck for DNA on the evidence from the seventies. The hair sample wasn’t good enough to build a DNA profile.’
‘Shit.’ The lack of forensic results puts the pressure on the Homicide team and on us—well, on Lily officially.
Back in the study, Lily sinks into her office chair and swings it around to face her desk. A small laptop computer is plugged into a bigger, stand-alone screen, with the Victoria Police logo floating across the monitor. ‘Take a seat.’ Lily points to a chair that’s obviously part of her dining-room set. ‘Sorry I don’t have anything more comfy. I’m used to flying solo.’
‘No worries.’ Once my plate and glass of wine are planted on a tiny clear space of desk, I pull the chair over. Looking at Lily’s computer reminds me that the cops took Ted Strawasky’s computer for evidence. ‘Hey, any news on the kid’s computer?’
‘Nothing so far. He was on Facebook, but no other social networking sites or chat rooms, and so far all the Facebook friends we’ve checked are known to him and in his age group—or family.’
I nod. Predators who find victims online usually pretend to be the same age or just a couple of years older than the victims, so one of the things the cops will be doing is making sure the Facebook profiles of Ted Strawasky’s “friends” are real. But it does take time to contact everyone, especially if he was very active online. I sigh…time to get started and put the bad forensic news behind us. ‘Shoot,’ I say, nodding at the large pile of files on a corner desk.
Lily takes the top folder and is about to start when my mobile phone buzzes.
‘Sorry. I’ll switch it to silent.’
‘Take it if you like. It’ll give me time to eat.’ She grins and bites into her pizza.
Fishing my phone out of my handbag, I look at the screen and recognise Matt’s number. I let out a sigh. It’s the third time he’s called in as many days and I guess I can’t avoid him forever. Still, now isn’t the time. I hit the reject button, sending it to my voicemail. I’ll deal with him later.
‘Ready when you are.’
Lily finishes a mouthful of pizza. ‘Harry Jonas, January 1968. Nine years old. Disappeared from his grandparent’s home during the middle of the night. He was visiting for school holidays. Case never solved.’
As we make our way through th
e case files, we devour our pizza. Sometimes gruesome work is hungry work. By the time Lily brings out the smoked salmon and goats cheese pizza and tops up our wine, we’ve moved through eight of the original forty files. She’s right…it will be a long night.
Four hours, and for me two glasses of wine and four coffees, later we’ve agreed on twelve missing persons that are most likely related to our perpetrator. One of Lily’s spare whiteboards now has a bullet-point list of the years and missing persons, plus the known murders from 1975, 1976 and 1978.
1968—one MP
1970—two MP
1972—one MP
1973—one MP
1974—two MP
1975—one abduction and murder
1976—one abduction and murder
1978—one abduction and murder
1980—two MP
2008—one MP
2009—one abduction and murder (Ted Strawasky)
2010—one MP (Curtis Baker)
While most of them are unsolved missing persons cases, there were the three remains from 1975-1978, including John’s body in 1978.
‘So it certainly looks like our guy was off the scene for twenty-eight years.’ I look sleepily at my watch—nearly midnight.
‘Uh huh.’ Lily also glances at the time. ‘Let’s move on to victim commonalities.’ She starts a new column on the whiteboard titled Victims.
‘Let’s start with the obvious,’ I say. ‘They’re all male, between the ages of eight and fourteen, although mostly at the younger end of that range.’
Lily writes it up and adds Pre-pubescent. It’s an important point because for most paedophiles, once the victims move into puberty and start looking more like men than boys, the perpetrator loses interest in them.
‘From a personality perspective there are some similarities too,’ I say. ‘All the boys were outgoing and well-liked.’
She nods. ‘Confident boys, popular. Maybe partly because of their sporting abilities.’
I point to her. ‘Exactly…they were all involved in sports.’
Australia is a sport-mad country and, particularly for the Aussie male, athleticism often brings with it a certain degree of popularity. Professional Aussie Rules players, swimmers, cricketers…they’re all instant celebrities. And that adulation of sporting heroes starts young.
‘So he likes them young, confident and sporty.’
I nod. ‘But not cocky. All the descriptions of the victims are more fresh-faced wholesome kids with a natural talent in the sporting arena.’
‘True. He doesn’t like the ones who are already developing an ego because of their sporting prowess.’
‘Uh huh. And it could be he’s seen them during their sporting events.’
‘Local competitions may be his hunting ground.’
I nod and Lily writes it up on the board. ‘The week before John was taken, he came first in a swimming competition at Bendigo.’
‘Bendigo…where the first two boys were from. Bendigo’s a common denominator then, at least for the boys from the seventies.’
‘Yeah. Although he took John back to Shepp…after.’
Lily raises her eyebrows. ‘Maybe it’s significant somehow.’
A heavy silence hangs in the air. If it is significant, how?
‘Family lives.’ Lily moves us on. ‘The vics are mostly from nuclear families. Ted and one of the boys from 1980 are the only two who come from separated or divorced homes.’
‘And Ted’s father only left a couple of months before he was abducted. Depending on our perp’s cycle…’
Lily nods. ‘If he watches them for a few months beforehand, he would have been watching Ted in a nuclear family environment.’ Lily writes it up on the board. ‘And the 1980 missing boy…’ She hunts through the pile of twelve files and plucks out the target file. ‘Nope, separated for a year before the abduction.’ She writes up the two exceptions to the nuclear family.
We sit in a contemplative hush for a few minutes before Lily takes a sharp breath in. She’s about to talk, but then hesitates.
‘What?’
Again, hesitation before she continues. ‘I just noticed something else that most of the victims have in common.’
‘Yes?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘A younger sibling. And mostly a younger sister.’
I’m well aware that John fits that profile, but do the others? I mentally go over some of the victims in my head, trying to remember the details.
Shit…she’s right.
Lily’s already flicking through the files and tallying up the sibling structures for each family. Eight of the twelve missing boys have younger sisters, with no other siblings, two are only children and two are middle children of a three-child household…with younger sisters. And of the four known murder victims, all have a younger sister.
‘Damn.’ I bite my lip, concentrating on making sense of it and not thinking about John.
‘It’s a compelling similarity. But why? Why does he target boys with younger sisters?’
‘Maybe it’s his idea of compassion,’ I suggest. ‘He wants to leave the parents with one child.’
Lily raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know… I guess it’s possible. It would fit with the fact he dumps the bodies with their underwear on, as if he’s ashamed of what he does to the boys and feels some sense of remorse. Maybe he’s anticipating that remorse when he chooses the victims and knowing the parents have another child eases some of that guilt.’
‘I don’t know if anything can ease their pain.’ But as soon as I say it, I think about Mrs Baker cradling Rachel like her life depended on it. She was definitely finding some comfort from her other child.
Silence for another few minutes, before I have another suggestion. ‘What if he’s replicating his family life?’
‘So you think he’s got kids? One son and a younger daughter?’
I cock my head to one side. ‘I don’t see him as a family man. Logistically it would be tough too, given he holds these boys for such a long time. He needs complete privacy for that.’
‘Maybe…Mind you, it could explain the gap,’ Lily suggests. ‘From 1981 to 2008 he was busy having his own family. Once they were grown up and he was on his own through divorce or being widowed, he started again.’
She’s made a great point. ‘That would fit.’ I pause. ‘I guess the other possibility is that he’s replicating his childhood. He was the older brother with a younger sister.’
Lily nods. ‘Both good options.’ She creates another column called Offender and writes up Could have two children—eldest = boy, youngest = girl, or could have been part of two-child household growing up. She also adds in Remorse—underwear and choosing boys with a younger sister.
‘If the perpetrator was the older brother, maybe he was assaulted around the same age as the boys he’s targeting.’ Some violent crimes are cyclical—like the boy who sees his father beating his mother and then becomes a wife-beater himself. It can be hard not to follow our early role models, no matter how wrong they are.
Lily stares at the whiteboard, tapping the black marker against her desk. ‘Maybe we should also look at the sisters? See if they have anything in common.’
‘You think he targeted through us somehow?’ My objectivity is momentarily lost—she’s talking about me. Suggesting that somehow the perp found John through me. I shiver, pushing the thought that I led the killer to John away.
She turns around, facing me front-on. ‘It could be the link, Sophie. We have to look into it.’
She’s right. And my emotional involvement in the case probably meant I couldn’t see that. If I ever did come close to drawing that connection in my subconscious, likely I wrote it off as the misplaced guilt survivors of such things often feel. Even having it verbalised is confronting, to say the least.
Despite my hesitation, I give her a nod of agreement.
‘I’ll start on that tomorrow. I think it’s best if I handle that angle, but I might have some questions f
or you, Sophie.’
‘Okay.’ I chew on my bottom lip. ‘Anything.’
Lily presses her lips together before taking a breath. ‘Okay. The time gap.’
Although we discussed it briefly at Madame Brussells, we brainstorm the possible explanations for such a large gap between victims, and missing boys, going into more detail this time and including the possibility that he kept his murderous urges at bay when he had a family himself.
Given he’s resurfaced after so many years, four favoured explanations emerge: one, a killer who’s been living in another country; two, a man who was in prison; three, a killer who stopped while he raised his family; and four, a killing partnership with a new partner recruited a couple of years ago. We have to assume he was out of action from 1980 to 2008, given no disappearances match his MO during this time frame. If he had been in jail, twenty-eight years is a long time. Like in the States, even though “life” imprisonment in Australia can mean exactly that, often judges set a minimum time. For violent crimes that might be twenty or twenty-five years. If our guy got more than that as the minimum sentence, he was most likely charged with multiple offences. It’s an easy enough search for someone to work on tomorrow—identify all the prisoners who were released in 2007 or 2008 and see how long they were in jail for and what the charges were. If he had been convicted of a crime it most likely would have been for the sexual assault and murder of a child, and surely the cases would have been linked up to John and the others. Problem is, I think our guy’s careful—too careful to get caught.
That leaves us with a potential partnership that’s been reformed with a new dominant personality, the family option or the possibility he was living in another country. Tomorrow, Lily will get onto her contacts in Australasia—New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, etc. Certainly Australians can work in New Zealand without a visa so that will be our first port of call. Plus New Zealand uses the Canadian-developed ViCLAS system to identify crime linkages. Even though the system was only introduced in 2005, maybe they’ve entered in old cases. Thailand, with its raging child pornography and sexual exploitation of children, will be another target, as will Singapore with its high Aussie ex-pat community. And I’ll also be calling my Interpol contacts—maybe they can mine the information on child abductions from Australasia. But that’s all tomorrow, all in office hours.