The Kristina Melina Omnibus: First Kill, Second Cut, Third Victim

by Laurent Boulanger

  The air conditioning made the room pleasant to be in, if one didn’t mind the smell of various chemicals. It could have been the ideal environment to work in, but I preferred to move around than stay in the same place all day.

  ‘How are the kids?’ I yelled across the room, hoping he would remember I was still here.

  ‘They’re fine.’

  John had marital problems which he solemnly discussed. I’d met his wife on a few occasions when I went to his place for work reasons, but now I avoided his home all together. I was scared of being thought as the other woman and of complicating matters further.

  ‘What about the Mrs?’

  ‘She’s okay.’

  I could tell by the tone of his voice he didn’t want to discuss his private life. He turned the Bunsen burner off, slid off his safety goggles and walked towards me. Bags hung under his eyes, and it was obvious he’d missed passing a comb through his hair that morning. His lab coat had two buttons missing in the middle, exposing a yellow T-shirt with a logo I couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘Now, you’re here for that Tracy Noland case?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t done the test yet. Too much back log. Seems like criminals are doing overtime during the holiday period. Probably boredom more than anything else.’

  I had only given him the material six hours ago, and to expect to have it all done by now, well, that was just me. I shifted from one foot to the other. ‘So, how long will it take?’

  He rolled his thumb and forefinger over the stubble on his chin, looked up to the ceiling and then behind him, towards a bench where a clock indicated it was just on two o’clock.

  Back to me: ‘I tell you what: if you hang around I can do the test right now.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He passed me an oversized lab coat. I rolled up the sleeves, feeling like a university student who shared whatever lab coat was available because I’d left mine at home. The damn thing smelled like an ox, and I wondered if it had ever seen the inside of a washing machine.

  We circled the lab and stopped in front of a large galvanised bench, on which I had seen John perform forensic tests in the past.

  I plunged my hands in the pockets of the lab coat and felt bits of paper and paper clips, which I didn’t bother removing.

  He grabbed a brown paper bag with a continuity label attached to it. On a writing pad, he recorded the time, date, VFSC-ID product number and his name. I was aware that everything had to be immaculately recorded at the Centre, and in fact anywhere where evidence had the potential of being presented in a court of law. One day some defence lawyer would look at the evidence presented and question its handling from the moment it had been collected to the moment he held it in his hands.

  And then he would ask, ‘So, you’re saying that those DNA tests were performed from the exhibit I’m holding my hand? When did that happen?’

  Some scientist would answer with uncertainty, ‘Um, on the second or third of March.’

  ‘On the second or third of March?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’m pretty sure it was then because it was just after my son’s birthday.’

  ‘And why isn’t the exact date recorded somewhere?’

  ‘Well,...’

  ‘If you can’t remember who handled the exhibit on a particular day, how does the jury know who handled what, when? How do we know for a fact someone hasn’t been tampering with the evidence?’

  The scientist would look completely dumb-founded, realising this would probably be the last time he’d ever appear in court, and praying he wouldn’t lose his job over the incident.

  And then the defence would ask for the exhibit to be thrown out of court, terminating the prosecutor’s only chance of building a water-tight case.

  After slipping on a new pair of surgical gloves from what looked like a box of tissues, John Darcy carefully cut the continuity label with small pointed scissors. Gently, he lifted the flap at the top of the bag, and pulled the bag open.

  Meanwhile, I was reading at a dot-matrix computer print-out which came with the bag, observing John from the corner of one eye:

  VICTORIA FORENSIC SCIENCE CENTRE LIAISON ITEM RECEIPT

  Printed on 12:15 22 DEC 1997

  Case Number 2189/967

  Time & Date Entered 08:06 22 DEC 1997

  COURIER

  Reg No :HODS Melina, Katrina Oliveira Dos

  Rank :Contractor Class 4

  Station :CRIME - VFSC

  INFORMANT

  Reg No :HODS Melina, Katrina Oliveira Dos

  Rank :Contractor Class 4

  Station :CRIME - VFSC

  NAME (S) INDEX

  NOLAND, TRACY (complainant - deceased)

  offence : HOMICIDE

  ITEM (S)

  Item ( s ) received at Liaison Store on 07:55 22 DEC 1997

  No Description Property No.

  Item (s) retained by VFSC member on 07:55 22 DEC 1997

  No Description Property No.

  Item (s) retained by a NON VFSC member on 07:55 22 DEC 1997

  No Description Property No.

  1 PANTIES 124/97

  sign: BVeitch

  Bruce Veitch

  Liaison Officer

  12:15 22 DEC 1997

  After placing the scissors on the galvanised bench, John removed a pair of small, cotton underwear with faded flower patterns from the brown paper bag.

  Frank had found the underwear inside Malcom’s pillow when we conducted the search in the boy’s room. It was definitely girl’s underwear, and seminal-like stains were spread throughout the front and the back of the material. If the stains were in fact semen, and if the semen was that of Malcom Sternwood, he was in bigger trouble than he’d ever dreamed he’d be. What intrigued me was that Tracy Noland hadn’t been raped. Was the underwear a souvenir he jerked on just to remind him of the killing? The whole idea made me feel nauseous.

  I knew of killers who kept souvenirs from their victims just to remind them how good it felt when they raped and killed. This was especially true of serial killers, who not only collected killings, but objects to remind them of their great achievement.

  With the invention of the video camera, I knew of one offender in South Australia who went to great length to produce, edit and distribute real-life torture, rape and killing b-grade movies. The movies sold particularly well in the United States and the former USSR. It took a while to track down the film maker, who turned out to be the killer and director, a thirty-three year-old, frustrated National Institute of Dramatic Art drop-out, a former student with a fascination for ultra violent torture films, but couldn’t find anything real enough to ease his appetite. As a result he built a state-of-the-art video studio in the basement of his home in Adelaide, where he would perform the most savage rituals on his female teenage victims, whom he’d kidnapped on their way back from school. The films were digitally recorded and posted through the Internet in chunks to a b-grade studio in America, whose owner thought the visual effects, especially when the girls were cut from breast to groin, were amazingly realistic. When his day in court came, the buyer of the snuff movies insisted he didn’t know he was distributing real-life footage. On that statement, he only got sentenced for distributing unclassified material.

  John took handwritten notes on a white, A4-sized notepad. He commented at the same time for my benefit.

  ‘One pair of white cotton underwear with flower motifs, size 4/6, labelled Target - all cotton girl brief - no visual tear or damage. Yellow, creamy stains in the front and the back. Grass particles and dirt present.’

  ‘What do you think the stains are?’ I asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

  ‘Seminal, I guess, but I’ll have to conduct an acid phosphatase colour test to confirm.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Basically, the presence of semen is indicated by a purple-blue colo
uration on a test strip when the acid phosphatase enzyme in the semen reacts with napthyl phosphate under acidic conditions to form napthyl and phosphate to which the naphthyl reacts with the brentamine fast black dye.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, not wanting further explanation. I managed sixty-two percent in Chemistry in my last school year, nothing to gloat about, and had little interest in the subject beyond basic crime-scene analysis and associated testing.

  From another brown paper bag, John removed a pre-stained white handkerchief.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I asked.

  ‘Part of the procedure in case someone challenges the accuracy of the tests in a court. Prior to conducting the test on the underwear, the method and reagents should be validated by using a known seminal stain.’

  I nodded.

  With the help of an eye-dropper, John placed two drops of the calcium alpha-naphthyl phosphate and Ilnaphtalin diazo blue-B mixture on the stain from the handkerchief. He immediately peeled off the adhesive strip cover and applied the strip with pressure of his thumb onto the stain.

  He repeated the procedure on a stained and clean area of the underwear with two separate strips.

  ‘What’s the other strip for,’ I asked, referring to the test conducted on the underwear, but away from the stain.

  ‘We need to compare the final test to something, and the method calls for a control test to do the comparison. Like if you did a drawing on a blank sheet of paper, and when you finished it, compared it with another blank sheet identical to the one you drew on.’

  After thirty seconds, he removed the control test, which had turned purple, and wrote ‘control test: Phoshotesmo Km +ve’ on his pad. He then removed the other strip, which had also changed colour. He scribbled in his pad and said, ‘Positive as fuck. Seminal stains confirmed on item 2189/967, item one, sample one.’

  I glanced over his shoulder and realised that he hadn’t really written the word fuck.

  ‘So, this is semen?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep. The guy’s jerked all over the girl’s underwear.’

  Before the test had been conducted, I’d known there was a good chance it would come out positive. However, I was still shocked to realise Malcom was that type of person. He just seemed so innocent, the way his big eyes looked into mine, begged me, assured me that he didn’t do anything. And now, faced with the most discriminating evidence, there would be little he would be able to do to save himself. I was disappointed in him. At the back of my mind I wished it could have been someone else.

  It always nagged me when a young person was guilty of a violent crime, and, as a result, his life would be ruined. If only someone had gotten through to the young man when he was still building up to the crime. If someone had realised he had a fascination with prepubescent girls early on, he would have received counselling on time, saved the life of a young victim, and in the process saved his soul.

  But there were so many frustrated young people who learned to cope with the difficulties of life through drugs or other unhealthy obsessions. It scared the hell out of me that Michael would experience similar frustration in years to come. I just hoped he would come out of it un-scarred like the majority of people.

  But sometimes, someone, somewhere slipped through the net. The mind goes bang, and a pact is made with the devil.

  As I walked out of the lab and down the hallway, a cold sweat took over my body. I had to face the truth.

  Jason Harvey had been right after all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I told Frank the results of the seminal tests, he reacted with a stern face, but anger crept into his eyes.

  At 4.23 p.m., we were sitting in the conference room on the ninth floor of the Victoria Police Complex on St Kilda Road, home of the Homicide Squad, print-outs of Malcom’s digital photo collection of teenage nudes spread all over the table. There weren’t just photographs of Tracy Noland, but other girls as well. He must have been doing that for a while, although the photos gave no indication that they were taken in his bedroom. We’d tried to come up with a location where he may have taken the girls to do his work. At first we thought it might have been at the Melbourne College of Photography, but we knew this would have been impossible. Anyone could have walked in on him, and if they’d realised he was taking pictures of semi-naked, under-aged girls, he would have been in deep trouble, perhaps even expelled from the college. Maybe he rented a room somewhere, but I did recall that he could hardly afford to do the photography course, let alone renting motel rooms.

  Frank stirred his coffee slowly, staring at an empty spot in front of him. He wasn’t himself, and I’d been working with him long enough to know when an investigation was taking over his life. Me, I just wanted the culprit to be found and thrown in jail so no one else would get hurt. Him, he wanted revenge. And that was typical of men. They felt so angry towards the aggressor that a slap at the back of the head was never enough. If Frank had it his way, he’d probably take Malcom into a room and beat the living daylights out of him. It was just as well I was the one in charge of the investigation.

  ‘Okay,’ he went on, ‘so now we have evidence in the form of child pornography and soiled underwear. How does that prove he killed the girl? We know he did, but we’re going to need something really solid. The court is not going to punish someone because of soiled underwear hidden under a pillow and some manipulated digital photography. This is no proof he killed someone. All we’ve got is circumstantial evidence, and you know as well as I do that we’d be crazy to charge him with so little to go to court with.’

  I sipped from my Victoria Police mug and said, ‘I’ve asked John Darcy to do a DNA test on the seminal stain. We’re going to have to get a warrant for Malcom’s blood sample and do a comparison. There’s no doubt in my mind that the stains on the underwear are his, but that still needs to be proven.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then, when we prove he’s the one who jerked in the underpants, we’ll place him under arrest. After that, it’s a matter of finding a link between what we’ve got and what we’re yet to find.’

  Frank ground his teeth, obviously unhappy about my proposal. He slapped one hand on the mahogany table and raised his tone, ‘This is bullshit! I’m not going to wait here to get another court order for a blood sample. I say we bring him in and get the truth out of him. He’s a damn immature kid, and I doubt he can lie for much longer.’

  I could understand Frank’s frustration, but I didn’t want to rush into the interrogation. If we weren’t careful and calculative in the way we proceeded, we’d be more likely to make a mistake. And the last thing I wanted was to get reprimanded by Goosh and provide him with another opportunity to have my contract terminated.

  But on the other hand, I shared Frank’s frustration with balancing a load too heavy to carry. I needed to ease my mind like everyone else who was involved in this case, maybe even more since I hated working on child murders in the first place. But most of all, there was the underlying fear that another girl might get killed, although at this stage there was no indication that we were dealing with a repeat offender.

  ‘If,’ I said, ‘and only if, we go ahead with an interrogation, I’ll be the one handling it.’

  ‘Don’t have a problem with that.’

  ‘Good, cause I’m gonna have none of this violent type of interrogation.’

  He shook his head vigorously. ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t say I was going to kick the truth out of him. I said we were going to ask him.’

  I didn’t recall Frank using the word ask, but as it was, I knew his methods of interrogation were not always up to scratch. There were other means of interrogating a suspect other than resorting to violence. And since I’d seen Frank perform in the past, he was not someone I’d put in charge of interrogating criminals. As much as I wanted the truth to come out, beating it out of someone was always suspicious. You never knew if what you were told was some tale made up because of the victim’s desire to get it ov
er and done with. Nobody likes to be pushed around and beaten up, and if lying was the fastest and best way out of it, then the police had a lot to learn about interrogation techniques.

  Other than that, it was completely illegal, and the admission would be thrown out of court before it could pass the front door. Not to mention the risk of being charged with assault and abuse of police power.

  ‘And, anyway,’ he went on, ‘don’t make it sound like I’m the bad guy. This bastard killed the girl, and even if he didn’t, which I bloody much doubt, then he’s got a lot of explaining to do in regards to all the shit we found in his room.’

  I didn’t bother with an answer.

  Two hours later, we brought Malcom Sternwood in for interrogation. We made him aware of his rights, but he refused to have an attorney represent, which was just as well because the last thing we needed was some hot-shot solicitor making the interrogation an nightmare.

  Because of the seriousness of the allegation, the interview had to be videotaped in a closed room, connected to a live monitor in another room. Later, Malcom wouldn’t be able to deny anything he had said since it would be recorded.

  Before Malcom walked in the room, I had carefully laid Tracy Noland’s blue dress on the table of the interrogation room. The dress was the one she wore when we found her body. It was still covered in mud and botanical residues, but additionally tagged with a VFSC label. Squares had been cut from the dress in various places to conduct forensic tests.

  I was hoping to get a reaction from Malcom the moment I re-entered the room. If he killed Tracy Noland, there’d be no way that he could just stand there and ignore the dress. Maybe he would try to avoid looking at it in an obvious manner, or maybe he would break down and want to run out of the room. Either way, if he’d killed the girl, I expected some type of reaction.