KIMMY'S LIST

CHAPTER 16

Five doors led from the common area. Each door was open. The guard stopped at the third door along. ‘This is you.’ He extended an arm into the room.

Painted in warm tones, the cell was not large; about the size of a university dorm room, with an ensuite attached. A large window with horizontal bars allowed in ample daylight to brighten the room.

The guard gestured to the bed. ‘So, in here you’ve got ya bed there. That needs to be made every morning, and rooms need to be cleaned before you come out for breakfast.

Over there you have a desk and a TV. It’s not a very modern tele, but it gets good free-to-air reception.’

Kimberly nodded. ‘May I ask a question?’

‘You may…’

‘I noticed that you keep referring to this as a room, not a cell. Is that intentional?’

‘It is. You are on remand, so even though you are not being punished, so we try and make it as comfortable as possible, while keeping within the guidelines for confinement. You are not convicted, so in the eyes of the law, you are not a criminal, so we believe you don’t deserve to be treated as such.’

Kimberly was astounded by such a lenient attitude for a corrections facility.

The guard continued. He moved to the ensuite opening. ‘In here you’ve got your shower, toilet, basin etc.

‘OK.’

‘Now… Toiletries. We provide you with your basics to get you started ….. There’s a small soap, small bottle of shampoo etc…, but you’ll have to purchase everything you need from the prison canteen…. Toiletries cannot be brought in by family or friends. Have you elected to work while you’re in here?’

‘NO.’

‘OK. That’s fine. So what you’ll need to do is open an account. Your husband, slash partner, can deposit up to one hundred and forty rands, per month into this account for you to purchase these supplies. Truth - be - known, because you’re on remand, that amount could be increased a little, if you ran out. Maybe two fifty rands.’

The guard gestured to a folder he placed on the desk. ‘Everything is explained in there. There is also a page in there where you need to provide the names, addresses and dates of birth of people you want to telephone and those who you want as visitors.

If their name is not on that list, they will not be allowed to visit and you cannot call them. A list of visit times is also included in that folder.’

‘I understand. Do I just fill that in and bring it out to you?’

‘Correct. You can have up to ten names. Now’, the guard continued. ‘Meal times.’ He pushed back a finger. ‘Breakfast is 8:30AM.’ He pushed back a second finger. ‘Lunch 12:30PM and dinner is 6:00PM,’ he said. ‘As I said, you’ll be making your own meals. We supply the basic food staples. If you want anything fancier, you can purchase it at the canteen. DO NOT, under any circumstances, take anyone else’s food.

‘Doors to your rooms are locked at 7:30PM and re-opened at 7:30AM. The lock down at night is about the only part that makes this experience feel like a prison.’

It wasn’t a hotel. It wasn’t overly comfortable, but it wasn’t a cold prison cell either. Kimberly was surprised and relieved. Like a hotel room, they even provided a compendium of information.

‘Any questions?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘OK then. Get that list to me so your family can bring you up a change of clothes.’ The guard said, then left Kimberly in her cell.

Kimberly watched the guard leave. She glanced around her new home. A sense of isolation washed over her. She moved over to the window to check her view, a leafy garden and plenty of sky.

She sat on the side of the bed. Tears welled as her disapproving her stark room, devoid of personality. No pictures, no photographs, no flowers, nothing but four walls.

These condition were better than she expected, but it was still jail. She couldn’t see her husband and hear about his day. She couldn’t call him whenever she wanted to hear his voice. She couldn’t share a hot ‘real’ coffee with Naomi. She couldn’t do anything she used to enjoy. The life she once knew was gone.

Kimberly and her four cottage inmates stood beside their open cell doors while the nightly head count took place. With only five inmates, it was a short process.

Once her name was checked off the list, Kimberly stepped into her cell. The heavy door slammed behind her. A metal latch clanged and the keys jingled as her door was locked. It was a sound she struggled to get used to. It was a sound that, above anything else, reminded her she was a prisoner.

Kimberly learned of the nightly head count and lockdown from one of the other women during dinner. Earlier in the evening, all women prepared their meals and dined at the same time. Three of them kept to themselves. But the one who sat next to Kimberly was quite chatty.

When the other three left the table, the Chetty one introduced herself as Alicia. She informed Kimberly how the other three women had drug habits and were undergoing rehab while on remand, during which they battled their own demons.

Alicia even disclosed to Kimberly what she was on remand for - Domestic violence, bashed her husband’s Mercedes Benz with a brick and burnt all his suites. Which was still been investigated as she was ‘out of town’ when it occurred.

Then came the question Kimberly expected, but dreaded. ‘What are you in for…?’ Alicia asked.

‘I was once told it was taboo to ask another inmate what they were in for,’ Kimberly said, ‘I will say this, though… I have not committed any crimes,’ Kimberly said.

‘Yet here you are…’ Alicia said, possibly a little bitter over Kimberly’s reluctance to share her story. ‘But that’s OK…You don’t have to tell me. I understand.’

Kimberly sensed Alicia’s slight annoyance. ‘Look…At the moment I’m struggling to come to terms with being here when I am innocent…So talking about it upsets me too much. Maybe with time I will be able to freely chat about it. But right now, I’d prefer not to. OK.’

Alicia held up her hands. ‘It’s OK. I understand. Really.’

Over dinner, Kimberly happily shared everything else about her life with Alicia. It was comforting to have such a friendly inmate. It helped pass the time, of which she had plenty.

By the end of dinner they were like two besties, chatting and laughing. If only for that brief moment in time, Kimberly forgot her troubles. She forgot why she was there and enjoyed the company. Alicia made her laugh.

After dinner, Alicia and Kimberly did their dishes together - Alicia washed, while Kimberly dried and put away. It was apparent that Kimberly was happy to finally have a non - drug affected cottage inmate to chat with.

With the dishes done, Kimberly and Alicia strolled to their cells for nightly lockdown. Kimberly stopped at her cell door.

‘See ya in the morning,’ Alicia said, in a chirpy tone, then kept strolling to her cell, two doors over at cell number five.

Kimberly regarded the departing Alicia. She was perplexed at how someone could be so upbeat while serving time. She couldn’t help but admire Alicia’s positive attitude. Maybe that was the key to surviving this with your sanity intact.

With the cell door now secured, Kimberly felt alone. She sat on the side of her bed. Her first night in prison would be spent in the clothes she currently wore.

Earlier in the day, she provided her list of approved names to the guard, however it was too soon for Boyd to drive up from Oolong to bring her changes of clothes, or to deposit money into an account. She hoped to be able to arrange all that tomorrow.

Without warning the cell light went out. Kimberly fumbled for the switch on her wall mounted reading light and flicked it on. The grey and black shadows cast across the cell from the dull light gave the small room an eerie appearance.

Kimberly fell back onto her bed. She tried to visit her happy place by thinking of happier times with her husband. Eventually she allowed herself to sleep.

Detective Sergeant Jax Higgins rubbed a concerned hand across his mouth while he watched the rows of searchers combing the Otterways Forest. They had been at it for over three long hours without result. He started to question if he had the correct location.

Two weeks after he remanded Kimberly Davis in custody, he decided to re-visit Kimberly’s List. The list recorded that Libby Vassillou, now missing for twenty-seven months, was somewhere near a bush hiking track leading into Oolong Falls, the popular tourist attraction in the forest on the outskirts of Lore.

The list referenced a fork in the hiking track and a treated pine bench seat, but nothing further. It was up to Jax to try and decipher the message and his search team to locate Libby’s Body.

Around one kilometer in, the hiking track forked. Jax located a pine bench on the path along the right fork. Satisfied this was the correct location, it became the starting point of the search, and fanned out from there. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Jax nodded a silent greeting to the approaching search and rescue team leader.

‘How far into the forest do you intend the search line to go…?’ The team leader asked.

Jax scanned the bush land. ‘I was just thinking about that….’ he said. ‘I’m starting to wonder if I deciphered this list correctly.’

He slipped the list from his file and opened it out. ‘See here. It mentions the fork in the path and the pine bench,’ Jax said.

‘There’s the right fork…and there’s the pine bench.’

‘Can I see that?’ The team leader accepted the list and read it. His eyes lifted and flicked from the left fork, to the right fork and back. He rubbed his chin.

‘See, I read this differently to you,’ the team leader said. ‘It is vague, but I read the search area is the left fork, not the right fork with the pine bench. We’ve been searching the right fork, behind the pine bench…’

Jax accepted Kimberly’s List back and re-read it. ‘OK. I can see that as an option,’ Jax said. He gestured to the left fork. ‘So you think we need to search down there…’ he asked, rubbing his chin stubble. ‘A bit cryptic isn’t it?’

The team leader shrugged. ‘Who knows what she was thinking when she wrote the list.’

Jax and the team leader moved down the left fork with their eyes glued to the ground, adjacent to the path. Around twenty meters along, they stepped off the track and toed the sand soil through the accumulation of fallen twigs and leaves.

‘OK. Let’s get the search teams over here. We’ll start from this point, working outwards on both sides of the track.’

Within a short time, lines of police and Oolong Police Searches relocated to either side of the left fork and fanned out in rows, prodding the sandy soil with long search sticks.

Forty - five minutes had passed without success when Jax impatiently checked his watch. He removed Kimberly’s List from his pocket and re-read it. He rubbed a frustrated hand across his mouth and chin.

While he pondered the many possibilities in the interpretation of Kimberly’s list, loud voices from behind caught his attention. He turned to the noise. News media - a cameraman, a producer, a sound recorder technician and a field reporter - approached the crime scene perimeter tape, guarded by a uniform constable.

Jax rolled his eyes. ‘What kept you?’ He mumbled to himself.

The female reporter called out to Jax. ‘Excuse me, Detective… Could we have a word please…?’

Jax checked his watch, more out of reflex than interest, then moved to the perimeter tape.

With a note pad in one hand and a pen in the other, the attractive young female reporter smiled at Jax as he approached. After a brief introduction, she fired off the questions and scribbled Jax’s responses. She was hungry for a breaking story.

Once the details were obtained, the reporter asked Jax if he was prepared to be interviewed on camera. Jax agreed. The producer checked for the position with the best lighting.

Jax and the reporter positioned themselves in front of the camera. Another from their group angled a reflective shield that directed sunlight onto them.

The producer gave a signal. A red light appeared on the camera and the reporter started to file her report. ‘Earlier today, teams of police and searchers descended onto a remote location in the pristine Otterways Forest, a location where Police believe….’

A shrieking whistle caused that Jax to step away from the camera and glance back towards the searchers. The reporter paused and turned to the sound.

When the search and rescue team leader - the source of the whistle, caught Jax’s wondering gaze, he gestured towards the right side of the left fork. Several of the searchers were migrating to this area.

‘Gotta go, sorry,’ Jax said to the reporter. He jogged back to the area where the search team had gathered. On the way, the team leader met Jax on the left fork and moved to keep in step with him.

‘What’ve we got?’ Jax asked the team leader.

‘Looks like a shallow grave…’

Jax and the team leader trudged a path through the thick overgrowth. Twigs and dried grasses crunched under foot. Jax brushed aside fern fronds, spindly tree branches and shrub foliage, as he high - stepped through the overgrown ground cover.

There searchers had located a clearing in amongst the overgrowth that was out of place to the rest of the forest floor. Their probing search sticks struck something just below the surface. Three of the searchers were on hands and knees carefully excavating dirt with small hand shovels, when Jax arrived.

The out - of - place clearing suggested to Jax they had located Libby Vassillou’s shallow grave. Over time, the disturbed dirt had re-settled and was firm to dig through, so every care had to be taken.

A member of the police search team eventually uncovered a dirty brown coloured human head, in advanced stages of decomposition. The rest of the body remained interred.

Jax halted the exploratory dig and called the forensics body recovery experts to the location for a more thorough dig, to ensure all evidence was recovered.

The forensic team were in the nearby coastal hamlet of Lore enjoying a leisurely coffee when Jax called. Within fifteen minutes they were on site, carefully excavating the soil around the body. Disturbed dirt was sifted onto a ground sheet.

Bit-by-bit the decomposing, fully clothed body was uncovered from its shallow grave of around thirty centimeters deep.

Once evidence photos were taken, the body was carefully removed from the hole and placed onto a stretcher.

While the forensic team sifted the dirt remaining in the hole, Jax removed the photo of Libby Vassillou from his file. He compared it to the recovered body. DNA would have to confirm it, however Jax was satisfied he had located another of his missing persons. Kimberly Davis’s charges just increased to six murders.