KIMMY'S LIST

CONTINUED….

To Jax and his years of experience investigating missing persons, the answer was sadly obvious. But to desperate family members clinging onto the slightest glimmer of hope, it was a question he couldn’t answer truthfully - for their sakes.

While ruing the latest addition to his collection, Jax’s boss, Detective Senior Sergeant Jeff Fry approached.

‘How’s it coming along, Jax?’

‘It’s not …’ Jax said. His tone was riddled with frustration. Jeff stood beside him surveying the photo display.

Jeff flicked a finger at the photo of Malcolm Denver.

‘Is this a new one…?’ he asked.

Jax’s eyes flicked to the photo. He nodded once. ‘Just put that up…’

Jeff moved closer to Malcolm Denver’s image.

‘Is that a rug…?’ he asked knowingly.

‘That would have to be one of the worst I’ve seen. I don’t understand why guys wear those things…’

His eyes lifted to Jax’s balding head. ‘They should be like you and just wear it naturally…’

‘Each to their own, Boss.’

Jeff waved a hand across the whiteboard.

‘Any chance some of these are drug related disappearances…?’

Jax shook his head. ‘No.’

He gestured to Malcolm Denver’s image.

‘This guy with the rug for example, he’s a primary school principal,’ he said.

‘Could any of these disappearances be linked….?’

‘What… You mean like to a serial…?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I don’t think so. They’re too spread out for a serial killer. Serials tend to offend in areas they are comfortable with, like where they live, or where they work.’ Jax paused at the interruption when his desk phone warbled to life. He continued as he moved to answer his phone.

‘Plus, we have varying occupations and a mix of gender and ages…’

He lifted the handset while continuing.

‘No. Too erratic. No pattern,’ he said, then took the call.

‘Detective Sergeant Jax Higgins.’ Jax’s eyes flicked to his whiteboard.

‘OK. Give me the address.’

He lifted a pen and scribbled notes. ‘OK. Got it. I’m about twenty minutes away…’ He hung up the phone and ripped the page from his note pad.

‘Whatcha got…?’ Jeff asked.

Jax moved over to the whiteboard and tapped photo number two - Jenny Cox.

‘They’ve just found her car in a farmer’s dam in Annakies. Search and rescue divers are there scouring the dam.’

Jeff read the details recorded under the photo. ‘Been missing for twenty - five months… Went missing on her way to Beached Marsh…’

He nodded knowingly.

‘Annakies is practically on the way to Beached Marsh. Maybe you’ll have an answer to this one.’

Jax lifted his keys and folder. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, moving towards the door.

‘I’ll let ya know. Gotta go, Boss.’

The road to Annakies was typical of most Oolong country roads. Sealed bitumen roads with wide gravel shoulders, lined with kilometers after kilometers of barbed wire fencing. Each fence painstakingly erected to retain livestock and define the outer boundaries of the expansive rural acreages stretching as far as the eye could see.

During his drive to the small rural township thirty kilometers north - west of Oolong, Jax was anxious at the possibility of solving one of his missing person mysteries.

After arriving at the address scribbled on his notes, Jax left the roadway and travelled down a long unmade, barbed wire lined driveway, towards the residence situated over 500 meters from the road.

Two - thirds of the way down the drive a uniform constable met Jax and directed him to a break in the barbed wire fence on his right.

After carefully navigating the wire fence, which had earlier been knocked down by the tow truck that preceded Jax’s arrival, he continued driving across the uneven paddocks towards the vehicles gathered away in the distance.

The cars were parked at one of the largest farm dams he had seen. It would’ve been at least the size of a soccer field. The tow truck had already dragged the abandoned vehicle from the dam.

Jax parked his car and made his way to the banks of the dam. A uniform constable met him along the way and strolled with him.

‘Who found the car…?’ Jax said.

‘The farm owner…Billy Marx,’ the uniform cop said, keeping stride with Jax. ‘He said he went to the dam to check the level, which was low due to poor recent rainfall. The low water level revealed the roof of the car. He assumed it was a stolen car and called us.’

‘What do we know about this bloke, Billy Marx…?’

‘Clean skin. No record.’

‘Good. Are there any remains in the car?’ Jax asked.

The cop shook his head. ‘No, Empty, including the boot.’

‘And the car is registered to Jenny Cox…?’ Jax said as a question.

‘Correct. Well, it’s unregistered now, but the last registered owner came up as Jenny Cox. It looks like it has been here a while…’

‘About twenty - five months, I’d guess,’ Jax’s said.

Jax walked around the pale blue Toyota Camry. Evidence of rust bubbling under the paintwork replaced what were once polished panels.

All doors were closed. All windows were wound up. Jax shielded his eyes to peer in through the driver’s window. A green slimy algae on the inside of the window reduced visibility. Car keys were still in the ignition.

Jax approached the three search and rescue divers who were in the process of gathering their dive equipment. ‘Hey guys…No luck finding a body…?’ he asked.

‘No. No human remains in there,’ one of the divers said. ‘Just a bloated, decomposing sheep…But no human body.’

‘OK, thanks for coming out guys…’

Jax scanned the surrounding wide open, parched farm land. ‘If her car was dumped here… She must be around here somewhere …But where…?’ he said to no-one, as he scanned the vast country side.

‘Could be anywhere…’ the uniform cop said, stating the obvious to Jax’s rhetorical question.

‘Make sure the car is towed back for full forensic examination,’ Jax said to the cop.

‘Will do…’

Despite the disappointment he felt on the return drive to his office, Jax knew that while the discovery of her car was not a break through, it was another small piece in the puzzle to finding out what happened to Jenny Cox.

Such was her focus on scribbling notes while seated at her breakfast bench, Kimmy’s morning coffee had gone cold and the butter spread thick across her untouched raisin toast, had congealed.

With Boyd working morning shift, the 6AM start meant he left for work at 5:30AM. So Kimmy was home alone with no distractions and no-one to remind her that she was already late leaving for work.

Instead, her focus was solely on scribbling notes from her latest nocturnal visitor. At 3:23AM this morning a woman in her late twenties visited Kimmy. She was dressed in knee-length Khaki coloured cargo shorts and a light blue singlet top.

She asked for Kimmy’s help finding her and provided directions where her body could be found, just off the path leading to Erskines Falls. The popular tourist attraction was located on the outskirts of Lore, a seaside hamlet, fifty kilometers south - west of Oolong on the world famous Great Ocean Road.

Kimmy wanted to record the notes while her conversation was still fresh in her memory. Part of her was glad Boyd had already left for work. She didn’t want to waste time justifying to him that this latest in a line of many visits, wasn’t just another dream.

‘In her own mind‘, Kimmy believed the visits had purpose. These people wanted help from her and she felt obligated to assist where she could. Problem was, she didn’t know where to start.

After completing her latest note taking, Kimmy reviewed her list. It was now quite long. She opened her phone’s internet browser and navigated to the Oolong Police Missing Persons website. One-by-one she scrolled through the photos, searching for the familiar face from last night.

At page four she stopped and examined the image. A smile filled her face.

‘There you are…’ She read the name. ‘Libby Vassillou. How long have you been missing Libby…?’ She checked the date recorded on the site. ‘Oh my God. Twenty - seven months…Your poor family.’

The hair on Kimmy’s neck stood on end when she read on the website that Libby was last seen hiking in the Otterways, which Kimmy knew as the expansive forest that surrounded Lore.

Seven people were now recorded on Kimmy’s List. Not all had names yet, but all seven had each alerted Kimmy to their locations during their respective early morning visits.

On one occasion, not too far back, three people, two males and a female, visited Kimmy simultaneously. It was disturbing enough waking from her sleep to find one person staring back at her, but to have three people standing by her bed, was triply frightening.

They told her they were lying together in a deep hole near Steilight. Kimmy later identified the woman from the website as Jenny Cox and one of the men as Brian Taylor, but she could not find any information about the other male. She suspected from their visit that the unnamed man may have worn a wig.

Kimmy glanced over her list of seven people. She had to consider how best to handle this information. Her gaze lifted to the wall clock. Her jaw dropped. ‘Shit…’ she blurted. She was running late.

She lifted her coffee and took a sip as she moved to the dishwasher. Her face screwed up and she spat the liquid back into her cup. She shuddered. ‘Blah, cold coffee’, she muttered to herself.

Following a quick clean up, Kimmy scooped up her list and shoved it into her bag on he way to her car. Within sixty seconds she hit the road for the ten minute commute to her work.

This morning’s visitor distracted Kimmy from her work. She sat at her desk reviewing her list of notes compiled from her many nocturnal visits.

Being the manager of her department, Kimmy was afforded the luxury of an office, which is essence, was just three shoulder - high partition walls.

 The rest of the open plan office in which she worked was occupied by desks placed side - by - side and back - to - back, forming rows along the room.

Naomi didn’t work in Kimmy’s department, but her desk was nearby.

They did however share the same senior manager responsible for overseeing both Kimmy and Naomi’s respective departments.

Kimmy stood from her chair and peered over the top of her partition wall, towards Naomi’s desk. Naomi waved and smiled when she saw Kimmy’s head appear. Kimmy gathered her notes and moved towards Naomi’s desk.

‘Do you have a minute, Nomes…?’ Kimmy asked as she approached.

Naomi sat back in her chair watching Kimmy approach, ‘Of course. What’s up?’

Kimmy dragged a nearby chair over and squeezed in beside Naomi. She unfolded her list and dragged a hand across it. She checked over her shoulders then said in a quiet tone, ‘I had another visitor this morning…’ She tapped the fourth name on her list. ‘This one.. Libby Vassilou. She told me where she could be found…’

‘Oh my God, Kim…’ Naomi said. ‘How many is that now…?’

‘Ah…’ Kimmy tapped each name as she counted down her list. ‘That’s seven now….’

Naomi placed a hand Kimmy’s forearm. ‘What are you going to do about it…?’

‘I don’t know. What can I do…?’

Naomi sat back in her chair and folded her arms in contemplation. ‘You know what…? I reckon it’s time, Kim.’

‘Time..?’

‘Time you went to the cops with this. You have too many names for them to think you’re a nutter. They’d have to listen to you.’

‘I’m not so sure, Nomes.’

‘Look. I’ll come with you,’ Naomi said. She checked the time on her computer monitor. ‘Why Don’t we go at lunch break today? We can walk to the police station and get it out of the way… Tell ‘em what you know, then they can worry about it. What do ya say…?’

Kimmy stared at her notes while considering Naomi’s suggestion. She wanted to tell the cops what she knew, but something in her gut warned her off it, in case they thought she was a raving lunatic.

Up until six months ago, she would’ve thought exactly that of anyone who claimed to speak to dead people in their sleep. And she expected the cops to do the same. But if she didn’t act, nothing would get done for these poor people.

‘You know what…?’ Kimmy said. ‘Let’s do it…’

Good girl…’ Naomi said. ‘I’ll come and get you at 12:30...’

‘Done. See ya then,’ Kimmy said. She pushed herself away from the desk, rolled the chair back and returned to her office.