Her mild curiosity changed to concern when I explained that Joiner was missing. Barrows was helpful. As Joiner’s academic advisor, she was able to supply me with the names of several grad students who were part of a study group Joiner belonged to. “All of those students, Detective Kincaid, are enrolled in my class this evening. You’re welcome to stop by when the class starts at four-thirty and talk to them.”
I told her I would do that. “Dr. Barrows, has Robin contacted you in the last day or so?”
“As a matter of fact, I found a voice message from her when I came into the office this morning. Would you like to listen to it?”
The message from Joiner explained that she would miss her classes this week as the result of what she described as a family problem in Nevada. The implication was that she’d already departed for Nevada and might be gone for a few days. That I suspected was a ruse.
I thanked Dr. Barrows for her help and headed across campus to the Sociology Department in the hope that I might catch Richard Bond in his office. While Dr. Barrows had provided me with the names of Robin Joiner’s study group, she hadn’t offered to dig into student records and provide me with home addresses and telephone numbers. Bond, I was certain, would. Time mattered, and I saw no point in waiting until four-thirty in the afternoon to interview Joiner’s friends. When I arrived, Bond’s secretary informed me that he was teaching a class and would not be available until late in the morning. I left her my cell number and asked that he call me.
Once in a great while, a purely fortuitous event helps to break a case. For reasons I can’t explain, I decided to leave the campus by driving past Robin Joiner’s Honda. When I got within eyeshot of the car, I observed a young man kneeling next to the front tire. He didn’t look familiar to me. I couldn’t place him as a member of the Bradshaw family, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. In seconds, I had him spread-eagled over the hood of Joiner’s car.
He was scared and it showed. “What the hell is this all about, man? I haven’t done anything,” he said, his legs splayed out behind him, and his cheek resting uncomfortably on the hood of the Honda.
“Maybe not,” I replied, “but what are you doing messing around this car? It doesn’t belong to you.” After I completed the frisk, I stood him up and demanded to see identification. His name was Michael Baker, the same Michael Baker whose name I had just been given by Dr. Barrows. He was a member of Robin Joiner’s study group.
Frightened as he was, Baker summoned the courage to look me in the eye and state, “I don’t have to tell you anything. I know my rights.”
“You might know your rights, but you’ve just managed to put yourself in the middle of a murder investigation, and unless you answer my questions right now, you may find yourself with a one-way ticket to the Salt Lake County Jail on an Obstruction beef.”
That seemed to get his attention. The bravado disappeared. He took a more conciliatory tone, and so did I. “Look, Michael, if you’re really concerned about Robin’s welfare, the best thing you can do is to help us find her. She’s missing, and we believe that her life is in danger. Did she ask you to come and get the car?”
He paused and looked away, probably trying to decide whether or not to cooperate. “What kind of trouble is she in?”
“You may not know this, but Robin was a witness in a murder, armed robbery case that went down a couple of months ago. She’s gone missing, and somebody’s broken into her apartment and, as you can see, her car. We don’t know where she is or why she hasn’t contacted us. We just hope the bad guys don’t know either.”
He was still unconvinced.
“The night before last, a guy named Arnold Ginsberg was murdered in downtown Salt Lake City. Did you hear about it on the news?” He nodded.
“Besides Robin, Mr. Ginsberg was the only other witness in the case. Now, he’s dead, and Robin is missing. We’re afraid she’s next, and I think you can help us find her. Do that for her sake so that she doesn’t end up like Ginsberg.”
He relented. “Okay. Robin called me a little while ago and asked me to get the car for her.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s supposed to call me back in about an hour and fifteen minutes, and then we’re supposed to meet someplace.”
“Did she tell you where?”
He shook his head. “She acted pretty paranoid about the whole thing. Now I guess I understand why. She said we’d figure out a place to meet when she called back.”
“Where did she call from, do you know?”
He shook his head again. “She didn’t say and the number was blocked.”
“This is what I need you to do, Michael. When she calls, tell her you’ve got the car and set up the meeting. I’ll go with you, and we’ll bring her in together.”
He considered this but only for a moment. “I won’t do it. I won’t deceive her like that, I just can’t.”
“Christ, Michael, how are you going to feel if you don’t help us find her, and she ends up dead like Arnold Ginsberg? Can you live with that?”
He thought some more and then proposed a compromise. “What if, when she calls, I try to talk her into coming in? I’ll even let you talk to her.”
It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was the best deal I was going to get, so I agreed.
Chapter Fifteen
An hour later, Michael Baker, Kate, and I were sequestered in McConnell’s office when Baker’s cell phone rang. We could only hear one side of the conversation, but he looked decidedly uncomfortable, and his voice sounded strained.
“Hello. Hi, Rob. I need you to listen to me. I got stopped by the cops trying to get your car. I know what’s going on, and I’m worried about you. The cops are too. No, I’m not under arrest. I’m okay. But I think you need to let us come and get you. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.” He talked in a whisper, and we could barely hear him.
There was a long pause during which Baker listened. “Hold on, don’t hang up. I want you to talk to this detective. I think you can trust him.”
He handed me the phone. “Hi, Robin, my name is Sam Kincaid, and I’m a police officer. We’ve been trying to find you for a couple of days. We have good reason to believe that your life is in danger, and we can’t protect you if you don’t come in.”
Silence. “Like you protected Arnold Ginsberg,” she finally said.
She had a point. “Listen to me for a moment. We didn’t know you or Ginsberg were in danger until after he was killed. We’ve been looking for you ever since.”
“What makes you so sure that I am in danger?”
“Besides Ginsberg’s murder, your apartment has been broken into and tossed—same for your car. Somebody was sitting in the U parking lot yesterday watching your Honda. I know that because I ran him off, but the guy got away. He was driving a stolen car and left a sawed off shotgun on the front seat as a calling card. I think you’re in real danger, Robin, and I think these guys play for keeps.”
When she didn’t respond, I continued.
“We have to assume that Walter Bradshaw’s gang of crackpots is behind this, unless you can tell us something different. Is there anyone you can think of who might be stalking you—angry boyfriend, ex-husband, anything like that?”
“No, and I want you to leave me the hell alone. I want you to stop meddling in my life. I haven’t asked for your help, and I don’t want it. Am I making myself clear?”
She sounded rational and relatively unemotional. “Perfectly, but I’m afraid we can’t do that, Robin. You’re a material witness in a murder and armed robbery case. You’ve got to come in, or we have to keep looking for you. It’s that simple.”
“It’s never that simple.”
“Tell me something, Robin. What are these guys looking for? They’ve searched your apartment and your car—they’re looking for something. And I think you know what that something is.”
That pissed her off. “Up yours, you son of a bitch. Leave me alone, and I mean it,” she shouted int
o the phone. And then she hung up. So much for rational and unemotional behavior I thought.
“What did she have to say?” asked Kate.
“Other than an unflattering reference to my family lineage, very little, I’m afraid.”
We sent Michael Baker on his merry way with a promise that he would contact Kate or me if he heard from Joiner again, something I thought highly unlikely. She probably felt betrayed by his cooperation with us. I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d be waiting for him at the start of his class later in the afternoon. I wanted to interview the rest of Joiner’s study group. And, I thought, why spoil a nice surprise?
After he left, I gave Kate my impressions of the abbreviated telephone conversation I’d had with Joiner. “Two things stood out. The first was how freaked out she became when I asked her if she knew what these guys were looking for when they broke into her apartment and her car.”
“What do you make of that?” said Kate.
“I can’t be sure, but I think she’s hiding something. I just don’t know what it is or why she’s doing it. What I can tell you is that she didn’t want to talk about it. The other thing is that it seemed that when she asked if I really thought she was in danger, she was fishing for information.”
“You mean she was trying to get you to provide her with information that she didn’t already know.”
“Yeah, it seemed like that.”
“Well,” said Kate, “nothing’s changed. All we can do is continue to try to find her and hope, in the meantime, that she changes her mind and comes in on her own. Now, let me bring you up to speed on a couple of things you don’t know.”
“Good news, I hope.”
“Absolutely. I just heard from the crime lab on the suspected murder weapons. We came up empty on the tire iron, but on the knife, we’ve got a partial thumb print. They found it on the handle. It’s not complete, but they tell me it is sufficient for comparison. I’ve asked them to run the partial against Bradshaw’s fugitive family members.”
“And that would include…”
“Both of Walter’s sons, Albert and Joseph, as well as the two cousins, Randy and Robby Allred.”
“That is good news. Has the lab confirmed the tire iron and knife as the actual murder weapons?”
“Blood samples from both weapons match the vic’s blood type. The DNA test results won’t be available to confirm it for at least another week, but we’re ninety-nine percent sure we’ve got the murder weapons. They’re a close match to what the medical examiner told us to be looking for.”
“What about the vic’s car and wallet?”
“Nothing yet, but guess what? Joseph Bradshaw and Randy Allred left their fingerprints all over Joiner’s apartment. Joseph’s were also found on the handwritten note left in the apartment.”
“No big surprise, I guess. Just what these guys need—more new criminal charges,” I said. “That certainly removes any doubt about who’s trying to find her.”
***
“Come on,” I said to Kate. “We’ve got a lunch date downtown and we’re supposed to be there in ten minutes.”
That was news to her. As it turned out, the lunch date I’d arranged was with Jim Reilly, the family practice lawyer who had agreed to advise me on my pending child custody battle. Reilly had agreed to meet us between court appearances for lunch at Lamb’s Café in downtown Salt Lake City. Lamb’s was believed to be the oldest operating restaurant in Utah. It served consistently good food without having to take out a second mortgage on your home.
Reilly was a rotund, late thirties guy, sporting a mostly bald dome with a very bad comb-over. He wore a pair of khaki pants, a corduroy sport coat over a blue dress shirt with a red striped tie—professional looking but not expensive.
I thanked him for agreeing to meet us, and I offered to pay him his hourly rate.
“Not necessary,” he said. “I’m happy to do it. But I’ll tell you what. You can buy my lunch, how’s that?”
“You’re a cheap date,” I said.
He laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. Here’s what I think you should expect. And please understand that procedurally, things can vary from state to state. First thing I would advise is to retain a reputable family practice attorney in Atlanta.”
“I think we got a handle on that one,” said Kate.
“Good. Next, you’ll need to be prepared for a court-ordered evaluation of your home and that of your ex-wife. I can assure you that the judge will insist on that. It goes directly to the issue the court is going to be most concerned about, and that is, which family can best provide for the needs of your daughter.”
“Tell me how this home evaluation works,” I said. “Does the judge assign a social worker to visit both homes?”
“The court can order its own evaluation, but that’s not typically how it works. What usually happens is that each side hires its own person to conduct the evaluation unless the two sides can agree on a single individual.”
“I would think that a judge would prefer a single person to do the home studies,” said Kate.
“You’re right about that. Courts generally prefer one qualified therapist to evaluate both homes. In this case, it’s probably best to follow the advice of your Atlanta lawyer. If we had jurisdiction here, I’m reasonably confident that I’d be able to find one person to evaluate both homes. But often it depends upon factors such as the level of acrimony between the parents, who the lawyers are, those sorts of things.”
“What about jurisdiction?” I asked. “Is there any chance we could get the case transferred to Utah?”
“None. Jurisdiction is determined by where the divorce occurred. Kate told me that your ex filed in Georgia, so that’s where the jurisdiction remains—nothing you can do about that.”
“Any land mines I need to be watching for, Jim?”
“There’s one, and it’s important. In child custody cases, a sure fire way of alienating the judge is for either parent to get caught trying to pressure or manipulate the child into saying that he wants to live with one parent over the other. Remember, we’re not talking about a jury decision here. The judge makes the call, and if the judge is pissed at you, you might end up with an outcome you don’t like.”
“That’s a sobering thought,” I said.
“It is. Even if you discover that your ex is engaged in that kind behavior, don’t you do it. Just make sure the judge hears about what she’s doing. It won’t help her case, I can assure you of that.
“Well, I’m due in court in exactly fifteen minutes.” He stood and extended his hand. “Nice meeting you, Sam. If you think of any other questions, and you probably will, don’t hesitate to call.” As he walked past Kate, Reilly leaned down and gave her a smile and a peck on the cheek.
I resisted the growing sense of panic I felt deep in the pit of my stomach. I wanted Reilly to reassure me that everything would be alright—that I wouldn’t lose custody of my daughter, but I knew he couldn’t do that. Nobody could. The mere thought of seeing Sara torn from our lives by a juvenile court judge halfway across the country who didn’t know our family and who didn’t know Sara, was almost to painful to contemplate. It made me feel vulnerable, it made me feel powerless, and it made me feel angry.
Chapter Sixteen
When we left Lamb’s Café, Kate and I parted company. We planned to meet later for dinner at a new place somebody in her office recommended. When it comes to restaurants, I have to admit to being a creature of habit. Once I find one I like, I’ll eat there over and over again. Kate, on the other hand, is always on the look-out for a new and different dining experience. Slowly, and by sheer force of will, she has been expanding my culinary experiences.
I had a late afternoon date at the university with the rest of Robin Joiner’s study group although they didn’t know it. That left me with just enough time for a stop at the Utah State Bar Association office near downtown. The Bar’s Office of Professional Conduct
was responsible for investigating allegations of lawyer misconduct and meeting out disciplinary action when appropriate.
I checked my cell and noticed that I had a new voicemail message. It was Patti, asking me to call her. She answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Patti. What’s up?”
“Regarding Robin Joiner—no adult record whatsoever. She was arrested twice in Las Vegas as a juvenile, both misdemeanors, one for minor in possession of alcohol; the other was a marijuana possession charge. She received fines and community service in both cases. She was never formally supervised by Nevada youth corrections.”
“Nothing very unusual about any of that,” I said.
“There’s more. The juvenile court referred me to a caseworker in the child welfare department. It seems that all was not well in the Joiner home. Her father has never been in the picture. The mother, Betty, is a recovering drug addict, apparently in and out of treatment programs multiple times over the years. Anyway, she’s supposed to be clean now and working as a Black Jack dealer in a Mesquite casino. Robin has a long history of foster home placements. The records show that she was a reported runaway on three different occasions.”
“Sounds like a difficult childhood,” I said. “Have you been able to locate the mother?”
“The address you got from the university records seems to be the current one. I found a phone number at that address listed under the name, B. Joiner. I called. It’s a working number. I didn’t leave a message—figured you’d want to do that.”
“Thanks, Patti. I’ll follow up with a phone call when I get back to the office. Anything yet on Bradshaw’s lawyer, Gordon Dixon?”
“I’m workin on it. I should have something for you shortly.”
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