His prison caseworker described him as a model inmate. He worked part-time as a food handler in one of the prison dining facilities, finished his GED, and completed a substance abuse treatment program. His prison jacket was full of accolades from staff, and he had no record of disciplinary problems. After his release, the parole department supervised him for nearly three years without incident.
Seldom one to make the politically correct move, I decided, with a slight nudge from Burnham, to check in with Norm Sloan as previously directed. As much as it pained me, I first called Brad Ford, hoping he might be gone for the day or away from his phone. My good fortune held. He didn’t pick up and the call kicked into his voice mail.
“Brad, this is Sam. I was just trying to touch base and let you know where things stand. I’ll try the old man on his cell.”
Sloan answered on the second ring. “I’ve got good news and bad. Which would you like first?”
“Let’s start with the bad. Then it can only get better.”
“Salt Lake P.D. eliminated Merchant as a suspect. His alibi checked out. He’s an asshole, but in this case, he’s the wrong asshole.”
“And the good news?”
“We may have another suspect.” I then told him about the information provided by Baxter Shaw and the subsequent identification of Charles Watts as a possible perp.
“You consider that good news, Kincaid. Can’t you help Salt Lake P.D. find a homicide suspect outside our offender population?”
“Sorry about that, boss. It’s possible that this may turn out to be another dead end like John Merchant.”
“Where do you go from here?”
“I need to inform Salt Lake City P.D. Homicide. I haven’t said anything to them yet. As for Watts, I think we start digging into his whereabouts at the time of the murder, and see where that takes us. So far, we don’t have anybody who can place him near the scene.”
“All right. Let me know what develops. If you can’t reach me, get hold of Ford. Make sure I have a complete copy of Watts’ file on my desk first thing in the morning. And Sam, I’m sure you haven’t forgotten your appointment tomorrow morning with Marilyn Hastings from the Employee Assistance Program. She’s expecting you.”
“I can hardly wait.
“I’ll keep you informed as things develop with Watts.”
“See that you do,” he said, and the line went dead.
***
Burnham and I took the department’s last known address for Watts and drove to the residence. It was a new apartment complex located in an older part of Salt Lake City. The apartment manager told us that Watts had vacated the place one month prior and had left no forwarding address.
From there, we tried his last known place of employment, an all-night restaurant chain near downtown. We learned that he’d quit that job about the same time he moved out of the apartment. He had worked as a cook on the swing shift. The restaurant manager described him as a reliable employee who kept to himself. She didn’t have a forwarding address, but she gave us a home telephone number that turned out to be disconnected.
Burnham telephoned an old friend employed by Utah Power. Within minutes, we were rewarded with a return call that provided us with an address in West Valley City where Watts was listed as the individual paying the utility bill.
Watts lived on one side of a brown brick duplex located on a street filled with identical brown brick duplexes. The home looked empty. There were no vehicles parked in the driveway and no lights were on. I walked quietly onto the front porch, opened the mail box, and found several pieces of junk mail and a utility bill addressed to Watts.
After returning to the office, I was about to call Kate and tell her about Watts when my phone rang. It was McConnell calling to report a major breakthrough in the case.
Chapter Seventeen
We had just gotten lucky. Kate received a phone call from the crime laboratory. While processing the cigarette butts found at Vogue’s home, a lab technician concluded that neither contained a DNA sample; however, one of them yielded a comparable right-index-finger latent print. A subsequent search through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, AFIS, for short, produced a list of six possible matches.
“In order to narrow this down, we’ve got to get our hands on all six original fingerprint cards, and then have a certified examiner make the match,” said Kate. “As it stands, three of the possibles are individuals we’ve arrested, so we already have those fingerprint cards. We have to get the other three directly from the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification. They were busted by other Utah police agencies. I’ve got Vince running those down right now.”
“Maybe we can narrow that list and save everybody time and effort.”
“Okay. You’ve got my undivided attention. How do you propose we do that?”
“Does the name Charles Watts appear on the list of possible matches?”
There was a long pause before she answered. “Sure does. You obviously know something I don’t. Do fill me in.”
I spent the next few minutes explaining what I’d learned from Baxter Shaw as well as the effort Burnham and I had made in our attempt to locate Watts. We decided that Terry and I should return to Watts’ home and establish visual surveillance while McConnell prepared a search warrant. Besides a witness who could place Watts’ vehicle in the vicinity of the murder at about the time the killing occurred, we now had a single fingerprint that placed Watts at the victim’s home. With a little luck, a search of the home might turn up additional evidence linking him to the murder.
We settled down for what could be a lengthy wait.
***
By the time McConnell and Turner caught up with us at a location a couple of blocks from Watts’ home, three hours had passed. There was still no sign of Watts. Kate had brought Tom Stoddard from the Salt Lake County Attorney’s Office to assist. She seemed somehow uncomfortable with his presence. I couldn’t tell whether something had happened between them to create the strain, or whether McConnell was uncomfortable because she knew that I knew about their ongoing relationship. As for me, I had to admit his presence created just a tinge of something—insecurity or jealousy perhaps, feelings I’d just as soon not have, those ugly emotions best kept locked in a jar on a shelf somewhere.
Stoddard was a career prosecutor. He joined the Salt Lake County Attorney’s Office right out of law school. Over time, he developed a reputation as a fair, but tough-minded prosecutor. Now he was one of just a handful of senior deputies who prosecuted the most serious felony offenses. He would be the logical choice to prosecute this one.
Executing the search warrant came off without a hitch. Turner found an unsecured window at the side of the duplex leading into one of the bedrooms. He popped the screen off and was inside in seconds. The duplex was small with everything on one level. The furnishings looked cheap, but relatively new, like maybe they had come from a furniture rental company.
We donned latex gloves and divided into two teams. Stoddard kept his distance and observed. We searched the place systematically with one team following the other from room to room. McConnell and I took the lead, while Burnham and Turner followed.
We began in the kitchen. While I had my nose buried in a rank-smelling refrigerator, Kate examined a stack of mostly junk mail left on top of a small dining table.
Within seconds, she said, “Take a look at this, Sam.”
“Find something interesting?”
She didn’t answer immediately. She was reading hand-written notes from a lined yellow pad. “These notes contain dates, times, and places, that trace the movements of Vogue. They detail his comings-and-goings from home and the parole board office.”
I was reading over her shoulder. “Jesus. Look at that,” I said, pointing to the last entry on the page. “It appears Watts had even tracked Vogue to the Starlite Motel. Levi didn’t realize it, but he was being stalked in the days leading to his murder.”
“That’s what it looks like,” said K
ate. She photographed the notes and placed them in an evidence bag.
Minutes later, while she rummaged through a dresser drawer full of socks and underwear, Kate found something else. “Look at this, Sam. Two boxes of twelve gauge shotgun shells. One hasn’t been opened, but the other has. Five shells are missing.”
“Mr. Watts now has something else to explain,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the shotgun turns up as well.”
It didn’t.
We left a copy of the warrant in the house as well as an inventory record of the property we had seized.
Turning to Stoddard, Kate said, “I think it’s time we get an arrest warrant for Mr. Watts.”
Stoddard agreed. “One count of capital murder sounds about right. I’d be happy to take this case to a jury with the existing evidence. The case is largely circumstantial, but it’s a strong one nonetheless. I’ve seen juries convict on less. If you want to drive a nail in the coffin, pick him up, break him down, and get a confession from the SOB.”
“Sounds like a plan,” replied Kate. “I’ll put the arrest warrant affidavit together. We’ll get out a statewide alert, and I’ll see that the warrant gets entered into the National Crime Information Center and the Utah system.”
“I’ll tell you what you’d better do right now, and that’s get a surveillance team back to the house,” said Burnham. “Assuming he’s around, the moment dip shit opens his front door, he’s gonna see the warrant and property inventory report. He’ll know the party’s over and then watch him run. He’ll likely end up on the next bus to Tijuana.”
As the junior member of the team, Turner found himself elected to pull the first watch on Watts’ home. Kate left her vehicle with Turner. She and Stoddard hitched a ride back with Burnham and me to police headquarters. The ride was filled with small talk that seemed awkward and stilted, and mercifully, finally gave way to complete silence.
***
After unloading my passengers, the ride home gave me time to think. I should have been feeling a sense of relief. We were poised to make an important bust in a high-visibility crime that had put all of us in a pressure cooker. But something didn’t feel right to me, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It all seemed to fit. We’d developed a solid suspect who possessed a long and serious criminal history. He had motive. He had opportunity. And we had evidence. Oh, how we had evidence. Most of it was circumstantial, but there was plenty of it. Individually, the pieces of evidence were damaging enough. When looked at collectively, it would be a tough case to defend and an easy one to prosecute.
So why was I still having this nagging doubt? It was a neat case wrapped in a pretty box with a silver bow on it. But was it too neat? Maybe.
***
As the first hint of orange sky touched the eastern horizon, the late model Ford Taurus turned slowly on to Lariat Circle. The driver shut off the headlights and rolled the vehicle to a stop a short distance from Sam Kincaid’s home.
The passenger reached into her purse and removed a pack of Marlboros and a well-traveled Bic pen. She cracked the window and lit a cigarette. The driver sipped lukewarm coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Despite the early morning chill, he lowered the driver’s side window.
“You gotta smoke that shit in here?” he asked irritably.
“Bite me.”
At six-twenty, the porch light came on, and an elderly woman wearing a pink terrycloth bathrobe stepped out and retrieved a newspaper.
“I thought you said Kincaid lived by himself with a young kid.”
“That’s the scuttlebutt. Supposedly, both his parents were killed in an accident a couple of years ago, and then he got divorced,” she replied.
“Yeah, then who the fuck is the old lady?”
“How the hell should I know—maybe a visiting relative or a live-in nanny? What the fuck difference does it make?”
“It might make a difference if we have to come back to this house at some point and take care of business.”
“I don’t see what you’re worried about. We can take care of three just as easily as two.”
At six-forty, the garage door opened and a silver, late model Jeep Cherokee backed into the street and left.
“There goes Kincaid,” he said. “The boy likes to get an early start. What’s the old saying—early bird catches the worm?”
“Not this time,” she replied.
At seven-twenty, an old Buick Century backed out of the garage and drove a short distance to Jane Adams Elementary School. The Taurus followed. They watched as the old lady dropped the kid at school and returned home.
Having accomplished what they intended, they left.
Chapter Eighteen
As he left home for the office, Wendover, Utah Police Chief Walt Corey heard the call dispatching one of his patrol officers to the old abandoned military base. Children playing in the area had reported seeing a man slumped over the wheel of a parked car, probably a customer from one of the nearby casinos, who’d had a few too many drinks the night before and was sleeping it off. That wasn’t unusual for this community.
Corey was surprised when he heard the nearly hysterical voice of his newest patrol officer, who came on the radio announcing to anyone with a police scanner that the drunk sleeping in the car was really a dead guy with a bullet hole behind his left ear. When the tirade ended, Corey calmly got on the radio.
“Bobby, this is Corey. I’d like you to take a deep breath and calm down. I want you to do two things: First, secure the perimeter around the car. Then make sure nobody contaminates the scene. Got it.”
“Okay, Chief.”
“And Bobby, don’t worry about contacting the complainant or looking for witnesses. We can do that later. Just secure the scene until I get there.”
When Corey arrived, he carefully approached the cream-colored Ford Escort and looked through the driver’s side window. The deceased was slumped forward with his head resting on the steering wheel. In his left hand, which was in his lap, Corey saw some type of small-caliber revolver. There wasn’t much visible blood, but he definitely saw a small hole behind the left ear, just as his patrol officer had reported. He didn’t open the car door or touch the vehicle.
When he returned to the patrol car, Corey turned and asked the young officer, “Bobby, did you touch the car or the body in the car?”
“No, sir,” replied Patrolman Bobby Sanders. “When I first walked over to the vehicle, Chief, I noticed what I thought might be a little bit of dried blood on the guy’s neck, and then I saw the small hole behind his ear. I looked at him through the front windshield, and I could see those eyes, sir, dead eyes. I went right back to my cruiser and radioed for assistance.”
“Okay, Bobby, good,” replied Corey. “At first glance, this looks to me like it’s probably a self-inflicted wound, but since we can’t be one hundred percent sure, it’s important to treat the case as a possible homicide until the investigation tells us something different.”
“Right, Chief,” replied Sanders, trying his best to disguise his resentment over the Chief’s lecture of basic criminal investigation procedure he’d learned in the state police academy four months earlier.
Corey asked the county dispatch center to contact the state crime lab and the Utah Medical Examiner’s Office for assistance. He then ran a registration check on the Ford Escort and learned that it belonged to Charles Watts, whose address showed a Salt Lake City post office box. The state motor vehicle office produced driver’s license information which closely matched the physical description of the body in the car.
“Well, what do you think, Bobby?” Corey asked.
“I think we got ourselves a match, Chief. He looks a little heavier than what’s on his driver’s license, but the age, height, and hair color seem about right.”
“That’s what I think too.”
Corey used his cell phone and called the department. He directed the receptionist to telephone each of the West Wendover casinos to determine whether any of them had rented a room
to Charles Watts. A few minutes later, the receptionist returned his call and reported that Watts had checked into the Red Garter Hotel and Casino as a single, early the previous day.
Corey left Sanders and a newly arrived deputy from the County Sheriff’s Office to protect the crime scene while he drove over to the Red Garter. He met the general manager and the hotel’s director of security. Together they entered Watts’ room.
At first glance, the room looked no different than that of any other hotel guest. The bath contained a small travel kit with deodorant, razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, and toothpaste scattered about on the sink’s Formica counter. One pair of pants and a single shirt hung in the closet. On the night stand next to the bed lay a copy of Hustler magazine. A small zippered duffel bag lay on the bed. It contained assorted clothing and a plastic sandwich bag, with what appeared to be a small amount of marijuana, a hash pipe, and some Zig-Zag papers. On top of the small desk lay a handwritten note on hotel stationery signed by Watts. It read:
Sorry to do this to you Sis, but my life is out of control—really out of control this time. I’m back into the drugs again and I do awful things when I’m high. I won’t let them send me back. I can’t live like that. Life is fucked. This is the best way out for me. I love you Sis.
Chuck
Corey reread the note and wondered just what kind of awful things the deceased was talking about. He took the suicide note and the drugs as evidence. He asked the security director to lock the room and not allow anyone inside until he found someone to inventory the deceased’s personal property. This only served to confirm what he already suspected. This death was the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a suicide committed by a despondent guy who happened to have a handgun in his possession, and who probably would turn out to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs when he ended his life. A relieved Corey radioed his young patrolman and told him about the drugs and the suicide note. He returned to the scene and handed over the evidence to Sanders before heading into his office.
Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission Page 8