Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

by Michael Norman

  Sara had become a voracious reader. Her weekly allowance was tied to how much she read and how little TV she watched. Soon I was going to need a second job just to keep up with her growing allowance. The kid had a savings account I was starting to envy.

  We went over her homework assignments and got her ready for bed. We settled in the family room for an evening with Harry Potter. Some nights she read to me, and other times I read to her. This time it was my turn. She didn’t make it through a whole chapter before falling asleep. I carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed, but not before I promised to take her and a friend on a Saturday adventure to Hogle Zoo.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Early the next morning, I was in my office at the state penitentiary, knee-deep in neglected paperwork that had been accumulating in my absence. I also had Burnham at my door with two new cases involving employee misconduct. In one of them, a supervisor discovered a female corrections officer in a social worker’s office engaged in oral sex with a male inmate. The other case involved a civilian employee who worked in the prison culinary and was caught smuggling marijuana into the institution. To his credit, Burnham had not only managed to provide valuable assistance on the Vogue investigation, but had also kept the SIB functioning properly in my absence.

  In recent months, Terry had become a workaholic and I was beginning to worry about him. Laura, his wife of thirty-three years, had died a year ago from complications resulting from a lifelong battle with diabetes. Instead of slowing down or taking a leave of absence, Burnham was trying to cope by working sixty-hour weeks, and then self-medicating during his off-duty time with too much Johnny Walker Black.

  ***

  By late morning, I had begun to feel that I might get caught up by day’s end if I could avoid serious interruptions. However, my good fortune didn’t last. The office phone rang. It was Kate.

  “Good morning, Lt. McConnell. I’d like to believe you’re calling to tell me what a marvelous time you had last night and that we should do it again soon, but somehow, I doubt that.”

  “I did have a great time last night, thank you very much. And yes, I think we should get together again. But you’re right, that’s not why I called.”

  “Okay. You’ve got my undivided attention. What’s up?”

  “I just got off the phone with the State Medical Examiner’s Office. They’ve completed the autopsy on Watts. They’ve concluded that his death was a homicide, not a suicide. And apparently, they’ve got the forensic evidence to back it up.”

  “Whoa! That does change things a bit, doesn’t it?” I said. “Have you said anything about this to His Eminence, Hyrum Locke?”

  “Not yet. I’d rather sit down with the ME and go over the forensic evidence first. Chief Corey was notified, and he’s on his way in right now. The ME has set a meeting for this afternoon at one-thirty. Can you make it?”

  “Sure, I’ll be there. I’ll bet Corey damn near had a stroke when he heard the news. That makes this a whole lot more complicated.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “The jurisdiction actually belongs to the Wendover Police Department. I doubt if they have the expertise or resources to effectively handle a sophisticated murder investigation. Who’s going to provide the assistance? And is Corey savvy enough to recognize that he needs help? And here’s one for you: What incentive will the brass have for allowing you to continue working the case, assuming Corey wants help in the first place? Both our departments seem more than happy with the current resolution of this thing. Why rock the boat? Why put this whole mess back on the front page of every major newspaper in the West?”

  “It’s going to end up back under the media spotlight whether anybody likes it or not, and I think the brass will want to see this through, regardless of the adverse publicity that might come with it,” said Kate.

  “Well, maybe, but remember that both our departments want this case to go away for a myriad of reasons beyond media scrutiny. The victim’s family, Richard Vogue in particular, scares the hell out of the honorable mayor, and to a lesser extent, both our bosses.”

  I went on, “Put yourself in the place of Richard Vogue. You just find out that the man who killed your son was himself the victim of a murder, elaborately staged to look like a suicide. What would you think about that?”

  “If I were Richard Vogue, I’d be thinking that the authorities may have correctly identified my son’s murderer, but they failed to uncover the real motive for his death and the identity of the person or persons who conspired to have him killed. I’d also be thinking that the investigation is only half-finished until the police discover who is behind all of this. And I wouldn’t have any reason to believe that my son was anything other than a Boy Scout, unless someone told me otherwise.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And you make a very intriguing point. What if someone does sit down with papa Vogue and tells him about Sue Ann Winkler, the Satin & Lace Club, and Levi’s porn collection, including the one he starred in. He then has a very interesting problem. He can apply pressure to snuff the investigation in the name of protecting his late son’s reputation, or he can insist on a full, open investigation, and let the chips fall where they may. An interesting dilemma, don’t you think?”

  “For sure. I don’t know about you, but I intend to use everything at my disposal to stay on this investigation. The job is only half done,” said Kate.

  “Yeah, I’m with you on that. See you at the meeting this afternoon.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  On my way to the State Medical Examiner’s Office, a couple of thoughts occurred to me.

  I called Burnham on my cell. “Terry, I need you to do something for me as soon as possible. Call the prison and find out which caseworker was assigned to Watts during his last prison commitment. See if the caseworker’s file contains anything written by Watts. I have a hunch we’re going to need original handwriting samples.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Burnham. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, there is one more thing. I’d like you to attend Vogue’s funeral with me. Find out when and where the funeral will be held. I think the family put everything on hold for a few days waiting for several relatives to arrive from out of state. I’ll bet it’s scheduled sometime in the next day or two.”

  “I’ll check into it and let you know. Mind telling me though why you want us to attend?”

  “Let’s just call it professional courtesy.”

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you.”

  ***

  The Utah State Medical Examiner’s Office was located on Salt Lake City’s east bench not far from the University of Utah. It commanded a strikingly beautiful view of the Salt Lake Valley. I parked my car under their covered parking terrace and was directed by a receptionist to a small conference room adjacent to the lobby. Kate and Walt Corey were waiting.

  Within minutes, we were joined by Harold Voddel, who had performed the autopsies on both Levi Vogue and Charles Watts. He was joined by Doctor Frances Chandler-Soames, who had been the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Utah longer than I’ve been employed by the Department of Corrections. Her reputation as a forensic pathologist was second to none.

  Chandler-Soames was clear from the outset that she concurred with Voddel’s autopsy findings, ending any concerns we might have had about his relative inexperience.

  “Mr. Watts died sometime between one and three a.m. from a single twenty-five caliber gunshot wound to the head. In all likelihood, the single shot produced death almost instantaneously,” said the young medical examiner. “We carefully removed the twenty-five caliber slug during the autopsy. It came out undamaged and is now available for ballistics testing. The stomach contained a partially digested dinner consumed some three to four hours prior to death. A blood sample revealed a small amount of alcohol in the victim’s system, but not enough to reach Utah’s .08 legal limit. The bullet entered behind the decedent’s left ear and was lodged in the lower jaw. There was no exit wound.”<
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  In Utah, the state medical examiner not only determined the cause of death, but also whether a death was accidental, a suicide, or a criminal homicide. Voddel continued, “Two factors make it all but impossible for me to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Watts shot himself. First, the downward trajectory of the bullet occurred at such an angle as to make it highly unlikely that it was self-inflicted. Gunshot suicides which occur with the entry wound behind the ear, while not uncommon, almost always show an upward trajectory of the bullet because that is the more natural body position. Second, the absence of powder burns or residue on the victim’s skin suggested that the fatal shot was fired from a likely distance of one to two feet. Taken together, Mr. Watts would have had to place his left hand and arm into an almost impossible position from which to discharge the weapon. And he couldn’t possibly have accomplished that unless the driver-side door or window was open. And they were both closed.”

  “Harry Houdini couldn’t have made that move,” chimed Chandler-Soames, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “The likely scenario is that your shooter was standing outside the victim’s vehicle, slightly to the rear, and fired a single shot, that struck Mr. Watts behind his left ear at the downward angle. He probably never saw it coming.”

  The room was silent as we absorbed what we had just heard. The only audible sound came from Walt Corey’s growling stomach. Finally, I broke the silence. “I’ve got Terry tracking down Watts’ former prison caseworker, who should be able to provide us with handwriting samples.”

  “That’s good. If Watts’ death isn’t a suicide, then the note Walt found in the hotel room has to be a forgery,” said Kate. Turning to Corey, she said: “Chief, you’ve got some decisions to make. Do you plan to carry this homicide investigation forward on your own or seek outside assistance?”

  For the first time since we arrived, Corey smiled. “I think we’ve got our homicide team sitting right here. Let’s cut to the chase. I’ve got a small department with limited resources in a town that rarely sees a murder. The few we do get are usually family disturbances that turn violent, and somebody ends up killing somebody. Pretty much open-and-shut cases. This isn’t one of those cut-and-dried domestic violence cases. We’re gonna need some help with this one.

  “It also seems to tie directly into your ongoing investigation of the murder of that parole board member. You’ve still got work to do before you figure out who would go to all the trouble of killing the killer. I’d just like to know whose hairy ass I might need to kiss in order to keep the two of you working this case?”

  I liked Corey when I first met him in Wendover a day earlier. I liked him even better now, and I think Kate did too. His analysis of our predicament suggested a guy who possessed a solid grasp of the factual situation as well as the political context in which we found ourselves. I wondered if our two departments would try to wash their hands of the investigation and dump it on a small, understaffed, rural police department. We were about to find out.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  At the conclusion of their presentation, members of the State Medical Examiner’s Office excused themselves, leaving Kate, Corey, and me alone in the conference room. Once again, things were about to heat up, and we needed a plan.

  “What the hell do we do now?” asked Corey.

  “Sam and I had better break the bad news to our respective agency heads ASAP,” said Kate. “They’d like this case to disappear quietly. Our job will be to convince them to let us continue working the investigation.”

  “Go away, it ain’t,” muttered Corey. “I know Chief Hansen well and I’ve met Sloan. I think I’ll call ’em and ask to have both of you continue working the case in coordination with my office.”

  I liked that idea and so did Kate. Whatever pressure he could apply wouldn’t hurt us and might help. Without question, our investigation had produced Vogue’s killer. The missing piece of the puzzle, however, was who killed Slick Watts? Only when we had the answer to that question would we fully understand the motive behind the murder of the Chairman of the Board of Pardons.

  “You or somebody from your department needs to contact the Vogue family and explain what’s going on before the press gets wind of it,” I said to Kate. “Once this goes public, the mayor, and your department brass, are going to have doo doo all over their faces. They better be prepared for the shit-storm of criticism the press is likely to dump on them.”

  “Serves ’em right,” snapped Kate. “We tried to get them to hold off on the press conference, but they wouldn’t listen. Now they’ll just have to deal with the consequences.”

  One troubling issue I hadn’t mentioned to Kate was that whoever hired Watts for what now appeared to be the contract murder of Levi Vogue had selected a career criminal with a perfect motive for wanting Vogue dead. Who would have that kind of inside information? Maybe it was a coincidence. On the other hand, prison gangs might be able to leverage that sort of information from their own sources. Or the information could have come from somebody employed inside the system, like say, someone working for the Department of Corrections.

  Our meeting was interrupted by a call on my cell. It was Patti calling to tell me that Burnham had located Watts’ prison caseworker. He’d also examined the caseworker’s file and discovered an ample supply of original handwriting samples we could use to compare to the writing on the alleged suicide note. Terry was on his way from the prison to deliver the samples.

  “A couple of things need to happen with the suicide note right away,” I said. “We should have a lab technician examine it for latent prints. If Watts really wrote it, his prints should be on it. Then, Kate, let’s have one of your document examiners compare the note with the original writing samples. That should give us some answers.”

  “I’m ahead of you on the first one. I asked the lab crew to examine the note for latent prints before we left Wendover. I’ll call them now and see if they’ve got the results. I can also get a priority response from our document examiners as soon as we provide them with the suicide note and the comparison writing samples.”

  “Can’t beat that for service,” said Corey.

  Kate called the crime lab, while Corey and I discussed what needed to happen relative to the investigation in Wendover. A crime lab team needed to return to Wendover. Corey agreed to have them process Watts’ car and hotel room. He called the hotel manager, who assured him that the room was still secure.

  “Well, surprise, surprise,” said Kate. “The latent print examiner just finished with the suicide note, and guess what? The note has been wiped clean. No prints at all. Zip! None!

  “For those of us who may have doubted the medical examiner’s conclusions, we all get to eat a little crow.”

  We spent the last few minutes with Corey reviewing what we knew. We laid out the entire case, carefully omitting the negative character information about Vogue. That would probably have to be divulged at some point, but not now. That information would be treated on a need-to-know basis. And for now, Chief Corey didn’t need that information.

  Our meeting broke up. My adrenaline was flowing. It was time to get back on the hunt.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Later that afternoon, I was ushered into the office of Salt Lake City Chief of Police Ron Hansen. It was a well-appointed office with a large, formal-looking cherry desk and a high-back, gray leather chair. A black leather couch sat directly in front of the desk. Hansen directed me toward a rectangular conference table from which he would conduct the meeting.

  The ego wall behind his desk was impressive. It was full, displaying framed copies of every degree and training certificate he’d amassed over a quarter century in police work. It included a picture of the chief shaking hands with a smiling President Bill Clinton.

  This was a somber-looking group. Besides Chief Hansen, Salt Lake P.D. representatives included Deputy Chief Puffer, Captain Hyrum Locke, and Kate. Across the table sat my boss, Brad Ford, and me.

  Loc
ke spoke first. “We have several issues that require our immediate attention. Given that we now know Charles Watts was murdered in Wendover, and considering that the evidence amassed in our own investigation makes it a virtual certainty he was the shooter in the Vogue homicide, do we continue allocating our resources to the investigation, or do we leave the matter in the hands of the Wendover P.D., which now has primary jurisdiction? ”

  That was the big question, and Locke put it on the table in record time. Kate looked concerned.

  “Which leads directly to the next issue. Who is going to act as spokesperson to the Vogue family? And how much information do we give them and when? Since the investigation appears about to be resurrected, is it time we level with them about Levi’s extra curricular activities? If they find out about it from some other source, we’re toast.

  “And that brings me to the last question. How do we handle the press now? The moment this hits the wire, we’re right back in the hot seat. We might be able to delay releasing the information for a few hours, or perhaps a day, but that’s about it.”

  Turning to Kate, Locke asked, “Do you guys see any advantage in delaying the press release?”

  “Only that we’d have a few more hours to work the case without members of the media lurking behind every tree. Actually, Sam and I have discussed the issue and we think a carefully worded press release wouldn’t hurt the investigation and might even be useful.”

  “In what way?” said Hansen.

  “Up until now, whoever is responsible for the murders has to be thinking they’ve gotten away with it. Let’s make them uncomfortable. Let’s use the media to send them a message. Who knows, maybe they’ll panic and make a mistake. We don’t think there’s anything to lose. We go public, explaining that the death of Watts involved foul play and is being investigated as a criminal homicide, not a suicide. We don’t need to be specific. We don’t reveal that the alleged suicide note was a forgery and has been wiped clean of prints. Let them wonder just how much we do know,” said Kate.