Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission (9 page)

Chapter Nineteen

At precisely nine a.m., I found myself in the office of Dr. Marilyn Hastings from the Employee Assistance Program. Hastings was a licensed clinical social worker, who, in a previous life, had been a caseworker at the Utah State Prison. She handled the EAP for the Department of Corrections as well as several Salt Lake valley law enforcement agencies.

I was annoyed at having to be here, if for no other reason than the time it took away from the case. But department policy was department policy, and I had reluctantly concluded that this was one situation where ducking the rules wasn’t going to work. If I’d blown off the appointment, I’d find myself back in the Norm Sloan doghouse and probably suspended as well.

The session with Hastings went smoothly and faster than I would have imagined. The questions didn’t come as any great surprise. How was I sleeping? Was I eating? Was I spending excessive amounts of time dwelling on the shooting? Any emotional outbursts such as prolonged bouts of crying? Was I having any suicidal ideations? Was I drinking excessively or using drugs as a result of the shooting? I wondered if my answers made me sound like a cold-hearted bastard. She sent me out the door with a clean bill of health and a promise to contact her if I began experiencing problems.

***

I wasn’t quite to my office when my cell phone rang. It was Kate, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

“I hope you’re sitting down, Sam. Watts has surfaced in Wendover.”

“That’s good, so what’s the problem?”

“The problem is he’s dead,” she replied.

“No shit. What happened?”

“That’s the interesting part. I just got off the phone with Walt Corey, the Chief of Police in Wendover, Utah. He says one of his patrolmen found Watts in a parked car this morning with a gun in his hand and a bullet behind his left ear. They’re treating the case as a suicide.”

“Have they made a positive identification?”

“Yeah. They’re sure it’s him.”

“Are they certain it’s a suicide?”

“Chief Corey says he traced him back to one of the local hotel casinos on the Nevada side. He’d rented a room the previous day. Corey says when he and the hotel’s security staff searched the room, they found a suicide note addressed to Watts’ sister. What do you make of that?”

“Beats me. What did the suicide note say?”

“He didn’t read it to me, and I guess I was too shell-shocked to ask.”

“You say the note was addressed to a sister, huh. I’ll double-check our file, but I remember reading that this guy was a loner with no family support. And I don’t recall seeing anything in his history indicating that he might be suicidal.”

“What are you suggesting, Sam?”

“Probably nothing. Given what Chief Corey told you, it sounds like a suicide.”

“We’ll know more once we see the autopsy report and what, if anything, the crime scene unit finds. How do you feel about spending the day in Wendover?”

“You can drop me at one of the casinos. I’m actually overdue for a few hands of blackjack. I’ll pick you up at your office in twenty.”

Chapter Twenty

As we made the one-hundred-twenty-mile drive from Salt Lake City to Wendover, I quickly regretted offering to drive. It seemed that no matter how fast I drove, it wasn’t fast enough for McConnell. I’d ridden with her just enough to conclude that a routine trip to the supermarket would probably be akin to occupying the pole position at the Daytona 500. The woman had little regard for speed limits. I, on the other hand, have been accused of driving like Mr. Magoo. It would be just my luck to run into some eager highway patrol trooper who happened to be short on traffic citations for the month. Many state troopers rank a good speeding violation right up there with finding a dead body stuffed in the trunk of a car.

As we entered Wendover, McConnell’s cell phone rang. I couldn’t tell who she was talking to, but it was soon evident that she didn’t much like what she was hearing. Comments like, “This seems premature to me,” “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” and “I think you’re really jumping the gun here,” told me something was coming down from above that she didn’t like, but couldn’t control. It reminded me of those age-old police management principles, around which careers were made and broken: seize the credit; cover your ass; and if necessary, spread the blame.

When she disconnected, Kate muttered, “What an arrogant jerk.”

“What was that all about?”

“That was none other than Captain Hyrum Locke. After I informed him this morning about the fate of Mr. Watts, he ran the information directly to Chief Hansen, who in turn immediately contacted the mayor. They’re going to hold another press conference this afternoon at four o’clock and lay the whole thing out for the media. That way they’ll capture all of the local television coverage. I couldn’t convince him to postpone until we had a chance to review the medical examiner’s report.”

“Don’t act so surprised, Kate. The political heat has been on from the get-go, and the powers-that-be wanted a speedy resolution to the case, and now they have it. You can hardly blame them. This will make your department look good and ought to provide some measure of satisfaction for the Vogue family. In one sense, this is absolutely the best thing that could have happened as far as the victim’s family is concerned.”

“How so?”

“Look at it this way. If we had busted Watts, it would have taken the case years to work its way through the courts. Everybody knows it would have been tried as a capital case. Assuming a court conviction and endless years of death penalty appeals, it would have haunted his family for years. This way maybe they have a chance to begin the healing process. And maybe nobody has to hear about Vogue’s, how can I say this gently, seedy side.”

“You’re probably right. We would have had to produce a lot of the information about Sue Ann Winkler, the Satin & Lace club, and the Starlite Motel during discovery. Vogue would have had his good name dragged through the mud, and there’s nothing anybody could have done to prevent it.”

With the impending four o’clock news conference, I wasted no time calling Sloan. He doesn’t appreciate being interrupted when he’s busy groveling for money at the state legislature, but he doesn’t like surprises either, and he’d want this information. He needed to get ready to do some damage control on behalf of the department. On the first ring, I got Brad Ford. To my surprise, he didn’t argue when I told him we had an emergency related to the Vogue killing, and that I needed to speak directly to Sloan. After a lengthy pause, Sloan came on the line.

“Good morning, Sam. Please fill me in quickly. You’ve actually caught me during a short break from the Executive Appropriations Committee, but we’re due to resume in about five minutes.”

“I’m calling you from Wendover.”

“Wendover! What the hell are you doing out there?”

“Charles Watts was found dead early this morning by Wendover P.D. at the abandoned military base. They’re handling the case as a suicide. It looks like a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

“Hmmm. That isn’t necessarily all bad. Tell me more.”

“The touchy issue is that Mayor Baldwin and Chief Hansen have called a news conference this afternoon at four. McConnell believes they intend to lay out the entire case against Watts and declare the crime solved. I think you should expect a barrage of calls from the media asking the usual questions: Why was he out of prison in the first place? Why was he released from parole supervision? Is the Department of Corrections responsible for Vogue’s murder because we failed to rehabilitate the guy? The usual bullshit stuff. I didn’t want you caught off guard, and I wasn’t sure if Chief Hansen planned on giving you a heads-up prior to the news conference.”

“They haven’t contacted me so far,” Sloan said irritably. “Chief Hansen and I go back a long way. You’d think he would have called out of professional courtesy.

“I appreciate your keeping me abreast of developments, Sam. This may turn out to be the best resolution for all parties concerned. Planting this guy six feet under will make the entire shoddy episode disappear off the media’s radar screen quickly. Obviously, it would have been better if Vogue’s killer hadn’t come from our offender population, but he did, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’d be in a more tenuous situation if Watts were still under parole supervision. But he wasn’t. And we never paroled the guy in the first place. The Board of Pardons did that. And it was the board that ultimately decided to release him from parole supervision. That wasn’t our call either.” He paused.

“I think we can manage this crisis fairly well, Sam. I’m actually kind of relieved at the turn of events. I’ve got to get back to the committee. Keep me informed if anything new develops. And thanks for the heads-up.” The line went dead.

***

When we arrived in Wendover, we had to locate the abandoned army airbase where the body had been discovered. We found it south of town, well off the main drag. Our path took us down a weedy, gravel road with drab-looking wooden barracks lined up in symmetrical rows. The secret airbase was used during World War II to train B-29 crews, including that of the
Enola Gay
, which ultimately dropped the big one on Japan. A row of old clapboard houses, long overdue for a paint job, perched on a bluff overlooking the base. The homes were probably used by military personnel during the war, but now had the look of a low-income housing project. I could see a handful of children and adults out on their lawns taking in the spectacle below.

If Charles Watts had chosen to end his life here, he couldn’t have picked a lonelier, more forbidding location.

By the time we arrived, the crime scene technicians had videotaped and photographed the area. They had removed the firearm, a twenty-five caliber Colt with a filed-off serial number, and had assumed custody of the suicide note. The medical examiner had just removed the body from the vehicle. Both hands had been carefully bagged and the body placed onto a gurney and then zipped into a black body bag.

Kate noted that the responding medical examiner was Harold Voddel, the same ME who had handled Vogue’s autopsy. Voddel placed the time of death between midnight and four a.m. The single shot had entered behind Watts’ left ear. Like many small-caliber weapons, a twenty-five caliber slug to the head often rattles around, but doesn’t create an exit wound.

The State Crime Lab crew had decided not to process the victim’s car for prints, since the case was being treated as a suicide. An inventory search of the vehicle had turned up nothing useful, other than several unpaid parking tickets and some papers indicating Watts had recently applied for state unemployment compensation.

We met Walt Corey in his office. He did not fit my stereotypical image of what I thought the Chief of Police in Wendover, Utah, might look like. In a staunch Mormon community, I envisioned a fit, healthy-looking, clean-cut member of the church running the police department. That wasn’t Walt Corey. He must have been in his late thirties, although he looked much older. His receding hairline, swarthy complexion, and thick middle belied too many years of sitting in a patrol car eating French fries and burgers. His office smelled like stale cigarettes.

Kate flashed that Hollywood smile and thanked Corey for the prompt notification.

“Sure thing,” he said. “So this Watts fella was wanted in Salt Lake City on a murder beef?”

“Afraid so,” said Kate.

Corey smiled and said, “Well, the Salt Lake taxpayers have just been saved a bundle of dough—no need for a trial now. His death looks like a clear-cut case of suicide—happens out here more often than people realize.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Gambling is a real addiction, you know. Guy comes out here, gets drunk, and blows his paycheck for the umpteenth time, and then decides he can’t go home and face the wife and kids. Usually, the bodies show up over on the Nevada side of the state line, not in my jurisdiction. But we get ’em on occasion.

“Now, how can I help you?”

“We’d like copies of the police and autopsy reports,” said Kate, “and the suicide note as well.”

“No problem. Anything else?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, we’d like to have a look around Watts’ hotel room,” I said.

“Easily arranged. Let me call the hotel right now.”

Corey accompanied us to the Red Garter Hotel and Casino, where a search of the room produced nothing that would strengthen our case or explain Watts’ apparent suicide. We managed to convince Corey and the hotel’s director of security to keep the room sealed for an additional twenty-four hours until the medical examiner’s office issued their autopsy findings.

As we prepared to part company with Chief Corey, a thought occurred to me. “Chief, where do you park your police impounds?”

“The tow company we use has a fenced lot on the outskirts of town. Why do you ask?”

“Since the case is being treated as a suicide, the crime lab team didn’t process Watts’ vehicle for latent prints. It might be a good idea to park his car inside temporarily where it isn’t exposed to the elements, at least until we receive an official cause of death.”

“That’s a damn good idea,” said Corey. “I’ll call the impound lot right away.”

***

By the time we got back to Salt Lake City, the four o’clock news conference was over. We found a television set and scanned all the local news stations at five and five-thirty. The story led on every channel. A clearly pleased trio consisting of Captain Locke, Mayor Baldwin, and Police Chief Hansen solemnly laid out the case against Charles Watts. It was convincing. Locke made no mention of the contribution McConnell made to the successful resolution of the case, nor did he mention the assistance provided by the Department of Corrections. That was perfectly okay with me and, I suspect, Norm Sloan. My unit, the SIB, always toiled behind the scenes in relative obscurity. We were used to that and actually preferred it. As for Sloan, my guess was that he too preferred that the department maintain a low profile. The most unsettling aspect in the resolution of the case was that without a walking, talking suspect, we would never know for sure why Levi Vogue was murdered.