“I never left home after that. I was busy fixing dinner. When Arnie didn’t show, I called the police.”
“Would you happen to have the receipts from the purchases you made at Wild Oats and Market Street?”
“Sure do.” He was off the couch and back momentarily with the receipts.
We thanked him and left. Back at our cars, Kate asked, “Well, what do you think?”
“He seemed sincere to me. His responses to your questions didn’t sound canned or rehearsed. He’s obviously a very emotional guy—seemed like he was turning those tears on-and-off like a faucet. On balance, I didn’t see any major red flags. You’ve got some leg-work to do to confirm his alibi, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary there either.”
“He didn’t seem so flaky to me today either. Thanks for coming along and giving me your read on the guy,” said Kate.
“Anytime. Now let’s go have some lunch. I’m starving and you’re buying. Consider that the price for my having to attend that miserable autopsy for you.”
She laughed. “Where should we go?”
“How about the Lonestar on Ft. Union?—best fish tacos in town.”
“See you there.”
Chapter Eleven
Over grilled halibut fish tacos I gave Kate the low-down on my impending child custody battle with Sara’s mother. She listened attentively until I finished before weighing in. While Kate had developed a fondness for Sara, something nurtured over the past several months of our relationship, I knew that she would bring a level-headed approach to a problem that I was buried in emotionally.
When I finished venting, she said, “Aunt June must be beside herself over this. Have you spoken to Sara about it yet?”
“Aunt June is about as upset as I’ve ever seen her. And no, I haven’t said anything to Sara, but I know I’m going to have to do that soon. I’m worried about how to present it to her. She loves us and she loves her mom. I don’t want her caught in the middle feeling like she has to make a choice between living with me or her mother. I’m so pissed at Nicole right now that I can’t bring myself to call her, but I know we need to talk, and soon.”
“Look, Sam, as far as Nicole goes, get over it. You do need to talk with her and right away. Maybe there’s a chance this can be stopped short of a showdown in court. Everybody involved needs to keep their eye on the ball, and that means looking out for what’s best for Sara.”
I knew what Kate said was true. “I can hardly bring myself to say anything to Sara. That little girl has gone through a lot over the past couple of years, first the divorce, and then that nightmare at our home last spring.”
“She’s been through a lot for an eight year old, I’ll give you that. But she’s a smart little girl and I know she’ll bounce back. She just needs some time,” said Kate. She reached into her planner and pulled out one of her business cards. She wrote a name and phone number on the back and handed it to me. “I want you to call this guy. His name is Jim Reilly. He’s a good friend of Tom’s. He used to work at the DA’s office in the juvenile court. He went private about a year-and-a-half ago. He specializes in the practice of family law, adoption, child custody, that sort of thing.”
The Tom she referred to was Tom Stoddard, her former boyfriend who worked in the Salt Lake County DA’s office. “Thanks for the lead. I’ll give him a call right away. Do you really think he can help?”
“You’re going to need a lawyer in Atlanta that’s for sure. But Jim can certainly answer questions and give us a clear picture of the legal procedures involved.”
I liked hearing the ‘us’ part. It felt like we were in this thing together—like I had a partner.
***
We finished lunch and turned our attention back to the murder investigation. Besides the interviews with Rodney Plow, McConnell had also spoken at length with Ginsberg’s secretary and the other two CPA’s with whom he shared office space.
“Have you found any inconsistencies between what Plow told you and what his business associates had to say?” I asked.
“Only one thing and I’m not sure how much credence to give it.”
“What was it?”
“It has to do with the domestic tranquility bit Plow laid on us this morning. According to the secretary, all was not as rosy on the home front as Rodney would have us believe.”
“Hmm. What do you make of that?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s not unusual in murder investigations for the grieving partner to paint a rosier picture of the relationship than really existed. And most of the time, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s certainly not a valid indication of spousal involvement in the murder, that’s for sure.”
“What exactly did the secretary say?”
She glanced down at her notes. “The secretary, her name was Linda Beggs, said that over the past several months the victim had confided to her several times that he was growing increasingly unhappy with the relationship.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“What do couples usually fight over? Fidelity and money. It seems that Ginsberg came to believe that a much younger Rodney might be sowing his oats, so to speak, with someone else.”
“You’d better find out if that’s true.”
“I plan to,” said Kate.
“Add to that concern Ginsberg’s worry that Plow liked nice things and rarely bothered to look at price tags.”
“So, Ginsberg might have been under some financial strain. Have you had time to figure out who stood to gain from Ginsberg’s death?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it. I’ll keep you posted. Tell me about the autopsy.”
I spent the next few minutes updating her on the preliminary findings from the delightful afternoon I’d spent at the medical examiner’s office. “You’re probably still a day or two out before Chandler-Soames gets you the final report as well as the tox results. I didn’t want to get into your chain so you’ll need to stop and pick up the physical evidence as well as the vic’s personal effects.”
“More work for the lab crew,” said Kate. “That reminds me, I need to call them later today and see how close they are to completing the forensics work.”
I told Kate what I’d overheard during Gordon Dixon’s visit with his client earlier in the day. “I think Bradshaw may be directing things through his lawyer.”
“Really. Are you sure you heard one of them whisper, ‘not here’?”
“I’m not sure who said it, but I definitely heard it. And Jerry Branch actually observed Dixon give Walter the signal to keep quiet.”
“What do we know about Gordon Dixon?” asked Kate.
“Not much, but I’m about to find out more. You ever run across him?”
“Never heard of him. If he did much criminal defense work, you’d think one of us would have. Keep me posted on this.”
I shifted gears. “What’s your take on the missing witness, this Robin Joiner?”
“Hard to say. At the time of the armored car robbery, she gave us a local address and then another one for her mother someplace in Nevada. I think the parents might be divorced, but I’m not sure. It’s another detail I just haven’t had time to follow up on.”
I told Kate about the comment Bradshaw made during our interview and the project I had Patti working on. “Assuming that she isn’t dead or that she hasn’t been snatched by the family, it’s hard to understand why she hasn’t contacted us.”
“Maybe she will. She’s young and probably scared half to death. The truth is we don’t even know for sure that her disappearance is in any way connected to the Bradshaw clan. And if it is, we can at least take some comfort in knowing that when they broke in and tossed her apartment, they didn’t find her.”
“You could be right. Maybe she just decided to take a break from her classes and get away for a few days. Have you had time to look for her at the university?”
Kate looked discouraged. “Not yet,” she sighed.
“Look, Kate, since I’m already snooping into her background, I’ll go ahead and follow up with the university and her family. That’s one less thing you’ll have to do.”
“You’re my hero,” said Kate. “I’ll e-mail a copy of the information I have on her family to your office. It’s not much, but it’ll get you started. In the meantime, I’ll continue contacting family, friends, and Ginsberg’s business associates, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
***
After lunch, I had just enough time to make it to the Matheson courthouse before the start of Bradshaw’s preliminary hearing.
Transporting dangerous felons to court presented several points of vulnerability. In this case the greatest danger existed with the actual drive from the prison to the courthouse. If the Bradshaw gang had hatched an escape plan for Walter, their best chance for success would be to try to intercept the transportation vehicle while it was traveling to or from court. By the time I got there, the special ops team had already arrived and Walter was sequestered in a holding cell near Judge Wilkinson’s court room.
Security in the courtroom was tight. Uniformed sheriff’s deputies swarmed the place like flies on a fresh cow pie. Nobody got in without a thorough search. Besides a walk through the metal detector, visitors in significant numbers were being pulled off to one side and treated to a more invasive search.
Walter Bradshaw was led into the courtroom flanked by two burly sheriff’s deputies. He sat at the defense table next to his lawyer, Gordon Dixon, and an unknown female who was probably a legal assistant. The low murmur in the court room turned to silence as the assembled guests got their first look at the accused. There wasn’t an empty seat in the room.
The ankle and waist chains had been removed. He was out of his orange prison jump suit and dressed in gray slacks and an open-collared blue dress shirt with no tie. The civilian clothes made him look significantly less menacing I thought—no doubt a good thing from a defense point of view. He nodded and gave a weak smile to his wife and daughter-in-law who were seated in the audience. Glancing around the room, Walter looked almost amused by the spectacle.
I found two of my investigators, Terry Burnham and Marcy Everest, assisting sheriff’s deputies at a checkpoint which allowed news media personnel through security and into the courtroom. Bradshaw’s impending trial would have drawn media attention anyway, but the disclosure by Salt Lake P.D. that Arnold Ginsberg’s murder might be connected to the case had created a feeding frenzy. It hadn’t helped that Rodney Plow was talking to the press and making similar assertions. The judge had wisely decided to ban cameras, but reporters and sketch artists still occupied the entire first two rows of the courtroom.
Burnham glanced up, spotted me, and walked over. “You seem to be enjoying tormenting those media people. I thought you were going to make that last guy drop trou before you let him pass,” I said.
He laughed. “I almost did. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to hassle these self-important SOBs.”
“How was the trip in?” I asked.
“In a word, uneventful. Those special ops guys are about as anal a group as I’ve ever seen. They wouldn’t even tell Everest and me the route until we showed up at their little briefing. And that was ten minutes before we left the prison.”
“And you won’t be told the route they plan to take back to the prison until right before you leave. How many personnel did they assign?”
“Try Bradshaw in the backseat of a Suburban surrounded by four special ops guys. I led the procession and Marcy brought up the rear.”
At a preliminary hearing, the prosecutor’s job was to put on just enough evidence to convince the judge that probable cause existed to hold the defendant for trial. The trick was not to put on more of the case than was necessary to get a favorable ruling from the judge. In this instance I wasn’t sure who the DA intended to call as witnesses. But I knew the names of two witnesses who wouldn’t be testifying: Arnold Ginsberg because he was dead, and Robin Joiner because she was hiding, kidnapped, or possibly dead herself.
As much as I wanted to stay and watch the preliminary hearing, I was focused on a more important priority—becoming better acquainted with lawyer Gordon Dixon.
Chapter Twelve
Have you ever tried looking up the name of a lawyer in the yellow pages of the phone book? In a small community, that’s probably exactly what you should do. But in a big city, like Salt Lake City, it’s an exercise in futility. Gordon Dixon wasn’t in the yellow pages. I know because I spent the better part of half-an-hour standing at a public counter in the district court clerk’s office scouring the pages trying to find him, growing more and more frustrated by the minute. I used my cell phone and called the Salt Lake County Lawyer Referral service. Nothing there either.
In the end I was left with two less than magnanimous thoughts. The first was that in any large city the yellow pages were a living testimonial to the excessive number of graduates being produced by American law schools. The second was that there was more than one way to locate a missing lawyer.
I left the court house and drove a few short blocks to the Utah Secretary of State’s Office. In the business licensing division I discovered an LLC registered to Gordon Dixon & Associates, 5140 South Main Street, Murray, Utah. The only other member of the LLC was an individual identified as Joan Dixon. Maybe Joan Dixon was Mrs. Gordon Dixon. Maybe Joan Dixon was the same woman I saw seated at the defense table next to the defendant and Gordon Dixon. I drove to the Murray office for a look-see.
Dixon’s office was located in an older one-story brick building that, at one time, must have been a bank. One side of the building had a covered canopy with a drive-through window. The bank had obviously moved on to fancier digs. Dixon shared the building with a title insurance company. The outside sign simply read Law Office.
When I entered the lobby it became clear that the title company occupied most of the building. Dixon’s law practice leased space only slightly larger than a broom closet. The lights were off and the curtains drawn. I peeked in through the glass door. The space consisted of a small secretarial area and an equally small private office behind that. If Dixon had any associates they weren’t working here. This place had the feeling of a small mom-and-pop store front kind of law practice.
I approached the receptionist at the title company. Her work station looked across the lobby into Dixon’s office. She looked up from her computer screen and smiled. “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
Not wanting to arouse suspicion, I introduced myself as someone needing legal assistance. “Good morning. I’m looking for Mr. Dixon. Have you seen him today?”
“They were in early this morning but the office has been closed since around noon. I don’t know where they are.”
“Maybe you can help me,” I said. I gave her my most embarrassed look. “I was arrested a couple of nights ago for DUI. A friend recommended that I ask Mr. Dixon to represent me. It’s just that I don’t know much about him.”
The friendly smile disappeared. Suddenly she was looking at me like I was the local pedophile who had just moved into her zip code. “I really don’t know anything about Mr. Dixon’s law practice.” Her tone had grown markedly cooler.
“Does his office seem busy—that’s usually a sign of a good lawyer?”
“It never seems busy to me. In fact, some days I never see anybody go in. I wonder how they make the rent.”
I wondered that, too.
“I take it Mr. Dixon doesn’t own the building,” I said.
“No. My boss, the man who owns the title company also owns the building. Mr. Dixon leases space from him.” I thanked her and left.
***
From Dixon’s office, I drove to the University of Utah campus. I wanted to find out as much about Robin Joiner as I could and figured that university records would be a good place to start. If Joiner was alive, she was either being held by the Bradshaw’s or she was hiding somewh
ere. The nagging question I kept asking myself was why Joiner hadn’t contacted authorities. Family members would be a good starting place although if she was frightened, she probably wouldn’t go home—too obvious a place for somebody to find her.
My first stop was the Registrar’s Office in the administration building. I tried to convince the associate registrar that I was doing routine follow up on a missing person’s case. She didn’t buy it. I got the answer I expected—no subpoena, no academic records, no matter how routine the investigation sounded. That sent me immediately to Plan B.
I headed off to the social and behavioral sciences building where I contacted one of my former criminology professors. Dr. Richard Bond was an academic mentor from whom I had taken classes twenty years ago. He was now the chairman of the Sociology Department, a position he had held for the past half dozen years. It was late in the afternoon when I caught up with him. Bond was working alone in his office, the department secretary apparently gone for the day. When I tapped on his office door, he glanced up from his computer screen and looked at me over the top of wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose.
“Well, if it isn’t Sam Kincaid,” he said, smiling. He stood and extended a hand. “Come in and sit down.” We chatted about careers and family for a few minutes before he brought the conversation back to the business at hand. “It’s awfully nice to see you, Sam, but I suspect your visit today is a bit more than a social call. Am I correct?”
“It is, Doc. I need your help tracking down a student.” I explained what I needed and why.
“I take it you’re on my door step because you don’t have a subpoena and the Registrar’s Office turned you away.”
“You haven’t lost a step, Doc.” That brought a smile.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find.” He closed the file he was working on, opened another, plugged in Joiner’s name, and the records appeared. “It’s amazing the amount of information that’s available with a couple of key strokes. I’ve been here long enough to remember the old days when everything was a paper file. Not anymore. Like a lot of other businesses, higher ed has gone paperless,” he said. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, Sam, and I’m not going to make you hard copies, so why don’t you just write down what you need.”
Silent Witness Page 6
