Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

by Michael Norman

  “Glad to hear that it went so well,” I said.

  “The boys turned out to be kind of interesting. The interview eliminated them as suspects. Both were in California at the time of the killing, and both have rock-solid alibis. The eldest, Robert, will be starting his senior year at Stanford University double-majoring in chemistry and microbiology. He’s on the president’s list sporting a 3.89 GPA. He also completed a two-year Mormon mission in Brazil.

  “Contrast that with younger brother Jeremy, who is a party animal. He attends Pepperdine and has been arrested twice—once for a minor in possession of alcohol, and the other, drunk and disorderly. He’s carrying a less-than-stellar 2.2 GPA and has been on academic probation twice. He started a two-year mission in Canada, but was sent home in ten months for messing around with girls. Suffice to say that Jeremy has disappointed the family on numerous occasions, while Robert gets all the kudos. Go figure.

  “They both seemed terribly distraught over the loss of their father. Neither kid has a motive I could discern—not anger, hatred, or money. There’s no pot of gold waiting for either kid from the death of their father.”

  “What about family money?”

  “Without question, family finances was the touchiest part of the interview. It was the one place where Tillman interrupted a couple of times, and Margaret, though cooperative, seemed puzzled about that line of inquiry. Here’s the really interesting part, though. Between the financial information I was able to get from Margaret and the information Vince discovered from the financial records we seized from Vogue’s home on the night of the murder, an interesting picture starts to emerge. Despite the family wealth, Levi was up to his eyebrows in debt, and Margaret, unless she’s lying, knew nothing about it.”

  “That surprises me. I would have guessed that all the Vogue children and probably grandchildren are trust babies.”

  “Here’s the deal. They are trust babies, grandchildren included. Both Robert and Jeremy are able to attend expensive out-of-state universities because Richard Vogue established educational trusts for each of his grandsons. Based on what we’ve been able to piece together about Levi’s family budget, if he and Margaret had to pay for college, both sons would probably be home working part-time and attending Salt Lake Community College. That’s about all they could afford. Levi and his two younger sisters also have trusts. The deal is, they can’t access the dough for any reason until they’re forty-five. Apparently Papa Vogue decided not to give his children large sums of family money until each of them was older and financially independent. The only exception he made was for education.”

  “Were you able to find out who administers the education trusts? Any chance Levi could have tapped his sons’ trust money to support his own lifestyle?” I asked.

  “Good thought,” said Kate. “But the answer is no. Richard Vogue must have considered that possibility. Margaret indicated, and Tillman confirmed, that the education trusts are administered by trustees selected by Richard Vogue. He didn’t come right out and say it, but my impression was that Ed Tillman is one of the trustees.

  “Here’s where it starts to get even more interesting. By her own admission, Margaret knew almost nothing about the family finances. Levi paid the bills and, in fact, had most of them sent to his office instead of home. Margaret was kept mostly in the dark when it came to matters of money. And evidently, that was all right with her.

  “When I asked her for Levi’s annual salary, she didn’t know. She cast a nervous glance at Tillman, hoping he might have the answer. When he didn’t, she finally took a guess and said she thought he made approximately $80,000 a year. She wasn’t far off. His annual salary for this fiscal year was $87,900. Now take, say, thirty percent of the gross for state and federal taxes, and consider that Margaret doesn’t work outside the home, and you’ve got net family income of about $60,000 annually or $5,000 a month.

  “Vince pulled a credit report and we compared that with the family finances contained in the Quicken program we got off his home computer. It wasn’t too difficult to piece together a family budget that would seem to suggest the Vogues were living well above what Levi was making as chairman of the Board of Pardons. It seems that Levi took out a second mortgage on their home just eighteen months before his death. He did a home equity loan with a $30,000 line of credit. At the time of his death, he had dipped into the account to the tune of $25,000,” said Kate.

  By this time, I had drained my second Killian Red and Kate had consumed a second glass of Merlot. I said, “Okay, so maybe they spent the $25,000 remodeling the house or buying that fancy Lexus he was driving.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “The Lexus was leased, and besides, when I asked Margaret about it, she recalled closing on the second mortgage, but had no idea that Levi was into it for twenty-five big ones. She denied taking on any major new family expenditures. Her chin hit the floor when I mentioned that the home equity line had only five grand left untapped.”

  “Let me tell you what I think,” I said. “My father used to tell me that I had champagne taste on a beer income. That’s what I’d say about Levi Vogue. It’s good you discovered the second mortgage. It appears he was spending more than he was earning, and the second mortgage could have served almost as a bridge loan to get him to his forty-fifth birthday, when the trust would have kicked in. If Levi was spending more than he was earning, and we couldn’t account for it, then I’d worry where that money was coming from. But since we can account for it, then all it proves is that Levi was lying to Margaret on a variety of different fronts in order to maintain a lifestyle she didn’t know anything about. It isn’t a pretty picture, but I don’t see how it sheds any light on his murder.”

  “You might be right. But I’m not convinced that his salary, plus the twenty-five grand spent over the past eighteen months, adequately explains his family finances. It looks like there was insufficient income to cover his debts. Sam, the guy was chronically late paying almost all his bills. You should see the dings on his credit report. One outstanding account had even gone to collection status.”

  “So, your conclusion would be that Levi Vogue was on the take, that he had some illicit stream of income supporting his lifestyle.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it a conclusion, but I think it’s possible. Let me put it another way—if he wasn’t on the take, and somebody decided they were willing to pay a lot of money to influence a parole decision, he’d be the right guy to talk to. From what we can surmise, he needed the money.”

  Our verbal exchanges continued despite my starting to grow light-headed from the beer. “I definitely agree with you about one thing. Given Vogue’s position on the Board of Pardons, if he was as pinched financially as you make him out to be, he’d probably be more susceptible to succumbing to temptation if the right opportunity came along.”

  We turned our attention to our respective lists of forgery suspects. Before getting very far, Kate stopped. “I thought we agreed to keep this brief.”

  “We did,” I replied. “But think about it—isn’t half the fun of working an investigation with someone the collaborating about case theories? And when you can consume a mind-altering substance at the same time, it’s even better.”

  She laughed out loud, flashing a mouthful of beautiful white teeth. This woman is starting to grow on me, I thought. She’s talented, smart, and beautiful—a deadly combination. My head tells me to run while I can, my heart says something else.

  “You’re a piece of work, Sam. But I have to admit, we do seem to make a really good team. I’m not sure whether you’re my alter ego or I’m yours. Either way, it appears to be working.”

  Our conversation had lapsed into a comfortable silence. We didn’t make eye contact, each of us content to stare into half-empty glasses. Kate broke the silence with the best idea of the evening—going back to her place.

  She reached into her purse, pulled out her cell, and began punching numbers. As she dialed, she asked, “Tell me something,
Sam. Do you like Chinese food?”

  “Oh, yeah. As long as I can get it hot and spicy,” I said.

  “Hot and spicy it is,” she said. She called Szechwan Charley’s, a popular Chinese restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City. She ordered Hunan Beef, Szechwan Shrimp and steamed rice. She jotted her home address on one of her business cards and handed it to me. As she slipped out of the booth, she turned and said, “I really don’t know why I’m doing this. Spur-of-the-moment sort of thing, I guess. See you at my place in twenty.” With that, she was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I don’t know why it surprised me, but somehow it did. I’d never imagined Kate McConnell as a city girl, but that’s exactly what she was. Her home turned out to be a posh condominium in a gated community high in the Avenues district, not more than two miles from the home of Levi Vogue. The condo was a second-floor unit looking down on an outdoor pool and hot tub surrounded by a mature garden with sitting benches strategically placed around the grounds.

  She’d arrived moments before I did and was busy in the kitchen transferring the Chinese food from cartons to serving dishes. She directed me to the plates and silverware and had me set the table on the outdoor patio deck. She grabbed two wine glasses and an open bottle of Chardonnay. When I declined the wine, she sent me to the refrigerator to help myself to a beer. The fridge contained a dozen bottles of Coors. Since Kate wasn’t a beer drinker, I assumed the beer probably belonged to Stoddard. Kate reached around me and opened the freezer door. Out came a large and very cold beer stein. As for Stoddard, I decided not to go there.

  “So tell me, how did you end up with a career in state corrections?” Kate asked.

  “Well, I got in quite by accident. Becoming a cop certainly wasn’t on my radar screen as a kid. In high school, my priorities were basketball, girls, and academics—in that order. Occasionally, the order changed to girls, basketball, and academics. But academics was never the first priority. Don’t get me wrong. I got by all right, but I was never on anybody’s short list to become valedictorian of my senior class.

  “After high school, I was fortunate enough to have several full-ride scholarship offers in basketball from some pretty decent Division I schools. I signed a letter-of-intent with the University of New Mexico and headed off to Albuquerque. I lasted two years in the program before tearing up the ACL in my left knee.”

  “Did you have to have surgery?”

  “I did, and I’ve got an ugly scar to prove it. I wish the medical community had the technology twenty years ago that they do today. The knee still isn’t right.”

  “That’s not good. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Anyway, my basketball career came to an abrupt end and so did the athletic scholarship that paid the bills. Much to my parents’ chagrin, I dropped out of school and headed north to Santa Fe. I fell in love with the town but needed a job if I was going to stay. One day as I was perusing the local paper, I noticed an ad for a corrections officer at the New Mexico State Prison. The prison is just outside Santa Fe. It was shortly after the big riot—you know, the one where the inmates damn near burned the entire place to the ground. They were begging for help. If you were breathing and standing upright, they offered you a job.”

  “So, you worked at the state prison for a while, and then returned to Utah and went to work for the Department of Corrections?” Kate asked.

  “That’s about it. My folks really wanted me to come back, live at home for a while, and finish my degree at the University of Utah. I took them up on everything but the living at home part. I’d been on my own long enough that moving home didn’t hold much appeal. I think they were relieved when I decided to live in Salt Lake City.

  “How about you?”

  “Well, my story is a bit different from yours. I grew up in Spokane, Washington. My mom started out as a dispatcher in the Spokane Police Department when she was twenty. Twenty-seven years later, she had risen from a clerical job to deputy chief of police. I saw her and that’s what I knew I wanted to do. So, it would be fair to say that I knew I wanted to be a cop from the time I was old enough to understand what my mother did for a living. She’s been a great mother and a great role model. At her urging, I set my sights a little higher than the Spokane P.D. I wanted to get into the FBI as a special agent. And unlike you, Sam, my priorities were academics and sports, volleyball mostly. And unlike you, I was the valedictorian of my senior class.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Like you, after high school, I had a number of volleyball scholarship offers to choose from. I selected Washington State University because of its reputation as a place to study criminology. I actually turned down the athletic aid and entered on a Presidential Scholarship instead. I graduated four years later with dual degrees in criminal justice and psychology. Along the way, I played four years on the women’s volleyball team and even managed a couple of years as all-conference honorable mention.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed. That’s still a long way from the Salt Lake City Police Department.”

  “Actually, several factors came into play. One was that I knew the area pretty well and liked it. I had an aunt who lived in Salt Lake City for quite a few years, and my parents brought me to visit her several times when I was a kid. Also, my mother was well connected to the chief of police, and he encouraged me to apply. It’s been a good experience, even though when I came, I never intended to stay permanently. I thought the experience would be just the right ticket for entree into the FBI. And it probably was.”

  Kate didn’t offer any specifics regarding her meteoric rise through the ranks of the Salt Lake City Police Department. Her reputation at solving high-visibility homicide cases had made her something of a media celebrity throughout the Salt Lake Valley. Some in the business believed that McConnell was on the fast track to one day becoming the first female Salt Lake City Chief of Police, assuming no major screw-ups along the way.

  “Aside from the job, I really enjoy living near downtown. It gives me easy access to lots of good restaurants. And the cultural amenities available in the city are really quite impressive.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, I have season tickets to the Utah Symphony as well as the Salt Lake Acting Company. The community theater here is great, and we also get some good Broadway plays. On occasion, I take in an opera or the ballet. What more could a girl ask for?”

  She tossed the ball to me. “What kind of things do you enjoy doing when you’re not chasing down bad guys or playing Mr. Mom?”

  It occurred to me that if it’s true that opposites attract, I might have a chance with Kate. Otherwise, forget about it. I could hardly stand to tell her that my “cultural interests” consisted largely of chasing around the Wasatch mountains on skis or a mountain bike. I also enjoyed quaffing beer at Utah Grizzly hockey games, and I attended an occasional rodeo for good measure. It wouldn’t take Einstein to figure out that our respective lists of leisure activities didn’t seem terribly compatible. Given a choice between attending an opera or going to the dentist for a root canal, I’d probably choose the opera, but only by the slimmest of margins.

  After confessing my cultural shortcomings, I couldn’t tell if Kate was horrified or merely amused. In any event, I was sorry that the pleasant buzz I’d been working on had receded into a state of dour sobriety resulting from too much Hunan beef and steamed rice and too little beer.

  ***

  We cleared away the dinner dishes and spent the next hour at her dining-room table comparing our lists of forgery candidates, any one of whom could have created the false suicide note. My list contained every offender currently under state correctional supervision for a forgery conviction. We eliminated those offenders locked up in prison or a county jail. We then compared Kate’s list with my longer list of probationers and parolees under departmental supervision. We pared the list down to nineteen possible candidates, nine of whom appeared on both lists. We agreed to split the group of nine among Kate, Vince
Turner, and me.

  ***

  It was starting to get late. “Let’s put this stuff away, okay? How about an after-dinner drink before we call it a night?” said Kate.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Brandy okay?”

  “Great.”

  Kate directed me into her dimly lit living room while she went to get the brandy. We sat down on the couch next to each other. Our knees were touching. When I attempted to make eye contact with her, she quickly looked away. Neither of us spoke, but somehow, the silence didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. As I raised the snifter to my lips, I let the unmistakable wood-smoke smell of brandy fill my nostrils. I removed the snifter and noticed the faint odor of Kate’s perfume. When I looked over at her again, she was still looking away. She must have felt my eyes on her because she turned and met my gaze. This time she didn’t look away. We leaned toward each other and kissed that first slow kiss, gentle and exploring. We parted just long enough to deposit our brandy snifters on the nearby coffee table and then we kissed again. I felt every part of me stir as our tongues danced the dance of an intimate new relationship.

  Our breathing became labored and our arousal more pronounced. I felt Kate’s hand begin to tentatively stroke my chest and then move lower across my abdomen. With one hand I gently caressed her right breast while kissing her neck and ear. Her hand moved lower until she felt the hardness through my jeans. Slowly I began to unbutton her shirt. Under the denim, she wore a lacy white bra that only partially concealed small but firm breasts. I felt her stiffen as she pulled away and stood up.

  “Sam, we’ve got to stop. This can’t go any further. Christ, think about it. We’ve got a murder investigation on our hands. We’ve got to stay focused. Besides, you’re trying to get over a divorce and I’m involved with someone else. This just isn’t going to work.”

  I quickly got up off the couch and offered an awkward apology. “Sorry, Kate. You’re absolutely right. I’m glad at least one of us had the good sense to put the brakes on before something happened that we both might regret.”