Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

by Michael Norman

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Burnham. “I think we should intentionally try to spook Allred. It’s possible he made us today anyway. Why not make the surveillance obvious? Who knows. Maybe the guy panics and makes a mistake. We could sure make him awfully nervous.”

  “I don’t see much downside to that idea,” added Kate. “Worst-case scenario, the guy is innocent, and we’ve managed to royally piss off a member of the state Board of Pardons. How serious could that be?”

  Incredulous, I replied, “Serious enough.”

  “Just kidding,” said Kate.

  In truth, the idea made sense, and I couldn’t see much downside either. Perhaps raising Allred’s anxiety level by making the surveillance obvious would serve as a good primer for the interrogation to follow. It was about time to give Allred the opportunity to explain his sexual proclivities in the company of Levi Vogue, not to mention some very interesting telephone calls to a corrections officer who now happened to be the primary suspect in the murder of a prison inmate.

  Chapter Forty-three

  I spent a restless night worrying about the investigation and my relationship with Kate, and feeling guilty that Sara wasn’t receiving enough of my time or attention. For the moment, I couldn’t help that. Unable to sleep, I got up early, left a note on the kitchen chalk board for Aunt June, and was in my office at department headquarters by seven.

  What I’d found most troubling was the apparent connection between Allred and three department employees who worked together at the prison. I wondered if the telephone records of the prison employees would corroborate the existence of some type of relationship between them, or if Allred’s records were an aberration that could somehow be written off as merely coincidental. I doubted that. And what about Carol Stimson? If the State Crime Lab connected her to the murder of a prison inmate, the implications seemed almost surreal.

  It didn’t take long for the news to arrive. Patti interrupted my dour thoughts to tell me Kate was on line one. “Good morning, Lieutenant McConnell. My telepathic inner voice told me it was you calling with good news,” I lied.

  “Sorry, Sam. Are you sitting down?”

  “Yes, and you’re about to ruin my morning, but go ahead.”

  “I just received a call from John Webb. He tried to call you earlier in your office at the prison, but when he couldn’t find you, he called me instead. I figured you might be at headquarters.

  “The lab report came in early this morning. They found trace amounts of blood that matched Sorensen’s blood type on one pant leg of Stimson’s uniform and on one of her uniform shoes. The DNA results just came back and showed a positive match to Sorensen. And that isn’t all. A hair and fibers expert compared a hair she found on Stimson’s dress shirt to samples of Sorensen’s removed from his head during the autopsy. She says it’s a match. John and Harvey are at the courthouse now meeting with Tom. There going to get a first degree murder warrant for her.”

  “I’m wondering why she hasn’t surfaced. I hope she hasn’t been tipped off. If she has, she’ll be on the run and damned hard to catch. If we can just find her, a confession would tie everything together,” I said.

  “For sure. Careless of her, though, not to get rid of that uniform, don’t you think?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Listen, I’ve been thinking about something and I want to run it past you,” said Kate.

  “Okay.”

  “I think we should wait until later in the day, and then go confront Allred. Let’s give it enough time for him to realize that he’s been placed under surveillance. It might make him a little more cooperative. And I’d like to do the interview on my turf to give us the psychological edge. The truth is, I’m getting pressure from my department. Hyrum was waiting on my doorstep when I got in this morning. He made it abundantly clear we’ve still got two unsolved homicides on our hands, and he isn’t seeing sufficient progress on either one.

  “And if that isn’t enough, the shit hit the fan over our lack of cooperation in handling the James Allen thing. Evidently, Allen complained to Richard Vogue, who then got on the horn and raised hell with Mayor Baldwin, who in turn chewed on Chief Hansen, and on down the administrative line to Hyrum.”

  “It sounds like an entire chain of command is awash in a sea of political diarrhea,” I said, sounding slightly amused. Kate wasn’t amused.

  “You find this humorous, Sam, only because you haven’t been on the receiving end of the criticism or political diarrhea, as you call it. But yours is coming, trust me,” she snapped.

  “I expect you’re right.” Trying to change the subject, I said, “Look, I don’t have a problem pulling Allred in for questioning. I’ve been anxious to sit down and give him an opportunity to clarify a few things for us. As to the pressure you’re feeling, the real issue for Locke is that he’s afraid the Sheriff’s Office is about to break the case wide open and steal the credit. Hyrum can’t stand the thought of that.”

  “Always the cynic, Kincaid. Why do you always assume the worst when it comes to people’s motives?”

  “I guess it’s because I’ve spent an entire career watching people like Hyrum seek the spotlight, take credit for the work of others, and push people aside as they climb the organizational ladder. His kind usually have little conscience about who they hurt on the way up. I’ve also learned that if you don’t expect much from people, you aren’t often disappointed, and occasionally, you’re even pleasantly surprised.”

  “Jesus, Kincaid, you’re a real piece of work.” She promised to call me later in the day and hung up.

  ***

  Sloan was in the midst of a budget meeting with his two deputy directors when I was ushered into his conference room. He briefly glanced up, looking at me like I was the grim reaper.

  The barrage of intense media scrutiny the department had endured since the murder of Levi Vogue was admittedly unpleasant, but nothing like the shit storm that would occur later today when the press learned the Sheriff’s Office had a first degree murder warrant against a corrections officer for killing an inmate. Already newspaper stories quoting unidentified sources were calling for the state legislature to launch an investigation into the management of the department. So far, the governor was doing everything possible to discourage the initiative, calling it premature. I suspected that would all change after today.

  I reviewed the evidence against Stimson for Sloan and his top aides. The bad news prompted him to abbreviate the budget meeting and bring together a larger contingent of his management team to strategize ways of weathering the impending storm. Fortunately, I didn’t have to take part in that meeting. I’d had enough of department headquarters for the time being, so I headed to my office at the prison.

  I intentionally didn’t tell Sloan about the additional evidence linking Allred with three prison employees until we were alone. The issue for me was whom could I trust. Sloan wasn’t a problem, but I had no idea how far up the chain of command the scandal might reach.

  ***

  Uncertain how vigorously the police would try to find her, Stimson spent the night in an obscure mom-and-pop motel in the sleepy bedroom community of Bountiful. After a restless night, she drove to the main branch of the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Salt Lake City early the next morning. She didn’t expect problems, but she circled the bank several times before parking and going inside. She closed both of her accounts, realizing she would have no further need of them. She also collected her birth certificate, passport, and other personal papers from a safety-deposit box she had previously rented. That done, she walked to a small savings and loan institution a couple of blocks from the Wells Fargo office. There she withdrew $225,000 from a money market account held in the name of a deceased female inmate who died in prison from complications resulting from HIV infection. The carefully laundered money was more than sufficient to jump-start a new life somewhere else.

  Stimson drove to a nearby shopping mall, parked in the terraced garage, and went shopping.
She needed to get ready to travel, and that required a change of appearance. She purchased sunglasses, a hat, and some new clothes. She then stopped at a Great Clips hair design shop where the stylist cut her shoulder-length hair short and bleached her black hair blond.

  Stimson still had almost four hours before she had to be in Park City. She loaded the purchases in the back of her Ford Explorer, then stole the license plates off the unoccupied vehicle parked next to her. She figured it would be safer to drive with stolen plates than to risk using her own. When she finished her business with Kincaid and his family, she planned to drive straight through to Las Vegas. From there, getting lost in Mexico sounded just right.

  Chapter Forty-four

  An agitated Bill Allred could hardly concentrate during the weekly Board of Pardons business meeting. The agenda typically included policy-and-procedure changes, personnel issues, and budget items. Twice he had been asked questions by other Board members, and twice the questions had to be repeated. While nobody said anything, it was clear to everyone that Allred’s mind was elsewhere. At one point, the acting chairman declared a 15-minute recess, hoping Allred would return focused on the business at hand. Instead, he came back more distracted than before.

  They had followed him from home to the board office—two cars, each making it so obvious that he would have needed a seeing-eye dog not to notice. He recognized Terry Burnham from Sam Kincaid’s staff, but he’d never seen the other guy. They were sitting in the Board of Pardons parking lot making no attempt to disguise their presence.

  This had started to become embarrassing. It would only be a matter of time before a Board employee noticed them and started asking questions. Because of the nature of their work, Board staff were always on security alert. What would he do then?

  He’d been instructed to lie low and go about his business in as normal a manner as possible. He could take the direct approach—walk right up and challenge them. But what if they arrested him on the spot? No. That was a bad plan. He could feign illness and go home. That’s what he would do. He needed to get the surveillance team away from Board headquarters.

  By the time he arrived home, Allred was in a state of near panic. He felt as though he might upchuck the pancake, sausage, and egg breakfast he’d consumed earlier in the morning. He felt isolated. He needed to talk with someone who could calm him down. What if his phone was bugged? They might be listening to all his calls.

  For the first time, the reality of the situation forced him to do something he’d never before imagined. He opened the Salt Lake Valley phone directory to the section entitled “Attorneys.” He worked his way through the lengthy list of criminal defense lawyers until he found the name he was looking for—Franklin Meadows. He reached for the telephone.

  ***

  I reached my office at the prison late in the morning. There were a couple of new developments. Burnham had called and left a message that he and Turner had followed a nervous-looking Allred to his office, and then back to his home. Assuming he stayed put, Kate and I would know exactly where to find him later in the day when it was time to reel him in for questioning.

  Patti informed me that Steve Schumway had dropped by the office earlier in the morning looking for me. He hung around long enough to make a pest of himself by asking Patti and several of my investigators for information about the status of the investigation. The inquiry was made under the guise of concern for his employees. Fortunately, after connecting Allred and the prison employees through Allred’s telephone records, Terry and I called each member of the SIB at home and warned them not to discuss the investigation with anyone, particularly department employees. Schumway left the office with no more information than he had when he arrived.

  Besides Terry’s voice mail, the other message of interest came from Deputy Warden Bob Fuller. The message itself was short. He asked that I call him back. I decided to oblige. I dialed his extension, and on the third ring, he picked up.

  “Bob, this is Sam. I got your message. Thought I’d better get back to you before my day starts to get hectic. What’s up?”

  “Thanks for returning my call, Sam. Look, I don’t mean to pry, but I hope you can understand my concern about the possibility of having one of my employees involved in this killing. If it proves to be true, I don’t have to tell you what an incident like this would do to the morale of my staff, not to mention the reputation of the department. Has anybody heard from Stimson?”

  “Not that I’m aware of—at least not as of this morning. I don’t know what to make of that, but I hope she turns up soon.”

  “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions. After all, she is on her regularly scheduled days off. I’ll bet she’s taken a trip someplace and will show up later today. She’s not scheduled back on duty until swing shift tomorrow. I just can’t believe one of my staff could be involved in something like this. By the way, did you find anything when you searched her house?” Fuller asked.

  I responded with a half-truth. “Really didn’t find much. We took a dirty uniform and that was about it. Webb planned to have the lab boys check it out, but I haven’t heard whether they got the results back—probably sometime today though.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what prompted the Sheriff’s Department to get a search warrant in the first place?” he asked.

  Now I was uncomfortable. For the moment, the advantage belonged to Fuller. I didn’t want to provide him with information he didn’t already have, nor did I want to get caught in a lie by denying the existence of evidence he might already know about. So I opted for the middle ground.

  “You know, Bob, I’m really not at liberty to go into the details, but I will tell you judges don’t approve warrants without probable cause—so draw your own conclusions.”

  Satisfied that he’d gotten all the information he was likely to get, Fuller and I said good-bye. I felt certain that Schumway and Fuller had set out to accomplish the same goal: gather as much information about the status of the investigation as possible without arousing suspicion. It didn’t work.

  Chapter Forty-five

  As the day wore on, Stimson’s somber mood turned to a dark depression. With the depression came anger, more than she’d felt at any time in her life except maybe from the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child at the hands of her stepfather. She first heard the report over one of Salt Lake City’s twenty-four-hour all-news radio stations. There was now a warrant out for her arrest—first degree murder in the death of prison inmate Milo Sorensen. It was the lead story on all the stations. She fought the growing sense of panic in her gut—fight or flight, the most basic of human responses. She took a deep breath and let the rage take over. Fight it would be.

  Her life had fallen apart in the span of a few short hours. And Sam Kincaid was responsible—Kincaid and that bitch homicide detective from Salt Lake City P.D. She would take his family and destroy it. She’d make him watch and then she’d take his life too. Time permitting, she would have enjoyed a one-on-one encounter with Kate McConnell. That was out of the question now. Kincaid would have to do.

  She arrived outside Jane Adams Elementary School in Park City about fifteen minutes before school ended. She parked in front, looking like any other parent intent on picking up a child. She fit right in and didn’t look even slightly suspicious. She had been here before. She knew Sara Kincaid would emerge, probably with a friend or two, and walk the short distance home. Stimson also knew that Sara never arrived home to an empty house. She was no latch-key kid. The live-in nanny would be there to greet her.

  Rather than snatch the child from the street and risk causing a scene, Stimson decided on another course of action. She would follow at a discreet distance until Sara got home, and then take the kid and the old lady just as Sara entered the house. She would only deviate from that plan if it appeared Sara wasn’t going directly home. In that case, she would stop Sara on the street, display her department identification, and explain that Sam had been involved in a traffic
accident and that Sara should ride with her to the hospital. She’d take Sara home, ostensibly to pick up the old lady, and then she’d have them both.

  The plan came off without a hitch. At precisely two-forty, Sara emerged from the school in the company of three other children. Two of the kids separated from Sara in the school parking lot and hopped into waiting vehicles. Sara and the other girl left the school grounds and meandered slowly through the residential Park Meadows neighborhood. The children stopped at a corner about a block from Kincaid’s home, which was located in a small cul-de-sac called Lariat Circle. They talked for about five minutes before separating.

  Stimson drove past Sara and parked the Explorer on Motherlode Drive near the entrance to the cul-de-sac. She gathered the small bag that contained her cell phone, plastic handcuffs, hoods, and duct tape.

  She waited until Sara was almost in the driveway before she emerged from her vehicle. She walked rapidly up beside the little girl, arriving at the moment Sara opened the front door. At the last instant, Sara glanced over her shoulder and saw Stimson for the first time.

  “Who are you?” Sara asked.

  “Just a friend of your daddy’s.” She pushed Sara gently from behind into the living room.

  Mild curiosity now gave way to genuine fear and Sara said, “You can’t come in here.”

  All pretenses of friendliness gone, Stimson snapped, “The hell I can’t.” With that, she delivered a hard, open-handed slap to the side of Sara’s face, momentarily stunning her. She tossed the little girl to the hardwood floor face-down. Before Sara could scream, Stimson placed duct tape over her mouth and bound her hands behind her back with plastic handcuffs. She pulled Sara to her feet, placed a cloth hood over her head, and dragged her to a nearby couch.