Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

One of the things I missed most about being married was a ritual Nicole and I developed during our eleven years together. On weekend mornings we would get up just ahead of the sunrise, brew our favorite coffee, usually something flavored, turn on the stereo, and settle in to watch the sun usher in a beautiful, new day. It was private, uninterrupted time between two people in love. Sometimes we talked, and on other occasions we didn’t speak at all, allowing ourselves to become consumed by the quiet splendor of the Wasatch Mountains. The mountains’ beauty was no less spectacular in the autumn months with the rich hues of aspen yellows and oranges clustered on the mountainside, or during winter with white crystal snow blanketing the landscape, often framed by a cloudless blue sky.

Sometimes on mornings like this, Aunt June got up early and joined me on the sun porch with her cup of black tea. And on rare occasions, even though her number one priority was sleeping in, I’d convinced Sara that getting up early to enjoy the sunrise was a special time. I don’t think she quite got it. It usually required a bribe of hot chocolate, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.

On this particular morning, I was alone with my music and coffee. My thoughts drifted to the concurrent murder investigations of Levi Vogue and Charles Watts. The two cases had become entwined. It was now impossible to think of either case independently. To solve the murder of Charles Watts was to unravel the mystery of Levi Vogue’s killing.

It was simple before: Vogue gets whacked. We correctly identified the jealous boyfriend of the woman Vogue was stooping on the side. He was a violent ex-offender with one of the oldest motives in the world—jealousy. Problem was, he didn’t do it. Then Slick Watts came along. He turned out to be an even better suspect than John Merchant. He was the trigger, no doubt about it. Case closed. I should have been lying on the beach in Cabo sipping Long Island iced tea and reading a good who-done-it. But no, Watts’ death turned out to be a murder disguised to look like a suicide. Bye bye, R & R.

At the moment, I was stumped. But I’ve always had a knack for thinking outside the box, and that’s what I needed to do now.

One thing was clear—we had to locate the individual responsible for the forged suicide note, and we needed to find that person quickly. The forger’s life might be in imminent danger. If the forger was paid to create the false suicide note and was not a direct participant in the broader murder conspiracy, he could be perceived much the same way Slick Watts probably was: a loose end requiring elimination. On the other hand, if we were lucky, the forger may have been following the story in the local news. If that were the case, he might have gone into hiding or bought the first plane ticket out of Utah.

***

Assuming I survived today’s trip to Hogle Zoo, which, incidentally, had grown from Sara and one friend to Sara and three of her schoolmates, I planned to meet Kate later in the evening at one of Salt Lake’s finer watering holes. We planned to compare notes on the people on our separate lists of forgers. Besides, by then I’d probably need a drink, and who knows, maybe more.

Hogle Zoo, on a beautiful spring day, was a fun place to visit. I’d done my best to cajole Aunt June into coming, but she politely declined my offer. I wasn’t sure if her lack of enthusiasm stemmed from the prospect of having to walk endless miles on zoo property, or the company she would have to keep—four eight-year-old kids and me. Probably a combination of both.

The trip came off without a hitch. I didn’t lose anybody, and by early afternoon, I’d managed to fill four children with enough cotton candy and other goodies to keep them on a sugar-induced high for the rest of the day. When we returned to Park City, I dropped them all off at the home of one member of the group whose parents had invited everybody over for a birthday party sleep-over. On the ride back up the mountain, I overheard one of the girls talking about tonight’s
slumber
party. Eight-year-old kids talking about slumber parties. Yikes!

Chapter Thirty

By the time I completed my zoo duty and stopped by the office to pick up my list of forgery candidates, I was late for my rendezvous with Kate. If she was ticked about my tardiness, she didn’t show it. We met at the Timeout Lounge, a sports bar and eatery on Salt Lake’s east side.

Unlike me, Kate had made it home for a quick change of clothes after her interviews with the Vogue family. I hadn’t seen her in casual duds. I liked what I saw. She was wearing a little more makeup than I’d seen previously. Her cheeks definitely showed more color and her lips were a deep shade of red. She wore her long auburn hair down but tucked behind her ears. She was dressed casually in black, form-fitting designer jeans that flattered every curve. The open-toe sandals had heels that made her already long legs look even longer and slimmer. She wore a long-sleeve denim shirt accented by a gold necklace and matching earrings. So this was Kate McConnell away from the office. I found myself feeling attracted to her in a way I hadn’t felt about anybody since the divorce.

I ordered a Killian Red while she sipped the house Merlot. I told her about the phone calls from James Allen and my subsequent conversation with him. Kate didn’t seem surprised or irritated.

“So much for asking the mayor to attempt to dissuade Vogue from hiring a team of privates,” said Kate. “And why didn’t he call me directly instead of going through you?”

“He and I know each other, although not very well. You, he knows by reputation only. He’s trying to use his relationship with me to ease into the investigation without creating a lot of hard feelings. He’s really trying to avoid getting caught up in a pissing contest right out of the gate. And I think there’s a way for us to take advantage of it.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“We stall for time in some very subtle ways that will keep Allen and his cohorts in the investigation, but always a couple of steps behind. If we get lucky, we resolve the case before they have a chance to fuck it up. Admittedly, we have to walk a fine line. We don’t want Jim Allen getting frustrated and calling his employer, who in turn will complain to the mayor.”

Kate looked more than a little skeptical. “Tell me how you think we should do this.”

“For starters, we bog them down in red tape. If you’d call Stoddard before Jim Allen does, ask Tom to set up a meeting with Allen to discuss how a joint investigation might be coordinated, clarify role assignments, the production of documents, that sort of thing. You know how the feds work. They’ll want every report that the investigation has generated to date. It takes time to copy all those documents.”

“And you know what else?” said Kate. “Allen won’t move forward with the investigation until his team has digested the contents of each and every report. Plus, the feds never trust the work produced by locals. They’ll want to re-interview everyone connected with the case. Any idea how many personnel Allen plans to use on the investigation?”

“He didn’t say.”

Kate was smiling now. “You know what? This just might work.

“Now let’s talk about something pleasant. How was your trip to the zoo today? Was it a good dad-daughter experience?”

“Actually, I survived just fine, and the kids had a nice time. And I probably should confess, for a fleeting moment, I even considered calling you, hoping a trip to the zoo with four young kids might appeal to your maternal instincts.”

“Doubt that,” she said, laughing. “About the maternal instincts, I mean. I don’t think I have any. And if I do, I have no idea where they are.”

“Maternal instincts aside, how did your interviews go with Margaret and her sons?”

“Do you really want to talk about this now? It’s a great way of ruining a perfectly good glass of wine and your Killian.”

“You make a very good point,” I mused. “Why risk spoiling a potential glowing buzz, not to mention the added risk of indigestion.”

“I’m glad we agree on that. I’ll tell you about the interviews, but let’s keep it brief so that we can get back to more pleasant conversation.”

“I’ll drink to that!”

“Actually, things went surprisingly well, considering we had to do the interviews at Vogue Chemicals in the presence of corporate legal counsel. Ed Tillman, by the way, turned out to be kind of a big teddy bear. It’s amazing when you spend a few minutes flirting with a guy what you can get him to do, or in this case, refrain from doing. I didn’t want the interviews with Margaret and her sons to become adversarial, with everybody getting defensive and ultimately leaving ticked off. But, a few well-placed minutes with Mr. Ed beforehand and,
voila
, the teddy bear came out and the lawyer went away. For the most part, Tillman remained passive and only interrupted a couple of times. I really couldn’t have asked for more than that.”

“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.