Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-nine

With the work of the crime scene unit complete, Webb and Gill released Sorensen’s body to the State Medical Examiner’s Office. The body showed no sign of defensive wounds on the forearms or hands. The victim had encountered sudden, overwhelming, and deadly force, affording no opportunity for resistance.

The plastic shank and metal pipe would be processed for latent prints. Sorensen’s clothing would be carefully examined for the presence of trace evidence. The hope for a quick resolution to the case was fading fast. We needed a witness, and so far, none had materialized.

***

Webb and Gill sat cloistered in an office near the crime scene where they had temporarily set up headquarters. Gill spoke first. “What do you think of Kincaid’s theory that one or more employees made the hit?”

“There isn’t a shred of evidence that supports that notion right now. Think about it. Over the years, how many times have you and I been here handling cases just like this one? This seems like a carbon copy of most of the other inmate-on-inmate murders we’ve investigated.”

“Sure does,” replied Gill. “But if the hit was carried out by prison employees, how difficult would it be to make it look like the work of inmates? Real easy, if you ask me. It makes perfect sense to cast a guilty shadow over the inmate population. It would keep the heat off of them.”

“I think you’re right. Here’s another thing. Kincaid has been involved in cases like this for a very long time. He’s good, damn good. For him to be pointing fingers at people inside his own department takes balls. Evidence or not, we can’t afford to ignore his instincts on this,” said Webb.

“I agree. And by the way, how do you want to play it with the press?”

“The usual drill. We tell them as little as possible. I’d rather have them think that this is another inmate-on-inmate homicide. They already know about the forged suicide note. Let’s hope, for now at least, that they don’t connect the dots linking the Watts/Vogue murders to this one, assuming that’s how it turns out,” said Webb.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Gill. “I don’t get nearly enough credit for how well I trained you. It ought to be worth at least a one-grade salary adjustment, don’t you think?”

“In your dreams.”

Webb said, “I called this furniture plant employee, Steve Jensen, at home. He was the last employee to leave the floor—that was 5:08 p.m., according to his timecard.”

“What’d he have to say?” asked Gill.

“Said there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Sorensen was cleaning up as usual—nobody else around.”

“If my math is correct,” said Gill, “that leaves a relatively short window of opportunity for the murder to have occurred—forty-two minutes to be exact. Officer Warner found the body at 5:50. All we gotta do is figure out who was in the plant during that forty-two-minute stretch.”

***

Kate and I didn’t leave the prison until after midnight. We spent the evening interviewing inmates. Between us, we interviewed nineteen prisoners employed in the furniture factory and another half dozen who had been identified as either friends or acquaintances of the victim. My brain was fried.

If Milo Sorensen felt threatened in the days or weeks leading up to his death, he didn’t share it with anybody inside the prison. We found nothing to indicate that he had accrued drug or gambling debts, or that he was the victim of a gang-run prison protection racket. He didn’t have a reputation as a snitch and never had.

I had called Milo’s next of kin to inform them of his death. I spoke with an older brother in Logan, Utah, and to a younger sister in Salt Lake City. Both sounded genuinely distraught at the news, particularly his sister. Neither had visited the prison recently, nor had they received any communication from the victim that suggested he might be having problems. Milo’s mail and visitation logs corroborated their statements.

Kate and I agreed to contact each other later in the morning. I headed up the mountain and arrived home a little before one. I checked the message board in the kitchen. Aunt June had written a message, the gist of which was that Miss Sara expected me to fix her French toast and bacon for breakfast and then take her to school. The tone of the message suggested the request was nonnegotiable.

As is my habit whenever I arrive home late at night, I quietly entered Sara’s bedroom to check on her. The bed had obviously been slept in, but no Sara. After a brief moment of panic, I hurried into my bedroom and found her curled up under the covers. I crawled in and was out in seconds.

***

I admirably performed my duties as breakfast chef and school chauffeur. I then headed down the mountain for an eight o’clock meeting with Sloan. When he heard what I was about to tell him concerning who might be involved in Sorensen’s murder, it would likely be the start of a very bad day for both of us. When I arrived, tardy as usual, Sloan was already huddled with Brad Ford discussing the details of this morning’s press release announcing the murder of Sorensen. At the request of the Sheriff’s Department, nothing would be said about a possible connection between Sorensen’s death and that of Watts and Vogue.

I explained it to Sloan exactly the way I previously had for Detectives Webb and Gill. He didn’t speak until after I finished, but the look on his face had changed from mild curiosity to one of stunned disbelief. His normally ruddy facial complexion had given way to a pale, colorless shade of gray. The pained expression on his face made him look like he had just taken a hard punch to the solar plexus.

He paused for what seemed like an unusually long period before speaking.

“Tell me something, Sam. What makes you so sure our own employees are involved? If you and Lieutenant McConnell had developed solid evidence linking department employees to these murders, you’d be out arresting people and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You’re right. And we’re still not sure it is our employees. At the moment, we haven’t been able to identify any specific suspects, much less have the evidence necessary to make arrests.

“I first began considering employee involvement when our investigation failed to yield any of the likely suspects. After we eliminated John Merchant and members of Vogue’s family as potential suspects, I felt certain Levi’s murder was connected in some way to his employment on the Board of Pardons. And when Slick Watts came along, the pieces all seemed to fit. We had an ex-con with a long criminal history and the perfect motive to want to see Vogue dead. We had more than enough evidence to take to a jury. About the only thing missing was the murder weapon and a confession, which I’m convinced we’d have gotten if somebody hadn’t killed him before we found him.”

“And you think Watts was killed by somebody from the department to keep him quiet?”

“Not immediately. The final straw had to be the medical examiner’s conclusion that Watts didn’t commit suicide. Once we realized someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make his murder look like a suicide, my thinking shifted away from offenders toward department employees.”

“It still seems like a helluva stretch. And this surveillance you mentioned on Bill Allred—you think he’s somehow involved?” asked Sloan.

“Can’t say for sure. But he lied to me when I asked him about his personal friendship with Levi. He really tried to distance himself from the relationship. And now to have him identified as the mysterious third party involved in the group sex with Vogue and Sue Ann. What should we conclude from that?”

“Maybe he lied about his friendship with Vogue because he feared the investigation might unearth the kinky sex. If that information found its way to the governor, his career on the board would be over,” said Sloan. “Moral turpitude and all that good stuff.”

“Could be.”

After a long pause, Sloan spoke slowly in a tone reflecting both disappointment and resignation. “Okay. Here’s what needs to happen. Do you trust your own staff?”

“Implicitly.”

“Set everything else aside and put them all to work on this. Be sure they understand how important confidentiality is. Nobody talks to the press. And I mean nobody. I’ll fire any department employee who leaks this to the media. Understood?”

I nodded.

“Do you have enough help, or would you like me to assign additional, temporary staff?”

“With assistance from Lieutenant McConnell, we should be all right. But I appreciate the offer. I’ll let you know if we do need more help.”

“We’re going do the right thing and follow this wherever it takes us. If we’ve got a nest of crooked employees who would involve themselves in multiple murders, heaven only knows what else they might be capable of. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. But it is our mess and we are going to clean it up,” said Sloan.

“And I guess you understand, Sam, if we have a scandal the magnitude of what you believe, a lot of careers are going to be over—starting with mine. If these are prison employees, the shake-up will be like nothing the department has ever seen. There’ll be criminal indictments, forced retirements, and a lot of transfers.”

With that, he got up from his desk and walked to a window overlooking the employee parking lot. Gazing out the window with hands clasped behind his back, he muttered, “Keep me informed.”

I left his office without another word.

Chapter Forty

My cell phone rang. It was Vince Turner. Kate had assigned Vince and two other detectives to assist on the Allred surveillance. I passed him on to Burnham, who was relieved to have additional personnel for the stakeout. The extra help would make it possible to put at least two vehicles on Allred instead of one. That would reduce the likelihood of either losing him or having him make the tail.

I had no sooner gotten off the phone with Turner when it rang again. Thinking it was probably Kate, I picked up. It wasn’t. Instead, it was James Allen. He wasn’t a happy camper. “Two things, Sam. I wonder if you could tell me why Lt. McConnell didn’t make it to the meeting last night with Stoddard? And, unless I misunderstood, you were supposed to set up a meeting today and introduce me to Kate. Have you had a chance to do that?”

Not wanting to mention that Kate had spent much of last night assisting on the Sorensen murder investigation, I decided to lie to him. Actually, I lied twice. “To tell you the truth, Jim, I have no idea what Kate was up to last night. You’ll have to ask about that when you catch up with her. As for the meeting today, I gave her the message and she promised to call you to set it up. I’m a little surprised you haven’t heard from her. She’s probably just buried in paperwork. The day’s not over yet—I’m sure she’ll be in touch.” By now my nose had grown to something the size of Pinocchio’s.

“I’m not trying to sound impatient, but this meeting is important. My team needs immediate access to all the written documents pertaining to the investigation, including the forensic reports,” said Allen.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, Kate mentioned that she had somebody in her office working on that very thing.”
Was that two lies or three?

“Glad to hear it. Sam, if you talk with her before I do, please ask her to call me ASAP. If I don’t hear something from her very soon, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to go directly to Hyrum.”

“I’ll pass it along.”

***

As I drove to the prison, I had an idea. I hadn’t thought to check Sorensen’s approved list of individuals with whom he could correspond. I had checked Sorensen’s telephone log and determined he hadn’t called out of the prison for almost a full week preceding his death.

Since we routinely monitor inmate phone calls (and inmates know this), the chance of his calling someone on his list and saying something about the forged suicide note was remote. But the possibility of sending something out undetected in a letter was a different matter entirely. We randomly skim and scan inmate mail unless it’s privileged correspondence coming from or going to a prisoner’s attorney. Slipping something into the body of a letter might go unnoticed.

Milo’s list of individuals with whom he was allowed to correspond contained four names. None was an attorney. The list included his two siblings with whom I had spoken the previous evening. The third name belonged to one of his former spouses. The last name belonged to an individual by the name of Lance Muller. Muller was listed as an old friend.

Department records showed that Sorensen had mailed a letter to Muller the day before he was killed. A corrections officer had scanned the letter and described it as “a five-page personal letter to a friend.” The officer’s notes didn’t indicate anything suspicious about the letter. Sorensen’s only other recent correspondence was a letter mailed to his brother two weeks prior to his murder.

I ran a record check on Muller and discovered two prior misdemeanors arrests, both more than fifteen years old. Both involved alcohol violations. Muller lived in Draper, just a few minutes’ drive from the prison. I wanted to see the letter. It would probably be delivered in today’s mail—tomorrow’s at the latest.

I called his home and spoke to his spouse. Denise Muller explained that her husband wouldn’t return from work until after six o’clock. If the news media had released information about the murder, she hadn’t yet heard it. She expressed shock, but not surprise, when I told her. In a tone sounding more resigned than sad, she told me that Milo and her husband had been friends since junior high school.

“Lance maintained his friendship throughout the years, despite Milo’s continued scrapes with the law. As far as I know, Lance is the only person who stood by Milo through thick and thin. Even his own siblings stopped seeing him as his criminal lifestyle worsened,” she said.

Without providing specifics, I mentioned the letter and how important it was that I have an opportunity to read it. She asked me to wait while she went outside to see if the letter had arrived. A minute later, she came back on the line. “It’s here. Would you like me to open it?” I asked her to wait until I arrived. Fifteen minutes later, I was on Muller’s front porch.

At first glance, the letter looked much like any other written by a lonely inmate with too much time on his hands. Unlike many in prison, Sorensen was literate. He spelled with a modicum of accuracy and managed to put most of the periods in the right places. The rambling five-page letter was hand-printed on lined notebook paper.

He talked about his family, mostly his children, and how he intended to become a better father this time around. He spoke at length about what he planned to do after his impending release. And he ragged a bit on his old friend for failing to write more often. When he wrote the letter, he had no way of knowing he would be leaving prison for the last time zipped in a body bag, with an identification tag tied on his big toe.

The single-spaced letter went on like that until midway down the fourth page, when what I read hit me like a fist to the gut. In mid-paragraph, while chastising Muller for not visiting more often, Sorensen abruptly changed direction and wrote the following: “If anything happens to me, tell the cops I forged the suicide note involving Charles Watts. A female hack, Carol Stimson, hired me to do it. Stimson paid me with dope and a better job. If nothing happens to me, say nothing.”

I had just found our smoking gun.

Muller, who had been reading the letter over my shoulder, audibly gasped when she read what I’d just read. “Dear God. Are we in any danger?”

“You’ll be fine. If certain people had known what was in this letter, it wouldn’t have made it out of the prison to begin with, or it would have been stolen from your mail box before you had a chance to read it. But they made a mistake. Several actually. And one of them was underestimating Milo Sorensen.”

Sorensen had probably heard about the Slick Watts affair from the news or perhaps the inmate grapevine. Rumor and gossip traveled fast among the inmate population. Whatever he’d heard must have made him wary or maybe even afraid. Men who are afraid take risks, and Milo Sorensen had chosen to cover himself by sharing some very dangerous information with a trusted friend. He probably weighed his options carefully before he decided to hide the information in the middle of a letter. The letter provided less risk of detection, with the added benefit of having the whole thing in writing, should something happen to him.

***

I took the letter and hurried back to my office at the prison. A quick check of the shift log revealed that Carol Stimson worked swings from three until midnight. She was currently on her scheduled days off and wouldn’t return to work for two days. It was time to plot strategy. I immediately phoned Kate and conferenced in Webb from the Sheriff’s Office. We had our first direct employee link to the murders of Watts and Sorensen. The question now was what to do next?

Stimson had been on duty at North Point at the time of Sorensen’s murder. Webb’s partner, Harvey Gill, had interviewed her on the evening of the murder. Stimson told him that she had spent most of her shift prior to the murder performing routine patrol activities in the North Point housing units and the prison industry shop areas. A number of inmates and staff employed in the furniture plant confirmed seeing her in the shop sometime around four o’clock in the afternoon. As to her specific whereabouts at the time of the murder, Stimson claimed that she was making the rounds inside the Purgatory Housing Unit, visiting inmates in their cells prior to a mandatory count. She’d even written a disciplinary citation to an inmate for failure to turn the volume down on his box. Inmates in adjoining houses had complained about the noise and Stimson had warned him to turn it down or shut it off. The inmate had done neither and received a ticket. Gill had corroborated her story by examining the ticket and placing a copy of it in the murder book.

We agreed to meet in my office at the prison in one hour. Webb suggested we involve a member of the prosecuting attorney’s office. Kate offered to bring Stoddard along.

During the intervening hour, I examined the personnel file of Officer Carol Stimson. On a professional level, I was more than a little familiar with her reputation. She had been employed by the department for just over four years. She’d managed to complete a year of probationary employment without incident. After transferring from the women’s prison to her present North Point assignment three years ago, she’d even received a couple of letters of commendation from Deputy Warden Bob Fuller. She had also been the subject of two internal investigations carried out by my office—investigations that probably solidified in her mind my reputation as the department’s chief headhunter.

Two different inmates alleged that she had used excessive force against them. In the first incident, the inmate recanted his story and the charge was dismissed. However, in the second complaint, which occurred just a few weeks after the first incident, Stimson and another officer were accused of beating an inmate for refusal to obey an order. The SIB investigated the matter and concluded that the charge was true. The inmate victim had sustained numerous cuts and bruises that required an overnight stay in the prison infirmary. I recommended that she be fired and the case referred to the D.A.’s office for possible criminal prosecution. She appealed my recommendation through the correctional officers union and ultimately got off with a two-week suspension and a letter of reprimand in her personnel file. The incident cost her a promotion to the rank of sergeant, something she blamed on me. Suffice to say, I was no longer on her Christmas card list. While I was able to reassure Denise Muller that she and her husband were not in danger, I wondered, given my history with Stimson, if the same could be said about me.

I quickly checked voice-mail messages. Sue Ann Winkler had called and left a very testy message about the vice raid at the Starlite Motel that resulted in the arrest of her mother and step-father. She made some rather unflattering references to my family lineage. I made a mental note to call her later.

The next message was from a noticeably angry James Allen. He’d heard about the murder of Sorensen on the local news and demanded to know if Milo’s murder was in any way connected to the death of Vogue. He had also discovered that Kate had spent much of the previous evening at the Utah State Prison working with yours truly. He’d caught me red handed lying to him and he sounded genuinely pissed. I couldn’t blame him. He ended the call by informing me that he had reluctantly placed two phone calls, one to Hyrum Locke, and the other to Richard Vogue, to report what he described as a deliberate stall. It looked to me like the charade was over, and I’d probably wind up on the receiving end of a butt-chewing from Sloan once the word filtered back to him.

I then listened to a message from Steve Schumway deploring what he considered to be attacks on the integrity of his employees by Webb and Gill. He demanded to know what was going on and asked that I call him immediately. This message was a bigger priority than the one from Sue Ann, but it too would have to wait. The call struck me as odd. Schumway wasn’t known for emotional outbursts. His tone sounded almost desperate. But desperate for what? Information? I wasn’t sure.

***

Despite my misgivings about having to interact with Stoddard, the meeting came off smoothly. I concluded that my own discomfort at having to work with him had more to do with that little voice in my head called a conscience, and had nothing to do with him. The guy was bright and capable. I could understand Kate’s attraction to him.

Everyone read Sorensen’s letter. Stoddard summed up our situation succinctly. “As I see it, we’ve got three options: We can place Stimson under round-the-clock surveillance; we can pick her up, confront her with the letter and see if she confesses; or we can go for a search warrant of her home.”

To Stoddard I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in option two. Do you have any idea how often inmates complain about correctional officers? They do it all day long. It isn’t likely that an experienced officer like Stimson is going to break out in a cold sweat because an inmate, and a dead one at that, has made an allegation against her. If the only evidence I’ve got is the uncorroborated letter from Sorensen, the department couldn’t sustain a job action against Stimson, much less consider seeking criminal charges. It would be the word of a dead inmate serving his third prison sentence against a corrections officer with four years’ experience and a relatively clean record. The officers union would have a field day with us.”

“And another thing,” chimed in Kate. “Have we got enough to get a warrant? I’m not sure that the letter by itself is legally strong enough for a judge to conclude that we’ve got probable cause. Unless I’ve forgotten what I learned in Search and Seizure 101, no probable cause, no warrant.”

Stoddard replied, “It would probably be a close call, but I think a well-written affidavit, carefully laying out the facts, will result in a judge approving the warrant application. If we do get turned down, we go to plan B—place Stimson under twenty-four-hour surveillance. We won’t be out anything but the time it took us to prepare the thing. I recommend we go for it.”

Nobody disagreed. The consensus was that we opt for the warrant first, and then confront Stimson with the letter and any incriminating evidence that turned up in the search.