Silent Witness (3 page)

Chapter Four

I left my Park City home early the next morning and headed for my office at the state prison. Juggling a cell phone, a cup of hot coffee, and a cinnamon roll, while rocketing down I-80 with the other Nascar commuters, was a serious challenge.

I phoned Patti Wheeler, my secretary, and asked her to pull the inmate file on Walter Bradshaw. I had been worried about Bradshaw and his impending, preliminary hearing even before the call from Kate the previous night. The prospect of transporting a high-risk inmate, like Bradshaw, was daunting knowing that the other fugitive members of his family were still at large. Add to that the murder of one of the witnesses and the apparent disappearance of another. Mere coincidence seemed an unlikely explanation for this chain of events.

My immediate challenge was how to approach Bradshaw for the interview. It wasn't like I could play the old carrot-and-stick game. He was already being held without bail in the maximum security unit at the prison. That's living about as deprived as one can get. In addition, he was facing a plethora of new criminal charges sufficient to keep him breathing stale prison air for the remainder of his days. His record as an inmate wasn't particularly good either. The prison staff viewed him as an agitator and a trouble-maker. Even among the inmate population, Bradshaw was perceived to be at the far end of the nut-meter.

About the only carrot I had at my disposal might be the opportunity to have him reclassified and moved into a medium security housing unit where life would be easier. The difficulty with that option was that I would have to convince the prison classification committee that moving Bradshaw to a less secure housing unit was in the best interest of the prison and something he deserved—both difficult sells. From experience I knew that convincing the classification committee to transfer an inmate based solely on providing snitch information, while difficult, wasn't impossible. I'd done it before. But it required me to expend political capital, something I didn't relish doing.

Bradshaw had been captured minutes after the stick-up and had been held initially at the Salt Lake County Jail. The state parole board immediately dispatched a hearing officer to the jail who determined there was probable cause to believe that he was in violation of several conditions of his parole agreement. That triggered his transfer back to the prison, a fact that undoubtedly made the sheriff's office happy. It made us responsible for not only holding him, but also for his transportation to and from court.

When I got to the office, I called Patti in. “I need you to do a couple of other things for me when you get a minute.”

“That ‘when you get a minute' usually means you want it done yesterday. Which is it?”

“Yesterday.”

“That's what I thought. What do you need?”

“Get me a copy of Walter Bradshaw's visitor and correspondence log. I need to know who is on his approved visitor list and with whom he corresponds. Also, get me a list of his outgoing telephone calls for the past month.” Tracking inmate mail and phone calls, while laborious, wasn't difficult. They weren't allowed to receive incoming telephone calls, and we selectively monitored calls they made to the outside world.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, three things, actually. Call the executive director's office. See if I can get in to see him later this morning. Then call the court clerk for Judge Homer Wilkinson. He's the judge scheduled to hear Bradshaw's preliminary hearing tomorrow. Try to get me an appointment to see him this afternoon. And as much as I hate it, find out when the state medical examiner's office has scheduled the autopsy for Arnold Ginsberg.”

She giggled. “What?” I asked.

“Oh, I just wondered,” she said loudly, “since you're going to an autopsy, do I need to order some fresh pipe tobacco or would you just like smelling salts?” In the background, I could hear somebody laughing.

“I suppose I'll be hearing about this for the next month.”

“Count on it,” she said.

***

The morning wake-up bell sounded promptly as it always did at six-thirty in Uintah I, the Utah state prison's maximum security housing unit. Walter Bradshaw woke with a start to the sound of the high-pitched whistle and sighed. He rolled stiffly from his side onto his back and then continued the roll until he sat upright with his bare feet touching the cold, concrete floor. He dropped quickly to the floor where he performed a daily routine of fifty pushups followed by two-hundred sit-ups and a couple of stretching exercises for his forty-five year old limbs.

Life inside max was austere at best. That suited Bradshaw because it gave him ample time to read the scriptures and study the words of the first prophet, Joseph Smith. His trials were all a part of God's plan, of that he was certain. The eight by twelve foot cell was encased in concrete and steel. The bed, if you could call it that, was a single concrete slab attached to a concrete wall with a too-thin mattress tossed on top. Anchored to the floor in one corner was a toilet with a small steel sink mounted on the wall next to it.

His routine consisted of twenty-three hours a day spent in his house with one hour out for exercise and a five minute shower. He was required to stand four times a day for scheduled counts. Meals were served in his cell. He couldn't have a job, and he was not allowed to attend prison programs or school. Excluding his lawyer, he was allowed two non-contact visits a week. All of this because prison administrators had decided that he was the leader of a so-called Security Threat Group, or STG. As far as Bradshaw was concerned, the prison administration was a gang.

Bradshaw was the founder and self-proclaimed leader of the Reformed Church of the Divine Christ. He had founded the Church in late 2002 after being expelled by Warren Jeffs from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bradshaw was determined to establish a polygamist religious sanctuary in the desert of southern Utah. There, he and his small band of followers would be free to practice their religious beliefs without interference from the government while at the same time insulated from the evils of the secular world.

Just thinking about Warren Jeffs made Bradshaw angry—the kind of anger that sits in your belly, unrelenting, like hot acid. It had been excruciating watching Warren manipulate his way to head of the church, systematically eliminating anyone he perceived to be a threat. Any who dared question his judgment or authority were unceremoniously banished. Even some who hadn't questioned, teenage boys like his sons, were tossed from the community like used garbage. How could people have been so naïve?

He detested Warren Jeffs. He recalled the shock when a group of men—his friends—came to his home to take his first wife, Janine, and her sister wives, Dora, and Emma to their new husbands. He could still see the self-righteous looks on the faces of the brethren.

The humiliation of not being able to fight back, to defend his family, haunted him every day. Seeing fear on the faces of his younger children was excruciating. Some were crying. Others just withdrew. All of them learned a harsh lesson that day about obedience under Warren Jeffs. And when Janine refused to go, she had been forced to leave their precious daughters behind. There was simply no way to take them. Did the children understand? Did they feel betrayed? He promised that he'd come back for them, but now he knew he'd never get them back. The oldest two had already been married off.

Bradshaw remembered with pleasure the crimes of retribution, the Lord calling out to him in righteous indignation, to punish the Jeffs' empire. And punish they did. At every turn and in every way possible, the Bradshaws had exacted revenge on Warren Jeffs and the FLDS church. What started out as acts of vandalism against church-owned property became crimes of theft, burglary, even arson.

His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of one of the prison guards. “Bradshaw, you got a visitor. Step over to the cell door and turn around, hands behind your back—you know the drill.” The cuff port door opened. He stood and turned around, extending his hands until he felt the cold steel of the handcuffs bite into his wrists. His cell door opened and two burly correctional officers attached a leash to his handcuffs. An ankle chain was secured to each ankle requiring him to walk taking baby steps.

***

I went to see Bradshaw with the rudiments of a plan. I was certain that going to him in a conventional way, reciting the Miranda warnings with the expectation of hearing some startling confession, stood little chance of success. Instead, I intended to set a trap and see if he walked into it. We met in a small office in the Uintah I housing unit used mostly by staff for writing reports and conducting inmate disciplinary hearings. I carried a concealed voice-activated tape recorder in my shirt pocket.

Walter Bradshaw looked remarkably undistinguished. He was a slight man, maybe six feet, slim, with short black hair and a full salt and pepper beard. The beard aged him beyond his forty-five years I thought. His only feature that I would describe as striking were his eyes—eyes like Paul Newman, only these were a bright emerald green and they seemed to look right through you. He stared at me intently as I entered the room and sat down, wondering, I'm sure, who I was and what I wanted.

After perfunctory introductions and a minute or so of idle chit-chat designed to establish rapport or some such nonsense from Interrogation 101 training, I got down to business.

“Mr. Bradshaw, Salt Lake P.D. homicide contacted me last night with some disturbing information. It seems that one of the witnesses in the pending case against you was found murdered last evening, and a second witness in the case is also missing. What can you tell me about that?”

The non-verbal expression on his face was one of surprise. For a moment he said nothing, probably trying to process what I'd just told him. “I wouldn't know a thing about it. Why are you talking to me anyway, Mr. Kincaid? I've been in prison for the past several weeks, and while I believe in the power of holy miracles, I think we'd both agree that the likelihood of my being in two places at the same time is highly remote.”

“I'm talking to you, Walter, because the crime lab team discovered physical evidence at the scene linking members of your family to the killing,” I lied.

“I don't believe that any member of the Reformed Church would have anything to do with such a crime. And even if I did, I wouldn't be talking to you about it now would I?”

“Probably not, but maybe you should. You're facing enough new charges to keep you locked up for a long time. And that doesn't count the parole violations. I can assure you that the state parole board is eager to meet with you just as soon as the court disposes of the new charges. A good word from me to the prosecutor and the parole board wouldn't hurt and just might help.”

“The Lord will take care of my needs, Mr. Kincaid. I am not seeking, nor am I interested in, receiving help from anyone who is employed by the State of Utah. Government is the oppressor, and you, sir, are an instrument of that oppression.”

He paused for a moment, looking pensive, and then he continued. “Tell me something Mr. Kincaid, which witness was killed—the man or the young girl?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity, I suppose, although I'd hate to see that beautiful, young woman hurt. No harm at all if it was the queer sinner. God's justice, you know.”

“How did you even know there was a male and female witness?”

“TV and newspapers for starters. And my attorney knows. We know the names of all the witnesses because the government is required to provide that information.”

He was right about that.

I tried a different tactic. “You know, Walter, life in max is pretty damned hard. I guess I don't have to tell you that. If you change your mind and decide to cooperate, I might be able to get you transferred into a medium security housing unit where you aren't locked down twenty-three hours a day. Think about it.” I slid my business card across the table toward him.

He looked at it for a moment and then slid it back. “This conversation is over, sir.”

Chapter Five

On one level, my interview with Walter Bradshaw appeared to have been a bust. I hadn't expected a confession and he didn't offer one. On the other hand, my assertion that physical evidence found at the crime scene had linked his gang to the murder of Arnold Ginsberg seemed to have caught him off-guard. If he'd ordered the murder the only surprise should have been my lie about the existence of physical evidence. If he didn't, the entire episode should have shocked him.

On my way out of Uintah I, I stopped at the office of Captain Jerry Branch. “Jerry, I need your help with something. If Bradshaw makes any phone calls in the next day or two, I'd like you to record them and notify my office immediately. Same thing if he receives visitors.”

“Sure. Anything in particular you'd like us to be listening for?” I explained the possible connection to the Ginsberg murder.

Back in my office, I reviewed Bradshaw's visitation history. Since his return to prison, he had received at least one family visitor per week and sometimes two. The approved visitors were his wife, Janine, and his daughter-in-law, Amanda. Amanda was married to Walter's eldest son, twenty-six year old Albert. Albert was a fugitive and wanted in the armored car robbery and murder.

The other visitor was Bradshaw's lawyer, a man named Gordon Dixon. I'd never heard of him. Dixon wasn't an employee in the public defenders office, that much I knew. That meant that he was in private practice and was either hired by the family or appointed by the court to represent Walter. In his past legal scrapes, Bradshaw had always claimed poverty and was represented by court appointed counsel, usually a public defender. Dixon had been in to see Bradshaw on three occasions in the past several weeks, ostensibly to discuss legal strategy for his impending trial. Absent suspicious circumstances, the attorney-client privilege prevented the prison from reading mail or eavesdropping on conversations between a convict and his lawyer. I decided to find out more about Gordon Dixon and the nature of his law practice.

Patti stuck her head in my office. “You'd better get moving. You've got a busy day in front of you. Director Cates is expecting you at eleven and Judge Wilkinson agreed to see you at noon. His afternoon court docket was full, but he offered to see you briefly during his lunch hour—didn't sound too happy about it though.”

“Dandy.” I stood up and reached for my coat when it struck me. “What's that smell? Have you started wearing peppermint perfume these days?” Then I saw them lying on top of my file cabinet—automobile air fresheners, several of them in fragrances ranging from peppermint, to sage, vanilla, and orange spice. “What the hell am I supposed to do with these?”

She was laughing now. “Terry bought those for you. He thought you could wear them around your neck at Ginsberg's autopsy this afternoon. It's scheduled for one-thirty.”

“Very funny. That boy obviously doesn't have enough to do. I'll have to fix that.”

***

I was ushered into Director Cates' office promptly at eleven. He was known, among other things, for his punctuality. Unfortunately, I was not, but I was attempting to mend my ways, if for no other reason than to get off on the right foot with my new boss.

For a moment I thought Cates was going to remain behind a large, walnut desk, but he stood and pointed me in the general direction of a round conference table in one corner of his office. We sat. There was no idle chit-chat.

“I understand that you wanted to see me about the murder last night of the Salt Lake City businessman, Ginsberg, I think his name was. Frankly, I wondered what that had to do with us, but I'm sure you'll fill me in.”

I explained the possible connection of Walter Bradshaw to the murder of Arnold Ginsberg and the request from Salt Lake City P.D. for our help with the investigation.

“It strikes me that we should help with the case, but I'm going to leave that to your discretion. What I do expect is that you keep me in the loop and always exercise good judgment before committing us to these kinds of investigations. Tell me this. Has the press connected Ginsberg's murder to the Bradshaw case?”

“Not yet, but I think it's only a matter of time. It's possible that Salt Lake P.D. might release that information in the normal course of business. But even if they don't, it's only a matter of time before some good investigative reporter will uncover the fact that Ginsberg was a witness in the case and that Bradshaw was on parole at the time of the robbery/murder.”

Cates was a note-taker. As we talked, he busily scribbled notes to himself in a planner. “Okay,” he said. “I'll pass this information along to our public information officer in case the media starts asking questions. Anything else?”

“Only that Bradshaw's preliminary hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, and the prison's Special Operations Tactical Team will shuttle him back-and-forth between the courthouse and prison. With the other members of his gang still at large, security is tight.”

“Appreciate the information, Sam. I'll consider it. Before you leave there's something I'd like to discuss with you.”

That put me on full alert.

“I'm sorry that until now I haven't had time to sit down with you and go over some things. My first few weeks on the job have been a little hectic. And I want you to understand that while I don't hold you or the Special Investigations Branch responsible for the recent scandal, there are some people, both in and out of the department, who have pointed the finger of blame in your direction.”

“I'm sure that's true.”

“I considered reassigning you but decided against it, in part, because of a conversation I had with my predecessor, Norm Sloan. Sloan gave you high marks for not only your professional skills but also your loyalty to him, and your dedication to the department. You'll soon discover that I will demand the same level of personal loyalty and dedication.”

“I appreciate Director Sloan's kind words of support. And of course I'll try to provide you with the same level of dedication and support that I gave him. And if it turns out that that's not good enough, we'll both know that it's time for me to move on.”

“Fair enough,” Cates said. “The issue I wanted to discuss with you today is how to keep the department operating on sound ethical principles and the role you and the SIB will have to play in that endeavor. I ran a tight ship for twenty-eight years in the King County Sheriff's Department and I intend to run a tight ship here. People in this department are going to quickly learn that I have a zero tolerance policy for rogue employees who think they can operate outside the rules. Tell me something, Sam, how do you think we can prevent future scandals like that recent business with the so-called Commission?”

“Like a lot of people, I've had plenty of time to think about it. And I've concluded that, as a department, we should have been doing some things differently.”

“Such as?”

“Hiring for starters. In the name of saving money, the department gutted the budget for conducting full-field background investigations on prospective employees. Also, we eliminated psychological screening completely from the personnel selection process. That was a mistake.”

“I couldn't agree more,” said Cates. “And that's why I've shifted background investigations from the personnel department back to your office. And from now on, nobody gets hired without a psychological evaluation. We've already put that service out for bid.

“What else?”

I started to wonder if this was a test. “Scheduling of line staff and supervisors probably should have been done differently.”

“How so?”

“The prison allowed, even encouraged, the same line staff and supervisors to work together for too long a period of time in the same area. It would have been better to rotate and mix line staff and managers more often. That would have prevented the formation of tight cliques of staff and supervisors, making it harder to organize and control illicit activities.”

I don't know whether he liked this idea but he was back scribbling notes in his planner. Maybe he was writing that I was a flaming nut-case and had begun the paper trail that would lead to my ultimate removal from the department. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

He looked up from his planner. “Here's my plan and how the SIB has an integral role its success. It starts with my office. Employees have to know that illegal and unethical behavior won't be tolerated. I have to set the tone for that right from the get-go with stronger written policies and procedures, improved training, increased emphasis on ethics, and, of course, vigorous enforcement. In part, that's where your office comes in. Every allegation of employee misconduct must be investigated quickly and thoroughly, and appropriate corrective action taken immediately.

I interrupted. “That's all well and good. I assume we'll get the resources to pay for it because, at the moment, I don't have the budget or staff to carry out the mandate, or to conduct full-field background investigations on all applicants. I don't have a problem with the SIB having the responsibility as long as we have the necessary resources.”

“Tell me what you think you need.”

“Right now, the SIB functions with six investigators counting myself, and one overworked secretary. I need, as a minimum, one additional full-time investigator, two would be better, and an additional clerical support person.”

Cates thought about it for a moment. “Here's what I can do for you now. I'll find the money in the current budget to get you another secretary. When the new fiscal year begins, I'll get you another investigator. Until then, you'll have to make do.”

Our meeting ended. I'd been blunt. I wasn't sure whether he appreciated my candor. His demeanor didn't give much away. But I knew that I'd been set-up to fail if I couldn't command sufficient resources to implement his plan for greater staff accountability. In the meantime, I had a murder investigation to work.