Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

through bleary eyes to make out the time. I’d been telling myself for months to move the clock closer to the bed or buy another one with bigger numbers. Wearily, I picked up the phone.
    “Yeah.”
    “Sam, this is Norm Sloan. Sorry about the hour, but we’ve got a major problem.”
    I became instantly alert. Rarely did I receive a telephone call in the middle of the night from the Executive Director of the Utah Department of Corrections. Calls like this always meant that something had gone seriously wrong somewhere, usually at the state prison. As the head of the Special Investigations Branch (SIB) of the Utah Department of Corrections, problems with inmates or prison employees usually ended up on my desk.
    “What’s happened?”
    “I just received a call from the governor. Levi Vogue has been gunned down in the driveway of his home. The preliminary examination of the crime scene appears to suggest an execution-style hit.”
    “Oh, shit. Is he alive?”
    “No. They pronounced him dead at the scene.”
    “What about his family?”
    “Out of town from what I was told.”
    “Do you know if the governor is planning to involve the state attorney general’s office in the investigation?” I asked.
    “The governor didn’t say anything about it. As far as I can tell, this one’s strictly in the hands of Salt Lake City P.D. and the county prosecutor.”
    “Who’s been assigned as lead investigator?”
    “They’ve given it to that hot-shot female homicide detective—you know, the one who gets more publicity than the Pope.”
    “That would be Kate McConnell,” I said. “They couldn’t have made a better choice. She’s as talented as they come.”
    “That’s her,” said Sloan. “Look, Sam, I’m assigning you as my personal liaison to Salt Lake P.D. Do everything you can to help them get it solved quickly. And Sam, don’t delegate this to anyone else. Nobody knows our prison and parole populations better than you. Let’s just hope the perp turns out to be some asshole not connected to our offender population.
    “In a worst-case scenario, if the offender turns out to be one of ours, the politicians will do what they always do—look for scapegoats. It’s probably occurred to you that in the assignment of blame, you will be perceived by some as culpable. It’s your office that serves as the intelligence gathering unit for the department. There are those on the governor’s staff, and in the state legislature, who will ask how an incident like this could have gone undetected. I’ll expect you to provide daily briefings either to me or my administrative assistant, Brad Ford. Get on it, Sam, and good hunting.”
    Sloan was a survivor. He started at the Utah State Prison thirty-two years ago as a clinical social worker and clawed his way up the ranks to the top. The governor appointed him as executive director five years ago.
    He and I have bumped heads more than once. My dislike of authority, chains of command, and political maneuvering have often gotten me into hot water. Fortunately, I’m very good at what I do, and that keeps me employed and him out of trouble.
    Sloan had made no secret of his worry that the killer might be one of our ex-cons with a score to settle. Damage control would be at the top of his agenda. While I wanted to give Sloan the benefit of the doubt, the tenor of his message wasn’t lost on me. If the killer of Levi Vogue turned out to be an ex-con, I would make a tempting sacrificial lamb for the political bureaucrats. I wondered if Sloan might become one of those bureaucrats.
    I scratched a note on the kitchen chalkboard to Aunt June explaining that I’d been called out on a case and would phone her later in the morning. As the single parent of an eight-year-old, I don’t know how Sara and I would have made it without her. After my divorce, she moved in to assist with my transition into single parenthood. That was almost two years ago. She has since become an indispensable part of our lives. I looked in on Sara, and then quickly left the house.
    I live in the resort town of Park City, not far from the base of the ski mountain. It’s not exactly convenient to working at the Utah State Prison, but a great place to live if you can tolerate the thirty-plus-mile commute.
    As I crested Parley’s Summit and began the descent into Salt Lake City, a scary thought occurred to me. Rather than an isolated attack, what if the murder of Levi Vogue was part of a broader conspiracy to