Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

leave.
    Despite my attempt to be quiet, Aunt June appeared in the kitchen wondering if everything was okay. I briefly recounted the events of the past twenty-four hours, including the shooting of John Merchant and my subsequent suspension from duty. She had heard about the shooting on the ten o’clock news and hoped I wasn’t involved. The press hadn’t released any names.
    “I’m real sorry you had to shoot that man. It must make you feel just awful,” she said. “But I know one thing. If there had been any other way of handling the situation, you would have taken it. You just be patient. In the end, you’ll be exonerated and back to work sooner than you think. I’ll say a little prayer for you and the fellow you had to shoot.”
    At six a.m., I awoke with a start to find a pair of small, very cold feet pressed against my bare leg. Sara had slipped out of her room and into mine, something she does with some regularity.
    “Wake up, Daddy, you’re snoring again,” she said, grinning.
    “The only person who snores in this family is lying beside me right now,” I replied with as much indignation as I could muster. “In fact, you snore so loud sometimes, you sound just like the Lion King.”
    “I do not,” she said with a giggle.
    After a few minutes of light bantering and plenty of tickles, we agreed to get dressed and go out to breakfast before her parent-teacher conference. Sara is a very social and very bright little girl. If it’s true that much of who we are is a product of our genetic makeup, then Sara was lucky to get her mom’s propensity for good grades, because she certainly didn’t get it from me.
    By the time we finished breakfast and made it to school, I was just in time for my appointment with her teacher. Her grades were among the best in the class. She had, however, received an unsatisfactory mark for citizenship, which reflected a growing tendency to be the class chatter-box. We would have to work on that.
    ***
    I spent the remainder of the morning restlessly loafing around the house wondering how long it would be before my fate was decided. At twelve-thirty the phone rang. It was Burnham calling from the University of Utah Hospital. It seemed that John Merchant had come out of surgery and was much improved. After a few hours in intensive care, he was moved into a regular room with the added luxury of twenty-four-hour security at his door. And he was singing like Placido Domingo at the Boston Pops.
    “Guess what, Sam? No sooner had this asswipe come out from under the anesthetic when he demanded to talk with Jenny Owens. She called me right away and I met her here. The tough guy is in there right now babbling like an idiot. You’d think Owens was his mother instead of his PO. He alternates between wanting to discuss the murder and demanding that we cut him a deal for his cooperation. I think he’s scared shitless that he’ll end up at the prison hooked up with some inmate, bigger and tougher than he is, shoving something up his candy ass every night.”
    “I’m not surprised that he wants to cut a deal. He’s looking at several new felony charges and a certain probation revocation. That gives us some serious leverage. I hope she remembered to Mirandize him before she started asking questions,” I said.
    “No problem. She took care of that first thing,” said Burnham.
    “What did he have to say?”
    “That’s the bad news. Merchant denied any involvement in or knowledge of the murder. He claimed not to have even known about Vogue’s relationship with Sue Ann. He maintained that Winkler makes just about as much money turning tricks for customers from the club as she does from dancing. And get this little tidbit. It seems that Sue Ann is in business with her mother. Most of the trick activity occurs at the motel with Mom getting a percentage of the action. The old broad even pulls a few tricks herself with selected clients,” said Burnham.
    “Does he have an alibi?”
    “We’re checking that out right now. He claims he spent the evening of the murder at the home of his brother in Midvale. He says they had dinner, drank a couple of beers, and shot pool all evening. We ran a check on the brother. He’s clean. No prior record, gainfully employed, married with a couple of kids. We passed the alibi information along to McConnell, and she’s got somebody from her team trying to contact the brother for verification.”
    It was now clear to me that if Merchant’s alibi