Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

the room and not allow anyone inside until he found someone to inventory the deceased’s personal property. This only served to confirm what he already suspected. This death was the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a suicide committed by a despondent guy who happened to have a handgun in his possession, and who probably would turn out to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs when he ended his life. A relieved Corey radioed his young patrolman and told him about the drugs and the suicide note. He returned to the scene and handed over the evidence to Sanders before heading into his office.
    On his way, Corey radioed the county dispatch center and asked them to run Charles Watts’ name and DOB through the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification and the NCIC system. He didn’t like the results. Watts was wanted by Salt Lake City P.D. on a homicide beef. The pickup order warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous, and that any information should be directed to Detective Lieutenant Kate McConnell in Homicide.

Chapter Nineteen
    At precisely nine a.m., I found myself in the office of Dr. Marilyn Hastings from the Employee Assistance Program. Hastings was a licensed clinical social worker, who, in a previous life, had been a caseworker at the Utah State Prison. She handled the EAP for the Department of Corrections as well as several Salt Lake valley law enforcement agencies.
    I was annoyed at having to be here, if for no other reason than the time it took away from the case. But department policy was department policy, and I had reluctantly concluded that this was one situation where ducking the rules wasn’t going to work. If I’d blown off the appointment, I’d find myself back in the Norm Sloan doghouse and probably suspended as well.
    The session with Hastings went smoothly and faster than I would have imagined. The questions didn’t come as any great surprise. How was I sleeping? Was I eating? Was I spending excessive amounts of time dwelling on the shooting? Any emotional outbursts such as prolonged bouts of crying? Was I having any suicidal ideations? Was I drinking excessively or using drugs as a result of the shooting? I wondered if my answers made me sound like a cold-hearted bastard. She sent me out the door with a clean bill of health and a promise to contact her if I began experiencing problems.
    ***
    I wasn’t quite to my office when my cell phone rang. It was Kate, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.
    “I hope you’re sitting down, Sam. Watts has surfaced in Wendover.”
    “That’s good, so what’s the problem?”
    “The problem is he’s dead,” she replied.
    “No shit. What happened?”
    “That’s the interesting part. I just got off the phone with Walt Corey, the Chief of Police in Wendover, Utah. He says one of his patrolmen found Watts in a parked car this morning with a gun in his hand and a bullet behind his left ear. They’re treating the case as a suicide.”
    “Have they made a positive identification?”
    “Yeah. They’re sure it’s him.”
    “Are they certain it’s a suicide?”
    “Chief Corey says he traced him back to one of the local hotel casinos on the Nevada side. He’d rented a room the previous day. Corey says when he and the hotel’s security staff searched the room, they found a suicide note addressed to Watts’ sister. What do you make of that?”
    “Beats me. What did the suicide note say?”
    “He didn’t read it to me, and I guess I was too shell-shocked to ask.”
    “You say the note was addressed to a sister, huh. I’ll double-check our file, but I remember reading that this guy was a loner with no family support. And I don’t recall seeing anything in his history indicating that he might be suicidal.”
    “What are you suggesting, Sam?”
    “Probably nothing. Given what Chief Corey told you, it sounds like a suicide.”
    “We’ll know more once we see the autopsy report and what, if anything, the crime scene unit finds. How do you feel about spending the day in Wendover?”
    “You can drop me at one of the casinos. I’m actually overdue for a few hands of blackjack. I’ll pick you up at your office in twenty.”

Chapter Twenty
    As we made the one-hundred-twenty-mile drive from Salt Lake City to Wendover, I quickly regretted offering to drive. It seemed that no matter how fast I drove, it wasn’t fast enough for McConnell. I’d ridden with her just enough to conclude that a