Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

stuff. I didn’t want you caught off guard, and I wasn’t sure if Chief Hansen planned on giving you a heads-up prior to the news conference.”
    “They haven’t contacted me so far,” Sloan said irritably. “Chief Hansen and I go back a long way. You’d think he would have called out of professional courtesy.
    “I appreciate your keeping me abreast of developments, Sam. This may turn out to be the best resolution for all parties concerned. Planting this guy six feet under will make the entire shoddy episode disappear off the media’s radar screen quickly. Obviously, it would have been better if Vogue’s killer hadn’t come from our offender population, but he did, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’d be in a more tenuous situation if Watts were still under parole supervision. But he wasn’t. And we never paroled the guy in the first place. The Board of Pardons did that. And it was the board that ultimately decided to release him from parole supervision. That wasn’t our call either.” He paused.
    “I think we can manage this crisis fairly well, Sam. I’m actually kind of relieved at the turn of events. I’ve got to get back to the committee. Keep me informed if anything new develops. And thanks for the heads-up.” The line went dead.
    ***
    When we arrived in Wendover, we had to locate the abandoned army airbase where the body had been discovered. We found it south of town, well off the main drag. Our path took us down a weedy, gravel road with drab-looking wooden barracks lined up in symmetrical rows. The secret airbase was used during World War II to train B-29 crews, including that of the Enola Gay , which ultimately dropped the big one on Japan. A row of old clapboard houses, long overdue for a paint job, perched on a bluff overlooking the base. The homes were probably used by military personnel during the war, but now had the look of a low-income housing project. I could see a handful of children and adults out on their lawns taking in the spectacle below.
    If Charles Watts had chosen to end his life here, he couldn’t have picked a lonelier, more forbidding location.
    By the time we arrived, the crime scene technicians had videotaped and photographed the area. They had removed the firearm, a twenty-five caliber Colt with a filed-off serial number, and had assumed custody of the suicide note. The medical examiner had just removed the body from the vehicle. Both hands had been carefully bagged and the body placed onto a gurney and then zipped into a black body bag.
    Kate noted that the responding medical examiner was Harold Voddel, the same ME who had handled Vogue’s autopsy. Voddel placed the time of death between midnight and four a.m. The single shot had entered behind Watts’ left ear. Like many small-caliber weapons, a twenty-five caliber slug to the head often rattles around, but doesn’t create an exit wound.
    The State Crime Lab crew had decided not to process the victim’s car for prints, since the case was being treated as a suicide. An inventory search of the vehicle had turned up nothing useful, other than several unpaid parking tickets and some papers indicating Watts had recently applied for state unemployment compensation.
    We met Walt Corey in his office. He did not fit my stereotypical image of what I thought the Chief of Police in Wendover, Utah, might look like. In a staunch Mormon community, I envisioned a fit, healthy-looking, clean-cut member of the church running the police department. That wasn’t Walt Corey. He must have been in his late thirties, although he looked much older. His receding hairline, swarthy complexion, and thick middle belied too many years of sitting in a patrol car eating French fries and burgers. His office smelled like stale cigarettes.
    Kate flashed that Hollywood smile and thanked Corey for the prompt notification.
    “Sure thing,” he said. “So this Watts fella was wanted in Salt Lake City on a murder beef?”
    “Afraid so,” said Kate.
    Corey smiled and said, “Well, the Salt Lake taxpayers have just been saved a bundle of dough—no need for a trial now. His death looks like a clear-cut case of suicide—happens out here more often than people realize.”
    “Why’s that?” I asked.
    “Gambling is a real addiction, you know. Guy comes out here, gets drunk, and blows his paycheck for the umpteenth time, and then decides he can’t go home and face the wife and kids. Usually, the bodies show up over on the Nevada