Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

twenty-five caliber gunshot wound to the head. In all likelihood, the single shot produced death almost instantaneously,” said the young medical examiner. “We carefully removed the twenty-five caliber slug during the autopsy. It came out undamaged and is now available for ballistics testing. The stomach contained a partially digested dinner consumed some three to four hours prior to death. A blood sample revealed a small amount of alcohol in the victim’s system, but not enough to reach Utah’s .08 legal limit. The bullet entered behind the decedent’s left ear and was lodged in the lower jaw. There was no exit wound.”
    In Utah, the state medical examiner not only determined the cause of death, but also whether a death was accidental, a suicide, or a criminal homicide. Voddel continued, “Two factors make it all but impossible for me to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Watts shot himself. First, the downward trajectory of the bullet occurred at such an angle as to make it highly unlikely that it was self-inflicted. Gunshot suicides which occur with the entry wound behind the ear, while not uncommon, almost always show an upward trajectory of the bullet because that is the more natural body position. Second, the absence of powder burns or residue on the victim’s skin suggested that the fatal shot was fired from a likely distance of one to two feet. Taken together, Mr. Watts would have had to place his left hand and arm into an almost impossible position from which to discharge the weapon. And he couldn’t possibly have accomplished that unless the driver-side door or window was open. And they were both closed.”
    “Harry Houdini couldn’t have made that move,” chimed Chandler-Soames, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “The likely scenario is that your shooter was standing outside the victim’s vehicle, slightly to the rear, and fired a single shot, that struck Mr. Watts behind his left ear at the downward angle. He probably never saw it coming.”
    The room was silent as we absorbed what we had just heard. The only audible sound came from Walt Corey’s growling stomach. Finally, I broke the silence. “I’ve got Terry tracking down Watts’ former prison caseworker, who should be able to provide us with handwriting samples.”
    “That’s good. If Watts’ death isn’t a suicide, then the note Walt found in the hotel room has to be a forgery,” said Kate. Turning to Corey, she said: “Chief, you’ve got some decisions to make. Do you plan to carry this homicide investigation forward on your own or seek outside assistance?”
    For the first time since we arrived, Corey smiled. “I think we’ve got our homicide team sitting right here. Let’s cut to the chase. I’ve got a small department with limited resources in a town that rarely sees a murder. The few we do get are usually family disturbances that turn violent, and somebody ends up killing somebody. Pretty much open-and-shut cases. This isn’t one of those cut-and-dried domestic violence cases. We’re gonna need some help with this one.
    “It also seems to tie directly into your ongoing investigation of the murder of that parole board member. You’ve still got work to do before you figure out who would go to all the trouble of killing the killer. I’d just like to know whose hairy ass I might need to kiss in order to keep the two of you working this case?”
    I liked Corey when I first met him in Wendover a day earlier. I liked him even better now, and I think Kate did too. His analysis of our predicament suggested a guy who possessed a solid grasp of the factual situation as well as the political context in which we found ourselves. I wondered if our two departments would try to wash their hands of the investigation and dump it on a small, understaffed, rural police department. We were about to find out.

Chapter Twenty-four
    At the conclusion of their presentation, members of the State Medical Examiner’s Office excused themselves, leaving Kate, Corey, and me alone in the conference room. Once again, things were about to heat up, and we needed a plan.
    “What the hell do we do now?” asked Corey.
    “Sam and I had better break the bad news to our respective agency heads ASAP,” said Kate. “They’d like this case to disappear quietly. Our job will be to convince them to let us continue working the investigation.”
    “Go away, it ain’t,” muttered Corey. “I know Chief Hansen well and I’ve met