Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

Police Department.”
    “Actually, several factors came into play. One was that I knew the area pretty well and liked it. I had an aunt who lived in Salt Lake City for quite a few years, and my parents brought me to visit her several times when I was a kid. Also, my mother was well connected to the chief of police, and he encouraged me to apply. It’s been a good experience, even though when I came, I never intended to stay permanently. I thought the experience would be just the right ticket for entree into the FBI. And it probably was.”
    Kate didn’t offer any specifics regarding her meteoric rise through the ranks of the Salt Lake City Police Department. Her reputation at solving high-visibility homicide cases had made her something of a media celebrity throughout the Salt Lake Valley. Some in the business believed that McConnell was on the fast track to one day becoming the first female Salt Lake City Chief of Police, assuming no major screw-ups along the way.
    “Aside from the job, I really enjoy living near downtown. It gives me easy access to lots of good restaurants. And the cultural amenities available in the city are really quite impressive.”
    “Such as?”
    “Well, I have season tickets to the Utah Symphony as well as the Salt Lake Acting Company. The community theater here is great, and we also get some good Broadway plays. On occasion, I take in an opera or the ballet. What more could a girl ask for?”
    She tossed the ball to me. “What kind of things do you enjoy doing when you’re not chasing down bad guys or playing Mr. Mom?”
    It occurred to me that if it’s true that opposites attract, I might have a chance with Kate. Otherwise, forget about it. I could hardly stand to tell her that my “cultural interests” consisted largely of chasing around the Wasatch mountains on skis or a mountain bike. I also enjoyed quaffing beer at Utah Grizzly hockey games, and I attended an occasional rodeo for good measure. It wouldn’t take Einstein to figure out that our respective lists of leisure activities didn’t seem terribly compatible. Given a choice between attending an opera or going to the dentist for a root canal, I’d probably choose the opera, but only by the slimmest of margins.
    After confessing my cultural shortcomings, I couldn’t tell if Kate was horrified or merely amused. In any event, I was sorry that the pleasant buzz I’d been working on had receded into a state of dour sobriety resulting from too much Hunan beef and steamed rice and too little beer.
    ***
    We cleared away the dinner dishes and spent the next hour at her dining-room table comparing our lists of forgery candidates, any one of whom could have created the false suicide note. My list contained every offender currently under state correctional supervision for a forgery conviction. We eliminated those offenders locked up in prison or a county jail. We then compared Kate’s list with my longer list of probationers and parolees under departmental supervision. We pared the list down to nineteen possible candidates, nine of whom appeared on both lists. We agreed to split the group of nine among Kate, Vince Turner, and me.
    ***
    It was starting to get late. “Let’s put this stuff away, okay? How about an after-dinner drink before we call it a night?” said Kate.
    “I’d like that.”
    “Brandy okay?”
    “Great.”
    Kate directed me into her dimly lit living room while she went to get the brandy. We sat down on the couch next to each other. Our knees were touching. When I attempted to make eye contact with her, she quickly looked away. Neither of us spoke, but somehow, the silence didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. As I raised the snifter to my lips, I let the unmistakable wood-smoke smell of brandy fill my nostrils. I removed the snifter and noticed the faint odor of Kate’s perfume. When I looked over at her again, she was still looking away. She must have felt my eyes on her because she turned and met my gaze. This time she didn’t look away. We leaned toward each other and kissed that first slow kiss, gentle and exploring. We parted just long enough to deposit our brandy snifters on the nearby coffee table and then we kissed again. I felt every part of me stir as our tongues danced the dance of an intimate new relationship.
    Our breathing became labored and our arousal more pronounced. I felt Kate’s hand begin to tentatively stroke my chest and then move lower across my abdomen. With one hand I