Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

absolutely nothing when they went back to Wendover and processed the crime scene and Watts’ hotel room. His car had been wiped clean. The hotel room produced a variety of latent prints they are checking out for us. But don’t hold your breath. After all, it’s a hotel room, and it ought to have prints. They’ll let us know if the fingerprint database search produces anything useful.
    “And one last thing. Jim Allen called Tom late Friday afternoon. Allen wanted to meet first thing tomorrow morning, but Tom made some excuse and set the meeting for five o’clock in the afternoon. The stall is on. Apparently, the D.A. wasn’t one bit happy to hear that Richard Vogue hired private investigators without consulting anybody. Although nobody has said anything yet, the brass are probably nervous about having the Vogue family find out about Levi’s extramarital activities.”
    ***
    I left Kate’s condo with as much grace as I could muster under the circumstances. To describe the feeling as awkward was a serious understatement. I wanted to discuss things, and I sensed she did too. This, however, wasn’t the time or place. The investigation was reaching another critical juncture. I could feel it. And distractions just wouldn’t do.

Chapter Thirty-four
    At eight-thirty the next morning, I gathered my unit for a meeting at the state prison. The staff of the Special Investigations Branch consisted of six investigators, two secretaries, and me. We are a pretty close-knit bunch. As I entered the conference room, one of my investigators, Marcy Everest, was busy entertaining the staff with one of her jokes. As I sat down, I heard her say, “So this guy’s been dead for several months, and then one day out of the clear blue, he speaks to an old friend. His friend says, ‘Hey Max, is that really you?’ Max answers, ‘Oh, yes, it’s me.’ And the friend says, ‘So Max, tell me what it’s like.’ And Max says, ‘Well it’s really pretty good. I sleep in, get up when I want, have a little breakfast, have some great sex, and then take a nap. A little later in the day, I wake up again, have another meal, have some more great sex, and then take another snooze. That’s kind of my routine now. It’s good.’ So the friend says, ‘Wow, Max, so that’s what Heaven is really like.’ And Max says, ‘Who the hell said anything about Heaven? I’m a buffalo in Montana.’”
    The room erupted with laughter, and then we settled down to work.
    My agenda was relatively short. I wanted to talk about the Vogue/Watts murder investigation. “Folks, it’s time to use our inmate sources to see what kind of information is out there. I know when we do that it creates stress among both the inmates and the staff. But in this instance, we’ve come to a near standstill. So here’s what I want you to do. I’d like each of you to contact all of your inmate sources. See what they can find out for us. As usual, be careful what kind of reward you negotiate with them. When in doubt, talk with me first.
    “Terry, get this request to all the correctional officer shift commanders so they can make an announcement at roll-call meetings. We want all our COs to keep an ear to the ground for any information that might be helpful. Marcy, you do the same thing with the clinical staff supervisors, teachers, maintenance workers, and culinary employees. Basically, we want the assistance of everybody employed inside the prison who has regular contact with inmates. We should probably anticipate the usual whining from the clinical staff. They never like it when we pressure them or inmates to provide snitch information. It interferes with their client-therapist trust-building relationship or some such bullshit. Pass them and their complaints along to me. I’ll deal with them. Any questions?”
    There were none, and our meeting broke up. Terry stuck around to provide me with an update on what he’d learned from Charles Watts’ friends as well as his sister.
    He dug around for a minute and finally pulled out a dog-eared, yellow lined legal pad sporting what appeared to be a large coffee stain in the middle of the page. The page was covered with unreadable handwritten notes that might have been written in Swahili. “Sorry,” he began. “I haven’t had time to sit down and translate my notes into a coherent report.”
    “Are you sure we’re not going to need a team of investigators to help translate those notes?” I asked, smiling.
    “Up yours.