Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

possibilities. He could have mailed it out; however, that seemed unlikely considering how carefully prison staff monitor incoming and outgoing mail. The note might have been smuggled out during a contact visit. We needed to review Sorensen’s visitation log to determine who and when prior visits had occurred. The last possibility was the safest and would have provided the least likelihood of detection—an employee carried it out.
    “You got it about right,” I said, a note of obvious resignation in my voice.
    “Look. I don’t know if it will make you feel any better, but for a while there, I thought you were chasing your own tail. Now I’ve come around to thinking your instincts may have been right about this all along,” Kate said. “We still don’t have any proof, mind you, but when you string it all together, it’s plausible. In its own twisted way, it even makes sense. Of course, we still have no idea who these conspirators are or why they’re doing what they’re doing. One thing is certain: somebody has taken a great deal of time and gone to a lot of effort to hide whatever it is they’re up to.”
    We laid it out for Webb and Gill just as Kate and I had discussed it. They listened intently, without interruption. Webb and Gill had been partners for more years than I could remember. Webb eventually ended up with the sergeant stripes, but that hadn’t seemed to alter their relationship.
    Gill was a grizzled old veteran, who’d joined the Sheriff’s Department more than thirty-five years ago. He had to be nearing sixty. Gill had mentored a much younger Webb, when Webb was promoted from the uniform division to detective. They looked like Mutt and Jeff. Webb was effusive and well-spoken, Gill reserved and blunt. Webb dressed in conservative wool suits, with never a hair out of place. Gill, on the other hand, had days when the gray stubble of his beard confirmed that he hadn’t touched a razor in days. He wore cheap polyester suits, with ties that almost never matched and socks that clashed with everything else.
    That said, I wouldn’t care to have either one of them after me. Together, they had cleared more murder cases than probably any team of homicide dicks in Utah—Kate McConnell included. Of course, they were older than Kate, and had been at it a lot longer.
    “That’s some story. Too bad you can’t prove it. So you think this Sorensen may have forged the suicide note, and that’s what got him whacked?” asked Gill.
    “Yup.”
    “Any idea who did it?” asked Webb.
    “Nope.”
    “One hitter or two?” asked Gill.
    “Could be either, but I’d bet two.”
    “It might help us out if you’d give us a profile of the victim,” said Gill.
    “Happy to. Sorensen had a long history of nonviolent criminal behavior—his entire criminal record consisted of property offenses with the exception of a couple of DUIs. During his late teens to early twenties, he focused on retail shoplifting, theft, and, eventually, receiving stolen property. It appears that he had a reasonably profitable career as a fence. As he got older, the offense history shifted to multiple counts of check and credit card forgery. He was forty-two years old and had spent almost half his adult life in jail or prison. This current sentence represented his third commitment. He had already served more than six years on five felony counts of forgery. He’d been to the board and was scheduled for parole release in exactly eleven months.
    “His personal life isn’t pretty either,” I continued. “It looks like three marriages all ending in divorce. He fathered three children, one from each marriage. He seemed to have some support from friends and family, given a pretty regular pattern of prison visits. That about sums it up.”
    “Thanks, Sam. Assuming for the moment that we are dealing with two perps, are we looking for inmates or employees?” asked Webb.
    “That’s a hard one. I’d like to believe that he was killed by inmates, but my hunch is that the killers will turn out to be staff. At first glance, the murder has all the markings of an inmate hit. However, employees could stage that rather easily. If staff hired inmates to do it, they’d still have loose ends to tidy up. If my theory is correct, these guys are about eliminating loose ends, not creating more.”
    “So far, we haven’t had anybody tell us that Mr. Sorensen was in debt or being pressured by anyone. We’ve got more individuals to talk with,