Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

Sue Ann, but it too would have to wait. The call struck me as odd. Schumway wasn’t known for emotional outbursts. His tone sounded almost desperate. But desperate for what? Information? I wasn’t sure.
    ***
    Despite my misgivings about having to interact with Stoddard, the meeting came off smoothly. I concluded that my own discomfort at having to work with him had more to do with that little voice in my head called a conscience, and had nothing to do with him. The guy was bright and capable. I could understand Kate’s attraction to him.
    Everyone read Sorensen’s letter. Stoddard summed up our situation succinctly. “As I see it, we’ve got three options: We can place Stimson under round-the-clock surveillance; we can pick her up, confront her with the letter and see if she confesses; or we can go for a search warrant of her home.”
    To Stoddard I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in option two. Do you have any idea how often inmates complain about correctional officers? They do it all day long. It isn’t likely that an experienced officer like Stimson is going to break out in a cold sweat because an inmate, and a dead one at that, has made an allegation against her. If the only evidence I’ve got is the uncorroborated letter from Sorensen, the department couldn’t sustain a job action against Stimson, much less consider seeking criminal charges. It would be the word of a dead inmate serving his third prison sentence against a corrections officer with four years’ experience and a relatively clean record. The officers union would have a field day with us.”
    “And another thing,” chimed in Kate. “Have we got enough to get a warrant? I’m not sure that the letter by itself is legally strong enough for a judge to conclude that we’ve got probable cause. Unless I’ve forgotten what I learned in Search and Seizure 101, no probable cause, no warrant.”
    Stoddard replied, “It would probably be a close call, but I think a well-written affidavit, carefully laying out the facts, will result in a judge approving the warrant application. If we do get turned down, we go to plan B—place Stimson under twenty-four-hour surveillance. We won’t be out anything but the time it took us to prepare the thing. I recommend we go for it.”
    Nobody disagreed. The consensus was that we opt for the warrant first, and then confront Stimson with the letter and any incriminating evidence that turned up in the search.

Chapter Forty-one
    While Webb, Gill, and Stoddard prepared the search warrant affidavit, Kate drove to Stimson’s home and established visual surveillance. It appeared that nobody was home. Department records revealed that Stimson was single and lived in the small city of Lehi, located about fifteen minutes from the prison.
    I decided to follow up on a small detail Gill had overlooked after he completed his interview with Stimson. I pulled the original ticket she had written to inmate Eddie Sandoval on the evening of the murder. Sandoval had come to the prison from Salt Lake City eighteen months ago on several drug charges.
    His prison record was mixed. The incident with Stimson represented his third minor disciplinary violation since entering prison. While not directly affiliated with any prison gang, Sandoval’s file revealed associations with several known members of one of our most dangerous gangs, the Mexican Mafia.
    With ticket in hand and uncertain of the reception I was about to receive, I located Sandoval in the education building, attending a late afternoon drug treatment class. I brought him into a small, unoccupied classroom next to where his treatment group was meeting. I introduced myself and tried to establish rapport by making small talk. He wasn’t buying it. It immediately became clear that niceties would not placate the hostility and suspicion written all over his face, so I decided to take the direct approach.
    “Look, Eddie, I’ll get right to the point. You received a disciplinary last evening from Officer Stimson for refusing to turn the volume down on your box. What time did the incident go down?”
    He stared at me without speaking for almost a minute and then said, “Fuckin’-a, man. You pulled my ass out of group for this? Half the guys in that room are gonna figure I’m some kind of punk-ass snitch. I don’t remember exactly when I got the goddamn thing. It was in the evening. Go look it up on the fuckin’ ticket, man, and stop botherin’ my ass.”
    We