Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

particularly department employees. Schumway left the office with no more information than he had when he arrived.
    Besides Terry’s voice mail, the other message of interest came from Deputy Warden Bob Fuller. The message itself was short. He asked that I call him back. I decided to oblige. I dialed his extension, and on the third ring, he picked up.
    “Bob, this is Sam. I got your message. Thought I’d better get back to you before my day starts to get hectic. What’s up?”
    “Thanks for returning my call, Sam. Look, I don’t mean to pry, but I hope you can understand my concern about the possibility of having one of my employees involved in this killing. If it proves to be true, I don’t have to tell you what an incident like this would do to the morale of my staff, not to mention the reputation of the department. Has anybody heard from Stimson?”
    “Not that I’m aware of—at least not as of this morning. I don’t know what to make of that, but I hope she turns up soon.”
    “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions. After all, she is on her regularly scheduled days off. I’ll bet she’s taken a trip someplace and will show up later today. She’s not scheduled back on duty until swing shift tomorrow. I just can’t believe one of my staff could be involved in something like this. By the way, did you find anything when you searched her house?” Fuller asked.
    I responded with a half-truth. “Really didn’t find much. We took a dirty uniform and that was about it. Webb planned to have the lab boys check it out, but I haven’t heard whether they got the results back—probably sometime today though.”
    “If you don’t mind my asking, what prompted the Sheriff’s Department to get a search warrant in the first place?” he asked.
    Now I was uncomfortable. For the moment, the advantage belonged to Fuller. I didn’t want to provide him with information he didn’t already have, nor did I want to get caught in a lie by denying the existence of evidence he might already know about. So I opted for the middle ground.
    “You know, Bob, I’m really not at liberty to go into the details, but I will tell you judges don’t approve warrants without probable cause—so draw your own conclusions.”
    Satisfied that he’d gotten all the information he was likely to get, Fuller and I said good-bye. I felt certain that Schumway and Fuller had set out to accomplish the same goal: gather as much information about the status of the investigation as possible without arousing suspicion. It didn’t work.

Chapter Forty-five
    As the day wore on, Stimson’s somber mood turned to a dark depression. With the depression came anger, more than she’d felt at any time in her life except maybe from the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child at the hands of her stepfather. She first heard the report over one of Salt Lake City’s twenty-four-hour all-news radio stations. There was now a warrant out for her arrest—first degree murder in the death of prison inmate Milo Sorensen. It was the lead story on all the stations. She fought the growing sense of panic in her gut—fight or flight, the most basic of human responses. She took a deep breath and let the rage take over. Fight it would be.
    Her life had fallen apart in the span of a few short hours. And Sam Kincaid was responsible—Kincaid and that bitch homicide detective from Salt Lake City P.D. She would take his family and destroy it. She’d make him watch and then she’d take his life too. Time permitting, she would have enjoyed a one-on-one encounter with Kate McConnell. That was out of the question now. Kincaid would have to do.
    She arrived outside Jane Adams Elementary School in Park City about fifteen minutes before school ended. She parked in front, looking like any other parent intent on picking up a child. She fit right in and didn’t look even slightly suspicious. She had been here before. She knew Sara Kincaid would emerge, probably with a friend or two, and walk the short distance home. Stimson also knew that Sara never arrived home to an empty house. She was no latch-key kid. The live-in nanny would be there to greet her.
    Rather than snatch the child from the street and risk causing a scene, Stimson decided on another course of action. She would follow at a discreet distance until Sara got home, and then take the kid and the old lady just as Sara entered the house. She would only deviate from that plan if it appeared Sara wasn’t