The Arson at Happy Jack

by Charles Williamson

  “Zayd was murdered. Is there a chance that religious differences contributed to his death? I’m very ignorant on the subject of your faith,” I said.

  “There’s probably no connection. I mentioned it because Zayd would have friends among other Shiite students, but there are only a few here at NAU. I think hostility from some other Muslim students was why he didn’t come to the MSA meeting. I make an effort so that everyone feels welcome, but some Saudis do not share my opinion that we’re all brother Muslims.”

  “Can you provide some names of people that I might contact who knew Zayd? It’s really important,” I said.

  “A lot of international students are very intimidated by American police. I don’t feel comfortable giving you a list from the MSA records, but I will give you the name of someone who might be able to help even though he’s a Sunni. He’s an American and shouldn’t be intimidated by a visit from the police. I think Zayd was helping him with Arabic. He’s Muhammad al-Mukhtar. He knows all the Muslim students and attends every MSA meeting. Muhammad grew up a Christian and converted to Islam when he was fifteen. He lives with his parents in the Country Club neighborhood.”

  “Is he an African-American?” Chad asked.

  “No, he’s blond and pale eyed. His parents’ name is Gunderson,” Ahmed replied.

  We thanked Ahmed for his help. I knew that I could obtain the names and addresses of foreign students from NAU if I needed to, and I understood why Ahmed was not comfortable in giving me a list. The environment of suspicion and distrust between Americans and foreigners from Arab countries had gotten even worse after the second Iraq War and the growth of the Islamic State terrorist group.

  From Flagstaff information, I found the phone number of the only Gunderson family who lived near the Continental Country Club. I left a message on their answering machine for their son Muhammad to call me. It was already after 4:00, and we drove back to the Sedona office so that I could begin returning the phone calls from the press.

  As we headed down Oak Creek Canyon, Pete said, “There was a lot of hate in the way Zayd was killed. For someone who comes from a desert culture, dying of thirst must be significant and horrifying, especially if you have several weeks to think about it as you die. I’ll give you two to one that Zayd’s death was connected to his religion.”

  Neither Chad nor I was willing to take that bet.

  CHAPTER 9

  As we drove into the bustling uptown area of Sedona, I called Margaret on her cell phone. She and Teresa were having a great time and wanted to meet us at the Storytellers for dinner on their way back from Phoenix. They’d spent the afternoon shopping, and they were famished and wanted a steak dinner. Storytellers is about half an hour south of Sedona in the Cliff Castle Casino; they have the best T-bones steaks in the area, and would be a logical stop for our wives on their way up from Phoenix.

  I updated Margaret on the little we’d learned regarding the young man who’d been killed at Cataract Creek and described the truck that Martin McPhee had seen the evening before the fire.

  When we reached my Sedona office, Chad took Pete to a nearby Mexican restaurant for a beer while I went to my little cubicle to return calls from the press. The first call I made was to Major Ross.

  “Damn quick work on the GMC pickup. It’s our best lead so far. I’ve issued an APB for the truck, and you can go ahead and mention it to the press. Say it’s a possible witness rather than a suspect and tell the press exactly where the truck was seen but don’t mention the ATV. The taskforce will start interviewing every owner of a dark green GMC, but your witness wasn’t very confident in the color. We’ll check every dark one after we finish the greens. We’re also cross-checking with ATV owners who drive similar trucks, but ATV’s are more difficult to trace.”

  “Thanks, I’ll mention the truck when I return calls from the press. They’ll be grateful for any bit of news to put in their stories. What’s the latest on the fire?” I asked.

  “The firefighters have kept it away from other houses, but the tanker planes are going all the way to Page for water. We’ve found no more bodies, but we’re still looking through the burned-out cabins near Stoneman Lake and Happy Jack. We really need a break in the weather to get this damn fire contained before it becomes an unstoppable monster. This strong wind from the south is expected to last for several days, and there’re dry thunderstorms in the forecast starting Wednesday.”

  In the summer, it’s common in the desert Southwest to have thunder and lightning storms from which no rain actually reaches the ground. When surface humidity is below ten percent, the lower level air can just absorb the falling rain. It’s the worst-case scenario for fire; lightning causes most Arizona wildfires.

  I discussed the Happy Jack fire with Major Ross for a few more minutes before starting to return calls from the press. I called the Arizona TV stations first because they were so close to their airtime. After those calls, I returned calls from the newspapers, starting with the Sedona Red Rock News and Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff. All of the reporters planned to mention the truck in their reports. By morning, most of Arizona would be on the lookout for a dark green GMC Sierra Extended-Cab truck.

  I put the foot-thick file on the Saturday Night Arsonist case in my car, planning to get up early to look through it before tomorrow got too busy. I joined Pete and Chad at the nearby restaurant and had a beer and some chips and salsa.

  After finishing our beers, Pete and I decided to go to the casino to wait for our wives and play a little video poker. Chad had a date. He was temporarily between live-in girl friends and had a very active social life. Chad’s probably the best looking thirty-year-old bachelor in Sedona, and he has a new girlfriend every few months. He often dated attractive tourists and also favored local women who were fun and not emotionally demanding.

  As Pete and I drove south through the Verde Valley to the casino, ominous clouds of smoke perched like upside down thunder storms along the Mogollon Rim thirty miles north. The smoke was blowing toward Flagstaff, and the area involved was clearly growing, perhaps moving on a ten-mile wide front. The growing fire was frightening, and I wondered if they would start to evacuate south Flagstaff.

  The Cliff Castle Casino is a Native American run operation that takes its design theme from a nearby cliff dwelling built eight centuries ago. It has the normal coveted cars displayed above the banks of noisy slots, and scores of busy blackjack tables. The civilized smoking rules prevalent in much of America do not apply in the casino, and the smoke was choking, reminding me of the fire that was destroying the forest thirty miles away. The casino was busy with retirees and tourists, but Pete and I found unoccupied quarter video poker machines and wasted money for an hour until our wives arrived.

  I felt Margaret’s arm on my shoulder, and I turned to welcome her. “I missed you, Sweetie,” she said, bending down to kiss me.

  “Me too,” I said and meant it.

  “Did you see the fire on the horizon? It’s horrible to see it devouring the ponderosa forest; seeing it on TV just isn’t the same. Enjoying this evening in a casino makes me feel like we’re fiddling while Rome burns. You’ve got to stop the next fire by catching that man before he starts it,” she said. She was giving me less than a week to solve a crime that a statewide taskforce had been working on for a year.

  “I’m just one of dozens of people working on the arsonist case. The truck is our best bet, unless someone actually sees him start the next fire. Unfortunately, we’re not likely to catch him before next Saturday night.”

  “Let’s not talk about death at dinner, but I want to know everything before we go to bed,” she said. Margaret is always involved in my cases. I normally updated her every evening on whatever happened during the day. We’d had both an intimate and a collegial relationship for thirty years.

  Margaret hit a jackpot on a quarter slot just before we were due for our dinner reservation. She was still excited when we entered the pseudo cave dwelling interior of Storytellers. When we
were seated, she said, “Dinner is my treat tonight.” Dinner for four with good wine was going to be a lot more then her modest jackpot. Everyone ordered T-bones, and we sat back to enjoy a bottle of wine and good companionship.

  “So tell us about your spa vacation. How was the Arizona Biltmore?” Pete asked.

  “It’s right next to the nicest shopping center. I can’t wait to show you the presents I bought you,” Teresa replied. “We had a great time with the spa amenities and lounging around the wonderful pools. The service was outstanding. We should come back in the winter and play golf.”

  I could tell Pete was uncomfortable with the idea. The expensive resort would cost three times as much during the winter high season, and Pete’s budget was probably already stressed by living in an expensive town like Santa Fe. “You’re always welcome at our house,” I suggested. The resort was less than two hours away, and it would be easy to drive down and play golf without spending five hundred dollars a night.

  Margaret noticed the risk of moving into financial topics and said, “Tell us about your camping trip. Did you have a good time before you found the corpse?”

  “For two guys who grew up in smoggy LA, the vivid stars and emptiness were extraordinary. I was disappointed that our trip was cut short when we found the body,” Pete said.

  Our resolution to avoid talk of death at dinner was quickly lost. “Mike, you said the young man was from Saudi Arabia. Has his family been contacted yet?” Margaret asked.

  “I’ve talked to the Saudi embassy. I haven’t heard back from his family,” I said. My cell phone started to vibrate as I finished my sentence.

  It was Carl Gunderson, the father of the young man who was learning Arabic from Zayd Jabran. “What does the sheriff’s department want with my son Muhammad?” Mr. Gunderson said with a tone of hostility.

  “Muhammad was learning Arabic from an NAU student named Zayd. We’re trying to identify Zayd’s friends. He was found dead south of Tusayan on Saturday,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Zayd was a fine young man, quiet and respectful. He came to our house twice a week to teach our son. I’m really sorry to hear about his death. Tommy, rather Muhammad, has a job in Phoenix for the summer, but he’s often up here in Flag for the weekend,” Mr. Gunderson said. He gave me his son’s phone number in Phoenix. I decided to wait until after dinner to call the young man. I thanked Mr. Gunderson and hung up just as the steaks were delivered.

  CHAPTER 10

  After dinner, while Margaret, Teresa, and Pete played the slots, I went outside to call Muhammad. To get better reception, I walked from under the portico that protects the casino entrance. Once I was in the open, the orange glow to the north was a vivid reminder that the fire was still threatening thousands of residents in south Flagstaff. The casino area was clear of smoke, but that was a bad sign. Strong winds from the south continued to push the fire into new areas south of Flagstaff.

  The young man answered after a single ring. When I identified myself, he said, “Dad said you’d be calling. I was really sorry to hear about Zayd. I thought he was in Oregon for the summer. What on earth happened?”

  News of the medical examiner’s report of the death would probably be in tomorrow’s newspapers so I didn’t need to keep the details confidential. “We think Zayd Jabran was murdered. He died soon after the school term was out. He never made it to his summer job in Oregon.”

  “I’ll help any way I can, but I don’t know anything about his death,” Muhammad said. “He was a quiet guy who never talked much about what he was up to.”

  “We’re trying to trace his actions before he disappeared. If you know who his other friends were, we’d like to talk to them too. When was the last time you saw Zayd?”

  “We were in the same Intro to Chemistry class. I saw Zayd after the final. He was an excellent student, and I asked him what he thought the correct answers were to a couple of questions I was uncertain about. That was a Thursday in mid May. He expected to drive to Medford, Oregon the next week.”

  “Did he have a car?” I asked.

  “He had a truck. His family had plenty of money, and he bought a new truck when he first got to Flagstaff,” Muhammad said.

  “Can you describe his vehicle?” I asked.

  “It was a large pickup truck with two sets of seats, white and usually dirty. I was never in his truck, but he drove it when he came to the house for my lessons. We weren’t close friends. Zayd kept pretty much to himself, but he was interested in helping me read the Quran in Arabic, so we studied together twice a week. I know he had a lot of brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia and that his father was in the oil business. I guess almost everyone in Saudi Arabia is connected to the oil business in some way.”

  “I’m trying to reach his family through their embassy. Can you tell me who Zayd’s school friends were?”

  I made a list as Muhammad provided seven names of foreign students that he thought Zayd knew. I’d probably spelled many of the names wrong, but I was confident that the NAU administration could help me figure out how to find them. Muhammad didn’t know if any of them were actually close friends, but he’d seen several of them in Flagstaff this summer so I might be able to talk with them. Most foreign students had gone home for the summer.

  “None of these students are from Saudi Arabia. Can you give me some Saudi names?” I asked.

  “Those Saudi guys can be really arrogant. I don’t think Zayd was close to any of them,” he said.

  “Because he was a Shiite?”

  “The other Saudis kidded Zayd about whipping himself and made fun of Shiite leaders and rituals. Most of them didn’t think he was truly a Muslim,” he said. “If you’re looking for people who didn’t like Zayd, the only guys I can think of were other Saudis.” He gave me three more names of Saudi nationals who’d made fun of Zayd and other Shiites.

  “Do you know if Zayd had a girlfriend?” I asked although I thought that I already knew the answer.

  There was a pause. “Saudis still mostly have arranged marriages, often to cousins, but Zayd did notice the local girls like any young guy. I don’t think he would consider a serious relationship with a Christian, but I saw him skiing several times with a local girl. I don’t know her last name, but her first name is Ashley, and I think she’s still in high school.”

  “Thanks, I didn’t know about her. I’m surprised that he was a skier. Where did he learn to ski?” I asked.

  “All the Saudi students are avid skiers. That’s why they come to school in Flagstaff. With the poor snow the past few years, their enrollment is way down. Mostly they learned as kids on vacations in Switzerland and Austria I think.”

  “Was Zayd a fundamentalist Muslim?” I asked.

  “That term doesn’t mean anything in Islam. The Quran is the word of God as revealed through the Angel Gabriel to His final Prophet, Muhammad, praise be his name. There is no room for ambiguity in the revealed word of God. It is His truth,” he said in a tone that made me decide that a further religious discussion with him wasn’t going to help me move forward in my case.

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to kill him?” Direct questions often worked the best.

  “Flagstaff has hundreds of Redneck Muslim-hating assholes,” he said with an undertone of fury. In a softer tone, he continued, “Northern Arizona is a difficult place to freely submit to the will of Allah as revealed by his Prophet. After I converted, I got into so many fistfights, that my mother had to home-school me for my final three years of high school. Muslims in America are always in danger from retaliation by chauvinistic bigots from the House of Unbelief. How did you say Zayd was killed?”

  I’m usually even-tempered and normally tolerant of religious differences, but this House of Unbelief comment bothered me. I was grateful that my only son was raising his daughters as good Catholics. What did this young man’s parents feel about his conversion?

  “Zayd was chained to a tree and left to die of thirst,” I said. After decades of passing
on bad news, I’d learned that short and direct worked best.

  Muhammad said something in Arabic, which I took to be either a prayer for the dead or an Arabic obscenity.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your comment,” I said.

  There was no response. I repeated my statement, and he said in a flat voice, “The most severe penalty in ancient Arabia was to be severed from the tribe, to be ostracized and denied hospitality. The ostracized were abandoned in the desert to die of thirst.”

  “Does his manner of death indicate that other Arabs might be involved?”

  “I have no knowledge of his death, but Allah will receive him in paradise if he was a true believer. Goodbye Detective.” There was a dial tone as the young man hung up on me.

  I briefly considered driving to Phoenix to interview Mr. Muhammad al-Mukhtar, formerly Tommy Gunderson, in person. I’m told that I look pretty intimidating when I’m annoyed. After I calmed down, I decided that it would be better to wait for another time to resume my dialogue with the young Muslim convert. His reaction to the manner of Zayd’s death convinced me that he knew more than he was saying.

  I returned to the casino and found that Margaret had won another jackpot. She wanted to leave before she put all the money back into the machine, and Pete and Teresa had grown tired of losing. The Aguilars rode in their Honda. It had been used for the trip to Phoenix. Margaret rode with me, and I had a chance to update her on my call to Muhammad and talk about the Cataract Creek case.

  After my explanation, Margaret asked, “What’s this huge file in the backseat?”

  “It’s all the information on the arson cases. I wanted to look it over early tomorrow before I go to the office.”