The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo

by Charles Williamson

  When Mike logged into his computer, He found fifteen emails were pending. One was from the FBI office in Phoenix. He clicked on it and found three digital drawings of a cowboy. One showed his face without a hat. The second showed him with a cowboy hat, and the third photo was a colorized full-length drawing of a lean young man wearing old worn cowboy boots, blue jeans, a light tan shirt with a darker tan vest, and a worn brown cowboy hat. The man looked slightly familiar in a sort of generic cowboy manner. The high definition recording from Santa Fe should arrive by that afternoon, but Mike didn’t expect it to be the same man. Because there were three Honda ATV tracks at the scene, he assumed the looters had split up the artifacts and were each trying to sell some of them in different cities. He reviewed all of his emails, hoping to find a lead to the third suspect, but there was no other indication that any professional dealers had seen the other looted objects.

  At about 10:00, June Rosetta came to his office with a list of the registered owners of three or more Honda single-seat ATVs purchased within the past five years. There were only eight people in Arizona who had registered three or more such vehicles for travel on roadways once Mike discarded the names of actual Honda dealers. Two owners were in Tucson, too far from the looting to be a likely suspect, but not impossible if they brought the vehicles north on a trailer of some kind. One was in Sierra Vista, even farther away from the looting. Four were in the Phoenix metropolitan area. However, two names jumped out at him, Sedona Premium ATV Rentals and the Poole Vineyards. Mike had seen the rented ATVs around Sedona many times as they drove through town before they reached the countless trails and jeep roads open to motorized vehicles in the national forest that surrounded Sedona. Renting ATVs was a big business in Sedona with four rental companies, but only one of the companies used Honda ATVs. June had highlighted the final name on the list with bold print, Poole Vineyards of Page Springs, Arizona. The ATV rental company based in Sedona owned fifteen Honda single seat ATVs that they rented by the hour. The Poole Vineyards owned three that had been purchased a year and a half previously.

  Mike decided that he only knew one specific timeframe to investigate, the period in which Paul McFarlane was murdered. He had no dates for the four lootings of the Sinagua sites in the Verde Valley. He decided to go to the rental company that afternoon and ask to see their records for the days around the McFarlane homicide. He suspected that the looters arrived at Kinnickinick Pueblo the day before the murder to have enough time to excavate the grave, locate and remove the ancient artifacts, and leave by the following morning. It was unlikely that a group of three ATVS would be rented for those two days. He assumed that everyone returned the vehicles by evening because they were rented by the full day and the half-day, not normally overnight. Mike checked their webpage and found the single-passenger Hondas rented for $265 per full day. At least on the web, the company did not list any overnight rentals.

  In addition to the customer records, Mike needed to investigate the whereabouts of the owner and all the workers of the ATV rental company on the day of Paul McFarlane’s death, but the new information pointed strongly to employees of the vineyard being involved. They would have known about the ground penetrating radar and had access to three ATVs for overnight use. Since they lived in the area, they would have had a lot of opportunities to scout for potential looting sites in the Verde Valley. An out-of-state stranger could not have easily found the four sites looted in the Verde Valley or the one at Kinnickinick Pueblo. None of them were marked on maps. He walked to Sheriff Taylor’s office with the list of ATV owners.

  “Goddamn Mike. Be damn careful in how you handle the Poole family. You may discover that someone from their vineyard was involved, but don’t mention the Poole name in anything you say in public. Follow up these other leads before going back to the vineyard. Jim Poole is leaving for a cattle roundup on the family’s ranch near Mendocino this morning. It wouldn’t be a good idea to go back to his vineyard without him being there.”

  “Yes, I understand how sensitive it is, boss. It’s extremely unlikely that the Poole family in involved, but they have fifteen employees who might be, and even a few seasonal employees we haven’t located and fingerprinted yet. I should have the HD video from the Santa Fe artifacts dealer later today, but I’m reluctant to publish the face from Santa Fe and the drawing of the man in Scottsdale unless I have a chance to compare them to Poole Vineyard employees first. Seeing their photos in the paper might send them on the run. What if I call Jim Poole and ask his OK to meet with his employees while telling his workers that I’m investigating the missing ground penetrating radar unit?”

  “Well, if Jim is OK with it, I guess I can’t have a problem with you checking to see if any of them look like these photos, but the vineyard is in Yavapai County. Maybe you should have someone from their Sheriff’s Department with you. I don’t want to get in a fight with Sheriff Smith. He’s competent but very territorial, and he loves publicity. If you find our killers, it would be a good idea to have someone from their department involved.”

  When Mike got back to his desk, he found an overnight delivery package. He put the disk in his computer and watched the ten-minute silent video. He stopped it twice, enlarged the face section of the screen, and sent still photos to the photo printer shared by the whole building. He printed another full-length shot of the man walking in the door of the store. He now had two excellent shots of the face of the man who had tried to sell the prayer stick with the representation of a hand carved from juniper wood. Mike had no doubt that he could identify the man from the 8 by 10 photos. He also sent the three drawings of the man in Scottsdale to the photo quality printer. For the first time since he got the original call, Mike felt close to finding the men who gut shot a recently discharged Marine and left him in that remote spot to die from a cougar attack.

  Mike walked to the printer and then the short distance to Jimmy Hendrix’s office. He set the six photos in front of Jimmy and asked, “Do you recognize any of these men as employees whose fingerprints you took at the Poole Vineyard?”

  Jimmy looked at each photo closely. “The big man with the beard in this photo is definitely not one of the men I fingerprinted. None of them had a beard, just stubble, and none were that large. Of the twelve men, seven were Hispanic. I took fingerprints from three women too. There are six seasonal employees who only work at the harvest who have not come in for prints yet.”

  Turning to the drawing of the man in Scottsdale, Jimmy said, “This young cowboy looks slightly familiar but not from seeing him at the vineyard.”

  The big man Jimmy mentioned was the man from Santa Fe. He had an inch long black beard and intense brown eyes that looked like he was squinting even in the mellow lights of the store in Santa Fe. He wore a green baseball cap with a John Deere logo. Mike estimated he was six two and over two hundred and fifteen pounds, maybe even two twenty-five. There were several other small scars on his face around his mouth and right eye. Almost anyone who knew him would recognize him in the excellent quality photos, but Mike still wanted to go to the vineyard and see if they knew him as a seasonal employee or someone who had been aware of the ground radar unit’s storage place.

  Next Mike called Jim Poole’s cell phone. He answered on speaker. The noise of traffic was in the background.

  “Jim, this is Mike Damson. I have some photos of suspects that I’d like to show to your employees at the vineyard. We don’t think they are photos of any of the full-time employees, but these are the photos of two men who attempted to sell artifacts that might be from our looted site at Kinnickinick. Is it OK if I go and speak to your employees tomorrow morning explaining that we working on the stolen radar unit?”

  “Certainly, Mike. I’ll call my wine master to let him know you’ll be coming. You met Giuseppe Sordi when you were there. He does the hiring of all our seasonal workers during the harvest. I’ve read more about your homicide case, and I’d love for you to get the bastards who murdered that Marine. The Poole family will do
all we can to help.”

  Mike called Deputy Matt Waldrop and asked the Yavapai County deputy to join him at the Poole Vineyards at 9:00 AM the next morning. He also called Jimmy Hendrix. He wanted the crime scene technician to check the tires of the vineyard’s ATVs against the prints discovered at the Kinnickinick Pueblo ruin.

  Matt had replied, “I’ll be there, but I’m not actually on the clock on Saturday. I’m committed to helping find the looters, and of course help with your homicide. You can count on me to be there.”

  Mike was pleased with the progress for the day. He began to call the other Arizonans who owned three or more Honda single-seat ATVs. He left work at four-thirty to drive to the Sedona Premium ATV Rentals. When he reached west Sedona he drove to the rental lot which was located near Dry Creek Road and Highway 89A. There were seven Honda ATVs on the lot as well as several other brands of ATVs, but he assumed the other Hondas had been rented for the afternoon.

  When he got out to walk to the office, a man he recognized as Andy Biggs from church came out with a smile to greet him. Andy was a deacon who occasionally read biblical passages at the Sunday mass, and who during high masses, conducted the church choir. Mike had not realized that he owned the rental lot.

  “Hi Mike. Can I help you with a rental?”

  “No Andy, I’m here on a case. I want to check and see if three people rented ATVs over a specific set of days. Do you ever have overnight rentals?”

  “We do sunset rentals, but even those rentals must be back in the lot by 9:30. I’d call the cops or Forest Service if anyone came back later than that. We have had people whose vehicles conked out, maybe once a quarter or so. I always sent our truck with a trailer out to get them at night, but the last of those was at least two months ago. Thank goodness for cell phones, otherwise we’d never find people until morning. Come into the office, and I can show you our records for the dates you want. By the way, I saw Margaret today. I went in to move my business account. She was very busy, but as nice as ever.”

  Andy printed copies of the rental agreement for the time period before and after the homicide, but no family or group of individuals had rented three vehicles and failed to return them before dark. Mike was pleased to be able to mark this owner off his list of possibilities.

  Chapter 14

  Mike drove home to enjoy leftover Thai food with Margaret. Tomorrow was Saturday. Mike and Margaret had planned to go for a hike to one of the looted sights, but Mike decided to ask her to postpone the hike until Sunday. She wouldn’t want to miss mass, but they could go to the eight o’clock mass and still have plenty of time for the six-mile hike.

  Margaret was not home when Mike got there, but he set the table and put the Thai food into containers to reheat. By the time Margaret came into the kitchen half an hour later, Mike had been sampling the Thai barbecued chicken, which he had reheated in the toaster oven.

  Margaret kissed him and said, “Thank you, sweetie, I’m famished. I had no time for lunch. My new boss agreed to come in on Saturday morning so I can catch up on the computer input for the new accounts so I’ll need to leave by seven o’clock tomorrow morning. You shouldn’t count on me for a hike.”

  “That’s good because I can’t hike tomorrow either. I need to show some photos of the possible looters to the staff at the Poole Vineyards. Let’s go to early mass and hike Sunday morning.”

  They had a pleasant meal and talked mostly about Margaret’s new job. They agreed to put her $2,000 hiring bonus into the savings account designated for use on their Paris cooking school trip. After eating, Margaret asked to see the photos of the two suspects in the Paul McFarlane homicide. Mike brought them to the kitchen table while Margaret cleared the table except for the two slices of leftover tres leches cake that she took from the refrigerator.

  Mike smiled at the cake. “This is one of the best desserts you’ve ever made. I was tempted to eat a slice before you got home. Here are the photos I mentioned.”

  Margaret looked closely at the images before beginning to laugh. She set aside the three drawings of the cowboy to pay more attention to the large man with a dark beard.

  “First, my love, I recognize the cowboy. It’s a nearly perfect drawing of Rowdy Yates.”

  Mike looked puzzled. “The name is vaguely familiar, and I thought the man looked familiar.”

  “How old was the man who worked at the Scottsdale store. I assume he’s at least seventy.”

  “OK Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, now you’re just giving me a hard time. I’d guess he was about seventy, but how the hell did you figure that out from these drawings.”

  “You may have been too young to watch it at the time, but surely you remember seeing reruns of a western show from the early sixties called Rawhide. This is a perfect likeness of the character Rowdy Yates who was played by a young man named Clint Eastwood.”

  Mike sat mentally running through everything that he had learned from Robert Dohi at his Scottsdale store. It was quite possible that when Mr. Dohi saw the email regarding the looted items, he thought of giving up the beads to provide cover for his regular purchases of other looted artifacts. After the circular showing the images of the items was distributed, it would have been extremely risky to try and sell any of them. Maybe receiving stolen and looted goods was a major part of Mr. Dohi’s business.

  Mike replied, “Strange to find a time traveler from the early 1960’s selling looted artifacts in Scottsdale.” They both laughed.

  Margaret pointed to the large man with the dark beard. “I don’t know this man’s name, but he’s a striking looking character that I noticed in the Walmart in Cottonwood last month. He must live somewhere in the Verde Valley since that Cottonwood store is the only Walmart in the whole valley. In this photo from Santa Fe, he’s wearing a long sleeved shirt, but I noticed him last month in a tank top. He has elaborate multi-colored tattoos covering his big biceps and continuing on down his arms almost reaching his hands. The large one on his right bicep was the frog meme you see on Facebook, Pepe the Frog. I was two people behind him in the line at the checkout. I remember him especially because he paid with a SNAP card and didn’t have enough credit on it to pay for his whole purchase. He put four steaks back, and after he left, the woman in front of me made a big fuss about someone with a food assistance card buying porterhouse steaks at fourteen dollars a pound.”

  “You’ve always had a great memory for faces. If you can tell me the date and time, I can probably determine his name from the Arizona Department of Human Services’ SNAP payment records.”

  Margaret went through the receipts in her desk and brought Mike the register number, the date, and exact time of her purchase.

  “Will you still go down to the vineyard tomorrow?’

  “I suspect someone will recognize this fellow, but if no one does, you’ve given me a great lead with the Walmart sighting. I’ll need to get a court order on Monday before the Department of Human Services will release any data. Also Jimmy Hendrix is meeting me at the vineyard to check out the tires on their Honda ATVs. We have casts of the tracks left in the area of the homicide.”

  “Did Paul McFarlane’s family arrange transporting his remains back to Minnesota? I feel so bad about their loss. I can’t imagine what it would be like for us to lose John. He’s only about two years older than Paul McFarlane.” Margaret’s eyes clouded for a few seconds when even considering the death of their only son, an investment banker in New York City.

  “Yes, they’re taking him home to Minnesota. He was a real hometown hero, twice All State in hockey in high school and a decorated Marine hero. I assume the whole town will turn out to support his family in their loss. I can do my part by finding the killers.”

  Margaret kissed him, and they went to watch the evening news before going to bed.

  The following morning when Mike reached the Poole Vineyards, he saw both Jimmy Hendrix and Matt Waldrop waiting near the elaborate metal arc sign over the private gravel road that led to the property. They got out to tal
k. Mike showed the photos of the man seen at Santa Fe to both Matt and Jimmy. Neither recognized the man. They drove to the main house and found Giuseppe Sordi waiting in a rocking chair on the veranda of the owner’s house. He came out to the cars to greet them.

  “Mr. Sordi, thank you for agreeing to see us on a Saturday. You met Jimmy Hendrix, our crime scene tech, when he took fingerprints, and this is Deputy Matt Waldrop of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “I’ve met Matt too. He’s been here several times when we’ve needed someone escorted off the property. We don’t allow people to wander around the vineyard, but there is BIA land with hiking trails adjoining the property. We’ve found people exploring the wine making building, the wine aging building, and even sitting on the porch of the main house.”

  “The vineyard owns three Honda ATVs. I would like Jimmy to examine their tires for comparison to tire prints left at the homicide site.”

  “No problem. Let me take you to the barn where we store them. We use them only during the harvest to haul two wheeled carts carrying the grapes from the fields. They’re small enough to drive between rows without damaging the vines.”

  He led them to a limestone barn with a green metal roof. There were three horses stabled inside, and at the far end were the three ATVs, each attached to two wheeled wagons. Jimmy quickly went to work. He had a stack of 8 by 10 close up photos of the tracks from the impressions made at the crime scene. While he was examining the tires, Mike showed the photos of the large man from Santa Fe.

  Mr. Sordi spent a minute examining all three photos including the full-length shot of the man with the prayer stick from the store in Santa Fe.