The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo

by Charles Williamson

  “Well, something special happened. The bank’s owner came up from Phoenix to take the local branch manager and your loving wife to lunch at the Mariposa Latin Grill. He is very pleased with your wonderful wife’s sales skills.”

  They had been to the relatively new restaurant for dinner twice. It had delicious food and an astonishing view of Sedona’s red cliffs, but it was among the four or five most expensive places in town. “So he wanted to meet you in person. It was really nice to spring for an expensive lunch and do a four hour round trip drive.”

  “My dear, bank owners don’t drive that far to meet a new employee. Of course, he took the company jet. Anyway, apparently the senior retail manager for the whole southwestern United States for my former mega bank employer came to see him about my poaching accounts in the little town of Sedona, Arizona. I thought my old bank wouldn’t even notice, but they did.”

  “Will that cause problems?”

  “Not only was it not a problem, my new owner, who is also Chairman of the Board, thought this meeting was his most fun day at his office in years. Apparently he was offered a deal. I would forgo soliciting new accounts from my old bank and focus my sales efforts on Wells Fargo’s and Bank of America’s Sedona customers. If he had agreed, my old mega bank would not open its planned branch across from my new bank’s largest branch in Glendale.”

  “My new bank’s owner had an opportunity to laugh at the most senior retail manager in the whole southwestern United States. He pointed out that even discussing such an arrangement might be against banking regulations, and he asked the big shot to leave his office. In any case, he brought me a check for a thousand dollar bonus in thanks for the opportunity to laugh at a big shot from the largest bank in the country.”

  “Another thousand for the Paris trip. We may make that vacation sooner than we expected.”

  “I probably can’t take two weeks off at one time this year. It will be next spring before we can go, but I may begin some online French cooking classes to prepare. Paris in the spring next year; I’m so looking forward to it. But Mike, today is the day you’ll arrest a fellow officer who betrayed your trust. It can’t be fun for you since you know Matt Waldrop. I know you always feel a sense of loss as if someone died when this sort of thing happens. Is there any news of Donald Aryan?”

  “Nothing yet. Yesterday afternoon his photo was distributed to the newspapers and TV stations, but I would have been called if there had been any credible sightings. He probably fled the state. He might even be in Mexico since the border checkpoints didn’t get his photo until yesterday afternoon. Aryan would realize that we would find evidence of his looting of Sinagua artifacts in his storage trailer including the huge grain storage jar, but he probably doesn’t know we could tie that hand-shaped prayer staff to the crime scene using ancient DNA. A homicide charge might be a surprise. There would not be much of a manhunt on a mere Antiquities Act charge. Mr. Aryan left his house in such a hurry that he only took time to toss his phone and laptop into Beaver Creek and arm his eight IEDs. Jimmy’s been working on both the laptop and phone, but there’s nothing from them yet. We also found a skull that might have belonged to the Kinnickinick shaman, but it hasn’t been tested yet. Jimmy doesn’t think the water immersion will be the problem for the phone or laptop. It’s the passwords, and we won’t get any help from the FBI with those.”

  Later that morning Mike was anxiously waiting in the reception area of the Sheriff’s Department. The deputy who monitored the building’s external cameras had told him that Deputy Waldrop had parked and was on his way in.

  “Hi Matt, you look like you could use some coffee. It’s waiting in the conference room.” They chatted as Mike guided Matt to a conference room with a closed door. When Matt entered, three deputies with shotguns pointed at him were waiting. Sheriff Taylor read him his rights while Jimmy filmed the whole proceeding. After he was disarmed, he was taken to an interrogation room. An attorney from the county prosecutor was waiting to observe the meeting.

  After Matt was seated and cuffed to the table, Sheriff Taylor sat down across from him and read the charge. “Matthew Rae Waldrop of Camp Verde, Arizona, you are charged with the crime of murder with premeditation and special circumstances. Those special circumstances are a murder during the commission of a felony with the intent of killing a witness. This is a capital crime in Arizona, and you should expect the state to seek the death penalty. You are advised to say nothing until your attorney arrives. You should expect additional lessor charges relating to the Antiquities Act and possibly other serious felonies related to your phone call with Donald Aryan before the raid on his house.”

  Matt’s face was ashen and his handcuffed hands were trembling. He had not said a single word other than a colorful cussword when he saw the armed deputies in the conference room. The sheriff pushed the phone across to him while Jimmy filmed the proceedings. Then, Jimmy turned off the camera and everyone except Matt left the room so he could contact his attorney in private.

  They left Matt alone until his attorney arrived, a criminal defense attorney based in Flagstaff who had defended four other people charged with homicides. So far, he’d never won in court, but he had managed to get charges reduced in two cases. Flagstaff simply wasn’t big enough to have many attorneys with homicide case experience. Later that afternoon, Mike saw Matt in the hallway as he was escorted to the jail area of the Flagstaff Law Enforcement Building. They had changed him into the Coconino County jail jumpsuit in the interrogation room so that no one in the jail would see his deputy’s uniform. The fewer inmates who knew he’d been in law enforcement the safer he’d be.

  Mike knew that Matt’s attorney was currently in the conference room meeting with the representative from the prosecutor’s office. At this point before a discover motion, they would not reveal much about the case. Mike didn’t expect the courts to grant bond, so they would probably have Matt in custody for months, even if they later reduced the charges. Sheriff Taylor had deliberately mentioned the phone call to Aryan so that Matt would know their calls had been monitored. Even though the FBI might not confirm it, knowing about the monitoring might make Matt think that the prosecution had a stronger case.

  Shortly after the arrest, Jimmy Hendrix came to see Mike. “Your brilliant techmeister now has full access to Donald Aryan’s phone. This is a list of all calls for the past month.”

  “Excellent Jimmy. How did you break into the phone? I didn’t think it was possible without the FBI’s help.

  “I merely guessed at the pass code. It was 1776, and I got it correct on my third try.”

  “Well I guess not all militia leaders are tech savvy, but 1776 is especially weak. Even I wouldn’t choose it. Anyway, good work, Jimmy. I’ll have June check the list.”

  It was four that afternoon when Mike got the disconcerting news. June Rosetta from the Research Department came into Mike’s office with a sheet of paper. “Captain, this notification just arrived on our APB site. I know you’ve been investigating the radar unit stolen from the Poole Vineyards; this might be connected.”

  The notice reported that two men in a white Ford van had abducted a twenty-two year old man, Jarod Baldwin of Page Springs, Arizona, from the Poole Vineyards in plain sight of many other employees. Both men were armed with AR-15 type weapons and had worn ski masks. They fit the general description of Donald Aryan and the man who had met him at the Cliff Castle Casino when he escaped the surveillance team of the FBI.

  Mike sat in his office for a minute stunned after June left. He knew in his gut that this abduction was a direct response to the arrest of Matt Waldrop on a homicide charge. Matt had known about Jarod’s identification of Donald Aryan. He had known that Jarod disclosed the militia’s connection to the jail at Camp Verde because Matt was present when Jarod discussed that information during their visit to the Poole Vineyards. Mike assumed that he must have passed that news on to Aryan sometime prior to his arrest. The clear message Aryan was sending was that anyone who crossed
the Verde Valley Pure Bloods was an enemy combatant. He cursed himself for not realizing that Matt knew exactly who had disclosed information about the Verde Valley Pure Bloods that had led to Donald Aryan becoming a suspect.

  Mike made certain the notification went out to every officer in Coconino County to look out for the white van, reinforcing the idea that it was connected to the murder of Paul McFarlane. The county was huge and thinly populated. A maze of Forest Service roads crisscrossed the whole area, and the van could be anywhere in that vast region in the hour since the abduction. The Coconino National Forest was over 1.8 million acres. Mike went to see Sheriff Taylor and arranged for an aerial search during the two hours of remaining daylight.

  Mike felt the need to do more, but personally driving around at random looking for a white van wouldn’t help. He decided to stay in the office monitoring the search. He called Margaret and let her know he might not be home anytime soon. Mike had the sinking feeling that he would never see the young man alive again. Jarod had pointed him in the right direction to solve the McFarlane homicide, and Mike hadn’t even considered the risk he faced once they had charged Matt Waldrop with the homicide. Until that point, Donald Aryan would have feared only a looting charge that would be somewhat difficult to prove. Now, Aryan wanted to scare anyone else who might want to cooperate with law enforcement, and he probably also wanted to send a message directly to Matt Waldrop about keeping his mouth shut.

  Chapter 21

  It was dawn when Mike received the report that an unidentified body had been found near Kinnickinick Lake. That was almost a two-hour drive from the Poole Vineyards where Jarod Baldwin had been abducted. Mike assumed that if these were remains of Jarod; it was no accident that the body had been dumped in Coconino County near the scene of the previous murder. Mike knew that the murder and body dump were intended as an unambiguous message to law enforcement in Coconino County and to Matt Waldrop to keep his mouth shut.

  Mike drove at eighty miles an hour with his lights flashing on the rural two-lane Lake Mary Road towards the crime scene. He had to slow down when he reached the turn off for the gravel road to Kinnickinick Lake, but he still arrived only twenty minutes after the fisherman who had discovered the remains called the Sheriff’s Department.

  About fifty feet from the lake, a Sheriff’s Department Explorer was parked and two deputies were near the body. They had been at Mormon Lake on another assignment and much closer to the scene when the call came in. They had arrived only ten minutes after the call was received.

  The body was easily within sight of anyone fishing on this side of the small lake. Although the remains had not been identified as Jarod, Mike already felt certain that the body must be the Poole Vineyards worker. He had been dumped only a few miles from where Paul McFarlane was gut shot and left to die. There were too few homicides in the Coconino County for it to be a coincidence.

  As Mike came to a stop, he saw an elderly man in a fishing vest and a canvas hat studded with flies talking to one of the deputies. The second deputy was putting crime scene tape around a large area that included both the bodies and the tracks of the van that had dumped the body.

  Mike approached and identified himself to the fisherman. The witness was Dr. Gregory Donne of Flagstaff. He was a retired history professor who had taught at NAU for four decades. He had alert and intense blue eyes, short cut gray hair, and a lean build and an upright stance. Dr. Donne seemed to be in excellent physical shape for his age, which Mike guessed was his mid to late seventies.

  “Please tell us what you saw Dr. Donne.”

  “It was strange enough for me to be cautious at my first sight of the van. I moved quickly into a depression next to that stand of ponderosa and lay down to watch while out of sight of the two men in the van. My vehicle is way around on the other side of the lake, so they probably thought they were alone. My first sight was of a white van with something green and brown covering its roof. It was just barely light out, but I could see that the van was pulling something behind that bounced along the rutted gravel road. I thought it was maybe an elk or buck deer carcass at first, one that had been taken out of season. It was too large for a pronghorn, but for some reason, I sensed it was dangerous to be seen by the two men in that van. I just lay in that depression and watched.”

  “That was wise. They’re killers and would have likely killed a witness too. What happened next?

  “A large man with a lot of tattoos on both of his arms jumped out of the passenger side of the van and disconnected a chain that had held what I now realized was this poor fellow. A few seconds later the big man got back in the van, and it sped away back toward Lake Mary Road. I stayed where I was until it was completely out of sight a couple of minutes later. After they were gone, I walked over here. As soon as I got close, I realized it was a human body. I think subconsciously I knew that all along, but my mind refused to accept it until I was within a few feet of the body.”

  “What was the man you saw wearing? What else did you notice about him?”

  “He had a dark brown beard and wore a white or tan tank top in spite of the cool morning, blue jeans, and tan hiking boots. He also wore latex gloves like doctors use for exams. I think he must have been six two and about two hundred and twenty pounds. I could probably identify him unless he shaves the beard and cuts his hair. On the other hand, I was over thirty yards away, and it was just barely dawn so certainly my identification might seem a little uncertain on cross-examination in a court. I may be seventy-six, but my eyesight is excellent and my hearing as good as ever. Neither man said a word while they were here.”

  “You mentioned that something was covering the roof of the van.”

  “Yes Captain Damson. In fact, as the van was leaving and went down that slope, I could see the top more clearly. It was a camouflage tarp like a hunter might use on a hunting blind.”

  Mike saw Jimmy Hendrix’s van bouncing along the gravel road followed by the medical examiner’s van and Sheriff Taylor’s Explorer. Other units were on the way too. Mike thanked Dr. Donne and asked him to come to the Law Enforcement Building in Flagstaff to make a formal video-recorded statement while his memory of the event was fresh.

  Mike explained, “We also will want to put you with our sketch artist. One of the deputies will accompany you to our building for your statement. The deputy will ride in with you in case the men you saw are still in the area.”

  Dr. Donne’s parting words were, “Captain, you may not be old enough to remember that time, but this type of execution was used by white supremacists and Klan members back during the civil rights struggle in the fifties and sixties. It was considered a greater punishment than mere lynching.”

  Mike nodded, thanked Dr. Donne, and walked over to the remains. There was so little skin left on the nude body and destroyed face, that he couldn’t actually identify Jarod Baldwin. The remaining hair on his head was the same light color and the general body shape was the same. He really didn’t have any doubts, but he would wait for positive identification before notifying next of kin. He wasn’t sure if the victim’s fingertips had been cut off or come off as he was drug along miles of gravel and asphalt roads by the chain still attached to his ankles, but there would be no fingerprints on the remains for identification. He would need to wait for DNA to be certain. He recalled that Jarod had lived in the housing for workers at the Poole Vineyards. He would call Giuseppe Sordi and ask him to bring personal effects to the Flagstaff office of the Sheriff’s Department so that comparison DNA could be obtained.

  Mike assumed that Jarod was dead long before arriving at Kinnickinick Lake. There was no evidence of bleeding near where he was dumped and he had seen no blood trail along the gravel road as he drove to the crime scene. Since the body was found in Coconino County, he would claim the homicide was within their jurisdiction even though the abduction actually occurred in Yavapai County. Mike didn’t know who could be trusted in the Yavapai Sheriff’s Department, and he didn’t want them involved any more tha
n necessary. It had been this young victim who had warned him that the white supremacists had a number of adherents in that law enforcement unit. Later, Mike would be forced to confront his failure to protect this witness. For now, he needed to set aside any personal feelings of guilt to focus on solving the crime, but that was not an easy task.

  Jimmy was busy at work photographing the crime scene and taking tire impressions when a deputy arrived carrying some white plastic objects and a brown and green tarp in an extra large evidence bag. Mike was standing with Sheriff Taylor when the deputy came over to show the objects that he’d found in a pullout just before the gravel road connected to the paved Lake Mary Road.

  The Sheriff had restarted the aerial search as soon as the word of the body dump arrived. He had also let the pilot know that the van might have a tarp attached to its roof to disguise its color, but mike could see the plastic tarp in the evidence bag. It took him a few seconds to realize what the white objects were.

  Mike said, “Boss, those white plastic things are car wraps like those used to deck out a vehicle for advertising. In this case they were plain white, but the van could be any color underneath. We have no idea of its current color.”