“I mentioned that we might be able to connect stolen artifacts to the burial site of the ancient shaman. Would the FBI be willing to confirm our local DNA tests? It would add the credibility to the technique of using eight hundred year old DNA if your lab confirmed the data that the Arizona State Crime Lab finds and the Museum of Northern Arizona reports.”
“Yes, I can approve that. Mike, I saw that eye witness drawing that our Phoenix office’s sketch artist made from the description by the antiquities dealer in Scottsdale. Why was there no mention of that suspect during the press conference?”
“Linda, if you do a Google search for Rowdy Yates you’ll know why I’m headed to Phoenix tomorrow for another interview with Mr. Robert Dohi. Thanks for your help. We really do want good relations with the FBI, but you’re throwing away resources on investigating Sheriff Taylor for campaign violations. He didn’t even have an opponent at the last election.”
“Sorry. That’s not my call and way above my pay grade. Keep safe.”
The administrative assistant for the senior staff came into Mike’s office with some additional information. Ron Gordon had called to check on visiting hours for Andy Biggs. His wife would like to visit this afternoon. Mr. Gordon made arrangements for them both to be here at the Law Enforcement Building at 3:00. She explained that the jail staff insisted that any conversation with his wife would be monitored. Only his attorney could see him in private.
Mike thanked her and then went to see June in research. She already had evidence that proved Mrs. Biggs had signed the checks to Waldrop and Aryan that split the proceeds of the looting. Mike called both the county prosecutor and the federal prosecutor for the Flagstaff district to see if they had enough evidence for an arrest. If they did, Mrs. Biggs would find herself under arrest when she arrived at 3:00. He didn’t have grounds to connect her to the homicide, but she was involved in an organized ring looting artifacts in violation of federal law as well as several Arizona statutes.
Mike was busy with other things until noon when he received a call from Sean. Dr. Whittier is willing to testify that the bracelets from the Biggs’ safe came from the burial of an ancient shaman at Kinnickinick Ruin. She was now testing a wooden staff with a head carved like a snake that might have been buried with the remains. It was recovered from Matt Waldrop’s house. Dr. Whittier was confident that it would also show the DNA of the ancient burial because it exactly matches a mold that Jimmy made at the crime scene. It looks like we have all three suspects with artifacts from the homicide scene.”
At 2:00 PM, Mike had a meeting where he reviewed evidence with both the federal and local prosecutor. They decided to charge Frieda Biggs with fifteen charges, including money laundering for a criminal enterprise and conspiracy to steal sacred artifacts from a burial site on federal property. Unlike her husband, the courts were likely to grant bail to Mrs. Biggs. Mike didn’t think she was much of a flight risk because they had impounded her cash and frozen her Mexican bank account.
By 3:00, Mike stood waiting with two female deputies for Frieda Biggs to arrive. He thought she wouldn’t spend more than one night in jail. Since she and her husband owned a million dollar house and a substantial business, making bail should be easy. He really wanted this arrest to go smoothly since he would probably see Mrs. Biggs at church soon.
Mike saw Mrs. Biggs walking toward the building in a black suit with a high military style collar. It had elaborate gold embroidery on the collar and down the front. Mike knew very little about women’s clothing, but he assumed it was an expensive outfit even if it made him think of a bellhop at a vampire hotel. She wore heels so high she seemed taller than Ron Gordon who was dressed in a gray suit with a violet tie. Mike assumed the tie had been a gift. Ron carried a leather satchel in his right hand and Mrs. Biggs held on to his left arm at the elbow.
When Mike pulled open the door for them, Ron’s expression showed immediate recognition of the coming arrest. Otherwise Mike would not be standing with two women deputies at the jailhouse door. It took Mrs. Biggs a few seconds longer. She gasped at the sight of the deputies; one had handcuffs already in her hands. Mrs. Biggs stumbled on her four inch heals, staggered against Ron Gordon, and fell to the floor in an uncoordinated heap. Mike helped her to stand. She was already crying as Mike read her rights to her before announcing, “Mrs. Frieda Myer Biggs, you are charged with fifteen felony counts. Of the ten violations of federal law, the most serious is a RICO charge of money laundering for a criminal enterprise. I suggest that you say nothing until you confer with your attorney.”
Mike handed Ron the list of charges while a deputy put the cuffs on Mrs. Biggs. They directed both of them to a room set aside for attorney meetings with clients, and Mike walked back to the Sheriff’s Department section of the building. Mike felt bad that the arrest had been so undignified. Margaret never wore heels that high. He had been so surprised when she fell that he reached for his weapon as she went down. Fortunately, he realized it was an accident and not an escape attempt before he pulled his pistol. He should have made the arrest with her seated in a conference room. He didn’t think the handcuffs were necessary, but it would have been a serious violation of jail policy to have not used them.
Back in his office, Mike worked on written reports until it was time to go home. He decided to stop by Sedona Premium ATV Rentals and the Windsong Trailer Park to see if anyone knew a man named Carlos Garcia. He assumed it was an invented name, but he might have a lot of difficulty in confirming that with the men that had lived at the trailer park because it housed many of Sedona’s undocumented laborers. Most of them would not want to speak to law enforcement. Mike knew enough Spanish to ask the questions he needed, and he was already in civilian clothes. He took off his tie and suit coat before he got into his Explorer.
As he drove down to Sedona along Oak Creek, he mentally reviewed the case. He decided to call Paul McFarlane’s parents tomorrow with an update now that they had arrested two of the three suspects and Mrs. Biggs as an accessory. He assumed they saw the national news reports last night.
The stolen ground penetrating radar had matched the serial number of the one that Poole Vineyards had purchased. Finding Donald Aryan, Andy Biggs and Matthew Waldrop’s fingerprints on the device was further support for his case. Jimmy had also found that Andy Biggs fingerprints matched the unidentified prints on the large grain storage jar from Beaver Fort. Both men’s palm prints had also been recovered from the building at the Poole Vineyards where the radar had been stored. Mike was convinced that they wouldn’t need to settle for a lesser charge in order to get either Biggs or Waldrop to testify against the other two.
As he drove into the uptown Sedona tourist area, Mike got a call from and acquaintance at the Arizona State Crime Lab. They had found both the blood of Andy Biggs near the shot holes and the blood spray from Paul McFarlane over a wide section of the pants. Andy and been standing about four feet behind the victim when he was shot. One of the important loose ends was finding who drove the van when Aryan escaped the FBI unit at Cliff Castle Casino. He assumed it was the same man who drove it when the body of Jarod Baldwin’s body was dumped. The van had not yet been found. This case was not over until he found that driver and arrested Donald Aryan for premeditated homicide.
On his drive through town, he received a text from his office that Jesse Baldwin, Jarod’s father, wanted to see him at 8:30 tomorrow morning. He was a little surprised that Mr. Baldwin had waited a couple of days to come see him. Mike had planned to go to Scottsdale for another meeting with Robert Dohi, but he decided he could still make the meeting with the father of his homicide victim before he headed down to Scottsdale immediately afterwards. Mike also wanted to review the latest research department report on the financial connection between Dohi and Biggs.
At some point, he wanted to subpoena Dohi’s records and try and trace the artifacts that had been looted. He needed more evidence for that search warrant, and at this point he didn’t have enough to charge Dohi with
anything. The antiquities dealer would merely claim that his purchased his artifacts from a private landowner who had the right to sell anything found on their own property. June Rosetta had promised more information by tomorrow morning, but unless Mike found something in Dohi’s inventory that he could tie to the looted sites, he still wouldn’t have nearly enough for an arrest.
When Mike reached the Windsong Trailer Park at 6:15, there was not the row of men standing in front looking for work that was the norm in the morning. However, it was a pleasant spring evening, and there were a lot of people sitting outside to enjoy the sunset and to visit with their neighbors. When Mike asked around, he found there really was a Carlos Garcia who had lived there until yesterday morning.
He was directed to a trailer at the back of the park. When he knocked, a man asked in Spanish if he was an immigration agent. There was a sign on the door, ICE No Entrance Without a Warrant. A middle-aged man opened the door after Mike assured him he wasn’t a federal officer. After a prolonged discussion in Mike’s poor Spanish and the resident’s poor English. Mike had his answer.
Carlos had actually worked off the books cleaning the ATVs at night. He was always paid in cash on Sunday mornings. The previous night, Andy had informed Carlos that ICE agents were looking for him. He insisted that it was better for Carlos to move on rather than wait and be taken to the immigration jail in Florence. Carlos caught a ride with someone going to Phoenix, and his roommate had no idea of where he would head next. Andy had given him five hundred dollars to help him relocate and cover his final pay. The money was available only if Garcia left immediately.
Mike smiled and thanked the man. The story might have worked to help his defense except for the mounting physical evidence. The pants with both Andy and the victim’s blood together with the artifacts connecting him to the crime scene would send Andy Biggs to death row.
Chapter 28
When Mike got home, he found Margaret in the kitchen with a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking out on the kitchen counter. After their kiss, Mike asked her what she was making.
“Soufflé de Poisson with Sauce Mousseline Sabayon.” Mike gave her a blank look and she explained, “It’s a fish soufflé made with flounder, Swiss cheese, shallots, and vermouth. The sauce is mostly butter, cream, and eggs. You’ll love it.”
Mike was a little doubtful, but he said, “Sounds great. Is it difficult to make?”
“Maybe, this is my first attempt. It will take about half an hour to cook if you want to go watch the news. I need to concentrate a bit as I make the sauce.”
Mike went into the office to watch the news. For the second day in a row, the Phoenix ABC station covered the homicides in Coconino County showing the drawing of Donald Aryan with and without a beard. The announcer explained that in addition to the Yavapai County deputy, Matthew Waldrop, a second suspect, Andy Biggs, a businessman from Sedona, had been charged with premeditated murder. The third suspect, Donald Aryan, was still being sought in a nationwide manhunt. They also announced as breaking news that Mrs. Frieda Biggs, also of Sedona, had been arrested on federal and state charges including a RICO charge of money laundering for a criminal enterprise involving the looting of ancient artifacts.
Mike was watching the sports report about the recent NCAA basketball tournament when Margaret called him into the dining room. She had set the table with the good china. Candles burned in the sterling candleholders to set the mood for her very first attempt at a difficult Julia Child meal. The first course was a salad of butter lettuce, diced pears, and roasted walnuts. The soufflé was delightful, rich with buttery sauce and bursting with flavor from the fish, scallions, and imported Swiss cheese. Margaret served the soufflé with pan-fried carrots drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Of course, there was no dessert to end the meal. While they were eating, Margaret asked how the arrest of Frieda Briggs went.
“Well, Frieda was with Ron Gordon. She was dressed in a black suit with gold trim that looked expensive, but to me it actually looked like something a bellhop might wear. She wore very high heels, much higher than any of your high heels, and when she realized she was under arrest she tripped and fell in a heap on the floor. I helped her up and left after they had her in handcuffs.”
Margaret was quiet with a puzzled look for a few seconds. “I was just picturing her in handcuffs in that Versace suit. I saw her wear it to the Sedona Film Festival’s opening night, and I estimate that it cost more than my whole closet full of old stuff. Will she be out on bail for Easter?”
“I think she’ll be at the Palm Sunday service this weekend. Unlike her husband, they’ll set bail on her charges tomorrow. I assume she’ll have no difficulty in making bail even though we impounded all of their cash.”
They talked about more of the recent details of the two homicides, and Mike’s plan for another interview with Robert Dohi. When Mike mentioned that he would meet with Jesse Baldwin the next morning, Margaret asked what Mike knew about him.
“Not much. We spoke briefly on the phone two days ago. He was at the Seattle airport at the time. Baldwin claimed to have contact among the groups that might be hiding Donald Aryan, but I took that as mostly anger and bluster. He claimed that if he found Aryan first there would be no need for an expensive trial.”
“Well, it’s hard to hold anything against a father who makes threats when he learned his son had been killed in that hideous manner. In any case, I’d like to look up his name with an Internet search program that we’ve used a few times. It will cost twenty-five dollars and will show any arrest history as well as any mention of him in the newspapers. It lists all of his address history and so on. Do you know his middle name?”
Mike looked in a small notebook he kept in his coat pocket. “Jesse Obedson Baldwin” He spelled the middle name.
“Jesse was the name of the father of the biblical King David. That historic Jesse’s father was named Obed. They were ancestors of Jesus and both very important in Jewish history. I assume his parents studied the bible, but it’s a distinctive name so I should have no trouble finding his history.”
The following morning, when Mike went into the kitchen, he found All Bran cereal with fresh blueberries next to a container of skim milk. He was wondering when Margaret would get to the section of Julia Child’s book that covered French pastries.
“Good morning my love. I thought a change to cereal might be good for your digestion. I think that high fat sauce on the soufflé upset your stomach last night. You need to get used to the smaller helping of richer foods the French prefer.”
Mike eyed the cereal before adding the skim milk. He’d never won an argument with Margaret, and this was not the time to make an issue of it since she was correct about his indigestion last night and his pants seemed to be getting tighter. She put a small stack of papers next to his plate.
“This is what I found on Jesse Obedson Baldwin in my Internet search. He might be telling the truth about having contacts that will help find Donald Aryan. He also might be correct about what would happen to Aryan if he gets to him first.”
Mike glanced briefly through the stack of papers, noting the highlights. Jesse Baldwin had a long history of arrests while he was young, fourteen here in Arizona. He had only three convictions for minor charges that resulted in probation. All of the incidents occurred when he was in his teens and early twenties and lived in the southern part of Arizona. He had been born on a ranch near Douglas, Arizona near the border with Mexico, and he must have been a real hell raiser as a young man. There was only one serious charge later in his life, an assault charge in Yavapai County that occurred when he was thirty-nine. His wife had filed it, but the charge was dropped when she refused to testify. Their divorce occurred a few months later, and Jesse moved to Alaska. There was a copy of the divorce decree that required Jarod Baldwin to spend one month each summer with his father.
In addition to the arrest history, the stack included five news articles from about fifteen years earlier. Mike and Margaret had not
lived in Arizona at the time. Margaret’s newspaper articles came as a surprise to both of them.
Jesse Baldwin had been one of the original organizers and leaders of the Arizona Border Posse. They were a group who patrolled the border area on horseback looking for both drug smugglers and people trying to enter the country across the rugged southern desert of Arizona.
An article from the Arizona Daily Star, the major Tucson newspaper, reported that there had been sixteen bodies over a two-year period found within five miles of the border. All were unidentified Hispanic men who had been carrying backpacks of drugs, usually marijuana. They had all been killed by shots from a distant sniper’s long range rifle. There had been three different rifles involved. The Arizona Border Posse was suspected, but no charges were ever filed. In addition, there were many accounts in the border towns of northern Mexico of people who had retreated back across the border when shots were fired near them from someone shooting from out of sight. The Border Posse had gradually disbanded as the number of federal Customs and Border Patrol officers increased.
The last newspaper article in the stack Margaret had printed was from a recent issue of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Jesse Baldwin had been arrested for an assault on a small group of women who were protesting the inauguration of President Trump. The charges had been dropped when Mr. Baldwin explained that he had business in the city hall and the women were blocking his access to a public building. The judge ruled that pushing the protestors out of his way was not assault, even though one sixty-eight year old woman ended up with a broken hip.
“I’m sorry for his loss, but I don’t think he’s someone you should invite to dinner. Is Jarod’s funeral set?”
“Yes, if you can get off, we could both go. It’s tomorrow at 10:30 at the Baptist church in Cottonwood. I plan to meet with Mr. Baldwin at 8:30 in Flagstaff, go to the funeral in Cottonwood at 10:30, and then drive down to Scottsdale to ask some more questions of Robert Dohi. I wish that we had enough for an arrest, but the research department is working on getting enough for a search warrant. We might get lucky and find some of the Kinnickinick artifacts in his possession.”
The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo Page 20
