The Dead Priest of Sedona

by Charles Williamson

  CHAPTER 5

  It was Tuesday morning. Because my bad dreams had driven me from the bedroom, I woke up on the couch, sore and tired. I hoped Margaret was able to get some sleep after my nightmare woke her. I showered, made coffee, and planned the upcoming investigation.

  At 6:30, I called the Flagstaff Sheriff’s Office to see if there was any additional information about the case. There was nothing new, no identification and no further evidence had been found at the crime scene. The medical examiner’s office hadn’t started on the autopsy. The night duty officer indicated they usually started to work about 9:00. Perhaps my predawn start on this investigation was because I missed some of the excitement of my former job with the Los Angeles Police Department. This was the most significant crime in my jurisdiction since I’d moved to Sedona.

  At 7:00, I called Chad. A sleepy woman answered the phone, Susan, his current girlfriend. When Chad came on the line, I suggested a division of labor for this morning. I would go by St. Paul’s to interview Father Antonio and to get a DNA sample from somewhere in Father Sean’s room. Chad would find his dentist and get his records. We would meet at the Sedona Sheriff’s station and go up to Flagstaff together. I also wanted to find the abandoned road that we saw from the air. We could use the detailed US Geological Survey maps and satellite photos that were in the Flagstaff Sheriff’s Office to plan our route.

  Father Antonio could see me at 7:30 for half an hour before the 8:00 mass or as long as necessary after 9:00. I opted for the 7:30 meeting. Margaret was up when I left, but Kevin was still in bed. I wondered if he had nightmares of the murder scene too.

  It was a short drive to the parish-owned house adjoining the southwestern-style church. The two Sedona priests had shared the small two-bedroom house. Father Antonio Garcia met me at the door. He invited me in, suggesting we have a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Once I was seated at the kitchen table he asked, “Has there been any news of Sean? I’m very worried.”

  “There was a murder the night of October 31st on the plateau above the West Fork Trail.”

  “Murder, sweet mother of God. Surely not?”

  Father Antonio poured the coffee looking very concerned. I explained that the body had not yet been identified and asked him to tell me all he could about Father Sean’s disappearance.

  There was a long pause as Antonio gathered his thoughts. His English was excellent, but softly and melodiously accented. He was a native of Monterey, Mexico. “Sean and I are brothers in Christ. I respect his calling, but his ways are very different than mine. We’ve shared this house and our pastoral duties for nearly a year, but I don’t feel I know him well. I’m a diocesan priest, and the welfare of my parish and its people consume all of my time and energy. Father Sean is a member of the Society of Jesus. The Most Reverend Thomas Kelly, bishop of the diocese of Phoenix, assigned Sean to this parish at the specific request of the Jesuit Provincial Head of Los Angeles. Father Sean’s previous assignment was teaching medieval history at Loyola University.”

  I was surprised to learn that Father Sean was a former history professor. This case was getting even stranger. I asked, “Is it unusual for a Jesuit to be assigned as a parish priest in a small town?”

  Father Antonio nodded and said, “Sean Murphy was a professed member of the Society of Jesus. That means that in addition to the normal vows of a priest, he’d taken a vow of poverty and a vow of obedience to the pope. Jesuits who serve as parish priests are often missionaries in non-Christian lands. It is certainly unusual to find one in a small town in Arizona.”

  He continued explaining the Jesuit order while I made notes. Saint Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus over four centuries ago. From the very beginning, the Jesuits served as missionaries among the pagans in India, Japan, North America, and China. They helped bring many Native Americans to Christ, but they were less successful in Asia. Even today, the professed of the Society of Jesus are committed to service to the church anywhere in the world. Throughout his description, I sensed a note of coolness from the parish priest as he explained the Jesuit order.

  “Father Sean was a well-educated man with a Ph.D. from Stanford. He wrote several of the history books in his room. Regardless of his background and education, Sean would follow the directions of his order and give up his academic pursuits and come to Sedona without doubt or hesitation if the Society requested it. The real question is why would they request it?”

  I printed WHY on my note card. Why was a college professor assigned to the Sedona Parish? In investigations, I often looked for incongruous facts.

  Father Antonio looked directly into my eyes searching for an answer. He asked how the man on the plateau was killed.

  I told him the whole story. He crossed himself and closed his eyes in prayer. I kept quiet for a minute. After the pause, I asked that the priest not repeat any details about the death. It might hurt our efforts to find the murderers if information about the crime scene became public.

  I put my hand on his shoulder when I heard him sob. After a few seconds he regained his composure, and I asked him to tell me about his last contact with the missing priest. He poured more coffee while he thought about his last conversation with Father Sean Murphy.

  “I’ve been very busy the past two days. The first of November is the start of the Día de los Muertos holidays, which take place November 1st and 2nd. The Hispanic parishioners make a big event of All Saints Day and All Souls Day, which we call the Day of the Dead Festivals. Of course, our kids enjoy the North American’s Halloween on October 31st also. Yesterday, I made six trips to parishioners’ homes and to the cemetery. I said three masses. I have four masses to say today. One of them will start in about ten minutes. I had lunch and dinner with families from the parish both days.”

  “Sean and I had breakfast together Halloween morning. That was the last time I saw him,” Father Antonio said. “We talked about parish matters. I had some difficulty in making conversation with Sean. He was so much smarter and knew about so many different things. He was interesting to listen to, but I had trouble contributing to the conversations except in parish matters. I was concerned when he didn’t come to breakfast the next morning. I checked his room, but decided that he might have spent the night as someone’s guest. It was the first time we hadn’t eaten breakfast together since he came to Sedona. It was when he didn’t show up for the 8:00 mass that I grew quite concerned. After Sean missed a second mass that morning, I called the local police.”

  I asked Father Antonio’s permission to look through Father Sean’s room for a DNA sample while he made the short walk to the church for the 8:00 mass. I promised to lock the door when I left and to leave him a note detailing anything I removed. Father Antonio said that he would call the bishop with an update after mass, but he would not say anything to anyone else about the murder victim in the West Fork area.

  Father Sean’s room was almost empty except for the books. At least a hundred books were stacked on the floor around the room. There was a cot-like single bed and a straight-backed chair. Both looked uncomfortable. A reading lamp was on a small table next to the cot. On the table was also an old copy of the New American Bible.

  I checked the books. Many were the kind of New Age stuff that was popular in Sedona bookstores. The stacks of books had been arranged by subjects. One of the tallest stacks was about Celtic history and mythology. Another large stack of books concerned something called Wicca. I found the two textbooks authored by Father Sean. They concerned ancient European rituals, religions, and cults. I wondered if Father Sean’s assignment to Sedona and his work on ancient religions were connected.

  I decided to take Sean Murphy’s textbooks, one Celtic magic book, and one Wicca book along with me. I also took digital photos of each stack of books for future reference. The only thing of value in the room was the Dell laptop computer on the small table. It was plugged into the phone line as well as the power supply. I decided to ask Chad to investigate what was in the gadget if the body t
urned out to be Father Sean. I didn’t know how to do much more than boot up a computer and use the e-mail and Internet.

  In the small bathroom, I bagged Father Sean’s electric razor, toothbrush, and comb. It looked like Father Sean was losing some hair. His comb had numerous brown hairs between the teeth, which should make for a good DNA record. I also took fingerprints from the glass tumbler and medicine cabinet mirror.

  While I wanted to keep an open mind until there was more proof, I had the uncomfortable feeling that Father Sean had died in a brutal ritual up on that plateau. It had probably occurred at midnight on Halloween when Kevin heard the horrible shriek that he attributed to the death of an elk calf. No wonder Sheriff Taylor wanted to keep a lid on this horror story. Flagstaff and Sedona would make the cover of the National Enquirer and every other tabloid if the story broke. Margaret and I loved Sedona, and I didn’t want to do anything to damage its reputation.

  The New Age folks that we’d met in Sedona seemed to be very unlikely murderers. They were genuinely nice people who were just a little spacey. Could some kind of pagan group really be involved in a barbaric murder? I needed to know more about their eccentric beliefs. I was pretty damn certain that none of them publicly advocated human sacrifice.

  CHAPTER 6

  I left the note for Father Antonio and locked the door before driving to the office. Chad’s car was in the parking lot. Inside, I found him drinking coffee and flirting with Rose our administrative assistant. He had a brown envelope in his left hand. Chad had found Father Sean’s dentist. Unfortunately, Father Sean had perfect teeth, not a single filling. There were no x-rays taken at his only visit to a Sedona dentist to have his teeth cleaned. It looked like DNA evidence would be necessary.

  November 2nd was another sunny morning, and we drove the Explorer with the sunroof open up through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. After we’d climbed the switchbacks at the end of the Canyon, I began to make note of every forest road that headed west from Highway 89A. One of these gravel roads might connect to the abandoned primitive road we had seen near the murder scene. The routes through the Ponderosa forest formed something of a maze. The forest service would often close old logging roads to traffic to promote wilderness areas. The whole Secret Mountain Wilderness was closed to any motorized vehicles, but the tracks of an abandoned road would remain for generations. It was one of these tracks that we had seen from the helicopter.

  We drove into downtown Flagstaff. Most of the hundred-year-old buildings in the sixteen square blocks of downtown had been restored. Instead of the original dry goods stores, feed stores, drug stores, and hardware stores, they now sold three-dollar coffee drinks, skiing and hiking equipment, and Native American Art.

  As Chad and I stopped at a downtown stoplight, the moon lady flashed us. Moon Lady appeared to be off her medication again. I dialed a local police officer friend on my cell phone to let him know where she was doing her thing. Moon Lady was a rather famous local personality and harmless unless she caused a traffic accident. She was about two hundred fifty pounds and five feet two. She probably had too much hash and coke back in the seventies and burned up much of her cerebral cortex. She always wore black tights and a long black cloth coat to just above her knees. When a tourist pulled up to the stoplight, Moon Lady would bend over, apparently picking up something off the sidewalk. Her motion would reveal that her black tights had the whole rear end removed. Her very broad naked posterior was displayed to the startled tourist. She was part of the local color, and most locals tolerated her antics.

  Flagstaff still has some of its counter culture personality. That element is mixed with a tourist hub, a college town, and a lumber and railroad center to make a high-country goulash. In the first half of November, it was too early for ski season, and the aspen in Flagstaff had already dropped their leaves. This was a slow time in town; the summer tourists were gone, leaf watchers were down in Sedona, and the skiers had not yet arrived. Of course, in November, school was in session at Northern Arizona University, and fourteen thousand college students made that neighborhood much busier than in summer. I really like the rich mix of Flagstaff, but Margaret likes Sedona much better. She would never consider moving up here because of the heavy winter snows and cold weather.

  We pulled up to the Law Enforcement Building just as Sheriff Taylor arrived. He invited us into his office to discuss the case. Sheriff Taylor started the conversation by saying, “The mayor is in near panic. He’s afraid that the details of this murder might damage tourism. I don’t know how long we can keep a wrap on this damn thing.”

  I knew it would be impossible to keep the details quiet for long. “Mike, I got your message indicating a Sedona priest turned up missing the same night as the murder. Good God, I can’t think of anything that would make this case worse, a Catholic priest roasted alive in some pagan Halloween rite. It was probably some of the New Age creeps from down in Sedona. Tell me everything you know or even suspect.”

  “Sheriff, we have Father Sean Murphy’s dental records and hair samples for DNA analysis,” I said. “My hunch is that our victim was Sean Murphy. He was one of my parish priests, and he resembles our corpse. I had the impression at the crime scene that I knew the victim but couldn’t place him. I’m now almost certain he was in that cage. The story does get more complicated however.”

  “Damn,” the sheriff said.

  “Father Sean was more than your normal parish priest. He was an expert on medieval cults, pre-Christian rituals, and ancient pagan religions. Father Sean had a history Ph.D. from Stanford and had written two books on the subject. He was a Jesuit priest who was sent to Sedona at the request of the most senior West Coast cleric in the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are officially known. I expect you’ll hear from the bishop of Phoenix before the day is out. This is going to be one of the hottest cases in Arizona history,” I said.

  There was a long pause as Sheriff Taylor probably considered the impact on next year’s election. “Mike, what’s next?”

  “Chad has Father Sean’s dental records. The priest had perfect teeth,” I said. “I suggest if the corpse has no fillings, you use whatever strings you can pull to get the fastest possible turnaround from the State Crime Lab on the DNA test. Please have them do full tests for drugs. It is hard to see how the criminals could get the victim to that remote crime scene without using something.”

  The sheriff nodded for me to continue. “I also recommend that we send someone to Phoenix on the noon flight with the samples. We might get conclusive identification before the day is out. If our corpse has perfect teeth, I suggest that you call the Most Reverend Thomas Kelly, bishop of the diocese of Phoenix, and update him on what we’ve learned.”

  Sheriff Taylor picked up the phone and called the medical examiner to check on the victim’s teeth. While that line was on hold, he asked a deputy to book a flight to Phoenix to take the DNA and tissue samples to the state crime lab. The sheriff was a man of action. Within a few minutes we knew that the murder victim had perfect teeth. Sheriff Taylor asked an assistant to find the phone number for the bishop of Phoenix.

  “Mike, what’s our next step?” Sheriff Taylor said.

  “The FBI lab is the best place to examine several pieces of our physical evidence. The blue greasy stuff, the ashes from the fire, and the red candle wax should be shipped overnight to the FBI lab. We should also send them sample tissue from our corpse. Sheriff, you may need to call in some chits to get this evidence processed quickly.” The sheriff smiled. He knew how to call in a favor.

  He’d asked for the next steps, and I wasn’t bashful about stating my opinion. “I think our pine branch was part of some ceremony,” I said. “Chad and I will investigate how it might have been used. Please have it checked for fingerprints. We’ll look into this whole pagan ceremony deal. We’ll contact some professors at NAU and use their library. Chad can search the Internet for information that might be useful.”

  Sheriff Taylor’s gray eyes showed remarkable determina
tion. He was an elected official, but he had a strong background in law enforcement. “I’m going to call the governor and ask for her help in speeding up the Arizona Crime Lab and the FBI. What about this steel cage used in the murder?” he said.

  “I’d find the best welder in town, and have him take a look at it. He should be able to tell us if a professional welder made it. He also may have some ideas about the welding style and what the cage was made from.”

  The sheriff agreed. He knew the best family of welders in Flagstaff. I explained our next step. Chad and I wanted to search for the access route used to transport that heavy cage and the victim to the crime scene. Because it’s such a remote forest clearing, I felt a vehicle must have been used to get the priest there. We couldn’t waste a single day in looking for additional physical evidence. Any time in November, heavy snows could bury the crime scene. In some years, it might become inaccessible until spring.

  “You’re right about the snow; it’s in the forecast for tonight,” Sheriff Taylor said. “Anything you need in this case you can have. Call me each morning with a progress report. Good luck men.”

  Chad and I went to the map room. It’s actually a very well lit corridor that led to a storage area in the back of the Administrative Center. Along one wall is the whole collection of detailed US Geological Survey Maps that cover Coconino County. They were fitted together to form a continuous topographical map thirty feet long. On the opposite wall are satellite photos of much of the county. The USGS maps had been updated by hand with new structures and roads. Flagstaff deputies kept these maps in good shape, and this hallway held the very best current map information available.

  Chad and I studied the Dutton Hill section of the map. It contained the exact coordinates of the crime scene. The body was found on an unnamed promontory northwest of West Buzzard Point. We mentally marked it as Pagan Point. The grove of pine trees was at an elevation of 6,820 feet. We could see the details of the West Fork of Oak Creek and the route that we’d used to get to the spot. We also found the place where Kevin had camped. There was no road shown nearby, not even an undeveloped jeep trail, but we’d seen something from the chopper. The road must have been closed sometime before the USGS updated the printed maps in 1963.