The Dead Priest of Sedona

by Charles Williamson

  We were able to assemble seven officers on short notice here in Sedona. I explained the urgency of finding the Woods and their cult members today. If they were here in Sedona, there would be another murder tonight. We divided responsibilities and got quickly to work on the search. We also asked the Yavapai County Sheriff’s office to check in Camp Verde, Cottonwood, and Prescott at every rental place and motel. Sheriff Taylor’s Flagstaff officers and the Flagstaff police would search motels up there. The officers also showed the Woods’ photos to people at public places like grocery stores and filling stations.

  I went to the house of each of the people on Father Antonio’s list. Some of my surprise visits were not appreciated, but I found no indication that anyone was harboring the suspects. I checked in every thirty minutes with Rose who was in touch with the other officers conducting the searches of the rental property and motels in town. We found nothing. There was no sign that the Wood family was in Sedona. The Flagstaff police took our photos to every motel and rental office in that much larger town. Local officers searched all of the nearby Verde Valley towns. No one found any sign of the Woods. Maybe Chad was correct and the cult had left the area.

  At 5:30, I returned to the office frustrated with my lack of progress. Every hotel, motel, and vacation rental property had been checked. Sheriff Taylor and Chad were both in the Sedona office when I returned. Chad had not learned anything from his trip to Flagstaff.

  We discussed our options. Chad thought that it was ridiculous that I would consider what crazy Alicia Magnus had said about the Druids being in town. As far as the information from the Phoenix attorney, he dismissed its importance. There was nothing to prove that the Druids would return to Sedona even if they wanted another victim. They could make a Winter Solstice sacrifice anywhere. Chad was the only one present who personally knew Malcolm Wood. He was convinced that the wily fellow would never return to the area. It was too risky for him.

  Sheriff Taylor thought that a group that had committed horrible murders for fifty years and escaped discovery would be too smart to return to the scene of their crimes. The sheriff had checked with all the law enforcement units in the area, and no one had been reported missing in Yavapai or Coconino Counties in the last few days. There was no indication that the Druids had taken another victim. He said he would send a team by helicopter up to Pagan Point to stake out the area for the night, but the area of their original crimes was otherwise unreachable except by snowmobiles or snowshoes. He did not expect anyone to arrive at the Druids’ sacrificial grounds.

  We decided to keep double the normal number of patrol cars in town for the evening. Chad went home to run and have dinner. The sheriff went home to Flagstaff. Margaret and my son and his family would not be home until ten. I was in no hurry to go home until this case was solved or the winter solstice was past.

  I sat awhile wondering what to do next. I remembered that Archibald had mentioned other crimes at the Tarn of Cailleach. But I did not know what that mysterious place was. I knew that Cailleach was one of the pagan gods of the Celts. She had been in my visions, Cailleach the gray hag, dark woman of knowledge. Where is her tarn? I pulled out the dictionary. A tarn is a small mountain lake. The mountainous area near Flagstaff was formed by volcanic action. The soil was porous pumice, which did not hold water well. Lakes were not common in these mountains. This time of year, any small mountain lake would be frozen and difficult to use for a human sacrifice. There might be such a place somewhere near Flagstaff and the San Francisco Peaks, but that did not coincide with Alicia Magnus’s feeling that the Druids were here in Sedona.

  I called Margaret on her cell phone. She and the family were still shopping at the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. They wanted to have dinner at a Cuban place, the Havana Café. She expected to be home about 10:30. The girls were exhausted and needed some food before they drove back to Sedona. The grandkids could sleep in the car on the two-hour drive. I was glad that they were not in Sedona now. I could spend full time on the case without concern for my family’s safety.

  CHAPTER 48

  Only one person came to mind to ask for guidance regarding the location of a local tarn that might be sacred to pagans. I decided to drop by Alicia Magnus’s house and ask her about it. I looked up her address and drove to her house in West Sedona. It was in a remote area of town down a dark winding gravel road accessible from the Upper Red Rock Loop. About 8:00, I reached her modest southwestern style home. Six cars were parked in the gravel driveway and on the street in front of the small house. It seemed impossible that Alicia could be involved with the Druids of the Juniper Grove, but there were a lot of cars at her house on what was supposed to be a major holiday for the Druids. Could the Wiccans and Druids be working together?

  Although I didn’t call for backup, I phoned the night duty officer and told him my location just in case I didn’t return promptly. As I walked toward the front door, Alicia opened it and beckoned me to enter. She was dressed in a grass green gown of gauze-like transparency. Although the gown covered her from head to foot, it revealed the plump woman within. A circle of yellow flowers rested on her unnaturally red hair. Alicia’s expression was otherworldly. She did not speak. She smiled knowingly and led me down a stairway to a basement room. It was the only house with a basement that I had ever seen in Sedona. At least a hundred black candles lighted the subterranean windowless room. Six other women formed a circle with Alicia. Still without speaking, Alicia took my hand and placed me in the center of the circle of green-robed women. The Wiccans ranged from teenagers to gray haired elders. They sang in flawless harmony in a language that I did not recognize. After a few minutes of singing, Alicia spoke. “Mike, ask your question.”

  “I’m looking for the Tarn of Cailleach. Alicia, I must find it before midnight tonight. Please help me.” I did not take this pagan ritual seriously, but I knew that Alicia had been correct in other matters. Maybe I’d get lucky.

  The Wiccans held hands and chanted while circling me. Their expressions were of intense concentration. The ritual went on for several minutes. Their high-pitched voices blending until the circle and the sound abruptly stopped. A gray-haired woman spoke. “The dark forces are too strong tonight, Michael. We’re a white circle, a summer circle. We cannot see the Tarn of Cailleach or the Druid Grove tonight. This Tarn is not a true tarn. That is a name from Cumbria brought here by old Angus Wood. Look for mysterious and sacred waters, a place with a long history of worship. We will stay the night in our circle and help you if we can. Go with the Great Mother. Be safe.” The circle parted for me to leave.

  I was not certain what had happened in that basement. The women had a good point about the word tarn, since it was not used in Arizona to name lakes, it might be any body of water around here. I decided that I needed to look at a map of the area.

  When I reached the office, the duty officer mentioned that he had Chad’s cell phone. Apparently, Rose had not returned it to Chad during his brief stop at the office. The duty officer reported that he’d answered a call from Susan, Chad’s girlfriend, on the cell phone, and she was concerned because he always called if he was going to be this late. He had gone for his usual run after work, but that was hours ago.

  I reached out for the support of a door jam and stared at the duty officer. If the Druids were in town, Chad might be a target. He was as much their enemy as I. Malcolm Wood also knew him personally. I called Chad’s condo to see if he had returned and discovered that Susan was now near panic. Chad was now two hours later than normal. I reassured her that I would locate my partner and friend.

  I grabbed a detailed map of the area and drove out to Chad’s usual running route from Dry Creek Road and 89A to the Enchantment Resort. The full moon was beginning to rise above the eastern mountains. It would provide some light to the remote area. There was not a single manmade structure along a two-mile stretch of the road where Chad ran every night.

  I found Chad’s car parked at a coffee shop and drove the five miles of the ro
ad to the resort with my bright lights and spotlight looking for any sign of Chad. Had he stumbled and fallen into a ditch or been hit by a car? There was no sign of him. My heart was racing even though I had no proof that the Druids had him.

  When I called for reinforcements to search the area, a team of ten officers drove or walked the road looking for any signs of Chad. We searched for two hours. By 11:00, I was convinced that the Druids had him. I called home and found that my family had returned safely from Phoenix. I sent an officer to park in front of the house to keep watch.

  I contacted Sheriff Taylor to discuss possible locations for the Tarn of Cailleach. He had the helicopter standing by, but it was not very useful in the dark in the forests around Flagstaff. If Chad was snatched two to four hours earlier, there were dozens of possibilities within that driving radius. Enormous Lake Powell, which was five hundred feet deep at the dam, was within the outer edge of that driving radius.

  We were in serious trouble. There were too many possibilities for a one-hour search. I remembered the Wiccans’ comments. The place would have a religious connection. We decided that the most likely spots were Mormon Lake, Upper and Lower Lake Mary, the Granite Dells, and Montezuma’s Well. The first three fitted the meaning of tarn more closely while the manmade Lake Powell had not even existed when Angus Wood came to Arizona. Also, Lake Powell was just too large to have any hope of searching in the available time. The Granite Dells would have lots of places for a group of Druids to gather and not be discovered. Some of its rock formations reminded me of Stonehenge, and it looked like it should be a sacred place.

  Sheriff Taylor and the Flagstaff office would investigate Mormon Lake, and the Mary Lakes using their helicopter. They seemed to have some religious connection. It would take time to search them. They were not small tarns. The Yavapai Sheriff’s office would check the Granite Dells near Prescott with their helicopter. I took three uniformed officers with me to investigate Montezuma’s Well, even though it was in Yavapai County. This was not a time to worry about jurisdictional issues. Other officers went to investigate less likely locations within the travel radius. We also set up roadblocks to search every vehicle leaving Sedona.

  CHAPTER 49

  Montezuma’s Well is not a mountain lake like the other locations. The Well was a desert sinkhole near Wet Beaver Creek, and it could never be mistaken for a mountain tarn. The sheriff thought it most unlikely, but I had insisted that I needed to investigate it. It was a hunch. Montezuma and the Aztecs certainly engaged in human sacrifice. The Well actually had no connection to the Aztecs. The Sinagua Indians who inhabited the area eight hundred years ago did not make human sacrifices, but old Angus Wood might not have known that. Unlike the other lakes, the Well had no vacation cabins built around it. It was very secluded once the national monument office closed for the night. There were no fish in the acidic, arsenic-rich waters, and therefore no nighttime fishermen to disturb a pagan ritual. The fetid water was home to algae, leaches, and water scorpions. No one would use it for a midnight swim. Most importantly, it reminded me of my dream.

  I drove as fast as I dared on the rough road. We bounced along at eighty miles an hour, blasting gravel behind our speeding tires. I turned the lights off and slowed the Explorer about two miles from the turnoff to the Well. I was hoping to surprise the Druids if they were there, but we had to catch them before midnight.

  I slid to a stop inches from the steel gate that closed the road to the national monument at night. One of my officers jumped from the car. He lifted the chain that should have barred our access. It was not locked. It had been wrapped around the gate without truly securing it. I called the Sedona office and told the duty officer that the gate to Montezuma’s Well was not secured for the night. “Send help.”

  I drove slowly without lights to a spot about half a mile from the sinkhole and parked the car so that it blocked the narrow road. One officer stayed to guard our improvised roadblock. We wore protective vests and our utility belts. The belts held our knives, service pistols, flashlights, and radios. We carried our shotguns. In the distance I heard the eerie sound of a strange horn. Was it my imagination? The other officers did not hear it.

  Three of us ran as quietly as possible along the asphalt road. As we neared the parking lot, we moved off the road to reduce the sound made by our boots. We walked through the moonlight toward the rim of the sinkhole. I was glad it was winter. Rattlesnakes would not be lurking beneath the desert vegetation on this cold night. I could see two Ford Contours and a black van in the parking lot.

  There are two paths to the edge of the sinkhole whose rim is about thirty feet above the surrounding flatland. I had one of the deputies guard the cars. If the group scattered, I wanted to prevent their escape. We approached the trail closest to the parking area. I could see someone standing on the sinkhole rim two hundred feet ahead. The full moon cast a shadow of the Druid’s billowing white robe down the steep slope. They had left a lookout.

  I whispered to the last deputy to stand guard at the trailhead. He should hide in the shadows cast by the monument’s ticket booth. The deputy was to wait for my signal and then take out the guard by whatever means was necessary. He must block the escape of any Druids who headed for their cars. I heard the strange horn sound again. Its mournful sound amplified my urgency. I checked my watch; it was nearly midnight.

  I took the back trail, which went along Wet Beaver Creek, hoping that the back way was unguarded. Avoiding the trail as I neared the rim of the sinkhole, I climbed the steep slope in the darkness, crawling the last ten feet through the broken rocks and cactus in the moonlight.

  The horn sounded a third time. I lifted my head from the rocks and dirt to gaze over the rim into the black hole of the Well. As my head cleared the rim of the sinkhole, I could hear a chant. The grotesque sound made the hair on the back of my neck rise in warning. It was an ancient song of evil. It was the chant of Cailleach, the gray hag.

  The full moon cast the shadow of the crater’s rim across half of the Tarn of Cailleach. Within the darkest part of the sinkhole, faint white-robed figures were visible. The wraith-like beings circled a darker object. They were gathered together in an area of low bushes on the narrow edge of the sinkhole, fifty feet below. Their otherworldly chant filled the crater.

  I decided that it was safest to wait for backup. The sheriff and law enforcement officers from all the nearby jurisdictions would be on the way. If I attempted to move closer, I might scatter the pagans before we had closed the net. I would only intervene if Chad seemed to be in immediate danger. I thought the dark object on the ground encircled by the chanting Druids was my partner and friend. From my reading of the ancient Druids, I was confident that it was not their custom to kill their victims before dropping them into the blackness of the tarn. That would spoil the sacrifice. I drew my service revolver and set it next to my shotgun on the edge of the sinkhole rim.

  Something moved on the water. I could see a white-robed figure in a small rubber boat. He held a paddle in one hand and a sword in the other. The boat drifted towards the center of the three hundred foot diameter lake. Slowly, the small boat moved into the moonlight. There was a figure lying prostrate in the bottom of the small craft. It was a man in jogging shorts and shirt. I had been wrong about the dark object within the Druid circle. It was not my partner.

  Chad was in the bottom of the small boat that I had not seen until it passed into the area of moonlight. A large stone was bound to his chest by many loops of heavy rope. Black tape covered his mouth. The chanting grew louder, the sound higher and quicker. It must be near midnight. A shotgun might puncture the rubber boat. I aimed my service pistol, bracing it against a rock for a better aim. It was a difficult shot. I could hear a helicopter far in the distance. The chanting stopped. The chief Druid spoke. I knew his voice. I could not make out his words, but he raised the sword. I fired. He fell from the boat. Christ! The small craft rolled over slowly. Chad slipped into the water along with the dead Druid Chief, Profe
ssor Harvey Stone.

  I scrambled down the steep slope, part falling, part rolling, and dove into the foul water. It seemed an impossibly long time, but I swam to the middle of the sinkhole. Taking the biggest possible breath, I dove into the center of the well, kicking with all my force and weighted by my protective vest and service belt. I reached out with only my hands to guide me.

  Somehow I found Chad. Maybe I had help. I felt something, the ropes that entangled my partner. With one hand on the ropes I withdrew my knife from my service belt and slashed at them in the blackness as the heavy stone carried us both deeper in the Well. The rock fell away into the depths of the sinkhole. I dropped my belt and vest and kicked with all my force for the surface, one arm around Chad’s waist. It was so far. Somehow I did not blackout.

  When our heads reached the surface, I heard Chad gasp in a breath through his nose. I pulled the duct tape from his mouth. He was alive. Only an exceptionable aerobic athlete could have survived that long.

  A blinding light shown from above. I smiled. We were not in paradise yet. That was the county’s helicopter. I heard some gunshots as I pulled Chad through the algae and leaches that survive in the mineral rich water. When we reached the edge of the fetid pool, we were too tired to pull ourselves up the slimy shore of the sinkhole.

  Within a few minutes, we were helped from the foul waters of Montezuma’s Well and taken to the monument’s parking lot. Medics from the Camp Verde Fire Department picked the leaches from our exhausted bodies and cleaned our wounds. All the Druids had been caught. Malcolm and Walter Wood and six other Druids had nothing to say, but we had a good chance of connecting them to the whole series of crimes through Dr. Beech.

  They were taken to the Flagstaff jail. We would need scuba divers to recover the body of Professor Stone from the sinkhole. Underground currents might pull the corpse into the cave system that fed the Well and provided the water for an ancient irrigation system used by the Sinagua Indians six centuries ago. I wondered how many more bodies we would find in the depths of the Well.