The Victim at Vultee Arch

by Charles Williamson

  “The snake is up here.” Art pointed to a ledge still higher up the slick red sandstone wall of the canyon.

  We struggled up to the next higher ledge. As we climbed the ledge we discovered the front wall of a Sinaguan rock dwelling hugging a cave entrance. The wall was made of stacked red sandstone held together with clay mortar. The cliff formed the back wall, and an overhang of rock formed the roof. The remains of the pre-Columbian Native American structures were common in the Sedona area. The builders had abandoned these numerous small structures three or four centuries before the Europeans reached the Verde Valley area of Arizona.

  Before us, stretched out along the length of the ledge in front of the Sinaguan structure, were the remains of a four-foot long rattlesnake. Its head was crushed under a red sandstone rock, but its thick body ending in about dozen rattles was unharmed. It was thicker than any snake I’d every seen in the Sedona area. It had the distinctive diamond pattern on its body. It was easy to assume that Dr. Thatcher had come to this spot to investigate this ancient ruin and, sticking his head through the small opening that formed the two foot high entrance to the dwelling, encountered the grandfather of Sedona rattlers.

  Art headed back to his truck, turning the investigation over to us. Chad began to take digital photos of the body, the snake, and the general location while I call ed the Flagstaff office on the satellite phone. We would need the Sheriff’s helicopter to get the body out of the canyon. I decided that the crime scene technician should come down in the helicopter to view the corpse before it was taken to the medical examiner’s office in Flagstaff. I also made a two-minute call to Meg to describe the location and the condition of the body. I did not identify the victim, pending notification of his next of kin.

  I had turned to view the panorama that surrounded us as I talked on the satellite phone. Something on a red rock promontory a mile or more to the east caught my eye. It was well past the mesa that formed the north wall of the canyon at this point and barely visible above the nearby slope. The strange structure was perched near the Seven Canyons but high above the resort, which the nearby hill still blocked from my view. The strange building was set far back on its hundred-foot wide sandstone ledge so that it would not be visible from the resort or the road that leads to it. It was remarkably well designed to be almost invisible. I retrieved the binoculars from the crime scene backpack and checked out the structure. I’d hiked the backcountry around Sedona for three years, but I’d never noticed this building.

  The structure seemed large even compared to the multi-million dollar vacation homes that are common in Sedona. It had a curved undulating metal roof that was painted exactly the same color as the surrounding rock. The building was made from stacked red sandstone rocks just like the Sinaguan Ruin near where I was standing. The stones were identical to the rocks that formed the outcropping on which the structure was located making it blend in perfectly. It had a very wide roof overhang that prevented its windows from reflecting the sun and giving away its location. A very clever architect had designed this building so that it could fit into the Red Rock Wilderness and be almost invisible. At the time, I thought the structure was interesting, but I didn’t connect it to the current case. I wondered briefly how anyone could get approval to build the structure in a federally designated wilderness.

  It was almost an hour before we heard the helicopter descend into t he o canyon looking for a place to land. We’d spent the wait time looking around the sandstone ledges for any clues as to Dr. Thatcher’s actions before the snakebite. The sandstone left no footprints. Next to the body was a small fanny pack with a half consumed eight-ounce bottle of water and two granola bars. There was no first aid kit, map, or flashlight.

  The chopper landed on a rock outcropping near the Vultee Arch, about a quarter of a mile from Mr. Thatcher’s body. The crime scene technician’s examination of the remains of Quentin Thatcher and the diamondback were brief. He commented, “If you want a guess, I think this man was bitten yesterday evening, near sunset. He died about midnight. It probably took several hours for the venom to kill him. It would have been very painful. We’ll need to ask an expert to determine the exact time between a bite in the neck and his death. If the poison was injected into his carotid artery, it might have only been minutes, but it seems unlikely that he was exploring in the area at midnight. I’ve never actually seen a death from a rattlesnake so you should wait for a report from the medical examiner before reaching any conclusions.”

  The technician put the snake and the rock that killed it into a black garbage bag. He put the fanny pack and its contents into an evidence bag. We carried the body and evidence on a stretcher to the waiting chopper. The helicopter lifted off gaining altitude quickly to clear the nearby canyon walls. It was soon out of sight, and I was left wondering at how brief and cursory the technician’s investigation had been. I had a nagging feeling that there was something we were missing.

  Chad and I spent some additional time looking around the area for tracks or other signs that Dr. Thatcher might not have been alone. It seemed strange that an important and intelligent young man from New York would hike over Sterling Pass in the late afternoon without a map or flashlight and then stick his head into a rattlesnake den in an old Sinaguan Indian ruin.

  “How did he find this ruin? It’s not on any maps of the area that I’ve seen.” I asked Chad. He’d hiked this area since he was a boy.

  “There are hundreds of these things in this part of the county, but I’ve never heard of one in this side canyon near the Vultee Arch. This structure is in good shape; it doesn’t look like anyone has ever disturbed it.”

  Catching my partner’s eye, I said, “Does it bother you that he might have been hiking near sunset without even a flashlight? There was a full moon last night, but it wasn’t up when I went to bed at 10:30.”

  “I don’t see anything that indicates foul play, but his fanny pack didn’t look like it had ever been used before. Unless he tossed out an empty bottle along the trail, he didn’t drink much water on that tough hike over the pass.” Chad said, indicating that he was also not comfortable that this was a simple snakebite case.

  “Let’s hike back to the car and drive around to the Sterling Pass trailhead. We should find his car either along 89A or in the Manzanita Campground. It’s probably a rental from Phoenix or Las Vegas.” Like so many other guesses I made in this case, the truth was not as simple as my first assumption.

  We hiked quickly back to the Explorer and drove towards town. When we got within range of a cell phone tower, Chad called Rose at the office to ask her to find the next of kin of our snakebite victim. She would try through Quentin Thatcher’s employer before looking for a home number. Most large companies have a record of the next of kin as chosen by the employee. That’s who we like to try and reach first rather than just calling a person’s home. I thought of the photo of the smiling girl in Dr. Quentin Thatcher’s alligator wallet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The drive to the Sterling Pass trailhead took longer than I’d expected because of heavy traffic on Highway 89A through Oak Creek Canyon. The Sterling Pass Trail has no parking lot. There is only room for about three cars to pull off onto the shoulder of the busy highway. Other hikers can make their way along the highway from a couple of small motels nearby or from the Manzanita Campground, but Sterling Pass is not a busy trail, and three parking places are usually enough. It’s possible to hike the whole trail to Vultee Arch on a weekday in October and not see another hiker. Our odds of finding anyone who saw Dr. Thatcher hiking this trail the previous evening were not good.

  A single vehicle was parked next to the small metal sign that indicates the start of the Sterling Pass Trail. We pulled over and parked in front of it. The Forest Service controls parking in the backcountry around Sedona by requiring a parking pass at many developed trailheads. Tourists can buy a daily or weekly pass at many different locations in Sedona and from vending machines in the forest near many popular trails. As
we walked around the Toyota Land Rover, we noticed that it displayed the tan plastic annual parking passes that are normally only purchased by local residents. It also had an Arizona tag with a license plate frame from a Flagstaff dealer. It was not the rental car that I had expected.

  With a quick call to Rose, the mystery was explained. The Toyota SUV was registered to the Merchant Bank of Europe and the Americas. The car’s tag had been purchased in Cottonwood, only twenty miles south of Sedona. Dr. Thatcher had not needed to rent a car because his employer kept one in the Sedona area.

  Since backpackers use the Sterling Pass Trail to reach remote campsites in the wilderness north of Sedona, it’s not unusual for a car to be left for several days at this trailhead. This vehicle displayed an annual pass, which does not indicate the date of purchase. The Forest Service would not have been concerned for the hiker who had left this vehicle because there was no record of how long the SUV had been parked.

  We’d been lucky that Quentin Thatcher’s body had been spotted from the air the morning after his death. Otherwise, it might have taken a major search several days to find his remains, and that search might not have begun for a week or more unless someone had reported Dr. Thatcher as a missing person. The forensic investigation would have been less precise the longer the body had remained undiscovered.

  Rose also recounted her efforts to find Dr. Thatcher’s next of kin. “Mike, I had no trouble reaching the human resources department of the bank. However, when I asked for the next of kin information for Quentin Thatcher, they transferred me to the head of HR, Saul Steinheart. He asked me a ton of questions about what was going on. Of course, I politely declined to answer any of them saying only that it was an official investigation by the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. Finally, Mr. Steinheart insisted on speaking to the officer in charge. I told him you’d call him when you had a chance.”

  Mr. Steinheart might provide a shortcut to the answers of many of our questions about Dr. Thatcher. I updated Chad on my conversation with Rose and called the New York phone number. Saul Steinheart answered his own phone.

  “Mr. Steinheart, I’m Detective Mike Damson. I manage the Sedona substation of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Department needs to contact Quentin Thatcher’s next of kin regarding a very serious matter.”

  The HR manager replied in a pleasant but firm manner, “Detective Damson, Dr. Thatcher is among the most senior officers of Bank E & A. Someone extorting money or planning to kidnap a relative of a Managing Director might also ask for next of kin information. You must give me more information if you want the bank’s cooperation.”

  I understood his dilemma. I wanted his help so I gave in. “A body was discovered in the forest north of Sedona this morning. The man had Dr. Thatcher’s driver’s license and business cards. The face of the deceased was a close match with the photo on the New York license.” I described the man.

  Shock was clearly present in Mr. Steinheart’s voice when he asked, “My God, what happened?”

  I explained that the death was still under investigation and that I couldn’t discuss the details yet.

  There was a long pause as Saul Steinheart decided what to do next. Finally he said, “Our records still list Mrs. Shannon Richards Thatcher as Quentin’s next of kin, but they were divorced in a very acrimonious public manner last spring. I know; I knew Quentin quite well, and his relationship with his former wife was very poor. They fought bitterly over the custody of their daughter Jennifer.”

  “Do you know his parents?”

  “No, Quentin’s mother abandoned him at age six,” he said. “He grew up in a series of foster homes. Quentin was a fantastic success story. He graduated first in his class at the best public high school in Brooklyn and received a scholarship to MIT. He got his Ph.D. in Mathematics with a dissertation on probability theory and risk estimation. The bank hired him from his teaching assistant position seven years ago. The Bank E & A will send the corporate jet for the body and make the funeral arrangements. We take care of our own. He was an important part of our corporate family.”

  “I’ll contact you when the medical examiner releases the body. I still need to call his ex wife. I assume that the daughter is with her?”

  He gave me the phone number, and I asked an additional question. “We found an SUV registered to your bank at a trailhead near the body. Do you have a facility of some sort in the Sedona area?”

  “I’ve never been to the bank’s Sedona Retreat Center. It’s used to entertain prominent customers and for the annual planning retreat for the North American managing directors. Quentin was a managing director and would have attended those meetings every March. He never took vacations, so he must have been there on business of some kind. The Retreat Center is located near the Seven Canyons Resort but not actually on their property. The resort provides the food and housekeeping.” He paused to look up some information and then explained, “The caretaker, Chris Moore, lives in Cottonwood. His phone number is 928 555 9742. The phone number of the retreat center is 928 555 2769, but there’s normally no one there unless there are guests.”

  I thanked Mr. Steinheart for his help. I also asked for his fax number so that a photo of the deceased could be sent to him to confirm his identity.

  Next, I called the phone number of the merchant bank’s retreat center where Dr. Thatcher had probably been staying. There was no answer. A call to the caretaker was answered on the first ring.

  “Chris Moore.” A gruff voice answered, and I explained who I was.

  “How can I assist you detective?” His voice was deep but somehow flat and lacked animation as if he’d been taking a sedative or strong pain killer.

  “The body of a man we believe to be an employee of the Merchant Bank of Europe and the Americas was found this morning. We are trying to trace the man’s activity while he was in the Sedona Area.”

  “The only Bank E & A guest in the past two weeks was a man named Thatcher. Is that who you found?” he asked.

  “Yes. Preliminary identification is that the body is Quentin R. Thatcher of New York.”

  “On Monday morning, I was notified that Dr. Thatcher was coming,” Chris Moore said. “I checked the Retreat Center about noon to see that his room was in order and the heat was on. I put a basket of fruit and a bottle of what I was told was his favorite single malt scotch in his room. I assumed that he picked up the Toyota that the bank keeps at the airport and drove to the retreat center on Monday afternoon. The big shots from the bank’s New York office always arrive by private jet. The people at Seven Canyons take care of the guests at the retreat center. I just look after the place when it’s empty and provide some security, especially for their annual management retreat. I met Quentin Thatcher at a couple of those meetings, but this is the first time he’d visited the retreat center on his own. Dr. Thatcher seemed more down to earth and normal than most of those big shots. I’m sorry to hear he’s dead. What happened?”

  “We’re not ready to release that information. The Sheriff’s Department will need to examine the vehicle. We can return it in a few days. We didn’t find the keys with Dr. Thatcher. Do you know where they might be?”

  “I keep a metal box for the key under the back bumper on the driver’s side. That way the bank people can fly in late, and I don’t need to meet them with the key. The combination on the box is 5 7 3. Dr. Thatcher might have put the key back when he went for the hike.”

  “Is this retreat center on a sandstone shelf about two hundred feet above the Seven Canyons Golf Course?” I admit that I was very curious about the building that I noticed in the distance about a mile and a half from where we found the body.

  “Yep, that’s it. Red metal roof and red sandstone walls,” Moore replied.

  “Mr. Moore, I’d like to meet you there and look at Dr. Thatcher’s room. Can you meet me at the Seven Canyon’s Clubhouse at 3:00?”

  “I’ll be there. I’m six four and two hundred and eighty-five pounds with a face
like hamburger. I’ll be hard to miss. See you at 3:00 detective.”

  I recounted the conversation to Chad and asked, “Have you ever heard of this Chris Moore who lives in Cottonwood?”

  Chad is proud of his knowledge of the people in the whole Verde Valley. “From his description, I think Chris Moore might be the Marauding Moor of the Global Wrestling Group. I heard he retired to Cottonwood after the GWG fired him for injuring too many other wrestlers. He wasn’t good at following the script. He kept really losing his temper and actually hurting people.”

  We found the box where the key might be, but we didn’t try and open it. I called for the crime scene technician and asked him to drive down from Flagstaff and make a detailed examination of the vehicle. I wanted the best possible fingerprint records of who had been in the SUV. I wasn’t convinced that Dr. Thatcher had gone exploring Sinaguan ruins alone near sunset in unfamiliar country. I’d been investigating crime scenes for nearly thirty years. Something was wrong with the straightforward snakebite explanation of this case.

  Chad went to pick up some lunch for us at the nearby Dairy Queen while I stayed by the Bank E & A’s Toyota SUV and waited for the technician. Chad returned with the steak sandwiches just as the technician arrived to take prints. First, the technician, whose name is Tad Cardiff and who has never displayed even a trace of a personality, dusted the box under the back fender. When he opened it, we found the key to the SUV and a second key, which I assumed opened a door at the retreat center. Tad’s examination was slow and methodical. I needed to leave by 2:30 to meet Mr. Moore. Chad stayed to drive the Toyota SUV to Flagstaff after the print record was complete.

  I arrived at the Seven Canyons Clubhouse a few minutes before 3:00. A very muscular man with shaggy red hair the color of the stripes in the American flag was standing by a red Hummer in the parking lot. His ruddy face was marked with acne scars and looked like a photo of a lunar landscape. Moore’s nose was flattened and crooked like a boxer who’d spent too many years in the ring. Three red scars crossed his forehead. Moore’s head was too small for his steroid enhanced body, as if some insane scientist had done a poor job at a head transplant.