The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo

by Charles Williamson

  “Well, Mr. Poole has a right to whatever he discovers on his private property. It might make sense to buy the device to use as a hobby. I wonder if he keeps a log of its use?”

  Sean explained, “I wasn’t comfortable trying to call a man like that. Maybe you or Sheriff Taylor should contact him.” Sean was not bashful, but any junior deputy might have been intimidated under the same circumstances.

  “Fine job, Sean. I’ll check to see if Sheriff Taylor knows him before I call. The sheriff might be the right man for that initial contact.”

  After Sean left, Mike checked the Coconino County political reporting website; every donation of fifty dollars or more was reported and available as public record. The website reported that Sheriff Taylor was a substantial recipient of the Poole family’s political donations. In fact, the three family members who made donations at previous elections constituted the largest set of political donations that the sheriff had received.

  Sheriff Taylor had put on his white cowboy hat and was ready to leave the building when Mike knocked on his door.

  “Sure, I know Jim Poole. He’s the great-grandson of the man who started the family ranching empire in Arizona back in the Nineteenth Century. Jim’s a nice guy of about forty. He has an MBA from Harvard, and serves as the family’s business manager. I’d be happy to call and let him know you’d like to speak with him about the murder at Kinnickinick. He’s an easy man to get along with, but he’s seldom in Northern Arizona. Their properties are all over the state with a few in New Mexico and California. However, Jim and his wife own a large house down at the Poole Vineyards near Page Springs that they use occasionally. They held a fundraiser there for me five years ago.”

  Sheriff Taylor made a call and left a message asking Jim to call him about his ground-penetrating radar unit. “Mike, some of their ranches have no cell service, but I left him my cell phone number. I’ll set up an appointment for you to meet with him the next time he’s in the area.”

  “Thanks boss. I have an important date with Margaret so I’m headed home now. She got a new and better job today, and I’m taking her to dinner to celebrate.”

  “Have fun. Margaret is a remarkable woman. See you tomorrow.”

  When he got home, Mike found that Margaret was dressed to the nines. She’d even opened the safe and retrieved the diamond necklace and bracelet that he purchased for their twenty-fifth anniversary. He put on his best navy suit and red-striped tie and they drove the mile to the restaurant, which was located in a beautiful setting next to Oak Creek. After they were seated next to a window overlooking the grounds and creek, which even in the dark were highlighted by discreetly placed lights, Mike asked the sommelier about Poole Vineyard’s wines.

  “Excellent choice. You certainly know the local wines. Because of the limited supply, we don’t place the GP Premium label on the wine list, but I have the 2011, 2014, and the 2016.” The French-accented gentleman wrote the prices of each vintage on a small sheet of paper and showed Mike the prices discreetly.”

  Margaret said encouragingly, “They were very good at the Wine Festival, and it’s a special occasion.”

  Mike chose the least expensive one, boosting their bill to well over three hundred for the dinner for two.

  “There was something that I haven’t mentioned about the deal to move to the local bank. I got a two thousand dollar hiring bonus, and I’ll get substantially more if I can move a lot of customers. Maybe even enough to pay for the Paris cooking classes.”

  Mike smiled. He was pleased that she seemed to be over the embarrassment of being escorted from the local branch of one of the world’s largest mega-banks.”

  They were on their third course, Arizona pine-smoked venison for Mike and local steelhead trout for Margaret, when she brought up the case. “So did you make progress today?”

  Mike filled her in on the distribution of the drawings of the looted artifacts and Sean’s report on the sales of ground-penetrating radar units in Arizona.

  “Couldn’t someone have purchased the radar someplace else and brought it into the state. It’s not like a car that needs registration.”

  Mike sat back in surprise because it caused him to think of something else. He had not tried to check the records for off road ATV registrations. In order to travel between the looted sites in the Verde Valley, the owners of the vehicles would probably need to register them for use on normal roads, for example any road that a passenger car could use required an ATV to be registered. It would have been impossible to get between the looted sites in the Verde Valley without using normal public roads for parts of the trips unless they were towed on a trailer, and any owner would find his vehicles much less useful if he couldn’t ever use a public road. Although people who will steal might also ignore the registration rules, the last thing they would want was to be stopped for no vehicle tag while carrying looted artifacts. It might be a wild shot in the dark, but worth investigating since not many people would have three identical ATVs.

  “I should have more information from Jimmy Hendrix tomorrow. If he can tell us the type of all terrain vehicles, I’ll look for similar vehicles in the state’s registration files. As to your point, a radar device could have been purchased anywhere in the US and transported here without a license, but the ATVs probably needed to have them. I’ll get Sean to do more research on ground penetrating radar sales, especially in nearby states.”

  “So you think the Poole family, who makes this outstanding wine, may have been searching for archeological artifacts on their properties? Could they have merely decided to expand into nearby areas of the national forest?”

  “I think that’s unlikely, but it could be employees of the family who used the radar when Mr. and Mrs. Poole were not around. They don’t live at the vineyard here in the Verde Valley most of the time. I’m interested in seeing if their device is still at their property near Page Springs. It might be in a storage room hundreds of miles away from here on one of their many ranches. They even own several ranches in other states. If we’re lucky, they might keep track of the unit with the same sort of usage logs as the universities.”

  They chatted more about the new job until the Chamomile Pavlova and the Honey Lavender Galette desserts were delivered to their table with freshly brewed Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Mike asked, “How will you go about communicating with the customers you hope to move to the new bank?”

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll put a post on Facebook and a LinkedIn notice. I’ll also tweet the news of my move to everyone on my twitter list.” Mike had only occasionally looked at photos of their grandchildren on Facebook. Since Mike had only seven followers on Facebook, all relatives, he had never bothered to post anything himself. He was only vaguely aware of the other two social media apps.

  Margaret continued, “That should reach about eight hundred people, but only two hundred of them live in Sedona. I’ll need to spend every day in the next two weeks calling potential customers.”

  Mike smiled. Margaret was motivated by the anger of customers seeing her escorted out of the branch by a uniformed guard while carrying a box of her personal possessions. Sedona was a small town. By now, hundreds of people would have heard the story. He wondered if she had been crying as she walked out under escort.

  They drove home and spent the rest of the evening in each other’s arms. The next morning while they were eating a light breakfast of poached eggs on toast, Margaret said, “While you were in the shower, I did a quick Internet search of the Poole family of Paradise Valley. Jim Poole’s father, George Poole Jr., is famous for his generosity. Among many charitable gifts is his financial support of the Heard Museum of American Indian Art and History. It’s the one on Central Avenue in Phoenix that we went to last year. George Poole has agreed to lend part of his extensive collection of Hopi masks and kachina dolls for display during the annual Indian Fair Week at the museum. His collection is said to be much larger and more significant than the Goldwater Collection that is on permanent display
there. The press release said Mr. George Poole is believed to have the most extensive collection of southwestern Native American artifacts in private hands. He has a special building to protect the artifacts on their twenty acre compound in Paradise Valley.”

  Mike smiled. He knew they were rich, but twenty acres in Paradise Valley was probably worth more than twenty million dollars without considering the building on the property.

  “I wonder if his tastes run to ancient artifacts from the Sinagua civilization? Sheriff Taylor is arranging for me to meet his youngest son to talk about ground-penetrating radar.”

  “Since the Sinagua were the ancestors of one of the Hopi Clans, I’d be surprised if he had no artifacts from them in his collection.”

  It was almost impossible to consider one of Arizona’s most important families as looters of ancient graves, but Mike knew that it was a common pre-statehood and pre national monuments practice for local families to have picnics at the ancient ruins and dig for pots, arrowheads, and other artifacts for their personal collections. It was finder’s keepers in those days, and the Arizonans of those days felt no guilt about taking things that had been abandoned by their owners eight centuries earlier.

  Chapter 10

  A traffic jam on Highway 89A in Oak Creek Canyon made Mike about half an hour later than normal in reaching his office. A tourist, recording the beautiful scenery and using his iPhone on the video setting while trying to drive, had crossed the centerline on the narrow winding two-lane road. He had struck an RV headed for Sedona. Fortunately, the collision was at very low speeds. The five-mile-long traffic jam was because there was no easy place to move the damaged vehicles off the road.

  It was not a good start for the day, but Mike was still in an excellent mood, actually whistling the beginning refrains of Adele’s Send My Love as he walked from his Explorer to the Coconino County Law Enforcement Building. The previous night had been special, and this morning, he’d been impressed by Margaret’s enthusiasm as she notified her Facebook friends of the move to a new bank even before breakfast. He was shocked that she had two hundred Facebook friends in the Sedona area. There probably weren’t thirty people in town who would care about his photos of grandkids or his most recent meal, and in his position in law enforcement, he didn’t feel he could post anything politically sensitive or risqué. Before he left the house, Margaret had received scores of comments and wishes of good luck on her new job. At least a dozen Facebook friends said they would be at her new bank today to move their accounts. By the time Mike left for work, Margaret was as excited as a child at Christmas.

  When he reached his desk, there was a voice mail message from Sheriff Taylor on his office phone. “Mike, sorry you got caught in the mess on 89A. I went ahead and made an appointment with Jim Poole for you. You’re to meet at his office at the Poole Vineyard near Page Springs at 9:00 tomorrow morning. I made the appointment early so you wouldn’t need to drive up to Flagstaff first. Jim will be leaving for California on Friday, so tomorrow is your only chance this month for an in person conversation without a long trip.”

  Mike appreciated that Sheriff Taylor was considerate enough to make the appointment early. It would save him two hours of driving. He called Sheriff Taylor to thank him. As he was hanging up from the call Sean Mark came into his office.

  “Captain, I wonder if you are free later today. Mr. and Mrs. McFarlane asked if they could get an update on the case before they head back to Minnesota tomorrow.”

  “Good, I’d like to meet with them too. I’m open all afternoon.”

  “I’ll tell them 1:30 if that is good for you.”

  Mike agreed. He was busy reviewing comments from dealers who had received his email from the previous day. Of the two hundred and twenty-six dealers, museums, and retail stores notified, he had responses from seven. He also received notices that fifteen emails were undeliverable because of address problems in the list the FBI had provided. Five of the response emails were asking for clarification about the notice of looting he’d sent. Such notices were common among dealers, but the threat of being an accessory after the fact to a homicide was unusual and had caught their attention. Two of the return emails might be important leads.

  The text of the first one read, “An object similar to your image number 11 and image number 32 was presented for evaluation yesterday at my artifact business office. The object appeared to be a pre-Columbian prayer stick carved from juniper wood in the shape of a human hand. The hand had been painted black with a pitch-like substance and attached to a four-foot staff, also of juniper wood. The staff retained some ocher red color that had once covered it. It appeared to be an authentic Sinagua prayer stick and to have been long buried. The unidentified man who brought it refused to leave the object while I verified its authenticity with experts at the University of New Mexico. Call me at 505 555 8700 if you are interested. Richard Jenson, owner of Santa Fe Native Artifacts, Inc.”

  The second email was from a Scottsdale dealer. “Captain Damson, in response to yesterday morning’s email, I wish to notify you that the day before, I purchased a set of turquoise beads that had been part of a large necklace like the one in the illustration in your email. The forty-three beads are of graduated sizes up to a one-inch diameter. They still have traces of soil indicating they had been buried for some period. The beads were unstrung and appeared to be very old and made without modern tools. When I started to put them together on a thin wire for display, I saw dirt in the stringing holes, proving they’d been buried. When I lined them up on a tray, they closely resembled the photos and drawings shown in 17 and 41 of your email. I paid six hundred dollars in cash for the beads because the seller refused to take a check. He called himself John. I will hold the beads in my safe until I hear from you. The Turquoise Roadrunner does not deal in looted artifacts. My father started this store, and it has been at this location in Old Town Scottsdale for forty-two years. Captain Damson, be assured that I will freely cooperate with your investigation and hold the beads for you. Robert Dohi. My cell is 408 555 2121.”

  Since the dealer in Santa Fe did not actually buy the prayer stick, Mike decided that calling Mr. Dohi was his first priority.

  When he answered his cell phone, Mike explained, “Mr. Dohi, this is Mike Damson with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department. Thank you for contacting me about the necklace. I’d like to come to Scottsdale to meet with you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll be here in the store from 10:00 AM until about 6:30. Do you think this necklace is connected to the Kinnickinick murder that I read about in the Arizona Republic this morning?”

  “If it resembles the drawings, there is a good chance it might be. Did you clean the beads? We’re hoping to find DNA evidence or soil matches.”

  “I didn’t clean them but they had been washed before they came to me. There is certainly still dirt in the small holes used for stringing them. I handled them, but the DNA from the man who sold them might still be there too. No one else here at the store has touched them.”

  “Thank you Mr. Dohi. I have an appointment in Page Springs at nine tomorrow. I’ll drive down to Scottsdale immediately afterwards.”

  Next, Mike called his former partner at the LAPD. Pete Aguilar had become Chief of Police of Santa Fe, New Mexico a year before Mike and Margaret had moved to Sedona.

  “Hi partner,” Mike said.

  “Mike, hot damn old fellow. It’s good to hear from you. Are you and Margaret coming back to old Santa Fe soon? This time you must use our guestroom.”

  “Margaret took a new job today. I don’t think she’ll be able to have vacation anytime soon.”

  “I’m surprised her bank could function without her. She was so loyal; they must have done something to piss her off.”

  “They’re trying to push the customers to Internet Banking and ATMs. She quit and moved to a locally owned bank with an emphasis on personal customer service. She even got a hiring bonus.”

  “You said she couldn’t take off righ
t now. I know by your tone there’s more to the story. Are you coming? You’re also welcome even without your better half. What’s the whole story, Chaplain?”

  The nickname had started when Mike was in the army and arrived at his MP post with ashes on his forehead on Ash Wednesday. Mike grimaced at the nickname that had stuck with him after moving to the LAPD. Pete had used it because he knew that Mike would cringe. “We had a murder of a recently discharged Marine in Coconino County. The young man was hiking, and we think he ran into looters at the ruins of an ancient pueblo. They gut shot him and left him to die. A cougar finished him off.”

  “Shit man, that’s a bad way to go. How can I help?”

  “This morning, I received an email from a man named Richard Jenson who owns Santa Fe Native Artifacts. A stranger tried to sell him a prayer stick shaped like a hand that might have been looted at the same time as the murder.”

  “I know Jenson. He’s been here for years and has a store about a block from the square. It was robbed last year with nearly $45,000 in artifacts taken in the nighttime burglary. We caught the druggie that broke into his store. The perp still had all the merchandise in his battered old RV. Jenson is a solid member of the business community in Santa Fe.”

  “He didn’t purchase the item, but I wonder if he can identify the person who tried to sell it. I need a description, maybe a drawing, and if he has video surveillance that would be even better. I’d like copies of that from the time the man was at the store.”

  “I’ll go and see him and call you back this afternoon.”

  “Thanks partner. Talk to you later.”