The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo

by Charles Williamson

  “Of course, have him come down.”

  “He’ll need to take the prints from the workers here to exclude them for comparison.”

  “Sure, we’ll certainly all cooperate.”

  “Just keep everyone away until Jimmy Hendrix gets here. I need to drive to Scottsdale to pick up some evidence. Thank you very much for your cooperation, Jim.”

  They shook hands, and Mike walked back to his Explorer for the drive down to Scottsdale. He thought that Jim Poole seemed madder at the possibility the radar might have been used for looting than the fact he was out ten thousand dollars worth of valuable equipment. He called Jimmy on his cell to let him know where to come for the print check.

  Chapter 12

  Mike didn’t mind driving in the Phoenix traffic because he’d spent most of his life driving in LA traffic, but a backup on the 101 Loop delayed him for twenty minutes. He knew that area of Scottsdale fairly well because they often did their Christmas shopping at a large mall on Camelback Road near Old Town Scottsdale. The original downtown of Scottsdale had kept an old west look, and it had mostly shops targeting tourists. Mike pulled up in front of the Turquoise Roadrunner and found a parking place on the street. When he entered the small store, a fit and trim man who was probably in his early seventies greeted him. It was Robert Dohi. He had Native American features and a sun-weathered face. His gray hair was shoulder length, and he wore a bolo tie with an elaborate turquoise pendant in the shape of a roadrunner, an embroidered western shirt, cowboy boots, and Wrangler jeans.

  “Mr. Dohi, I’m Mike Damson from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. Thank you for contacting me regarding the turquoise beads.”

  “I hate looters, and also all of those scammers selling fake Native American artifacts. There are more fake kachina dolls than real ones for sale in Scottsdale nowadays. Half of the damn things are made in Bangladesh, and the other half in Indonesia. At my first glance, I knew these beads were real, but I should have insisted on an ID and asked more questions. I’m sure to be out six hundred dollars now, but the man seemed to be a genuine ranch hand. At least he had the look of the real thing. You know the weathered face and calloused hands. He had that suntanned face with a white forehead that comes from always wearing a cowboy hat for long hours in the sun. He had regular features with vivid blue eyes. The man claimed he found the beads while herding cattle near Munds Park.”

  Mike let him talk, nodding to give him encouragement.

  “He was a lean man in Wrangler jeans and a well worn tan shirt with those studs you see on some western wear and a pointy collars. He took his brown cowboy hat off when he walked in the store and spoke real polite, calling me ‘sir’ and such. If he wasn’t a cowboy, he was a damn fine imitation of one; he even had that cowboy accent that we seldom hear in Scottsdale since the town got so fancy. If these beads are connected to a murder, that cowpoke certainly fooled me. A six hundred dollar net loss is a big f-ing deal to me.”

  As he talked, Mr. Dohi walked back to a safe located in a corner of the store. Mike looked around and saw four cameras focused on the store from every corner of the room. The storeowner opened the safe, which was already unlocked, and withdrew a tray covered in black velvet with the turquoise beads arranged on it like they would have been if strung on a necklace. Mr. Dohi put the two color drawings of the necklace discovered in 1939 with the Ridge Ruin Magician next to the tray with the beads.

  “Different beads, but you can see the pattern and style is exactly the same,” Mr. Dohi commented.

  “Mr. Dohi, did you see the man who called himself John actually handle the beads?”

  “Let me think a moment. No, he had them in a baggy, and handed the baggy to me to open. I weighed it before opening it and examined the individual beads under that microscope.” He pointed to the device on a back counter. “I was looking for tool signs that would prove the beads were made after metal tools became common after the Spanish reached the area in the seventeenth century. There are no signs that metal tools were used.”

  “Did you keep the baggy?”

  “No, he took it with him. My fingerprints will be all over the beads. I handled each one when I put them on this display tray.”

  “I would like you to give me a sample of your prints for exclusion. You can do it on my phone, which has a special app for that.”

  “OK.” Mike took out his iPhone and activated the finger print app. He guided Mr. Dohi in using the app, which required you to keep rolling your fingers until a tone sounded. The process took about five minutes.

  After they finished, Mike said, “Can I have the disk from your video cameras for the day that John was here?”

  Mr. Dohi looked surprised at the request. “I’m sorry, they’re only activated by the alarm being triggered or by a button I can press behind the counter near the cash register. They transmit all the time using the Wi-Fi but only record the video stream at ADT Security offices during an alarm. I had no reason to activate the recording. John’s story seemed very credible until I received your email. Sorry.”

  “If I have a sketch artist come here to your store, will you work with her on a drawing of John?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll be sending these beads to the FBI lab. They will be returned to you if they can’t be connected to the homicide up in Coconino County.”

  “OK, but I won’t hold my breath. How the hell will the FBI even know if they were taken from the site of a murder? Did the victim bleed on them.”

  “I’m optimistic, but I can’t describe the FBI’s methods. The crime was in the national forest, so the FBI offered to help.”

  Mr. Dohi said, “I almost forgot. Here is the letter explaining the source of the beads. I needed something to prove provenance. I printed it, and the man who sold them to me signed it.”

  “Did he handle the letter?”

  Mr. Dohi thought for a moment. “I put it on the counter. He signed it with his own pen, but never picked it up. I thought it was slightly strange that he had a pen in his shirt pocket. I didn’t expect that from a cowpoke, but that’s his signature.”

  It was signed John Smith. Mike took out some latex gloves. He slid the beads into an evidence bag, careful not to touch them, and placed the letter in the same bag. He had brought along a double set of padded mailing envelopes preaddressed to the FBI Lab in Quantico, Virginia. He intended to mail them special delivery at the nearest post office. Mike gave his card to Mr. Dohi and asked him to call if he thought of anything new and to trigger his silent alarm if John returned with more items to sell. Mike called the Phoenix FBI office and asked them to have their identification forensic sketch technician come to the store and work with Mr. Dohi on a digital sketch of John Smith.

  Once he left the store, he called Linda Surrett, who was acting as his liaison with the FBI and explained what he’d be mailing to the FBI Lab. He sent her a digital copy of Mr. Dohi’s fingerprints attached to an email so she could forward it to the appropriate person at the lab. He also sent a text to Jimmy asking him to send Linda a digital copy of the DNA analysis recovered from the shaman buried at Kinnickinick Pueblo. Dr. Whittier of the Museum of Northern Arizona had made the DNA analysis, and the FBI lab might not be willing to rely on a test not made by another law enforcement agency. He’d need to deal with that obstacle before taking any evidence to court, but he assumed they could use Dr. Whittier as an expert witness because of her academic credentials.

  After he sent Jimmy the text, he called back immediately. “Hi Mike, I wanted to let you know that I’ve almost completed the fingerprint records at that shed at the vineyard. There were a hell of a lot of different finger and palm prints. It will take a week or more to sort things out. I took fifteen sets of comparison prints from Mr. Poole and his employees. They were very cooperative, but there are six seasonal employees who were not present today. They were students at Yavapai College who worked during the harvest. Mr. Poole said he would ask them to contact me about getting their prints in
our files too, but since they worked the harvest, they probably were never in this specific building. Mr. Poole was a really helpful gentleman. He gave me a bottle of his wine. I hope that’s OK?”

  “I’m sorry, Jimmy. You can’t accept a gift like that. You’ll need to give it back to Mr. Poole. You had no way to know it, but his cheapest wines sell for over seventy-five dollars a bottle. Please, politely give it back to him and say you didn’t realize what his wine costs.”

  “Over seventy-five dollars for a single bottle of a local wine? I’ve never tasted wine that cost over twenty-five dollars. I had no idea the wine was over the department’s the gift limit. Certainly, a man like Mr. Poole can’t be a suspect.”

  “Jimmy, maybe I’ll buy you a bottle of his wine if I ever get your name at the Christmas drawing, but you can’t keep that one.”

  “At that price, you could buy an excellent bottle of single malt scotch instead. OK. I’ll be finished here in half an hour and head home, but don’t expect a quick answer about unidentified fingerprints. This will be a big job of sorting and excluding prints.”

  “You can only do what you can do, but I’m betting at least one of the killers’ prints are somewhere in that shed. They might be employees of the vineyard or complete strangers, but I’m convinced our killers took that radar unit. It had to be someone who knew the vineyard had one and where it was stored.”

  After his conversation, Mike drove to the nearest post office and mailed the beads to the FBI lab. He shipped the beads registered mail and insured the shipment for four thousand dollars. That was the estimate of the necklace’s value without having proper documentation. Amber Whittier at the Museum of Northern Arizona had said it could be many times that amount with the proper documentation of its source and historical significance. Mr. Dohi would have made a killing on his purchase if he could have provided an acceptable provenance to an auction house, museum, or private buyer.

  On the drive home, Mike received a text from Pete Aguilar. It said, “Call when you get a chance.” Mike pulled off at the Sunset Point Rest Stop.

  “Hi Pete. Did you learn anything from Richard Jenson?”

  “Hi Chaplain Mike. You may have hit the jackpot with Mr. Jenson. After the Santa Fe Native Artifacts store was robbed last year, he installed an elaborate security system. He has video of the whole time his suspect was in the store. It’s a high-end system with HD quality. I had him burn a disk of the interaction with your suspect, and I’m mailing it to your office for overnight delivery. There is no voice recording, but Mr. Jenson described his voice as gravelly and husky. He also said the big man smelled of tobacco smoke.”

  “Thanks for going yourself to talk with him.”

  “Mr. Jenson’s store is an extraordinary collection of Spanish colonial antiques and Native American artifacts. I think Margaret would love seeing it the next time you’re in Santa Fe. Most things were quite expensive, but they represent the whole history of New Mexico from ancient Cloves spear points to early twentieth century art. He’s quite a fellow with some interesting BS. I spent two hours there just hearing him talk about the history of Santa Fe.”

  “That’s great news Pete. We think the killers stole a ground penetrating radar unit from the local vineyard. We’re checking the whole shed where it was stored for prints. Did the man touch anything we can print?”

  “No, I asked Mr. Jenson about that. It was a cold spring morning here, and the man who tried to sell the prayer staff wore leather work-gloves. I assume that was no accident. Mr. Jenson had never seen the man before. He claims to have a nearly perfect memory for faces, and assured me he could identify the man if he ever saw him again.”

  “That also is good news. That carved juniper human hand at the end of the prayer staff has only been found in one other place, a similar burial from the same period near Flagstaff. Its impression was left in the soil at the bottom of the dig, and our crime scene tech made a mold of it. If we catch this man with the staff, we’ll have a strong case that he was present at the ancient burial spot at the time of the killing.”

  Mike continued his drive north. It would be after seven before he reached the junction with State Highway 179, the turnoff for Sedona. He pulled off I-17 for a restroom break and a chocolate milkshake at the McDonalds in Cordes Junction. He had missed lunch and didn’t want to wait until he got home. While waiting for his shake, he called Margaret.

  “Mike, I’m still at work. Could you pick up dinner on the way home? Maybe something from Tara Thai since you’ll be driving past it on the way to Sedona.”

  Since it took twenty minutes to prepare Mike’s favorite, Thai Barbecued Chicken, he called ahead for a takeout order of Ground Beef Larb with Mint, Thai Barbecued Chicken, and Shrimp Panang Curry. He also ordered a stir-fry of mixed vegetables in green curry. It was a lot more than they would eat in one meal, but he assumed they’d have the leftover Thai food tomorrow night, which was Friday, a night the banks stayed open later than usual. They had eaten at Tara Thai at least twice a month for years, and they knew both the owner and her servers. Mike knew he would need to spend some time visiting with the owner if she was there. She loved to hear the latest on his cases.

  When Mike picked up the food, the owner walked over to him smiling. “Hi Mike; your order is ready. I saw Margaret at her new bank today. I moved our accounts. The branch of her previous bank has replaced most of the people with ATMs, and every time I enter, the few people that remain spend half an hour trying to sell me other products like pension plans for my four employees. Really, it will be quicker to drive to Margaret’s new bank because they won’t spend all that time wasting my time with their cross selling goals. If I did that aggressive sales talk at the restaurant, all my business would soon disappear.”

  They talked about Mike’s new case. The owner of Tara Thai had read about it in the Sedona Red Rock News. The idea of being killed while on a hike was alarming news to all the hikers in the Sedona area. Murders were very rare in Sedona, and this death had occurred a forty-minute drive away. People still worried; there were Sinagua sites all over the Verde Valley including many in the Sedona area. Mike had seen at least ten small sites on ordinary day hikes near town. He couldn’t be certain that the looters were not active here too. Most historical sites had no site stewards; many others could have been looted with no one in authority knowing about it yet.

  Margaret and Mike arrived home at almost the same time. She helped him carry in the food cartons and put them in dishes to enjoy at the kitchen table. It was too cool for eating on the deck. “Thank you for getting dinner. I had no time for lunch. It was even busier than yesterday at the bank. If I can make it through the busy time at the start, it should be a great place to work. I will never need to work Saturdays at my new bank since they’re not even open.” She grinned at the huge amount of food Mike had purchased. “We’ll have plenty of leftovers for tomorrow.”

  Chapter 13

  Mike and Margaret had a long discussion of both his new case and her new job. Margaret was thrilled with her success bringing customers to the Arizona-owned bank, but very annoyed with her old employer.

  Margaret explained, “The regional manager from my old bank called me at work today. Mrs. Paulette was mad as hell, and I ended the call by saying I was too busy with new customers to talk to her and hung up. She claimed they’re holding my final paycheck while they investigate my termination. Damn it, that woman actually accused me of preparing for a move to the new bank by stealing customer records over a period of months. I resigned; I was not terminated!!”

  Mike said, “I think they’ve reduced staff so much they don’t have many people who really know the bank’s customers. A fancy machine can’t persuade a customer not to move his or her account.”

  “Mrs. Paulette was especially mad about the business customers who’ve already moved. We’ve had twenty-two businesses move in only two days, but I know of ten others who’ve agreed to move within the next two weeks. I think there must have been at least
a hundred other new individual customers who moved from my old employer. All of these individual accounts came from my Facebook posts or word of mouth; I haven’t had time to phone individuals, only businesses. Of course, all of the business customers have public phone numbers. I swear I never took a single record from that damn cold mega-bank. However, I admit, after that call from Mrs. Paulette, I contacted their ten largest depositors with an offer of free checking for a full year; at least three already agreed to move. I worked at that bank for five years; did they not realize the information is in my head or in public records like the phone book?”

  Mike thought it was probably illegal to hold on to any of her pay without a court order, and he told Margaret so. She had received a nice hiring bonus, and they could easily live on their current income because they’d purchased their Sedona home with cash from their sale of their modest Manhattan Beach home. They both had pensions from their previous jobs.

  Mike updated Margaret on his case before they went to bed. Her final comment before they turned off the lights was, “Your case is well on the way to being solved. Tomorrow, you’ll have a drawing of the man in Scottsdale and a high definition video of the man in Santa Fe. If you find either of them, they can lead you to the others. Sweet dreams my love. I’m too tired to think about the case anymore; I need sleep.”

  The next morning when Mike arrived at his office, there was a voice mail message from Linda Surrett. She sounded annoyed. If she were actually angry, she would certainly let Mike know it with more colorful language. “Mike the FBI is glad to help in your case, but I did not expect to be involved in it every single day as your liaison. I have way too many cases on my desk already. Anyway, the Phoenix office called to clear a rapid request for the forensic sketch artist to compile a digital drawing of the man who sold the beads. Since our technical expert was available yesterday afternoon, she went directly to Mr. Dohi’s shop. She works with a computer program on a laptop that seems to produce even better images than the old paper sketch method. She’ll send you the digital drawings by email ASAP. I can’t believe how much quicker you got a result from our technical staff than I’m ever able to get.”