“Captain, this man looks familiar, but he’s never actually worked here. He applied last fall, but one of my men warned me he was not reliable. Let me take you to meet Jarod. He’s the one who warned me against hiring him. He must know more about him.”
Jarod was a man in his early twenties who looked even younger. He had sandy hair and freckled skin that was red from working in the sun.
“Captain Mike Damson, this is our newest employee Jarod Baldwin. He joined us last autumn. The captain has some questions for you, Jarod.”
The young man looked frightened, as if he wanted to flee. Although the reaction was suspicious, Mike had seen it many times from people who had no idea why they were being interrogated. He had learned that real criminals were usually better at hiding their feelings.
Mike took out the photos and said, “Jarod, we’re trying to identify this man.”
After one glance Jarod said, “I don’t know his real name. People call him Donald Aryan because he’s the leader of the Verde Valley Pure Bloods. They’re a militia group based in Camp Verde. I have a cousin who joined them when he was in the Yavapai County Jail in Camp Verde. My cousin is not really a criminal; it was just a marijuana charge. A lot of the members of the VVPBs’ are either guards at the jail or white jail inmates who joined because they wanted protection from the Hispanic and black gangs.”
“You don’t know where he lives or his real name?” Mike asked.
“I can call my cousin. He moved to Phoenix and isn’t involved in the militia anymore.”
Jarod stepped away from Mike to use his cell phone. He spoke quietly with his cousin for a minute.
“My cousin doesn’t want his name even mentioned to you. If they think he’s turned traitor, he’s a dead man. He said no one in the militia knows Donald’s real name, but most people think he lives in a rural area on Beaver Creek between Camp Verde and McGuireville. He took that Donald name when President Trump was elected. Before that he was known as Harold White. My cousin never went to his house because the group always meets at a bar in McGuireville.”
“Jarod, thank you. Even that much information is a big help. I think I can trace him. Please don’t mention my asking about him to anyone. He might skip town if he thinks we suspect him.”
“The last thing in the world I’d want would be for that psychopath to know I ever spoke with you guys about him.”
Matt said, “Jarod, you can trust us completely to keep your identification a secret.”
As they walked back to the barn where the ATVs were stored, Matt asked Mike, “Do you think we should ask the other employees if they recognize this Donald Aryan?”
It was a tough call. Mike suspected that someone who worked here was involved with both the theft of the ground penetrating radar unit and taking the ATVs to use for looting Sinagua ruins. If he showed the photo around, word might get back to this Aryan fellow. “No Matt, I think I have what I need to identify him. I don’t want to show his photo around town unless we’re ready to take him into custody. I’m still in the very early stages of building a case. I’ll check with my contact at the FBI. They may keep track of these militia groups and might already know his real name and his home’s location.”
Jimmy Hendrix approached with a disconcerted look on his face. “Captain Damson,” he said in an formal tone he seldom used with Mike, “my official report is that I can’t associate these ATVs or the carts they pull with the tracks we found at Kinnickinick. All three of these vehicles and all the two-wheeled carts have almost new tires. There is little wear on any of them. I think they haven’t gone away from the vineyard since these new tires were put on. Unless we find the older tires someplace, this is a dead end. Also these carts are too wide compared to the impressions I took at Kinnickinick. None of them were at the crime scene.”
Mike turned to Giuseppe with a questioning look. “Captain Damson, we’ve never replaced the tires on these ATVs. In fact, they haven’t been used since the autumn harvest, and the tires are still in excellent shape because they’re only used for six weeks each autumn. There is soft dirt between the grapevines. If someone changed the tires, he or she is covering his or her tracks, but I actually would not have expected there to be much wear on them; they’ve never been on the roads or even on rocky trails around the vineyard.”
“For now, you could put out the word that we have no leads and that we can’t match these vehicles to the tire tracks at the crime scene. We’re still officially only searching for the radar unit that was stolen. I don’t want word to get back to this Aryan fellow that we’re searching for more information specifically about him.”
Matt said, “If I passed these photos around at the Sheriff’s Department, someone might know where he lives, but do we even have enough to arrest him?”
“We’re not yet close to an arrest. Just let it go for now, Matt. I’ll call for reinforcements if we find where he lives and have enough supporting evidence for a search warrant and an arrest. Since it’s in Yavapai County, you’ll certainly be involved if we plan to make an arrest. We’re investigating other artifacts that might be connected to our homicide and have several other leads. At least three people were present at the crime scene.” Mike now consideration Robert Dohi as being a prime suspect as the fence for the looters, and following up with him was a priority.
Mike drove down to Cottonwood to the Walmart to speak with the manager. They did not keep surveillance tapes for more than two weeks, and he declined to provide information about the purchaser who used a SNAP card at that specific date and time without a court order, which for this type of request would need to wait until Monday.
Chapter 15
Saturday afternoon, Mike called Linda Surrett. Her cell phone was not in a service area. He knew she loved to sail, so she might be out on Chesapeake Bay enjoying herself, but it was more likely she was working as part of her counter-terrorism unit, perhaps even on a stakeout or out of the country. He left a detailed message about Donald Aryan, the leader of the Verde Valley Pure Bloods. He wanted to know if they were watching his group’s activity, if the FBI knew his real name, and if they knew where he lived.
The following morning after church, Mike and Margaret put on their hiking clothing and hiking boots and drove to the trailhead nearest the Sinagua looted ruin on a hilltop above Beaver Creek. With no desire to scale steep cliffs, they would hike a circular route that would be about three miles each way. Mike carried a rather large backpack with the necessary equipment to make impressions of tire tracks if they found any. Margaret carried their lunch in a daypack.
Mike pointed to the steep hill and said, “One of our reasons for moving to Sedona was the excellent hiking opportunities.”
“That did not include hikes through prickly pear, thorny Palo Verde, and cat-claw acacia. There is no cleared trail and every single bush I see has thorns. What did you get me into? I thought it would be a beautiful hike on a fine spring day.”
“My Love, there will be a fantastic view from the top. We’ll be able to see the whole area of Beaver Creek Drainage all the way to Montezuma’s Castle.”
“You go first and clear the way. The locals call this hiking in areas without actual trails, bush whacking, and you’re going to go first and do all the whacking.”
“That’s exactly why I brought a machete.” Mike retrieved it from the back of their Highlander and led the way up the steep hill.
An hour and a half later they were on top of the hill looking for the site that had been a Sinagua village eight centuries earlier. Mike’s pants were torn from the thorns, and blood had stained his pant’s leg below one of the larger tears. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and soaked his shirt. Even his gloved hands had taken needles from some of the brush, and he’d stopped to sharpen the machete twice with a small whetstone.
Margaret had made it through without a single scratch; she looked as fresh as when they started. The view actually was as spectacular as Mike had promised. The new green of the spring leaves on the
sycamore and cottonwood trees traced the length of Wet Beaver Creek through the arid landscape from where it emerged from a canyon to the north for nearly twenty miles to the south. The day was perfectly clear, and far in the distance, they could see traces of snow on Mingus Mountain on one side of the Verde Valley and the red rocks of Sedona on the other.
It was not difficult to find the ruin. Like many sites chosen by the Sinagua, it perched on the edge of a steep cliff. Mike had never known if they chose these cliff side locations because they were more defensible or because they, like modern Arizonans, liked the view. Archeologists had found almost no signs of tribal warfare among these twelfth and thirteenth century tribes, so Mike personally liked the assumption that they built in these locations simply because they enjoyed the views. Mike and Margaret also lived in a house on top of a hill because they also wanted to see a dramatic panorama of the famous red rocks of Sedona.
When they approached the ruin, Mike motioned for Margaret to stay back while he checked it for any tire tracks or footprints. Margaret found a flat area of tan sandstone and began to set out the lunch she’d prepared. The soil was rocky, and Mike found no traces of either footprints or tire tracks, but he could see the twisting route up the hill that an ATV could have used. He decided that they should follow the longer route back to their car in case there were places that retained prints for months after the looting occurred over the winter.
There was a stacked sandstone wall that surrounded the site on the three sides of the pueblo. The fourth side was protected by the steep cliff and needed no wall. About half of the outside wall had collapsed, but the remainder was five to six feet high. It would have kept deer and Javalina away from crops grown inside the compound and maybe served a defensive purpose. It also had been the place to put all of the stones removed from the areas that were being cultivated. The original wooden gate was gone, but like in Sinagua homes, the entrance through the wall was low, perhaps four feet. It would have required even the five-foot-high Sinagua men to stoop down to enter the compound.
The actual looting was indicated by three holes, two within the enclosing wall and the third about twenty feet away. Each was much smaller than the excavation of the burial site at Kinnickinick Pueblo. The snows and rains of winter had not erased the impressions at the bottom of the dig sites. Two were rather shallow holes about two feet deep. The impression of a large pot with a round bottom was still visible at the bottom of both of those holes. Here on the hilltop, the hard sandstone layer was only a couple of feet below the surface within the area enclosed by the outer wall of the ruin. Of course in ancient times the topsoil may have been much thicker.
The third hole was farther away, outside the wall, and deeper, about four feet. The pile of dirt next to it showed many potshards that had been tossed aside in the digging. At the bottom was the impression of a carved object that had probably been an ancient version of a kachina doll still made by the Sinagua tribe’s descendants, the Hopi. The impression was about a foot high and six inches wide at the head and only three inches below the bulge. The shape looked vaguely familiar, but Mike didn’t know enough to identify the specific Hopi deity it represented. It might have been an early version of the same Mud Head Kachina he’d purchased at the Hopi Mesas. He took fifty digital photos, including close-ups of the types of pottery shards found at the site.
Mike explored the ruins to see if there were other signs of looting. In one of the roofless rooms deep in the pueblo and near the cliff, he found a larger circular depression. He was almost certain it had been the location of one of the huge clay storage vessels like those he’d seen at the Museum of Northern Arizona. The two examples he’d seen in the museum were four to five feet high and had been used to store grain in a place where field mice, chipmunks, ground squirrels, and other small critters couldn’t get to the stored food. It would have had a tight hand-carved wooden lid when it was in use eight centuries earlier.
If one had been taken from this site, it would be impossible to sell it without creating fake documentation. However, it would almost certainly be worth tens of thousands to a museum or an avid collector with the correct papers to prove it was taken from private property. Such a huge clay pot could not have been moved by putting it on a two-wheeled cart towed behind a bouncing ATV. It would be both heavy and fragile. It would need to have been carefully packed for transport. The looters would have needed a pickup truck, and probably a power lift to raise the crated pot to put it in the bed of the truck or onto a trailer. Mike took a series of photos of the area. It would have needed a number of strong men to carry the heavy vessel out to where a vehicle could be parked. Perhaps three men could do it.
He did some more exploring before joining Margaret to enjoy the lunch she’d prepared. During his search, he found an area where sawdust was still visibly scattered among the cracks in the rocks. In a nearby crevice, he found four of the white packing peanuts used to protect fragile goods. This was another lead that might point him to the looters. Trying to sell a giant intact Sinagua pot four or five feet high would be such a sought after museum exhibit that anyone offered one would be certain to remember it. He would send out an alert to all of the dealers on the FBI list as soon as they returned home.
When he joined Margaret on the blanket where she had spread the food, he updated her on what he’d found. They enjoyed the lunch of Croque Monsieur sandwiches, Perigord Salad, and French Macarons. Margaret had brought a small bottle of merlot and two small wine glasses. They spent a lazy half hour enjoying the perfect weather, the spectacular views, and the excellent French lunch.
“I see you’ve been working on your French food in preparation for your cooking school in Paris, but when did you have time to make any of this with your new job?”
“The macarons I made a few days ago when I got up early. I hid them in the freezer for future use. The sandwiches and salad I made this morning before church. The new job has been fun. It’s great for my ego to have so many customers miss me and want to move, but in truth, it’s probably more that the mega bank is driving them away by pushing automation too quickly.”
“My Love, you have the best memory for names and faces of anyone I know. You treat everyone as if he or she is a lifelong friend. I’m not surprised they like you better than an ATM.” She stuck out her tongue at his comparison of his beloved spouse to a machine.
They packed up and began to follow the longer trail back towards their car. Mike found clear evidence that a vehicle had come up this route sometime in the not too distant past. There were broken branches, crushed prickly pears, and evidence of sawing off a few juniper branches to clear the way. After about half an hour, he found a spot where the truck had crossed an area of red clay that had been wet when the truck passed. The soil had dried as hard as a brick. The vehicle had left two sets of tracks as it went up to the ruin and returned. Mike spent half an hour making casts of the truck tires before they headed cross-country to their Highlander. By the time they reached it, Mike’s pants were torn in enough places to not be worth repairing and his legs would need some antiseptic treatment, but he had good quality imprints of the tires of the only truck that had been up to the ruin in the recent past.
When they got home, Mike called Neil Cooper, chief law enforcement officer of the Coconino National Forest. After Mike gave Neil the coordinates of the remote ruin, he looked it up in their records.
“Mike, thank you for checking on that site. It’s listed in our database as the Beaver Fort or Black Hand Pueblo. It’s never been excavated by professional archeologists and has no site stewards assigned. A hiker from Sedona reported the digging there after he happened on the ruin when climbing that hill for the view. His report is about a month old, but I haven’t had time to go there myself. I know the man who reported it very well; he’s been hiking in the area for four decades. Dick is in his eighties now, but he still can climb up almost anything, and he hikes every day, usually off trail. I have no records of an official visit to the site, but so
meone decades ago put it in our records so there was at least one official Forest Service visit which assigned it a site number and official name. There are hundreds of these sites, way too many to monitor them all.”
Mike explained, “I’ll email you some of the photos, but it looks to me like there was one of the giant pots like the two at the Museum of Northern Arizona. I think someone got a pickup truck up to the ruin. There were signs of a power saw used to cut back juniper branches and heavy brush, and I found tire tracks in some clay on the way down. On the top, I found both sawdust and packing peanuts.”
“Damn. If it were one of the massive pots like at the Museum of Northern Arizona, the damn thing would be only the third example of them ever found. It’s probably worth a hundred thousand to the right museum.”
“There is no way someone can sell it for that without proof of ownership,” Mike said, hoping that was true.
“In a major European museum like the British Museum, it would be an important acquisition because of its unique representation of this ancient culture of the American Southwest. All you would need would be an actual landowner who would swear it was found on his or her private property. I’ll send out a worldwide alert today using a photo of one of the two pots at the museum as examples. Tomorrow, I’ll hike to the Beaver Fort and officially document the looted pots and other artifacts. I know you’re working on a homicide. I’ll take care of getting the word out about the newest looted artifacts. Once I send out my theft notice, that pot will not be sold at public auction anywhere in the world. There might be a private buyer, but only at a fraction of the museum value.”
“I have photos of the bottoms of all three holes. Two seemed to have contained smaller pots and the third was probably an ancient version of a Hopi Kachina doll. I also took photos of potshards from the area so you could identify the pottery style that was common at that site. I’ll send you my photos by email. Call me if you learn anything, and I’ll keep you informed about the McFarlane homicide.”
The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo Page 11