After a bit of colorful language, Sheriff Taylor called the pilot on the satellite phone to let him know that he actually had no idea of the current color of the vehicle. The van had now had time to reach either I-17 or I-40 and become lost in the normal traffic. It could also already be out of sight in a garage or parking structure in Flagstaff. Mike assumed that the Verde Valley Pure Bloods had access to several other vehicles, and that Aryan would probably just dump the van someplace out of sight after wiping it clean of fingerprints. Perhaps he would even destroy the VIN numbers if the van had belonged to one of the VVPB members.
Mike asked Sean to investigate companies that made the plastic advertising wraps. He assumed purchasing a plain white one was unusual. He also assumed they needed to be made to fit a specific type of vehicle, so finding the maker might both lead to the person who purchased it and to the type of vehicle that was wrapped.
Donald Aryan probably didn’t know that Professor Donne could identify him as being at the body drop, and they absolutely needed to keep that information among the smallest possible group. He certainly didn’t want anyone in the Yavapai Sheriff’s Department to know about their only witness, and he told Sheriff Taylor so.
“I agree,” Sheriff Taylor explained, “but we can’t completely drop them from the investigation if this body is Jarod Baldwin. He was abducted in their county. They’ve already had a team at the Poole Vineyards interviewing the witnesses. Dr. Donne is our secret for now, but Sheriff Smith can’t be cut out completely even if neither of us actually trust his staff fully.”
Jimmy came over to the two senior officers and said, “I’m ready to let them transport the remains for Dr. Sumter’s medical examination. Her assistant said Dr. Sumter would give the remains the highest priority since this is clearly a homicide case. She agreed to do the exam promptly at 2:00 PM. Oh, and the fingers tips were cut off with shears of some kind. There is evidence of prolonged torture, but I’ll let the good doctor deal with that. I have excellent tire impressions so we can identify the van if we find it. They were here such a short time that I have nothing else, but this was not the actual place where the victim died. If we find the spot where he was chained to the van, I might find much more evidence there.”
Mike used the satellite phone to call the research department at the Sheriff’s Department. It was early, but someone should be there by now. June Rosetta answered in her pleasant reassuring voice.
“June, this is Mike. I have an urgent, life or death, project for you. I believe that we have recovered the body of Jarod Baldwin. He is the young man who started us looking at the Verde Valley Pure Bloods, and that investigation led to the arrest of Deputy Matt Waldrop and the charges against Donald Aryan. I think Jarod was murdered in retaliation for the Waldrop arrest. Jarod’s information came from a cousin who was once a member of that group. Though he’s a cousin, I don’t know if he has the last name of Waldrop. Jarod mentioned that he lives in the Phoenix area. The cousin spent some time in jail in Camp Verde on a marijuana charge and that was where he got involved with the white nationalists VVPBs. I need to warn him of the danger that he might be the next target for revenge because he talked about the organization to his cousin Jarod.”
June replied, “Yes Captain. All four of us will get on this project immediately. If he shares the Baldwin last name, we should find him within half an hour. If not, we may need to make hundreds of calls, but we’ll find him this morning if he is still in the Phoenix area.”
Mike spent half an hour at the crime scene before heading back to his office in Flagstaff. He was exhausted from lack of sleep, but he couldn’t go home until Jarod’s cousin was identified. He also needed to attend the autopsy at 2:00 PM. He knew he was functioning with a major sleep deficit and that his mind was not as sharp as usual. He couldn’t think of any other steps to take unless there was a sighting of Donald Aryan.
As he was driving back to Flagstaff, he got a call from June. They had located Jarod Baldwin’s cousin, whose name was Jason Barnes, and she had called him to make certain he was the correct man. She gave him a warning that there was an APB out for Donald Aryan and that Mr. Barnes might be his next revenge target. Mr. Barnes said he was leaving Phoenix immediately to visit relatives in another state, and he wouldn’t be back in Arizona until he learned that Donald Aryan had been arrested. Mike was relieved and thanked June and her team for the quick work of finding him.
Chapter 22
Mike was dreaming of a time when he was a boy. His father had tried to explain the civil rights movement to him. He had been too young to actually understand the Watts riots, but he had seen the smoke in the distance and realized that something extraordinary had occurred. His dream was interrupted when Sean Mark shook him awake. Mike had fallen asleep at his desk.
“Captain, I’m sorry to wake you. I know you’ve been up all night, but we just received a call from the Forest Service. They found a campsite near Kinnickinick Lake where the murder of Jarod Baldwin probably occurred. They think there are human finger bones in the remains of a campfire. There’s a blood trail that follows the gravel and cinder road a mile from the campsite to Lake Mary Road. They also found clothing that fits the description of what Baldwin was wearing when he was abducted. The jeans include Jarod Baldwin’s wallet. They also found cell phone that had been smashed with a rock. It was of the same brand and model as the one Jarod owned. This campsite is on an abandoned Forest Service road less than two miles from the turnoff to Kinnickinick Lake. Jimmy Hendrix is on his way to the location, but if you want to attend the autopsy, you won’t have time to go out to the site. It’s already 1:35.”
“Sean, please go to the crime scene while I go to the autopsy. Thanks for waking me; I should have drunk more coffee this afternoon. Is there any other news?”
“Yes, there may have been an attempt to cross the border into Nogales, Mexico by a big man with tattoos covering both arms. He was clean-shaven and also had a shaved head, but he had a Pepe the Frog tattoo on his right bicep like our suspect. He was walking across the border for what he claimed was a dentist appointment. His California driver’s license identified him as Steve Cannon of Pismo Beach. When the border agent began to question him in more detail, he said that he’d forgotten something in his truck and walked back into downtown Nogales, Arizona. It was about an hour later that the agent decided it was suspicious because the man never returned for his supposed dental appointment.”
“Next time he’ll wear a long sleeve shirt. I wish we had a photo of the suspect without a beard, but there were no personal photos in his trailer. In the poor quality photo on his Arizona driver’s license, he has a full beard and rather long hair.”
Sean explained, “We had our sketch artist draw a likeness using Professor Donne’s recollection. I have no doubt that it’s a drawing of Donald Aryan. I had Professor Donne for Introduction to American History at NAU eight years ago. The professor is still as smart and sharp as ever, and his description was excellent. I asked our sketch artist to try his hand at drawing the same man without the beard and long hair. He’ll have it for us later this afternoon, and we can send it to all the border crossings.”
“Good work, Sean, I’m glad you were on top of things during my little nap. We’ll meet back here at 4:00 to go over the case and see if there is something else we can do to catch our fugitive. I need to get moving; I can’t be late to one of Dr. Sumter’s autopsies.”
Her sharp tongue and acerbic wit were notorious in Flagstaff, and Mike would probably not even be allowed in the room if he arrived late. He drove to the morgue, arriving at the autopsy room with two minutes to spare.
Dr. Kay Sumter came out of her office promptly at 2:00. “Mike, I took a brief look at the remains while the homicide victim was being readied. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t expect much in the way of evidence. The loss of so much skin tissue will obscure a lot of potential information.”
For the next hour, Dr. Sumter spoke into her recorder as she examined the remains. Mi
ke said nothing, but he did understand that the distal phalanx bone had been severed at the interphalangeal joint on every finger. The removal of every fingertip had been cauterized using an open flame, probably from a wood fire, probably to stop the bleeding and prolong the suffering. There was additional, even more disturbing evidence of torture during the victim’s final night, but the blood trail from the campsite to the paved road indicated that the victim was still alive when they began to drag him behind the van. Mike received a text notification from his vibrating phone during the examination, but he didn’t try to read it while Dr. Sumter was in the middle of her procedure. She had a thing about cell phones going off while she was working.
After the autopsy, Dr. Sumter invited Mike into her office. While they were moving to her office, Mike glanced at the text he’d received. It was from Sean and confirmed that Jarod’s clothing and wallet were at the campsite that Sean was investigating. Mike had already been certain, but this was further confirmation that the deceased was Jarod Baldwin of Page Springs, Arizona. He would need to make the family notification as soon as possible.
Dr. Sumter began by saying, “Mike, I’ve been doing this for thirty years, but I’ve never seen a more brutal death. I assume you know that his fingers were severed at the final joint. Each finger was then forced into a fire to stop the bleeding.”
Dr. Sumter spent ten minutes describing some of the other treatment Jarod Baldwin had received between his abduction and death. Mike worked hard to control his horror, disgust, and anger, but Dr. Sumter noticed his expression and stopped.
“Mike, I’m sorry if I went too far in my detailed description. I’ll put everything in the written report. We’ll do the normal trace workup, but the condition of the remains makes me suspect we’ll discover little else. Clearly this man was pulled behind a vehicle using a chain around his ankles. The victim was pulled over a cinder and gravel road until he bled to death or died from circulatory and traumatic shock. The chain around his ankles protected nearby tissue a few inches on either side and may lead us to some other information. He was a light skinned Caucasian with blond hair. He was between twenty and twenty-five years old. I can’t tell you if he was conscious in his final minutes, but he suffered for many hours prior to his death from a systematic torture by a human monster.”
When Mike returned to the Sheriff’s Department, he found a message from the research department listing the next of kin of Jarod Baldwin. Mrs. Ethel Keen, Jarod’s mother, lived in Cottonwood. His father, Jesse Baldwin, lived in Fairbanks, Alaska. Sean had returned with the clothing and wallet recovered from the campsite, and after examining the additional evidence, Mike felt that he couldn’t wait on the official notification until the state crime lab processed the DNA comparison. The official result might take a week. He decided to drive down to Cottonwood and give Mrs. Keen the information about the evidence they’d recovered at the campsite. The results of the autopsy were also consistent with the remains being Jarod.
Cottonwood, Arizona was about twenty minutes south of Mike’s home in Sedona. It was in Yavapai County, but Mike didn’t want to leave the notification to a Yavapai deputy because it was his case and therefore his obligation. It was about 5:15 when Mike arrived at the middle class neighborhood of relatively new houses. When Mr. Keen opened the door, his expression revealed the stress that he and his wife had been under since his stepson’s abduction.
Mrs. Keen was standing in the living room waiting for Mike to say the words, but she was already crying. They had Mike sit on the couch while he explained that Jarod’s wallet and clothing had been found near where a body had been discovered. The Sheriff’s Department was almost certain it was Mrs. Keen’s son Jarod. Mike explained that it would be difficult to identify the remains by sight, but he didn’t want them to have false hope as they waited for DNA confirmation from the Arizona State Crime Lab, which would probably take about a week.
Mike described the evidence that indicated that Jarod had been murdered by Donald Aryan, who was also a suspect in the murder of a young man hiking near the same location where Jarod’s body was recovered. There was currently a wide-ranging search for Aryan across Arizona and nearby states. The suspect may have tried to cross the border into Nogales, Mexico. He did not succeed in crossing during the attempt, and Mike suspected that he was still somewhere in southern Arizona, California, or New Mexico in order to make another attempt to cross into Mexico. All US border crossings now had photos and drawings of the suspect, and Mike explained that if the tried again, the odds were excellent that he would be arrested at the border.
Mike spent half an hour with the Keens answering questions and learning more about Jarod’s life. He had graduated from Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood and attended the viniculture program at Yavapai College for sixteen months before getting the job at the Poole Vineyard. His dream had been to have his own vineyard someday.
After the somber meeting, Mike made a call from his vehicle but failed to reach Jarod’s father in Alaska. Mike left his cell phone number and asked Mr. Baldwin to call him on an urgent matter. After the failed attempt to notify Mr. Baldwin, Mike drove home to Sedona.
Margaret was waiting with a hug. He had called to let her know his reason for going to Cottonwood, and she knew how difficult notifications always were for him. They had a quiet dinner of Monte Cristo sandwiches and apple and cabbage slaw during which Margaret did not press him for more information. Mike went to bed right after dinner while Margaret stayed up working on her MacBook Pro until midnight.
When Mike went to the kitchen for breakfast, there was a three-ring binder sitting next to his usual place. Margaret had made his favorite sausage, egg, cheese, and green chili breakfast casserole. “Sweetie, is this binder the material you were working on when I fell asleep?”
“Yes, dear. I wanted you to understand that you’re not searching for a simple fleeing murderer, but for a man who is connected to a countrywide network of white militia and bigoted radicals. Jails and prisons across the country are part of their recruiting networks. I’m sorry to say that there are probably many radical fringe groups who might help this sadistic maniac escape justice simply because they share his white supremacist and anti government views. I suspect that he can hide out indefinitely in some militia camp in the wilderness or maybe join one of their city militia networks and change his identity with fake documents. You already know he changed his name and identification at least twice. I always have faith in your detective skills, Mike, but since this is a nationwide loosely connected network of radicals, you need the help of the federal authorities.”
“I think Sheriff Taylor may have burned our bridges with the FBI on this case, but of course, we will need help in finding Aryan, especially if he’s fled the state.”
“So ask Greg Taylor to make up and play nice with the FBI. Convince the sheriff you need their support even if he needs to grovel a little.”
“That won’t be easy. I’ll start by trying to reach Linda Surrett, but right now, she’s been told to have nothing to do with us. All of the FBI’s anti terrorism efforts have been redirected to the threat from ‘Radical Islamic Terrorists’ at the direct order of the president of the United States.”
“Find out who at a lower level at the FBI or other federal agencies can help with expanding the search for Aryan. Both murders were committed on federal land in the Coconino National Forest as was the looting at Kinnickinick Pueblo, which is clearly a federal crime. Also, you might want to put some pressure on that antiquities dealer in Scottsdale. He may know the name of the third person involved in the murder of that young ex Marine. I expect he’ll be afraid of retaliation if he talks, but you might learn something if you agree to keep him out of it. Also, you’ve never resolved the question of the source of the Honda ATVs. If they didn’t come from the vineyard, did Andy Biggs at the Sedona Premium ATV Rentals mislead you? Maybe he or an employee rents ATVs off the books for overnight trips. Just because we see Andy and Frieda at mass every Sunday,
doesn’t mean Andy is not looting artifacts in his spare time.”
Mike spent fifteen minuets looking through the binder while he enjoyed the breakfast casserole. There was a lot to digest, and he decided to take the binder with him to work. He thanked Margaret for her work in putting it together and headed for his office in Flagstaff immediately after breakfast. On the way, he tried to think of how to get the federal authorities more involved in the search for Aryan.
Chapter 23
Before he’d gone home the previous evening, Sean Mark had sent the drawing of Donald Aryan without his beard to every border patrol crossing, ICE unit, police department, and sheriff’s department near the Mexican border. In the drawing, Aryan had a huge muscular neck, prominent brow, and a dimpled chin. His skin was pale white with small sections of colorful tats showing around his lower neck and covering his arms. A smaller insert showed his Pepe the frog tattoo in more detail.
Preciously, a Border Patrol agent had interacted with a man who might have been Donald Aryan at the Nogales crossing. After receiving new drawings, the agent emailed the Sheriff’s Department and identified the drawing as certainly being the man who had claimed to have a dental appointment across the border in Nogales, Mexico. They now knew that Donald Aryan had recently been in southern Arizona. Mike assumed he would try again to leave the country after murdering Jarod Baldwin.
Mike started his morning by calling an acquaintance, the ICE supervisor for Tucson district. They had worked in the same precinct in LA years earlier. Mike explained the case in detail, and he asked his friend to stress the importance of finding this double murderer when he held his regular conference call with his supervisors later that day. Mike knew that some agents in both the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection were sympathetic to the white nationalist groups and most agents were also big supporters of the president’s stricter immigration policies. However, even if they were sympathetic to the white supremacist groups like the VVPBs, Mike believed they wouldn’t help a double murderer flee to Mexico. At least, he sincerely hoped that was the case.
The Mauling at Kinnickinick Pueblo Page 16