The Body at Midgley Bridge

by Charles Williamson

  Mike had a Facebook page so he could see the most recent photos of his granddaughters, but he only knew about twitter from the news of the president’s frequent posts. He’d heard the word blog, but was unclear about its actually meaning or how to look at Ms. Riley’s blog. Rather than embarrass himself, he said, “Thanks boss. At least you’ve given me a place to start.”

  When he returned to his office, he asked Sean Mark, the youngest detective in the Criminal Investigation Unit to join him in his office. Sean had grown up in Flagstaff and he came from a large family with deep roots in the community.

  When Sean came to his office, Mike filled him in on the death of Mildred Riley asked him to assist on the Riley investigation. He motioned for him to sit next to his desk.

  “Thank you Mike. I’d love to be involved in a high profile homicide case. What can I do to help? I knew Ms. Riley slightly, and I know all four of her sons. One of my second cousins is Seth Riley’s wife.”

  “Sheriff Taylor thinks that Ms. Riley may have been threatened by some radicals on her blog, Facebook, and twitter accounts. She was involved in local and state politics.”

  “Damn right she was involved. She practically financed the local Democratic Party headquarters. My family members are mostly Republicans, but everyone respected Ms. Riley. She had very strong opinions, but she was always civil and polite.”

  Although Mike and Margaret always voted, they almost never discussed politics. Mike hated cable news, and he normally only watched the local news and read the local papers. Mike came from a law enforcement tradition that didn’t think it was appropriate to publicly take sides in politics. His job was to protect everyone and arrest anyone who was a danger to the public. He’d been surprised when Margaret had marched in the most recent Women’s Environmental March in Sedona.

  Mike turned his monitor around so they both could see it and passed the keyboard over to Sean. “Do you know how to access her accounts?”

  “She probably has a public section as well as one only available to family and friends.”

  It was almost two hour later when they finished reviewing her posts and the comments that people had made over the past year. Mike was seldom shocked by anything humans did since he had been in law enforcement for over thirty-five years, most of that time as a homicide detective in LA. In this case, the level of political vitriol truly had shocked him in a fundamental way. There were dozens of threats to do horrible things to Ms. Riley posted as responses to her blog posts, which were uniformly critical of the administration’s immigration and environmental policies. There were Facebook comments that used language that would cause a bar fight in any tavern in Arizona.

  Six different anonymous people had threatened to rape her with a bizarre set of objects, including a nine iron and a baseball bat. Others had simply said they would shoot her if she continued to post blogs critical of the administration. In almost every case, the posts were under a screen name that would take time to trace.

  Only two of the most threatening posts had been made within the past two weeks. The first one was a response to a post Ms. Riley had made about the Environmental Protection Agency approval of uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. She had quoted extensive studies showing that past mines had allowed the radioactive water from the abandoned deep mining pits to seep into the aquifer of the Colorado Plateau. The three scientific studies showed that the radioactive water would eventually poison the springs that feed into the Colorado River and the streams that provide water to wildlife in Coconino County.

  The threating response claimed that Ms. Riley was clearly a tool of Communist China who was trying to keep America from upgrading its nuclear weapons arsenal. The proper response for her treason was a bullet to the forehead. It seemed a strange response to Ms. Riley’s documented and well referenced scientific posts, but after two hours of reading these trolls, Mike understood that the blog responses were almost never well reasoned.

  The second threat was even more specific. Ms. Riley was devoted to an organization called the Flagstaff Immigration Defense Group. From her post and the website of the organization, Mike understood that its efforts were to provide legal assistance to undocumented residents of northern Arizona. It seemed to have generated more obscene responses than anything else she’d posted in the past year. The most threating one was from a man who said he’d lost a job at a local lumber company to an illegal immigrant from Honduras who had been allowed to stay because of this DACA status. The Immigration Defense Group had provided the attorney who helped the immigrant apply for asylum and get his green card. In addition, one of Ms. Riley’s sons owned the lumberyard where he’d worked. The man said he would shoot both Millie Riley and her son Jacob Riley when they least expected it. He claimed that hey would never see the fatal bullet coming. They should live in constant fear of unexpected death. He signed his post madkillerofflagstaff. Many of the words were misspelled and the punctuation was iffy, but Mike thought the threat sounded real. Fired employees sometimes were actual threats, and their words should be taken seriously.

  Mike printed the post from the mad killer of Flagstaff. He decided that he couldn’t wait until after the funeral to talk with Jacob Riley. “Sean, I think we may need to talk with Jacob Riley this afternoon. He probably knows who this fellow is. There can’t be that many men he’s fired or laid off in the past year.”

  Chapter 4

  Mike and Sean dove to the Riley Lumberyard, which was only two miles away. They found that Mr. Riley had gone home for the day after getting the news of his mother’s death. They met with the assistant manager and showed him the threatening post.

  “Sure, that was from a jerk named Colin Curran. Jacob and I discussed it after his mother showed him the post. He worked here for about six months. Colin was a lazy shit. He was hung over every morning and not worth a nickel until the afternoon. The guy is a vet, so we tried to give him a little extra time to straighten out, but he didn’t get any better.”

  “Do you know what he did in the service?”

  “He told war stories about Afghanistan, but he could never keep his stories straight. One time he’d be an infantryman, the next time he was army intelligence or some other MOS. Anyway he was in the army, and he may have been in Afghanistan. I suspect he was really a clerk or a cook or something like that.”

  “Do you have an address?” Mike asked.

  “I have the address where we sent his final check.”

  The address was a trailer park on old Highway 66 west of downtown. Twenty minutes later, they drove up to a dilapidated trailer located in a dense stand of Ponderosa Pine. They found Mr. Curran sitting in a lawn chair with a bottle of very cheap whiskey in his lap and a cigar in his mouth. He was a slender man with short blond hair and a three-day stubble on his face. Mike guessed he was under thirty and still appeared to be in good physical shape in spite of the alcohol. Mike wondered if the drinking had led to his discharge from the army. Mike had been an Army PM right out of high school. Bad drunks were all too common in the service back then, but he knew they were pushed out quickly nowadays.

  “Mr. Curran, I’m Captain Damson of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department and this is Deputy Mark. We’d like to talk to you about this post.” Mike handed him the copy. Up close, Mike could see that Colin’s eyes were bloodshot and his hands shook as he tried to read the printout.

  After a few seconds of reading, he said, “Hell man, I was just letting off steam. I didn’t really mean nothing. It’s just words.”

  “We’d like you to come with us to be interviewed at the Law Enforcement Building.”

  “Surely, Sheriff Taylor didn’t send a captain out to just talk about this old blog post.”

  “Mr. Curran, Ms. Mildred Riley was shot and killed this morning from ambush. Please come with us to discuss your threat.”

  There followed a long string of obscenities and mention of his First Amendment right to free speech, his Second Amendment right to defend his property, and his Fifth Am
endment right not to talk to us. “You assholes get the hell off my property unless you have a search warrant, and I’m not going anywhere with you unless you have an arrest warrant. I’m a sovereign citizen of Coconino County, and I will defend my rights with force if necessary.”

  “Mr. Curran, this threating Internet post is sufficient evidence for a search warrant. If you do not give us permission to inspect your property, I will remain in the public right of away until Deputy Mark returns with a warrant and the Flagstaff Police SWAT team. If you interfere with the execution of that warrant, you will commit a felony that can get you five years in prison.”

  Colin thought that over for a minute before saying. “I’ve got nothing to hide. You can look around in the trailer, but don’t mess it up. I still won’t go anywhere with you without an arrest warrant, and I damn sure have no reason to talk to you. I know my rights. This is my home, and I’m sovereign here.”

  Mike stayed outside with Colin Curran while Sean Mark searched the trailer. They were especially looking for any indication that Mr. Curran had a scoped rifle and skill with using one. Mike had already decided that he was an unlikely suspect. His hands shook too much for him to make that kilometer kill shot. He also had no idea how Curran could have known that Ms. Riley would be standing on the ridge at dawn that specific morning. Unless they discovered he’d been a sniper or a remarkable shot in the army, this was a dead end.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sean came out of the trailer shaking his head indicating that he had found nothing useful.

  As they were about to leave, Mike said, “Mr. Curran, I would like you to remain in Flagstaff until we finish this investigation.”

  Mr. Curran made a comment about a sex act that Mike could not possibly have performed on himself before finishing by saying, “I go wherever I want in a free America. Arrest me or get the hell out of my yard.”

  Mike wished he had some reason to arrest the man, but he and Sean just drove away.

  As they headed back to the Law Enforcement Building, Sean explained what he’d found. “The place was neat and the bed made military style. There was very little food in the refrigerator, but there was a box of canned goods that probably came from the Flagstaff Community Food Bank. In a small desk, I found a bank statements showing he has less than a hundred dollars in his account. I also found his military discharge papers. He was honorably discharged two years ago after serving his four-year enlistment. His MOS, or military skill, was logistics. He was an E-2 POG when discharged.”

  Although it was not in common use when Mike had been in the army, he knew that POG was a somewhat derisive term for person other than a grunt, or combat infantry soldier. The fact that he was an E-2, a private after four years, indicted he was not especially good at his military logistic specialty. As a military policeman, Mike had also been a POG and most of the men he’d arrested while he served in the army had been grunts.

  As they were driving into downtown Flagstaff, Mike got a call from Sue Lee at the office. “Sir, the Flagstaff police have stopped Peter Barbour at the Riley house. Derrick Riley had warned them, and two officers were waiting to see if he showed up. He found his key no longer works. He picked up a rock to break in a window when they stopped him. He showed a driver’s license proving he lived at that address, but they explained that he would need to see Derrick Riley to get access to his personal things since Ms. Riley was deceased and Derrick was the executor of her estate. If you want to talk with Peter, they dropped him off at the Residence Inn near the country club neighborhood.”

  “Thank you Sue Lee. We’ll head there now.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Mike and Sean parked in front of the Residence Inn and went in to speak with the desk clerk. When they entered, Mike showed his badge. “We’re looking for Peter Barbour? Is he a guest here?”

  The man whose nametag indicated he was Carlos said. “Yes, sir. He tried to check-in an hour ago. None of his credit cards were accepted. He explained that his wife had passed away and that the bank had frozen his cards. I felt bad for him losing his wife, but I don’t have the authority to give out a room without getting a credit card. He sat in the lobby and made some phone calls. Some of them involved yelling. About fifteen minutes later, a businesswoman who was already a guest at the hotel struck up a conversation with Mr. Barbour here in the lobby. He ended up going with her to her room on the second floor. A few minutes ago they passed through the lobby area. They’re now at the pool.”

  Mike and Sean walked out to the pool. Peter and his new friend were the only ones there. Peter was a lean and muscular man of about five ten and a hundred and sixty pounds. He was shirtless but wore wrangler blue jeans and mock alligator boots. A white cowboy hat rested over his face. His right shoulder had a long surgical scar, now partly obscured by the tattoo of a charging bull. He looked like he was asleep. Next to him was an attractive middle-aged woman in a swimsuit with pink hibiscus flowers on a pail green background. She looked up from her iPad as they approached.

  Mike showed his badge and said, “Ma’am, I’m Mike Damson of the Sheriff’s Department. I need a few minutes to talk with Mr. Barbour.”

  She smiled and said, “Of course.” Peter removed the hat from his head and sat up. The woman said, “Sweetie, I’ll see you back in the room when you’re finished with these gentlemen.” She had a refined voice with a New England accent. She stood and walked briskly back toward the lobby carrying her Gucci Beach Bag.

  “Mr. Barbour, I understand that the Flagstaff police have already notified you of the death of your wife. I’m sorry for your loss. If this is not a good time, we could make an appointment for you to come to the Law Enforcement Building sometime after the funeral.”

  “I don’t plan on staying in Flagstaff, so let’s get this over with.” He spoke with a soft Deep South accent, perhaps from Mississippi or Alabama.

  Mike felt it was best to be blunt. “Ms. Riley was murdered. I’m sure you understand that it’s normal to ask questions about where you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours.”

  “I was at the Radisson on Lockett Road overnight. I checked out this morning at about nine thirty. Since you’ll want to verify that, I was with Cindy Lee who lives in room 215 in the Morton Hall dorms at NAU. Her cell phone is 928 555 2001. I didn’t kill Millie. We had a mutual understanding and a very close relationship, one that her family hated and didn’t understand. We both had needs. Hers was for sex three times a week and mine was for financial help until I got back on my feet. An injury destroyed my rodeo career. If I fulfilled my side of the deal, she didn’t care whatever else I did as long as I always used protection. If I’d ever given her any kind of STD, she would have cut my nuts off on the spot, but I swear to God that I would never have hurt her in any way. I cared for her.”

  “Sir, I understand the arrangement, but I don’t understand why she married,” Sean said.

  “Simple, Millie did not believe in sex outside of marriage, but she really missed it after she divorced her second husband. Millie was actually very religious even if her sons are not.”

  “Mr. Barbour, do you have any idea who might have wanted to murder Ms. Riley?” Mike asked.

  “No sir, not really. She got hate mail and nasty e-mails almost every day and there were enough vulgar phone calls to have her change both her home and cell phone numbers. It bothered her some, but I don’t think she felt physically threatened. She kept up her anti-administration blog and her Facebook posts. I have no real interest in politics, so I never paid attention to the details except that I know she wanted to help the illegal wetbacks stay and that she never met darky she didn’t think needed a free ride in life.”

  Mike was taken aback by the comments. “Sir, it seems to me that you do have opinions about politics. I think your positions would be very different from your wife’s.”

  “I’ve never actually voted, but I think we now have a president that will repair the damage done by the damn liberals and make America great again. Of course, I never discussed m
y opinions with Millie. She’d have been furious. I ordered one of those red hats on the Internet. When Millie saw it, she burned it in the living room fireplace.”

  Mike asked, “Mr. Barbour, do you own any firearms?”

  “Not anymore. I’ve been down on my luck several times. I’ve had to sell both of them. It’s been nearly three years since I’ve carried my forty-five. I also had a fine hunting rifle that I bought with a rodeo prize I won in Cody. It had a beautiful stock with silver scroll work, but the next month I ended up selling it for travel money.”

  “You plan to leave Flagstaff?”

  “No choice. Millie’s sons hate me, and they practically run this town. All four are at least a decade older than I am. They call me the little gigolo punk. I’ll head west as soon as I can. Hanna, the woman I was with when you arrived, has business here in Flag for a few days. Then she’s driving to Bakersfield for five days and on to her home in LA. I might catch a ride west with her. She’s been nice to me.”

  “Do you have a cell phone number where I can reach you?” Mike didn’t think Peter was an important suspect, and he had no probable cause to ask him to stay in town.

  “It still works, at least until Derrick the Asshole realizes the monthly bill is an automatic charge to Millie’s account. It’s 918 555 1469.”

  “Thank you Mr. Barbour. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  As they walked to Mike’s Explorer, he called Cindy Lee. She confirmed that Peter had been with her from about 11:00 the previous night when the met at a downtown bar until 10:00 in this morning when she dropped him off at his home in the Country Club neighborhood. Peter had an alibi as well as no motive for the murder that Mike could see. Peter had lost his sole means of support, and Hanna seemed to be his fallback position for however long that might last.