The Body at Midgley Bridge

by Charles Williamson

  Chapter 5

  When Mike was back in his office, he found a stack of call slips from reporters. He knew all seven of the ones who’d called him from being interviewed in previous high-profile cases. Mike decided to ask Sheriff Taylor exactly what he wanted to disclose now that the family members had been officially notified.

  Sheriff Taylor was reviewing the budget, but motioned for Mike to come in and take a seat. “Mike, there will be a lot of interest so you might want to hold a press conference tomorrow after the autopsy. I suggest that you announce a press conference for tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 here in our briefing room. You can mention that we’re treating Millie’s death as a homicide by firearms. In this case, using a scoped rifle from a distance of over a kilometer. Did your meeting with Curran or Barbour lead anywhere?’

  “Not yet. Barbour has an alibi and no motive that I can see. Curran is one of the Sovereign Citizen fools and might be a dangerous man in the right circumstances, but I can’t see how he would have known that Ms. Riley would be standing on the ridgeline at dawn. Curran let us search his mobile home, and we found no weapons. Sean found his army discharge papers. He served in logistics, not in a combat role. He didn’t receive an expert or sharpshooter marksmanship medal, so there’s no indication he could have made that perfect shot at that distance. Also, I noticed his hands were shaking in a way that would make it difficult to hit even a nearby target.”

  Sheriff Taylor frowned. “No suspects and no evidence – this is a hell of a bad case, and it will also be a damn high profile one after the press conference.”

  “There are other Internet threats we’re trying to track down. Ms. Riley wasn’t bashful about stating her political opinions, but I can’t see how any of those trolls would have known where she would be at dawn this morning. Of course, I haven’t talked with her sons yet. They might give us a lead or explain how many people knew she would honor her father on that ridge at dawn.”

  “Mike, I don’t like the alternative that this murder might be a random shooting by an expert sniper. Let’s avoid that subject at the press conference if we can. I don’t want a panic, and we always need to consider that our actions may have an impact on the local tourist business.”

  Mike wondered how he could avoid discussing that theory, but he nodded in agreement and returned to his office to return the calls from reporters. He told each of them about the press conference in the Law Enforcement Briefing Room that would be held tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise, he merely said that Ms. Mildred Riley’s death was being treated as a homicide, and that it was currently the highest priority of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department.

  At five, the receptionist notified Mike that a Mr. Bernhardt was here to see him. Mike walked out to greet Tim and let the receptionist know he was leaving for the day. They put Tim’s mountain bike back into the Explorer, and Mike drove them down through Oak Creek Canyon. He let Tim out at the Manzanita Campgrounds before driving the rest of the way home.

  When Mike entered the house from the garage, he smelled something good. Margaret would have been home about an hour, and that was plenty of time to experiment with her French cooking. Margaret rushed over to give him a welcome home kiss. She was dressed in her white chef’s jacket, an indication that she was cooking something special. “Your timing is perfect. The dinner of confit de canard and gratin dauphinois will be ready in ten minutes. I’m steaming the asparagus right now. I did all the prep work this morning so I could pop the potatoes and duck into the oven as soon as I got home. Go ahead and get cleaned up. I’m serving on the deck so we can watch the sun’s evening glow highlight Wilson Mountain and Snoopy Rock.

  Mike put on a loose fitting jogging outfit and sneakers. He planned to spend at least twenty minutes on the treadmill in the basement before bed, but he had completely missed lunch and was very hungry. As the trip to Paris got closer, he had to work harder not to gain weight. He opened a bottle of locally made red wine from the Javalina Leap Vineyard, and took two glasses out to the table on the deck. It was the location with the best sunset view. He knew that Margaret would like to surprise him with her food presentation, which she would serve on their good china like a fine French restaurant rather than putting dishes of cooked food on the table. He lit the candles even though it wasn’t dark yet. It was part of the mood.

  The presentation of the food was beautiful. The asparagus was tied in a little bundle with a strip of lemon peel and covered with a lemon butter sauce. The potato dish was in floral French ramekins with chopped chives sprinkled on top, and the duck was glistening brown and elegantly presented. Margaret had not had time for an elaborate dessert, but she served a mix of French cookies she had made and frozen the previous week. They sat and ate and talked for an hour, but it was not until dessert was finished that Margaret insisted about hearing all about his most recent homicide case. It had been that same way since they married over three decades earlier. She’d always been his secret collaborator. Her insight had helped solve many of his important cases.

  Mike spent half an hour recounting his investigation. Margaret asked only a few questions. After he finished, she said, “Mike, you need to call Linda Surrett first thing in the morning. The FBI will have a way of searching for similar murders in their database. Since no one has a financial benefit except some local non-profits and the twitter trolls had no way of knowing where she’d be, I think you’re dealing with a serial killer again. It was a crime of opportunity. I know it seems unlikely, even implausible, to jump in that direction this quickly, but that is my best guess. Somebody has to be the first victim of any serial killer, but it’s unlikely that Millie Riley was that first victim. There should be other cases out there.”

  Mike had a case of a serial killer at the Grand Canyon a few years earlier. His first reaction was that it was not likely to have a second on in a county with this small population. However, in spite of the small population, Sedona had only ten thousand permanent residents, both the Grand Canyon and Sedona had four million visitors a year. There were a lot of strangers driving through Sedona everyday, and maybe a recent one had been a dangerous sniper.

  “I think that’s an excellent suggestion, my Sweet. I’ll contact the FBI tomorrow morning. I’m going down to the basement to use the treadmill. It’ll give me an opportunity to think and burn off some calories.”

  “Well, tomorrow’s dinner should be lite. Whole Foods is having a sale on seafood, and I plan to make us a nice healthy Marseille bouillabaisse, although I might try crème brûlée for dessert.”

  The next morning, Mike was up early and still thinking about Margaret’s suggestion that he call his friend Linda Surrett. He knew it was probably not her area of the FBI that would investigate a serial killer case. She was a counter-terrorism expert and team leader, but they had done each other favors many times, and he thought she was senior enough to help him get the information. The FBI was not known to bend over backwards to help the sheriff’s department of a remote Arizona rural county. Since she was probably working out of the Washington DC office, it was not too early to give her a call.

  “Special Agent Surrett,” she answered in her gruff no nonsense voice.

  “Linda, It’s Mike in Sedona.”

  “Hi Mike. How are things in your quiet little village?” Her tone was jocular because she knew that Mike had investigated a series of high profile murders in Coconino County in the past five years. A number of them had been in coordination with the FBI and her involvement might have helped Linda with her most recent promotion to senior team leader.

  “We have a woman murder victim who was shot right through the back of her head from over a kilometer away. She was camping in a remote spot, and we haven’t established a motive. Very few people would have any idea that she would be standing on that ridgeline watching the sunrise yesterday morning and none of them seem to have any motive. Linda, it was an incredible shot, but she might have merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The phone was
briefly quiet and he could hear computer keys clicking. “Mike, I hope I’m wrong, but there is a chance this is a serial killer that an FBI task force calls the Park Sniper. There have been least twenty victims but maybe as many as thirty-two and most have been tourists in national or state parks or other scenic areas. I have our new FBI artificial intelligence algorithm working on it.”

  Mike heard a ding.

  “We have insufficient data for a conclusive assessment, but the general probability is 63% that this case is related to those being handled by the Park Sniper Task Force. I’ll pass this information over to them and give them your cell phone number. They’ll be in touch. I have a meeting and need to run. Say hello to Margaret for me.”

  By the end of the call, Margaret had finished making French style scrambled eggs with chives served with a side of grilled ham and a mini-croissant from the Sedona Bakery and Cafe. It was a good breakfast. Margaret always fixed eggs when he had a press conference scheduled. She thought a starchy breakfast like pancakes or cereal made him less authoritative and sometimes even drowsy. During the meal at the kitchen table, Mike updated Margaret on his conversation with Linda Surrett, and she merely smiled in response. She knew she’d been right to suggest the call.

  Mike was up at the top of the switchback on Highway 89A, and about twenty minutes from his office when his cell phone rang indicating a number with no caller ID. He answered in speakerphone mode.

  “This is special agent Adam Goldman. Am I on speaker?”

  “I’m alone in the car driving to the office. Are you calling at Linda Surrett’s request?”

  “Yes.” He said. He sounded mad, but Mike just let him continue. “I have reviewed your FBI file and believe I can share confidential information with you. This is known to almost no one outside of our task force and a few senior FBI personnel. We’ve been studying your report and ran it through a new analysis system the Bureau has developed. There is a good chance that this is the first or four or five murders that might occur in your area or Arizona. That’s been the Park Sniper’s MO to date. By the way, that name had never appeared in the press. Don’t let it show up in Arizona or we’ll know who leaked it.”

  “I will keep it confidential,” Mike said.

  “There’s not much advice we can give you. Every murder has been a sniper attack from a long distance and always in some park or other scenic area like Sedona. Many of the attacks occurred at dawn or dusk. The sniper makes several kills in the same general area before moving on. The last one we can attribute to him was in New Mexico at a place called El Morro National Monument. The two before that were at Chaco Culture National Historic Park and the ski slopes near Santa Fe. We don’t have a single witness to ID this perp or his vehicle at any of the crime scenes. Since some of the murders were in wilderness areas, there may be more bodies we’ve never discovered.”

  “Agent Goldman, can you tell me when and where this all started?”

  “Some of the things that I’ll share are suppositions supported only by computer analysis. We believe the string of deaths began last September, but it might have started much earlier with a different MO. A woman through-hiker on the Appalachian Trail was killed in Pennsylvania. Local law enforcement thought it was a hunting accident and reported it as such. The second fatality occurred just outside of Smoky Mountain National Park. It was also treated as an accidental death. When a third person died from a through and through shot to the head, the FBI got involved. The third person was in the parking lot of an amusement park called Dollywood, and there was no chance it was a hunting accident. The killings continued moving generally west but not in any sort of straight line. I suspect we already have at least twenty-five victims. Only one person was shot at and lived. She leaned down to pet her dog when the shot whizzed past and imbedded in a tree. She was a military vet who knew she was under attack and stayed under cover while she called for help.”

  “And you recovered the round from that tree?” Mike said. “Do you know the weapon?”

  “That’s the really bad news. We believe our sniper is using a new and very powerful Russian sniper rifle, a .338 cal. ORSIT T-5000. These extremely dangerous weapons are being imported by the Russian Organized Crime figures, and we have no way to trace one even if we find it. The round we recovered was badly damaged by the tree impact so it would not be proper evidence to tie the sniper’s rifle to the shooting”

  “They can’t be very common. If we find one, we’ll think of some way to hold the owner until you can interrogate him.” Mike had read about the armor-piercing rifle on the military Internet site Task & Purpose. Its rounds would pass right through the body armor of an American soldier. Weaker civilian police armor would be completely useless. An expert using one was an extremely dangerous person. The weapon could accurately hit a target at 1,300 meters, and in a civilian context that extreme distance made it easy for the sniper to flee the scene before law enforcement arrived.

  “If you get a second shooting in the area, I’ll send an agent with serial killer experience from the Phoenix office to work with you. In the meantime, every word of this conversation is confidential. You may tell no one. Your best bet would be to try and find anyone who saw the shooter’s vehicle at the bridge parking lot. Good luck and keep all of this to yourself. On average, the killer has waited about five days between shots, but we had cases where he kills again the same day. This murder is your case for now. Call me with any useful update at 202 555 6867. I need to know immediately if there is another attack in Arizona.”

  Although Agent Goldman insisted on confidentiality, Mike had no intention of keeping information from Sheriff Taylor. That secrecy would destroy the trust they’d built over the years. He already decided he didn’t like Goldman, but if this crime spree covered many states, he would need the FBI’s help.

  Chapter 6

  When he arrived at the Law Enforcement Building, Mike went immediately to Sheriff Taylor’s office to update him on his call with Special Agent Adam Goldman. Stressing how determined Agent Goldman had been that everything he said should remain confidential.

  Sheriff Taylor understood the danger of making the information public. “At the press conference, stress that the public can help. Anyone who drove through Oak Creek Canyon and saw a vehicle at the Midgley Bridge parking area between five and six thirty yesterday morning needs to contact us. There are early morning commuters who live in Sedona and work in Flagstaff. There are trout fishermen who might have driven by that early. Even normal tourists might have gotten a very early start if they were headed up to the Grand Canyon. Also, I spoke with Derrick Riley again last night. He said his mother had been in his hiking store a few days ago to pick up supplies. As far as he knows, not a single member of the family knows exactly where she scattered her father’s ashes. He could think of no one who knew she would be on that ridge yesterday morning. It was a very private thing for her.”

  Mike nodded. “Boss the autopsy is at nine. You know what Doctor Sumter is like if I show up late.”

  He smiled. She had once ordered Sheriff Taylor out of her examination room because he answered his cell phone during an exam. Dr. Kay Sumter was famous for her quick temper, but she had enormous skill and experience for the medical examiner of a rural Arizona county. She had married a local firefighter after spending fifteen years in the M. E. office in St. Louis. “Use your lights and siren if necessary. Talk to me before the press conference so we can coordinate our stories.”

  Mike walked quickly to his Sheriff’s Department Explorer. Sean Mark was standing next to it waiting for him. Mike was pleased that he’d taken the initiative to attend the autopsy with him. Mike didn’t need his siren. They arrived five minutes before nine.

  Neither man spoke during Dr. Sumter’s autopsy. She always met with Mike in her office after she finished, but she would brook no interruptions during her procedure. Of course, every comment she made during the autopsy was recorded for the permanent record. Mike noted that she spent a lot of time x-raying th
e back of the skull. She also focused quite a bit of attention on the victim’s upper legs. At one point she took off her gloves and reviewed a file with the crime scene photos before donning new gloves and beginning the internal exam.

  An hour later, Sean and Mike were sitting in Dr. Sumter’s office. She spent a few minutes on her computer reviewing notes that Mike had entered and the files and photos that Jimmy Hendrix had put online.

  “So Mike, if I understand where you’re going with this case, it’s that you believe that a sniper fired a shot from the Midgley Bridge parking lot and took out this fifty-nine year old woman who was standing on a ridge over a kilometer away. At first I was quite skeptical. The body should have fallen down into the area where she’d camped from the force of the round to the back of her head. It seemed impossible that she fell backwards if she was looking east at the sunrise when she was hit.”

  Mike nodded. He’d been a little surprised that the body had fallen down the steep slope to the north. If she’d actually fallen into the area of the tent, it might have been a longer time until the body was discovered since that spot wasn’t visible from any regular Forest Service trail.

  She sent an image to her color printer and handed it to Mike. “After my exam, I think your evaluation is correct. I found evidence that her body fell against this waist-high piñon pine and rebounded back toward the Oak Creek side of the ridgeline. I have a lot of experience with gunshot wounds from my time in St. Louis, but they were mostly pistols wounds. A few were fatal shots to the head, but nothing like this sniper round. In fact, you solved the only other case where I observed this type of wound. It was Doctor Cantor who was killed at Doyle Saddle near Humphreys Peak. That was a shot from a deer rifle with a scope. In the case of Ms. Riley, it was an even more powerful weapon. I’ll send the x-rays to an Army physician I know to confirmation, but I’ve never seen an entry hole produce that level of skull fracturing.”