The Body at Midgley Bridge

by Charles Williamson

  Margaret smiled. “I’m certain Special Agent Goldman noticed the scenery. No one could help seeing the two thousand foot sheer cliffs of Wilson Mountain or the other dramatic sights of Sedona. I think he didn’t mention them merely because he wants to project a very serious demeanor, sort of like former director Comey. Your friend Alice Surrett was the same way when you first met her. Do you think he’ll learn anything tomorrow at Hoover Dam.”

  Mike carefully avoided discussing politics, and he did not respond to the Comey comment. He’d never asked which candidate Margaret had voted for in the last presidential election, but by now he had no doubt. Mike had been embarrassed to admit his vote ever since Margaret jointed the Women’s March and the Me Too Movement. Politics had never been very important to either of them until Margaret’s interest during the past eighteen months.

  He responded, “It’s possible they may find some tire tracks, but since the sniper shoots from inside his vehicle, there will be no brass to recover. I understand the bullet ended up in Lake Mead. It’s over five hundred feet deep at the dam so they won’t even look for the round that went through the Kansas woman’s skull. I’m not optimistic. I think the vehicle description is our best lead. I’ve called all of my counterparts in the state and asked them to be on the lookout.”

  Margaret Smiled enticingly. “I have a small bottle of champagne in the fridge. Maybe we should celebrate this difficult to make feast by drinking some in the bedroom.”

  Mike was all for that suggestion.

  Chapter 11

  Mike was expecting a quiet day at work the following morning. When he reached his office, he met with Sean Mark to discuss the Riley case to find out her four sons’ reactions to the news that Ms. Riley’s death might have been a random murder of a stranger.

  Mark explained, “Three of them thanked me for the news and seemed to accept that hypothesis. Derrick, her oldest son, still thinks it might have been a political murder. Ms. Riley did get regular death threats from far right hate groups. He told me she once found a burning cross on her front yard. She left it there for a month as a sign of her contempt for the assholes that put it there. Derrick thinks the death at Hoover Dam might be a coincidence.”

  Mike nodded. He had expected that it would be difficult for some family members to accept the serial killer theory.

  Mark continued, “I didn’t feel free to mention the FBI serial killer taskforce that came to town yesterday, so I just let him talk. All four sons are having trouble accepting that their resilient and dynamic mother is gone. They are all very proud of their pioneering Riley heritage. Ms. Riley never changed her last name because of that Riley family pride. She made certain the boys had the Riley name too. Their father’s name was Angus McIntosh, but he had it legally changed to Angus Riley when they married. Angus and Millie met when he was a student at NAU in one of her father’s classes. He died when Derrick was only eight, but he remembers fishing and hunting with him. They were a close family getting together on every holiday at the big house near the country club.”

  While there was still a remote chance that Ms. Riley was deliberately assassinated for political reasons, Mike thought that no more than a ten percent probability. He had never been able to get past the issue of no one knowing that she would be on the ridge down near Sedona on that specific morning.

  “Sean, you were right not to mention the FBI task force. They need to make a public announcement if they want it known that they’re involved. I promised to keep the whole Park Sniper business quiet. Finding the vehicle is the key to finding this sniper, but it looks like the killer is no longer in Coconino County. Please check with the research department and find out if they have any similar cases in Arizona or surrounding states. I asked June to work on that.”

  Sean came back with a short list prepared by June Rosetta of similar cases. Sean explained, “June is still working on other nearby states, but she found these four cases in New Mexico.”

  The list included the three cases that Agent Goldman had mentioned, El Morro National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historic Park, and the ski slopes near Santa Fe. There was a fourth case that Agent Goldman hadn’t mentioned. A hiker killed near Red River, New Mexico. That death had been at the height of elk hunting season, and the local sheriff considered it a hunting accident. Mike decided to mention it to Agent Goldman when the team returned from Hoover Dam.

  At 11:30, Mike received a call from Neil Cooper, the chief law enforcement officer for the Forest Service for the Coconino National Forest.

  “Mike, I have some news about that camper van you’re looking for. I had one of my people return from vacation this morning. When she saw our notice about the silver or white van with a pop-top, she remembered seeing one the evening before the Riley murder. It was parked in an undeveloped campsite near the top of the switchbacks on Arizona 89A. We’re at stage two fire restrictions, campfires and even smoking outside your vehicle is currently prohibited. The driver was sitting on a boulder smoking a joint when she pulled up and asked him to stop smoking outside his vehicle. She remembers it was a silver Mercedes van. It was an expensive model with a popup top and seemed almost new. She said the driver looked exactly like Sebastian Gorka and had an Eastern European accent. He was polite and apologized. As she returned to the highway, she saw the van drive away deeper into the forest.”

  “Sebastian Gorka?” Mike said puzzled. The name was vaguely familiar.

  “Ha, Mike you obviously don’t watch FOX news. He’s a talking head who once worked for the Trump White House. Middle aged man with dyed brown hair with a receding hairline, goatee beard, and chubby face. Maybe it’s an ill-fitting toupee; I’ve never been certain. Unlike the real Gorka, this man wore hiking clothes and boots rather than a conservative suit. After looking at Internet photos, my ranger is certain it was a silver Mercedes Sprinter that had been customized for camping. Those things go for a hundred grand plus once they’re converted. This was certainly not an ancient Volkswagen hippie bus; it was in perfect shape, at least on the outside.”

  “That narrows our search a lot. Thanks Neil.” Mike’s assistant had put together an email list of all the law enforcement people Mike had contacted regarding the search for the van. He quickly sent an updated email with the description of the van and its driver. He called Agent Goldman’s cell phone with the new information. Goldman didn’t answer, but Mike left a message with the description update. In his email, he hadn’t mentioned Mr. Gorka, but when he left the phone message he decided that Agent Goldman would know exactly who Sebastian Gorka was.”

  The fifteen counties in Arizona ranged in population from Maricopa with over 4.2 million to little Greenlee County with less than ten thousand residents. The small county was located along the border with New Mexico. It was mountainous ranch country, and Mike was surprised to receive a call from its sheriff.

  “Hi Mike. This is Oscar Rodney in Greenlee County. I called about your email. I have a report that might be relevant. A week ago, we had a dispute at a campground that required the attention of a deputy. One of the vehicles was a fancy silver Mercedes Sprinter camper. The man in the Mercedes was smoking a joint in the campground, and the man in the neighboring space with four young kids objected to the marijuana smoke and the bad example he was setting for his kids. When our deputy arrived, the smoker explained he was a veteran with PTSD and had a prescription for the pot. Our deputy had him move his fancy camper to another part of the campground to end the argument. The man matched your description. Our deputy said he thought it was Sebastian Gorka when he first walked up to the guy. He was polite and well spoken. One other comment my deputy made was that the driver of the Mercedes van had a slight accent like the real Sebastian Gorka. It made him doubt the claim of being a veteran with PTSD, but we don’t spend time on simple use cases unless there is another crime involved now that medical marijuana is legal here. I’ll email you the written report my deputy filed.”

  Why did everyone else know exactly who Gorka was,
Mike wondered? Mike thought he might be developing into a culturally illiterate because he never watched the cable news stations?

  Mike thanked Sheriff Rodney and began to review the timeline. The homicide at El Morro National Monument occurred the day of the dispute at the Greenlee County campground. It would have been an easy drive from El Morro to Greenlee County. This was probably when the Park Sniper entered Arizona. Mike was afraid there might have been other deaths in the White Mountains of east-central Arizona. There might be human remains in the area that had not yet been discovered. It was an extremely remote and rugged area where a body might be undiscovered for weeks or months. He reviewed the written report when the email arrived, but it added very little to his knowledge except that the deputy had recorded the license tag of both vehicles. The Mercedes camper had a Texas tag, ACC 987, and the owner had shown a Virginia driver’s license for Jonathan Jones.

  When Mike ran that tag number, he found the license tag was stolen from a vehicle in Fort Worth two months ago. He didn’t fault the deputy for not checking the license tags during a simple campground dispute. However, Mike was certain that he would have been suspicious enough of the PTSD story combined with the Virginia driver’s license and Texas vehicle tag to check on the tag’s owner. After thirty years in law enforcement, Mike was suspicious by nature.

  Mike ran the name Jonathan Jones, and came up with thirty-two of them who lived in Virginia. He decided that checking them out to see if any of them owned a Mercedes Van was a job for the FBI. Mike assumed the ID was a good quality fake and wouldn’t lead anywhere.

  He also ran the tag of the other vehicle in the dispute, a red Chevy Tahoe with an Arizona Cardinals Specialty tag, GO!CARDS. The owner who filed the marijuana complaint was John Gregory of Surprise, Arizona. When he ran the owner’s name through the state crime database, he found Mr. Gregory and his four sons were listed as missing persons. His ex wife had filed a complaint in Maricopa County claiming her former husband had taken the boys because of their custody dispute. She suspected John Gregory had fled with her four sons to his home state of Nebraska.

  Mike was very afraid they were not in Nebraska. He sent a notice to all of his counterparts in eastern Arizona asking them to be on the lookout for the Gregory vehicle and Mr. Gregory and his sons. He didn’t know what else he could do at this point, but he feared he was much too late to help the Gregory family.

  He called a friend, Marty Harris, at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and filled him in on the conflict between John Gregory and the man suspected of murders in Sedona and at Hoover Dam. Mike had worked with Marty at the Ramparts Division of the LAPD seven years earlier. Mike didn’t feel that he could mention the Park Sniper Task Force, so Marty seemed a little uncertain about his phone call.

  Mike quietly explained, “There’s an FBI task force using a conference room down the hall. Their presence might explain my concern without me providing more details.”

  Marty said, “Ah, I understand. I’ll boost the priority of this search. I may get authorization to use a department airplane for a few days to search the area near their last camping spot. That dense forest is almost impossible to search on the ground.”

  “Thanks Marty. I own you big time. Come see us in Sedona when you and Ginger get a chance. We’ve always got the guest room ready, and Margaret delights in showing off her cooking. Right now she’s preparing for a cooking class in Paris, and I’ve needed to let my belt out a notch or two.”

  Mike spent an hour writing up a report on the Gregory situation, which he emailed to Agent Goldman. It would have been easy to drive from an early morning homicide at El Morro and to a campground in Greenlee County that afternoon. As for the Gregory family, Mike hoped he was wrong, but he had a very bad feeling about what might have happened after they called the Greenlee Sheriff’s Department to complain about a man whose driver’s license said he was Jonathan Jones.

  About 4:00 PM, Mike’s cell phone rang. The call was from an unlisted number. Mike’s cell phone number had gotten to enough solicitors that he was thinking of changing it. When the caller started to leave a message, he realized it was from Adam Goldman, and he answered.

  “Mike Damson,” he answered.

  “Mike, thanks for picking up. This is Adam. We’re driving back from Kingman. You’ve given us the best leads we’ve had in months. The exact make and color of the vehicle, the license tag, and a detailed description of the driver. Everyone knows what Sebastian Gorka looks like. That was a perfect description. We don’t even need a sketch artist. I have people running the driver’s license name, but we’re assuming that Jonathan Jones is the name on a fake ID. Good work. I also suspect he has dumped the Texas license tag and stolen a local one. I’d like to meet with you in the morning. Good work.”

  Mike’s reaction was surprise. Agent Goldman had called him Mike and identified himself as Adam, a total change from his formal demeanor in their other interactions. He still didn’t like to lose a homicide case to the feds, but this one really needed the FBI. It involved too many jurisdictions for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department. He wondered again why everyone else knew exactly what Sebastian Gorka looked like. Maybe he should watch more news.

  He drove home at 5:30 wondering what Margaret had in store for him. Last night had been perfect, and she couldn’t possibly top it.

  When he entered the kitchen from the garage, he saw that Margaret was taking the cover off a Safeway roast chicken. She had other cartons from the Safeway Deli counter. After a kiss, he said, “Taking the night off from cooking? Good, you deserve a break. Last night was fantastic, and the food was good too.”

  She smiled at his joke. “I had a meeting after work and no chance to cook. The Women’s March Group is planning a demonstration against the proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”

  “Is this a Facebook thing or something that is really happening? A lot of those stories are exaggerated or completely made up, and cutting Social Security and Medicare seems implausible.”

  Margaret smiled at the question. She loved Mike more than anything, but she knew he was often completely oblivious to everything outside the case he was focused on. “Sweetie, why don’t you go watch one of the network news programs while I get dinner ready. Maybe they’ll report on Paul Ryan’s proposed budget.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning, Mike received an in person update from Agent Goldman about the homicide at Hoover Dam.

  “Unlike your case, we have no witnesses to the muzzle flash to pinpoint the shooter’s location. We have nothing about the vehicle or weapon he used. We do have some good news. The whole area of the Hoover Dam has cameras recording every part of the dam area. They were installed after nine-eleven because of the terrorism risk to the dam. They recorded a gray 144-inch Mercedes Sprinter van that had been converted for camping. It crossed the dam twice, once headed to Nevada and returning fifteen minutes later to the Arizona side. Glare makes it difficult to make out the driver, but we think it was a man with brown hair and brown goatee. The images have been sent to our lab at Quantico for enhancement.”

  “Could you read the license tag from the video?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, it was a customized Arizona tag with the letters G O ! C A R D S.”

  “Shit, this asshole killed John Gregory and his sons! That tag’s from their Tahoe.”

  “That’s our assumption too. If so, it will be the first time he’s killed multiple people at one time and the first time he’s killed children as young as four. Our team’s profiler predicted that he’s spinning out of control and becoming more dangerous by the day. She has also predicted he might try something like the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the one that killed fifty-eight and wounded eight hundred and fifty-one.”

  Agent Goldman continued in a very sober tone. “The Las Vegas office and the local police are on very high alert. We’ve produced drawings of the suspect with and without the beard. Oh, by the way, Mr. Gorka was in New York o
n live TV during several of these murders, in case you were wondering about the resemblance. We also checked on his relatives because it might be a family resemblance. Our profiler thinks the sniper has deliberately made himself look like Gorka, perhaps with fake hair and a real beard.”

  “What about the van?” Mike asked.

  “Only law enforcement knows about the van. If we make it public, he’ll certainly dump it.”

  Mike thought about it a few seconds before saying, “Margaret and I have driven across Hoover Dam several times. There is no way you can miss the many cameras. He would probably also know that the confrontation in the Greenlee County campground produced a record of his van and a description of his face.”

  “You think he deliberately flaunted the van at the dam because he planned to dump it. He would also change his looks since he would know about the camera recordings. Mike, unfortunately I think you may be right, but that leaves us with almost nothing.”

  “I’m afraid so. I will have my research department look for stolen vehicle reports in the northern half of the state. If the sniper dumped his van, he’d still need a ride. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department will be using their small airplane to scout the area where the Gregory’s were last seen. A small county like Greenlee can’t even afford the search.”

  Agent Goldman nodded in agreement. “You work on Arizona, and my team will focus on adjoining states. He could be anywhere by now. I hate it that we need to wait for another murder to know the current location of the Park Sniper, but that’s been the way during this whole investigation. We’re always behind the curve.” He put a copy of the drawing of the sniper with and without his beard on Mike’s desk and stood and left his office.