The Victim at Vultee Arch

by Charles Williamson

  “Of course we’re going back to Arizona. I knew as soon as I heard the news. Was anyone from Sedona hurt?” she said after I was off the phone to the airline.

  “Yes, Steven Bradley is in critical but stable condition,’ I said.

  “Steven, he’s such a nice young man. When we get back, I’ll go straight to the hospital to see him. Could you find a Flagstaff flight?”

  “We have only two and a half hours to get to LaGuardia and board our flight. We’ll change to Mesa Airlines in Phoenix for the Flagstaff leg. I’ve rented a car. I can drop you off at the hospital and see Steven myself before I head up to the Strip. I want to be there by tomorrow morning. You can call a neighbor or take a cab home to Sedona after your hospital visit. I have no idea how long I’ll be gone,” I said.

  “Did you make any progress on the case today?” she asked.

  “Yes. I can prove that Henry Griffin was in Sedona the Saturday before Quentin arrived. He returned the day Reggie Neely was killed. How did you do in the search for a motive?” I said.

  “We made excellent progress. I think the Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA regulators will get packets of information on Monday that will cause a lot of excitement. I’ll explain on the plane,” she said as she began to pack.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The rush to the airport left me with little time to discuss the Quentin Thatcher case with Margaret. I had told the security company that I’d been suspended from my job with the Coconino County Sheriff’s department so they knew of my job in Arizona. I phoned Sadie Schrum of Preferred Security and left a message that I had been called back to Arizona because of the emergency at the Freedom First Ranch, which by now was known to everyone with a TV. I explained that I was sorry I was leaving their employment with only one day’s notice.

  Margaret left a similar message with the temporary agency that had hired her. She also made a long cell phone call from the taxi to John and Sue and apologized for our abrupt return to Arizona. She promised that we’d visit New York again before Christmas. John and his family always spend three weeks in Sedona at Christmas. John had seen the news about the standoff between the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department and the Freedom First Militia and understood why I was going home suddenly.

  Once we were off the ground and past the spectacular light show that is Manhattan at night, I asked, “What did you find to trigger the SEC investigation? How could you and your other conspirators find something in only one day?”

  “Heather had already made a good start,” she explained. “Our team mostly confirmed her suspicions. I didn’t do much, just lent some support. It was the computer programmer who was able to discover the evidence we sent to the authorities.”

  “So what was the mystery? Was Griffin involved?” I asked.

  Margaret smiled. It was the smile of someone who enjoyed telling a good story and wanted to take her time. “Mike you always say crime is usually about either greed or passion. This story is about the combination. I don’t understand all the complex formulas in Dr. Thatcher’s stolen papers, but I do know a little about people. This is definitely a crime is about both passion and greed.”

  “OK, so you’ve got me hooked, and we have four hours before we get to Arizona. Let’s hear the story from the beginning,” I said.

  “Bev Lorry was Dr. Thatcher’s administrative assistant, and she’s a close friend with Griffin’s admin. They have lunch together most weekdays and belong to the same women’s club. Of course, to be a good assistant, you must be very circumspect in what you say about your boss, but it’s also human nature to need to talk to someone about things that bother you.”

  “And Bev was part of your team that wanted to find Dr. Thatcher’s killer,” I said.

  “Just so. Bev started us on the right track when she explained Griffin’s Wednesday routine. She’d learned about it from her friendship with his assistant.”

  “I assume that that involves the passion part of the motive,” I said.

  Margaret just smiled and continued. “Griffin has a room reserved every Wednesday evening at the Peninsula Hotel. He also has a bottle of chilled champagne and fresh flowers delivered to the room by four every Wednesday afternoon. His assistant has only been involved the few times that she’s needed to cancel the room for him; otherwise it’s a standing reservation.”

  “Philandering doesn’t provide a motive unless he was meeting Dr. Thatcher’s ex wife. Even then, I can’t see why it would cause a murder since they were divorced,” I said completely missing the point.

  “Griffin claims that he plays squash every Wednesday afternoon and leaves the office at 4:00, but it’s who he was meeting that gave us the clue. Florence Halks is a thirty-year-old energy trader on the natural gas derivatives desk. Everyone who’s seen her agrees that she’s drop dead gorgeous. It turns out that she volunteers for the Bowery Homeless Shelter every Wednesday at 4:00.”

  “I see. You investigated her trading activity with the idea that Henry would be willing to cover up a problem for her. That’s the passion part of the motive.”

  “Exactly,” Margaret said. She paused as if gathering her thoughts. “I’ve never been good at math. The people part of the story is easy for me, but the math is difficult. The trading that Florence does involves natural gas that will be delivered many years from now. Computers are used to make certain that the risks are under control and to measure the profit from the trades. Do you remember how present value works?” she asked.

  “Vaguely. You take a stream of cash flow and discount it at some rate,” I said hoping that I hadn’t confused it with something completely different. It had been thirty years since I took math, but some of my cases had involved business fraud before I’d moved to homicide.

  “It’s more complicated than I can easily explain, but by adjusting discounting rates and other factors, fake profits can be recorded and losses hidden. There are different locations in which natural gas can be delivered to satisfy a contract. This scam involves the difference between prices at those locations many years in the future. The real losses from the trading activity may not show up for many years, sometimes more than ten years, when the actual gas needs to be delivered,” she said.

  “So Florence was rigging her trading book and sleeping with the boss. How do we tie Henry Griffin to the gas contract fraud?” I asked.

  “No trader could screw with these factors without help because calculating profits is never left up to the person who’s going to receive a bonus based on them,” she said. “In this case, Griffin signed off on the computer program changes needed to cover up the losses.”

  “He might claim that he signed off on them without realizing the implications. He would maintain that he assumed the changes were routine,” I said. I was afraid he could finagle out of any blame for the fraud. It also didn’t conclusively tie him to a murder in Sedona.

  “The Merchant Bank of Europe and the Americas is registered as a securities dealer in the US. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, FINRA, regulates all securities dealers. Griffin is a registered securities principal who has the license necessary to supervise a member firm,” she said. “Even if the examiners can’t prove a direct conspiracy, Henry Griffin would have committed a serious violation of the supervisory requirements of FINRA. Failure to supervise should result in the loss of his securities license, and if the personal relationship with Florence became public, it almost certainly would mean he was out of the business. He couldn’t be a manager at Bank E & A or any other member firm in the United States. That’s a lot of motive for a big shot like Sir Henry.”

  It sounded like ample motive for a murder to me. I was very pleased with Margaret’s news. “You said earlier that Heather is turning the proof over to the SEC and FINRA on Monday. How long before they do anything?” I asked.

  Margaret nodded. “Heather’s estimates of the deferred losses are huge, maybe seventy-five million. The hidden losses are enough to make the domestic subsidiary in vi
olation of its net capital rules. That, combined with the possibility that the principal-in-charge is directly involved and that the risk manager was recently murdered, should bring in fifty examiners by the close of business on Monday. Heather was very certain that they would act immediately.”

  “I wish I had enough to charge Griffin with murder and hold him without bail in Arizona. I’m afraid he’ll leave the country.” Unfortunately, I still didn’t have the evidence to directly tie him to either Quentin Thatcher’s murder or Reggie Neely’s recent strangulation. Griffin had motive, and he flew to Sedona a few days before Quentin arrived and on the day Reggie was killed. I couldn’t yet establish what he did while he was there. I needed something to connect him to his local cohorts who killed Quentin or directly to Reggie. I needed a witness or a money trail that led to his local contacts.

  “Tell me about your meeting with the pilot who flew Griffin to Arizona,” Margaret asked.

  “The guy’s an unemployed former air force pilot who takes an occasional job substituting for corporate pilots when they’re not available. He seems to be chronically short of cash; he lives in a poor neighborhood near LaGuardia. He’s still pursuing the dream of becoming a fulltime commercial or corporate pilot. He substituted for the regular Bank E & A pilot twice in the past, and he was called in to take an unidentified executive to Sedona on a night flight Friday before last. He recognized Griffin from a previous flight to Alaska and knew his name was Sir Henry. He flew Griffin to Sedona the night after their Friday confrontation with Quentin and again the day Reggie Neely was strangled,” I said.

  “You think Griffin might have killed Reggie personally?” she asked.

  “You bet I do. My current theory is that Reggie killed Dr. Thatcher, and Griffin was having trouble with him. I think he took care of killing Reggie personally so that no one else would be involved. He is trying to cut any link that connected him to Dr. Thatcher’s murder.”

  “If your theory’s right, there’s still at least one other person in Arizona involved. Two people broke into your office to steal Quentin’s documents, and more than one person was present at Dr. Thatcher’s death,” she said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Steven would have remembered Reggie’s body odor if he’d been part of the break in. There’s no way anyone could miss it. Also, I can’t imagine that Dr. Thatcher would go anywhere with a redneck like Reggie Neely. Someone he trusted lured him to the murder site to explore that Indian ruin. Someone very strong held him while the snake bit him. He had bruises on his chest to prove that. My suspects still include Chris Moore, Bridger and Gordon Johnson, and even Art Johnson, and I still can’t explain why Sheriff Taylor was in private contact with Griffin. I think the New York part of the investigation is over, but the Sedona and Cottonwood parts are certainly not finished.”

  “So what will you do when we get home?” she asked.

  “I have to go up to the Arizona Strip. My duty to my follow officers comes ahead of any investigation. After that situation is resolved, I’ll try and track Griffin’s activity while he was in the Sedona area. I’ll start at the Sedona airport. Maybe someone will remember something.”

  We settled back and relaxed. We both were sound asleep when the plane reached Phoenix. It was the last sleep I’d get for awhile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I was groggy as we changed to a Mesa Airlines flight at Phoenix Sky Harbor, but I managed to spend a few minutes in front of a TV as we waited to board the flight to Flagstaff. The standoff at Freedom First Ranch continued. I was standing while watching the nighttime view of an anorexic CNN reporter saying almost nothing when I heard a gruff woman’s voice say, “I’ll bet I know where you’re going Mike.”

  I knew who it was and why she was also boarding a flight to Flagstaff even before I turned. It was Linda Surrett, agent-in-charge of a counter terrorism team for the FBI. In the year since I’d last seen her, she’d cut her red hair even shorter, but she remained slender and athletic in her mid thirties. She was probably as abrasive and condescending as ever, but she had helped me when I called her on a recent case, and I’d gotten past her bad manners enough to see a very competent professional underneath her acerbic style.

  I grinned as I turned. “If there’s serious trouble can Linda Surrett be far behind? Linda, this is my wife Margaret. Margaret, this is the notorious Linda Surrett that I’ve told you about.”

  They exchanged how-do-you-do’s as if sizing each other up for a prize fight. Linda introduced me to the agent who was traveling with her, Allen Peabody a negotiations expert. After the exchange, she said, “That hick sheriff of yours has gotten himself in some serious shit Mike. The Bureau sent me as an advisor, but they are keeping a low profile. I understand the natives are restless for a military type assault. Lord knows that the Bureau has made that mistake before. The standoff is a no win scenario. You kill the militia scum and the press pillories you for lack of patience. You try to wait them out and the press ridicules you for inaction.”

  “I’ve been out of touch up in New York. What do you know that the press doesn’t about the mess up on the Arizona Strip?”

  “Let’s talk on the ride up about the standoff. I have a car waiting in Flagstaff, and I’ll give you a lift,” she said.

  “I’d like to go by the hospital in Flagstaff for a few minutes and see a wounded friend,” I said.

  “I’ll wait if you won’t be more than ten minutes,” she said as we started to board the small plane. The sun was beginning to light up the mountaintops near Phoenix as the plane took off. It was too noisy to talk much on the flight, but once we were in the air, Margaret said, “She’s not as abrupt as you said.”

  “She was on her best behavior with you,” I said. “Believe me, she’s as tough as the sole of a hiking boot, and she thinks all local law enforcement officers are incompetent and probably corrupt.”

  Once we had our rental cars, Linda followed us to the hospital. I suggested that Margaret stay awhile and go to the store to get some things to make Steven’s stay at the Flagstaff Medical Center more comfortable. She could return the rental car and catch the shuttle to Sedona in the afternoon. We found Steven eating his oatmeal breakfast. His face was colorless and his arm was completely wrapped in white gauze. Steven was sincerely glad to see us. He’s single, and his parents were driving from Austin to see him, but they hadn’t arrived yet. Few coworkers had been able to visit because almost everyone was up at the Freedom First Ranch. Steven described the action at the Freedom First Ranch in a manner that left no doubt that he considered the worst screw up in the history of Coconino County, and he described Captain Horn in terms that I’d rather not repeat in case Steven is able to return to work someday even with his mangled right arm.

  After a short visit, I joined Linda and Allen Peabody for the four-hour drive to the remote ranch. Coconino County is larger than most eastern states. A four hour-drive while staying in the same county was not unusual.

  The Strip is that section of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon. The impassable barrier of the Grand Canyon has always kept the area physically separated from the rest of the state. The only direct access from the rest of Arizona is across the Navajo Bridge over Marble Canyon near Page, Arizona. The Arizona Strip has only a few thousand residents who are mostly the descendants of Mormons who fled the anti polygamy laws in Utah in the nineteenth century. Most of the inhabitants live in the only two towns, Fredonia and Colorado City, adjacent to the Utah border.

  Linda drove north through the Navajo Reservation as the morning light highlighted the mesas and plateaus. We needed to drive a hundred miles north just to get around the Grand Canyon, fifty miles west on a paved road, and then forty miles on a dirt road to reach the location of the standoff. The Freedom First Ranch was west of the forested Kaibab Plateau and east of usually dry Kaibab Creek. The only community within forty miles of the ranch was Jacobs Lake, Arizona, really just a general store, restaurant, and motel combination. As we left Flagstaff and the pine
forest behind, Linda began to tell me what she knew of the confrontation at Freedom First Ranch.

  “This is a small group, less then fifty people, half of them children. The ranch is four hundred acres, surrounded by Bureau of Land Management managed federal land. An ancestor of the group’s leader claimed the land under the Homestead Act a hundred and fifty years ago. Descendants under the same provisions added additional acres. It is one of the few places in the area with a reliable spring with enough flow to support a small cattle operation and a cluster of homes. The only reports in our files are from BLM representatives who’ve been told to stay off the property. There were shots fired into the air the last time a BLM agent went to the ranch about five years ago. No one from the federal government has been back. We’ve never considered the group dangerous because they keep to themselves. The are officially a church group and pay no taxes.”

  “How does someone escape completely from the government? What about the census? What about county property taxes and school truancy laws?” I asked.

  “I assume that nobody considered the census worth getting shot over. The ranch is in Coconino County, but a long way from your office in Page. If your department ignored them, there’s really no one else who would be interested in the group. Of course, they run their own religious schools and are exempt from property taxes based on their claim to be a church.” she said.

  She’d made her point with all the subtlety of a poke with a sharp stick. It was really a Coconino County Sheriff’s Department issue. If we had never checked on the children, who else would have?

  “What do you know about the current situation?” I asked.

  “I’ve been briefed on the layout of the compound,” she said. “There are eight small rock-walled houses with metal roofs around a central plaza with a spring-fed well in the middle. A sandstone wall about ten feet high and three feet thick encloses the whole area connecting the windowless backs of the houses to form an enclosed two-acre area. There are rock and concrete bunkers at each corner of the compound. The whole thing was built in the nineteenth century to protect the residents from the possibility of hostile Indian raids. It’s been enhanced with the addition of modern machine guns and who knows what else in the way of small arms.”