by Rich Curtin
“We were having a ball as we crossed the country. Everyone was so excited. We stayed under the speed limit so the cops wouldn’t bother us. The stash of marijuana hidden in the van was enough to get us all thrown into jail.” She laughed. “Looking back on it, it was a foolish risk, but at the time, it added to the excitement of the trip. We stopped along the way to see the sights. Somewhere in Kansas, we came upon a lone hitchhiker carrying one of those canvas satchels. He looked like a happy, harmless guy and we were all a little high, so we decided to pick him up. He had a huge grin, almost like he had extra teeth, and a full head of dark curly hair. He was kind of un-athletic looking, if you know what I mean. He was pale and lacked the muscles you saw on most boys his age. But he had a real cute face. He was wearing a Woody Woodpecker T-shirt, so we started calling him Woody. If he told us his real name when we picked him up, I can’t remember what it was. Woody seemed like the perfect name for him. He was a couple of years younger than the rest of us. He had an 8-track in his satchel—Up, Up and Away by the Fifth Dimension—and we played it continuously and sang along as we drove.
“Now I think of Woody every time I hear that song. He told us he was hitchhiking to his family place in Utah, which he hadn’t seen since he was three years old. Woody was always smiling and upbeat. He was funny and open and real. Everyone just fell in love with him. His stories kept us in stitches. I think Ellen, she was the third girl with us, was falling for him a little. Or maybe she just wanted to mother him, I’m not sure. We stayed mostly on secondary roads, eating as cheaply as we could, usually cooking our own food, and sleeping in the woods and pastures alongside the back roads. If it was raining, we all slept in the van. After we stopped at Mesa Verde to see the ruins, we entered Utah through, what did you call that canyon?”
“McElmo Canyon?”
“Yeah, that’s it. After we passed through McElmo canyon, Woody pulled a letter out of his pocket. He studied the hand-drawn map it contained and said we were getting close to his family’s place. It was getting dark so we decided to camp out and find it the next morning.” She stopped talking.
“So what happened?”
After a long pause, she began again, her voice weak and tremulous. “The next morning we couldn’t wake Woody up. We thought at first he was sick. His color didn’t look right. He was pale. Like I said, he never looked very healthy.” She cleared her throat. “Then…then we realized he was dead. That precious boy had died during the night.” She began bawling.
Rivera waited for the crying to stop so he could ask a question. But the crying went on and on.
“I’m sorry. It makes me so sad every time I think about it.” She blew her nose. “So there we were, out in the middle of nowhere, with a dead boy on our hands and a stash of dope in the van. We knew the laws about dope were strict, especially in Utah, and we were all worried sick. We talked about what to do and—God help us all—we finally decided to just bury him right there. There was a trench shovel in the van so Michael dug a grave. It took him about three hours to dig the hole because the soil was so rocky. All the while, we were worried someone would come along. Luckily no one did. Michael placed Woody’s body and his satchel in the hole and covered them up with dirt. He did it all by himself—everyone else was too freaked out to help. We couldn’t even watch. Thank God for Michael. Then someone mentioned something about animals digging up graves, so we searched the area for heavy rocks to cover the grave. We collected a bunch of flat ones that were kind of a nice buff color and used those. Then we found some purple rocks and embedded them within the buff-colored rocks in kind of a cross pattern.”
Rivera sat down, took a sip of coffee. “What did you do then?”
“Well that of course put a damper on the rest of the trip. Michael and Ellen decided they didn’t want to continue on to San Francisco. They were totally bummed out. So they drove the rest of us—me, Matthew, and Wilma—to the Greyhound bus station in Blanding, and we continued the trip by bus. We consoled ourselves with the idea that there was nothing else we could do without getting into a lot of trouble. But what we did pains me to this day. Woody’s family is probably still wondering what happened to him. Looking back, I’d have to say that one incident ruined my life. I never went back to school, never married, never had kids. It just took the wind out of my sails. I was never the same again after that. Like I told you, I met a boy with a guitar at the Summer of Love, followed him to Taos, then lost track of him. I stayed here, became a waitress at a diner, and spent my life serving food to customers. When I was young, I was a good student. I was studying pre-law in college. If only I hadn’t made that trip west.”
Rivera figured there was probably no point in telling her that she and her friends had broken any number of laws. “That’s quite a story. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Yes. There’s one more thing you should know. When the Masons and I reconnected after all these years, we made plans for them to visit me here in Taos during their vacation trip to the national parks. They mentioned they were going to visit Woody’s grave and smoke a couple of joints there as a tribute to him. That’s probably why they were dressed the way they were. They said they wanted to re-live that trip from fifty years ago—at least a part of it—and visiting Woody’s grave would be important to them. I know they were bothered by what had happened to Woody and how we just left him there. Maybe they saw the return visit as some kind of catharsis. They asked me if I wanted to meet them at the grave, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Can you understand that?”
“Of course.” Rivera again heard the sound of ice cubes clinking in the glass.
“Then, two days ago, I received that dreadful call from Linda. She told me her parents had been killed. She said the murders had taken place in a remote part of southeast Utah, so I wondered if they had actually found Woody’s grave after all these years. On the internet, I read all the news I could find about the killings. One of the websites showed a video of the area where their bodies were found. The camera panned across an odd-looking rock formation in the shape of a mushroom. I remembered that rock because we joked about how funny it looked. When I saw it in the video, I knew Matty and Wilma had found Woody’s grave after all these years. Anyway, the first time you and I talked, you said you couldn’t figure out why they were at that particular spot when they were killed. Now you know.”
An image of the flat rocks Rivera thought were part of some cowboy camp came to his mind. He wondered if that might be Woody’s grave.
“Thank you, Ms. Stolte. This has been very helpful.”
“Dear God,” she said in a voice that sounded like a shriek, “it just occurred to me that if I’d joined them on that trip to Woody’s grave, I’d probably have been murdered too.”
“But you didn’t join them, thankfully.”
“What a frightening thought.”
“What were the names of the other people on that trip?”
“Look, I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble. Do you really need those names?”
“I’m not sure Woody’s death and burial are important to my case. Certainly it explains why the Masons visited the place where they were killed. But I may want to talk to the others to see if they can remember any more details. It’s probably not important but it might be helpful.”
“All right. Wilma’s maiden name was Green. She married Matthew Mason. The other two were Ellen Yardley and Michael Bennett. Then there was me and Woody. That was the six of us.”
“Linda showed me a photograph of the six of you standing in front of the Volkswagen minivan. If I forward you a copy of that photo, could you identify who’s who for me?”
“Sure. No problem.”
Rivera lay in bed thinking he had one more fact he didn’t have when the day had begun. At least now he knew the reason the Masons were at the place where they were killed. Of course, he still had no idea why they were killed. Or by whom.
Rivera decided that, come morning, he would revisit what he t
hought was a cowboy camp and see if it was actually Woody’s grave.
17
RIVERA ROLLED OUT of bed, pulled back the corner of the curtain, and peered out the window. The vehicles in the parking lot were covered with frost as were the tree branches and stalks of grass. He thought about Gloria and wished he was with her instead of working this frustrating case. He brewed some coffee, showered, and put on his uniform.
After his first sip of coffee, he turned on the television, found the Weather Channel, and learned from the pretty lady standing next to the weather map that the high-pressure system which had arrived two days ago was now stalled over the Four Corners area. It would be bringing daytime temperatures in the low sixties for a couple of more days. The nighttime temperatures would drop below freezing, she explained, and mentioned that such wide temperature swings were not uncommon at five-thousand feet in the high desert country.
He extracted his cell phone from his shirt pocket and punched in Linda Mason Hart’s phone number. She answered on the first ring.
“Linda, I know how busy and upset you must be during this stressful time, but I think it might have slipped your mind about emailing me a copy of that old photo you showed me—the one of your parents and their friends standing in front of a Volkswagen minivan.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry Deputy Rivera. You’re right, I completely forgot. I’ll send you an email right away. Could you hold on for a minute?”
“Sure.” Rivera waited, eyeballing the screen of his laptop. Soon an icon appeared telling him that an email had arrived. He clicked on the attachment and the image appeared.
“Did you receive it?”
“Yes I did. Thank you very much.” He started to say goodbye.
“Um. Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know yet why they were murdered?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been able to determine that yet. I’m still investigating.”
“When you figure it out, could you give me a call? I’d like to know why my parents were taken from me.” Her voice began cracking. “Why would someone kill those lovely people? I want to know that, please.”
Rivera assured her he would call as soon as he had any information. After he disconnected, Linda’s words rang in his ears. Why would someone kill those lovely people? Why, indeed?
Rivera forwarded Linda’s email attachment to Virginia Stolte with a request that she identify each person in the photo. Her return email came an hour later, after Rivera had eaten breakfast at the Twin Rocks Cafe and returned to his motel room.
She identified the six people in the photograph, as viewed from left to right, as Matthew Mason, Wilma Green, now Wilma Mason, Woody, Ellen Yardley, Michael Bennett, and then Virginia herself. Virginia had added that she was so happy to have a copy of the photo and noted that all three girls had flowers in their hair, reminding her of the lyrics of a song that had become the anthem of the Summer of Love: If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
Since learning about Woody’s death and burial, Rivera now took a greater interest in the six travelers. Each of them looked genuinely happy, and each was dressed in the hippie regalia of the day. Matthew Mason was medium height with dark shoulder-length hair and thick sideburns. He was wearing a psychedelic T-shirt, a long necklace made with brown beads, and bell-bottom jeans. Wilma Green, a shapely blonde, wore a peasant blouse, cut-offs, and a peace medallion. She had wildflowers of every color in her hair. Rivera wondered if the medallion was the same one she was wearing when she was killed. Woody was shorter with a round, happy face and a full head of dark curly hair. Ellen Yardley, who had her arm around Woody, was tall and slender with daisies in her long brunette hair. She wore jeans with holes in the knees and a pink T-shirt. Michael Bennett was tall and broad shouldered. He wore aviator sunglasses and his dark hair hung down to his shoulders. He wore cut-offs and a sleeveless University of Maryland T-shirt. Last was Virginia Stolte, a tall and striking brunette in a peasant dress and sandals. She too had flowers in her hair.
He sat back and thought about the six travelers. They looked so young and innocent. None of them could have imagined what fate had in store for them when they set off on that trip.
Rivera called the University of Maryland, asked to be connected with the Alumni Office, and, after a few transfers, found himself speaking with a lady who said she was in charge of alumni fund raising. He gave her the names Ellen Yardley and Michael Bennett, told her they had completed their freshman year in 1967, and asked if she had any information on how to contact them. She said she would check into it and call him back. He had the impression she was treating the request as a low-priority matter so he added that he was an investigator working on a murder case and was seeking some background information which might be important. She sounded unimpressed, stated that she was in the middle of a major fundraising effort, and promised to get to it as soon as she could. Rivera thanked her and hung up.
He braved the cold air between his motel room and his vehicle, started the engine, and turned the heat on high. After the frost on the windshield had melted, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the site of the murders, wondering what he would learn when he revisited the cowboy camp.
He tuned the radio dial from station to station, something he often did on long drives through the high desert country. He found a Cortez station playing mariachi and Tejano music and listened to that awhile. It was the music he grew up with in Las Cruces, and it always lifted his spirits. Then he switched to a Shiprock station where a man was speaking in a foreign tongue. Navajo, he figured. Next was a Santa Fe station which faded in and out and sounded like big band music from the forties. On a Farmington station, George Jones was singing a song lamenting a lost love.
An hour later, Rivera crested a hill on Route 347 and spotted the airfield in the distance. He pulled his vehicle to a stop next to the mushroom-shaped rock and walked up the rise to the cowboy campsite. The area covered with flat, buff-colored rocks was about the right size for a grave. He scraped the blow sand away from one end with his boot but found no sign of the purple rocks Virginia Stolte had mentioned. At the other end he kicked away some dead brush, scraped off the accumulated soil, and found a pattern of smaller flat rocks, purple in color. They were inlaid within the buff-colored rocks and arranged in the form of a cross. Rivera was standing on the grave of the boy named Woody.
Now he had a solid explanation for why the Masons had come to be at this remote place—they were paying their respects to a young boy who had died fifty years ago. And now Rivera was confronted with an important question. Should Woody’s body be exhumed and examined, or left to rest in peace? The law probably required an exhumation, but he wasn’t sure. There was also a related question. Should charges be filed against Virginia and her cohorts? He wasn’t sure about that either. He replayed Virginia Stolte’s story through his mind. If everything she said was true, was there anything to be gained by revealing what had happened almost a lifetime ago? Five kids, all eighteen years of age, befriend a young man who joins them on a trip. He dies in the night. A result of ... what? Drug overdose? But Virginia said all they had was marijuana, and death from cannabis poisoning was practically non-existent.
She had said Woody looked like an unhealthy kid. Maybe it was just his time. Virginia and the rest of them failed to notify county officials because they had dope in the van. That was a bad decision. They broke the law. But what should Rivera do about it now? There wasn’t much point in punishing sixty-eight-year olds for an act driven by fear and bad judgment fifty years ago. And Virginia was probably right—the statute of limitations would likely make the question moot. He decided for the time being to do nothing unless he could identify Woody’s family. In that case, he would notify them of what had happened to Woody and the location of his grave.
Maybe if Rivera was successful in making contact with Ellen Yardley or Michael Bennett, one of them would know something about
how to find Woody’s family. It was a long shot because of the passage of so many years, but it was all he had. He would work on that problem while he was trying to solve the Mason murder case.
Rivera noticed an oilfield tanker truck coming in his direction, heading west on Route 347. The man behind the wheel spotted Rivera and brought the truck to an abrupt halt. It was Felix, the driver from Bluff. He was motioning Rivera to come over to the truck.
Rivera descended the hill and trotted up to the truck. “What’s up, Felix?”
“Hey Deputy, I’m glad I spotted you. I just saw Herman back there by the side of the road. He waved me down. He said there was a dead Navajo down by some natural spring near where he lives. Herman doesn’t have a phone. He said he’d been waiting for over an hour for someone to come along. I just called the sheriff’s office and told them.”
At that moment, Rivera’s cell phone buzzed. It was Sheriff Zilic’s dispatcher telling Rivera about the dead Navajo and instructing him to investigate. Rivera told her he was close by and on his way.
He jumped into his pickup and drove to Herman’s camp. The dogs surrounded the vehicle, barking and wagging their tails. Herman emerged from his dwelling. He looked upset and relieved to see Rivera.
“Deputy, I’m so glad you’re here. I went to the spring earlier this morning to refill my water jug and found that Navajo sheepherder there. He was dead, lying face down on the ground. He had no pulse.” Herman was shaking. “Looked like he’d been shot in the back.”
“Have you seen anyone else around here this morning?”
“No, just the dead Navajo. And Felix, the truck driver.”
“Okay, Herman. You stay here. And keep the dogs here too.”
“Yessir,” he said softly. He made a clicking sound with his mouth as he entered his dwelling. The dogs obediently followed him inside.