The Murders at El Tovar

by Charles Williamson

  I waited patiently in a long line of cars as I neared the park. Once I was past the main gate, I called Superintendent Harman. He suggested that we meet on the porch of El Tovar. He wanted to show me where Mrs. Marshall had gone over the rim.

  El Tovar is a striking structure, built in 1905 by the Fred Harvey Company for railroad tourists. The rail line from Williams, Arizona was completed in 1901, and the Grand Canyon became a popular destination for western tourists very early in the twentieth century. The hotel predates the National Monument designation of 1908 and the National Park status of the area, which came in 1919. The hotel is surfaced with brown clapboards with an impressive stone porch on the front. A shake-shingled turret, which conceals a water storage tank, accents the three-story building’s Swiss Chalet/American West design.

  I soon reached the Grand Canyon Village, finding a parking place only about a quarter of a mile from the hotel. As I walked past the Grand Canyon Station and up the hill to El Tovar, the train from Williams was delivering a dozen passenger carriages full of tourists. A row of Fred Harvey Company tour busses waited to take the passengers on for further sightseeing.

  When I reached the covered porch of the hotel, a slender man got up from a rustic chair and walked up extending his hand. “Lieutenant Damson, I’m Karl Harman.” He had recognized me from the press coverage and the televised press conferences connected with the Secret Mountain case. He had a firm hand shake. His brown eyes were alert, sizing me up.

  After we exchanged pleasantries, Karl Harman explained why he was especially concerned about this case. “Mike, we’ve almost five million guests every year at the park. Of course, some crime goes with that number of visitors. Usually it’s minor criminals like shoplifters, pickpockets, and an occasional drunk. We have our share of accidental deaths too; this place is real – not a Disneyland. The park includes a five thousand foot deep canyon and almost two thousand square miles, most of it wilderness. It’s not difficult for the inexperienced or foolhardy to get into a dangerous situation here.”

  I nodded. “Karl, my wife and I have hiked here enough to understand that the risks are real. I’ve seen hikers who don’t seem to even notice the dangers. Why was Peggy Marshall’s death unusual?”

  Karl’s expression turned serious. “I want you to reach your own conclusions, Mike. My employees don’t have your experience, but they don’t think this was an accident or a suicide. I’d like to take you to the spot where we think Peggy Marshall went over the rim.”

  Karl was at least sixty with a full head of gray hair, but he walked with the gait of a young man. He didn’t seem to be just a desk jockey. Karl led me past the Hopi House gift shop. It was my wife’s favorite building in Arizona. Hopi Indian craftsmen had constructed the two-story red rock building in 1905, the same year as El Tovar was built, however its style could not be more different. It showed no trace of European roots. The stone building looked like it had been perched here on the edge of the Canyon for a thousand years. Mary Colter, the most notable architect of the Grand Canyon, designed the Hopi House using the ancient style of the Hopi rock pueblo dwellings. It remains one of the most striking man-made features on the Canyon rim. I wondered what Mrs. Marshall had thought of the unusual structure as she walked past it in the predawn light of her final morning.

  We marched briskly along the asphalt of the Rim Trail. It was fortunate that I was a frequent hiker, or I couldn’t have kept pace with the superintendent. The trail is wide with excellent footing, an unlikely place for a non-hiker to stumble. A small rock wall separated the well-traveled path from the canyon along the first part of the trail. Over the short wall was a clear view of the Bright Angel Trail, which will lead hearty hikers down into the Grand Canyon all the way to the Colorado River. Maybe Margaret and I would hike part of it on Saturday.

  No matter how many times I see the Canyon, the view still inspires awe, but this time I could not help but think of Peggy Marshall and her very long fall. The trail wandered slightly away from the rim. It entered the dense forest, but it soon returned back to the dramatic rim. In several places it split into a wheelchair accessible route and the older route nearer the Canyon. We were soon away from the busy area around the hotel, and I saw only an occasional walker. We came to a park bench blocked off by yellow police tape.

  Stepping over the tape, Karl Harman led me to the edge. I held my breath as I looked down into the Canyon. It was almost a straight fall from this point down the distance of a very tall building to the nearest outcrop of rock. There were a few small trees clinging to the vertical slope for the first twenty feet, and then nothing but a vertical rock wall of limestone. There would be zero possibility of surviving a fall from this location. Past that first outcropping of rock far down into the Canyon, I could see another circle of yellow police tape where the body had come to rest. The total distance of her fall must have been at least a thousand feet. I was not anxious to examine the body of Peggy Marshall.

  “My park rangers have investigated dozens of fatal accidents at the Canyon. It’s an unfortunate part of our responsibilities. Amy Ziegler is the senior ranger who reviews each accidental death to see if we can do things to lower the risks for our guests. I’ll introduce her to you when she gets back from Flagstaff tomorrow. She accompanied Mrs. Marshall’s body to the medical examiner in Flagstaff.”

  He pointed at the loose rocks and soil at our feet. “This stone is Kaibab Limestone. That tan stone where she hit the ledge is Coconino Sandstone.” I nodded. I had learned about the sedimentary rocks of the Canyon on my hikes in the park. He continued, “There is no disturbance in these loose rocks near the trail. There is no sign that Mrs. Marshall even touched the soil or rocks in the first few yards of this steep slope, just above the precipice.”

  The superintendent had good reason for his suspicion.

  Karl looked unhappy and pointed to the soil at our feet. “She either took a running jump or someone gave her a very hard shove, so hard that she didn’t even disturb this soil.”

  “There’s no other sign of a struggle?” I asked.

  Karl nodded. “Nothing. That’s why we asked for you.”

  “Suicide?”

  Karl frowned, his expression showing his doubts. “God knows we have too many of those here in the park. My men are convinced that this was not one. Not many suicides put on long underwear before going out to leap to their death at sunrise. Not many carry their expensive digital camera with them on their fall. Mrs. Marshall left her purse and gloves on this bench and walked up to the rim with her camera, its strap was still around her neck when we found her.”

  “She wouldn’t have left her purse on a bench unless she was either with someone she knew or thought that she was alone,” I said.

  “I talked with her husband. He’s very certain she didn’t kill herself. The poor guy is at the hotel under sedation. I’ve never seen greater grief; he’s a basket case.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” I said. We headed back toward the hotel.

  On the walk, Karl mentioned that he had asked the hotel to put me at the head of the list for cancellations. El Tovar and the Bright Angel Lodge were always fully booked this time of year. It would certainly be more convenient to stay here at the South Rim rather than back in the town of Tusayan.

  As we reached the broad verandah of the hundred-year-old hotel, Superintendent Harman made a disclosure that helped explain his request for me to come to the park and investigate this case. “Mike, I don’t want to prejudice your investigation, but there’re a couple of other fatalities that might be connected. Maybe you could look at all of the files on our fatal falls and accidents while you’re here.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I considered Karl’s comments about the victim’s husband. He’d mentioned that he had never seen greater grief than Paul Marshall had displayed. I’d investigated more than two hundred homicides in my years with the LA Police Department. I knew that true grief was possible when a spouse is killed, even when the partner committ
ed the murder. I can’t explain the workings of love, but I remembered a young woman who had murdered her twenty-four year old husband with a baseball bat while the young guy was sound asleep. The woman’s grief at her husband’s death was the most profound of any I’d ever witnessed. Even though I was able to prove that she had killed her husband because of jealousy and an excess of love, there was no denying that her grief at his death was real. At this point in the investigation, I knew of only one person in northern Arizona who even knew Peggy Marshall, her husband Paul.

  Karl led me through the hotel lobby with its walls of tree size logs. We climbed a flight of stairs, walked through a second floor lounge, and entered the husband’s room. Paul Marshall was sitting in one of the two chairs in the modest size hotel room. His appearance was extraordinary. Mr. Marshall looked like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He’d collapsed into the chair as if all the energy had been sucked from his husky middle-aged body. His eyes were vacant like those of an addict nodding off on heroin. I did not expect to accomplish much by interviewing Mr. Marshall in this sedative and grief dominated condition.

  Karl Harman introduced me. The grieving husband looked at me with blank eyes, sunken and red. He nodded in my direction.

  “Mr. Marshall, I’m here to investigate your wife’s tragic death. Can you tell me what happened this morning?”

  He answered as if repeating a story he had told several times already. “I woke up. Peggy wasn’t here. I used the bathroom and drank some water. I’d been sick and not eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. I found some food that Peggy had left in a plastic container in the ice bucket. After eating the cold steak and mashed potatoes, I couldn’t keep the food down. I was being sick in the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. Some men came in and told me that Peggy was dead. I didn’t believe them at first. How can she be dead?”

  It might be significant that Mr. Marshall was throwing up in the bathroom when the news of his wife’s death arrived. I had seen a number of murderers react that way to their crimes, especially in crimes of passion involving the death of a spouse. I asked, “Superintendent Harman told me that you are certain that Mrs. Marshall would not have killed herself.”

  His eyes showed a little sign of life as he answered. “Peggy loved life. She’d been planning this trip for over a year. It was an accident; she must have slipped. She’d never kill herself, never.”

  He seemed very sincere. I wondered if Peggy Marshall had had a double-indemnity insurance policy. “Is there anything you remember that can help explain what happened?” I asked.

  Paul Marshall exhaled with an audible sound. There were tears in his eyes as he reached for a sheet of paper on the dresser next to him. “Her second grade class wanted her to send e-mail photos of our trip. They gave her this request the last day of school.” He handed me a sheet of paper with a list printed by a child with multicolored pencils.

  The first item on the list was in block letters in a child’s handwriting.

  Sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

  The list continued:

  The Narrows at Zion National Park.

  Rain falling at Monument Valley.

  The full moon at Bryce Canyon.

  There were eight photos her students had requested. Each photo request was printed by a different hand and in a different color. The last was “Las Vegas at night.”

  I thought of the fun the students must have had in anticipation of Mrs. Marshall’s trip. Peggy Marshall had gone to get a digital photo of the sunrise and never returned to her husband. The list also told me that Paul would have known exactly why Peggy Marshall was getting dressed in her warm clothing to leave the room before dawn.

  Paul Marshall was crying as I handed the list back. Karl Harman said, “Mr. Marshall, I understand your son and daughter will be here this evening. Is there anything we can do for you until they get here?”

  Mr. Marshall said through his sobs, “Just figure out what happened. Peggy didn’t jump.”

  Superintendent Harman and I left the room. In the hallway, he thanked me for taking charge of the case and suggested that we meet for dinner in the hotel at 8:00 to discuss my observations. He headed back to his office while I decided to go to the Sheriff’s Department Substation to find out what they had learned about the Peggy Marshall case.

  Doug Redman came out of his office to greet me. He’s about 5’ 10” and 170 pounds of muscle and gristle. Doug is about forty and tough as a leather saddle. He had seen me drive up from his office window. He spoke so that everyone in the office could hear his greeting. “Hi Mike old buddy. I’m damn glad you offered to help with that Marshall case. We’ve been swamped. Thanks for coming all the way to Tusayan.”

  “I’m glad to have something interesting to do, Doug. It’s so slow down at the Sedona office, I’ve been restless as hell,” I said.

  After the face saving exchange, we went into Doug’s office to talk. He handed me a thin folder saying, “We’re just getting started on the Marshall case. I’ll ask Alan Markley to update you on what he’s done so far. He doesn’t think this was a suicide. How did your meeting with Superintendent Harman go?”

  I smiled and explained, “There was a little more to Harman’s request than looking into the death of Mrs. Marshall. He’s also asked me to review the files on all the recent Canyon deaths. He made it clear that he thinks there might be connections between several recent fatalities.”

  Doug Redman’s face looked both surprised and serious. “A serial killer in the Park? God, I hope not.”

  I understood why Sheriff Greg Taylor had been concerned about tourism in Coconino County when he called this morning. News of a series of unsolved murders at the Grand Canyon National Park would be a disaster for local tourist related businesses. The Sheriff held an elective office. What was bad for county tourism was very bad for his reelection chances.

  “It’s too early for me to speculate about a serial killer. The Superintendent is concerned about a possible connection, but I haven’t even seen the files on these other deaths yet,” I replied.

  Detective Redman opened his door and yelled, “Markley! Bring the files of every death at the Canyon in the past year.”

  Doug Redman sat back down and commented, “Alan Markley is a green kid, but he’s the brightest young guy in the office. Would you like his help?”

  I felt trapped. I’d hoped to bring my partner Chad Archer up from Sedona if I needed help, but there was no tactful way to dodge the offer. Redman wanted his own man involved with the case. “If this is a serial killer, I’ll need a lot of help,” I said.

  I spent a few minutes recounting my meeting with Superintendent Harman and Mr. Marshall. I explained the details of the crime scene mentioning that there was no disturbance of the soil between the trail and the precipice. I‘d finished my account when the door opened and a thin young man, maybe 5’ 10” and 150 pounds, entered Redman’s office. He held a foot high stack of file folders. It was Deputy Alan Markley.

  Doug introduced us. Alan explained, “I started with twenty-two files, but I eliminated the heart attacks and deaths from obviously natural causes. These fourteen files represent all the accidents and suicides.”

  I was surprised at the number of files. I asked Alan, “Have you looked through the remaining cases?”

  “No sir. I just sorted the stack by cause of death. It will take more time to read them all.” A light seemed to turn on in his young face. He asked, “Is there a chance that the Peggy Marshall case is connected to some of these old ones?”

  “That’s what you’re going to help me figure out,” I replied.

  A smile formed on Alan’s young nearly beardless face. He was clearly pleased to still be part of the investigation. We divided the files and agreed to meet and discuss them over breakfast in Tusayan at 8:00 tomorrow. I promised to keep Doug fully informed about our progress. I was fairly certain that Alan Markley would be giving him a daily briefing anyway.

  I drove back to El Tovar an
d was lucky enough to find a parking place near the hotel. I entered the log-cabin-style hotel lobby with its massive whole tree beams supporting the two-story high ceiling of its rotunda. I checked with the desk clerk, hoping for a cancellation that would provide me with a room for the night. A friendly young man with an Australian accent apologized for not having a room at the hotel. Superintendent Harman had asked him to find something for Detective Lieutenant Michael Damson. He had been able to accommodate me at the Bright Angel Lodge for the night. The lodge is located a short distance west of El Tovar on the Canyon rim. The cheerful El Tovar desk clerk, whose name tag identified him as Jason, promised that he would have a room in the hotel by tomorrow or the next day, a Friday.

  I walked along the crowded rim to the Bright Angel Lodge. The view was just as dramatic and impressive as the first time I stayed at the Bright Angel back in 1968. Some parts of the rustic lodge are even older than the El Tovar Hotel. My room was rather Spartan with knotty pine walls and an uncomfortably sagging bed. There was a rustic desk with a goose necked lamp that would be useful in working on the files I intended to study. I settled in to review the files before I joined Superintendent Harman for dinner.

  CHAPTER 4

  I stacked the seven case files on the small desk and called Margaret. Discussing my cases with Margaret is a thirty-year tradition in our marriage, plus I miss her when we’re separated. Margaret is my secret weapon; her keen judgment has helped me solve numerous cases. I explained the details of what I’d learned since reaching the Canyon. I heard a small gasp from Margaret when I mentioned the sightseeing list prepared by Mrs. Marshall’s second grade class, but otherwise she just listened to my account.