CHAPTER 7
Alan and I sat and discussed the plan for the day. Alan would go to the small trailer that he rented in Tusayan and pack things that would be normal for a college kid. If he had any old ASU sweatshirts or tshirts, he’d bring them. His kit could not include anything that a normal college kid seeking summer employment would not include. Alan would leave his service revolver in the trunk of his car until he found a good place to conceal it in his new quarters. I told Alan to let his parents and anyone else who might try and contact him to know that he was on an assignment and out of touch for a week or two. Alan and I would communicate by cell phone, but never meet in person except outside of the Grand Canyon Village. Alan was not to go near the Sheriff’s office until his assignment was over.
Alan’s main task was to keep his eyes and ears open and fit in with the wait staff of the Fred Harvey Company. He would check in at the personnel office of the company in the Grand Canyon Village as soon as he packed. He should fill in his application with as much truth as possible. There was no need to make things more complicated with unnecessary lies. He could just move his college graduation a few years forward but keep the rest of the story as close to his actual experience as possible.
As Alan left in his old Toyota, my cell phone rang. It was Amy Ziegler, the senior ranger that Superintendent Harmon had mentioned. She was in charge of investigating accidents for the Park Service here at the Canyon.
She began the conversation after introducing herself by saying, “I couldn’t get these local Sheriff’s deputies to even take me seriously. I’ve been suspicious of several recent deaths, but the local clowns quickly wrote them off as accidental fatalities. That was just the easiest answer. The US Marshals won’t be bothered with suicides and accidents. I’m the one who asked Karl to request the Sheriff send you to the Park to investigate the deaths.”
She spoke with a New England accent, maybe Boston. It made her comments seem harsh. I replied a little defensively, “The Sheriff’s Department will make a full investigation. That’s our job.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said. “I’m sure you’re taking things seriously now. Can we meet to discuss these deaths sometime this morning?”
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” I said.
In her nasal tone, Amy said, “I’ll meet you on the Canyon side of the Hopi House. You’ll recognize me by my uniform.”
She hung up the instant I said OK. I tried to picture what she would look like. I was guessing that she was a young athletic red head who lifted weights and ran marathons.
I was lucky to find a parking place near El Tovar, catching a minivan leaving just as I drove up. I was a few minutes early and walked over to enjoy the Canyon view. I was thinking about the possibility of a hike with Margaret down to Plateau Point when a firm hand grasped my shoulder. It was Amy Ziegler.
“I never get tired of the view either,” she greeted me.
She was mid forties, with short brown hair, a round face, but a good figure for her age. Her face showed the effects of too much sun in her youth, but she seemed fit. Her shorts revealed muscular legs. Maybe she did run marathons. I don’t know how she recognized that the middle-aged man, who was gazing pensively into the Canyon, was the detective she was to meet.
“I guess that Karl has brought you up-to-date on our conversations yesterday and this morning,” I said.
She nodded. “I was in his office when you asked for help placing your undercover agent in the Colter dorm. It’s good to see quick action. What can I do to help, Mike?”
I needed her help. This was out of my normal stomping grounds, and the leads in these cases were all old. Much of the physical evidence would be long gone. The US Marshals’ Service works most serious crimes here at the Park. I was only here because of her boss’s request. “I’d like to see the location of the other deaths on our unexplained list: Jim Otto’s dorm room, the Rim Trail fall spots for Rachel Stein and Mary Jane Corliss, the location on the Bright Angel Trail where Helga Günter was killed by a falling rock, and the room at the Maswik Lodge where Margo Jordan died of unexplained causes. I’d also like to start the process of interviewing any staff members who might have seen Peggy Marshall on her final morning.”
Amy looked down at my well-worn hiking boots. “I’m glad you came prepared for walking. This’ll be a busy day.”
We started walking briskly east along the Rim Trail, passing the spot where Peggy Marshall fell. About a quarter of a mile further, we came to a treeless triangular outcropping of limestone. It stretched about thirty feet from the trail to the edge of the Canyon. There were several tourists taking pictures of each other with the Canyon as a backdrop. Two small children were perched a foot from the precipice waiting for an older sibling to take a photo.
Amy walked over and ordered them to move back onto the trail. She asked where their parents were, and a young girl with an English accent replied, “Mum can’t keep up because the air is thin.” Amy made them sit on a bench until Mum caught up.
She came back to me saying, “You can see why there’re accidents. These falls from the Rim Trail could be just that. Certainly a lot of foolish people put themselves in unnecessary risk every day.”
I had seen the same thing many times. The Grand Canyon is so familiar even to those who have never been here before that it’s easy to take for granted. I said, “Amy, please tell me what you know of the death of Rachel Stein.”
She explained, “No one actually saw her fall, but from the location of the body, we know she went off here. The person who made me suspicious of this case was a tourist who heard her scream and called us on his cell phone. This occurred a few minutes before dawn, just like the death of Peggy Marshall.”
“What caused your suspicion that this was not a suicide or accident?”
She explained, “The man who heard her scream said there were two parts. The first thing he heard was the sort of cuss word you’d direct at someone. It was followed by the scream of someone falling. The guy could not explain exactly why, but he thought it sounded like she was cussing someone else who was present. I know it’s not much to go on but people can tell the difference.”
“I read the case file,” I said. “It didn’t mention this witness to her scream.”
She said with some anger, “The deputy who investigated said the evidence indicated that she fell backwards into the Canyon as if she slipped. She only fell about a hundred feet, but broke her neck in the fork of a piñon pine. If she hadn’t hit the tree, the fall would have been much greater, so she would have died in either case.”
“The cuss word would be consistent with turning to face someone who was approaching from the trail in the dark,” I said. “By turning, she could have been pushed to fall backwards off this limestone outcropping. Amy, I don’t think the backward fall proves she wasn’t pushed, but it’s a very unlikely type of suicide.” I remained concerned about the poor quality of the local investigations, but I didn’t say so to Amy.
We walked quickly back along the Rim Trail. Next, she would show me where Jim Otto had been murdered. When we reached the area of El Tovar, Amy led me around the old hotel to the Colter House dormitory.
A single hammer blow had crushed the young man’s skull while he slept in a four-man room on the second floor of this building. The Colter House was a long, rather impressive, old structure located directly behind El Tovar. I had never paid any attention to the building on my previous visits because it’s well hidden by the bulk of the hotel. It was constructed of rough gray Kaibab Limestone, the same stone that forms the top layer of the multicolored sedimentary stratum of the Grand Canyon in this area. I guessed that it was built about the same time as El Tovar. It had brown wooden trim and a very unaffected but substantial look.
Amy led me to a door on the west end of the second floor. She knocked loudly several times, and finally a sleepy eyed young man dressed only in his boxer shorts opened the door. He was probably about twenty, athletic loo
king, but only about five six. He wore his brown hair in a flattop haircut with Elvis length sideburns. I’d had a similar haircut back in 1959.
Amy said, “Sorry to disturb you Billy. I want to show Detective Damson the room where Jim was killed.”
Billy nodded in greeting and stepped aside to let us in. The room had two sets of bunk beds. The lower bed on the right had no bedding or mattress. The setting reminded me of a college dorm room. The clothing, books, and miscellaneous junk spread around the room also indicated a place that was used for sleep, but not much else. Neatness was not a priority. There was no phone, TV, or radio visible, but a chess set was on the small table next to a pack of cards.
“Billy, were you here the night of the murder?” I asked.
“I was sleeping right above Jim.” He pointed to the unmade bed above the murder site. “I had breakfast duty that morning. I got out of bed when the alarm went off at 4:30 and stepped into Jim’s blood. I don’t know what the hell happened. I didn’t hear anything that night.”
When I reviewed the files, I had read the statements of all three roommates. They really didn’t have any explanation or provide any help. I asked Billy, “Did Jim Otto have any enemies?”
“Jim was one of the best liked people who worked here. He always had a smile and was never in a fight or in any kind of trouble. Jim loved to hike. I couldn’t keep up with him. One of our other roommates, Will Blake, hiked with him a lot. When Jim wasn’t working or sleeping, he was always outside.”
I already knew the answer recorded in our files, but I asked Billy, “Did Jim have a girlfriend here at the Village?”
Billy’s eyes shifted to the bunk without a mattress. “No sir. He was engaged to a girl back in Boston. He didn’t date anyone here.” The answer did not quite ring true.
“Our records didn’t indicate what the four of you were doing the night before Jim was killed.”
Billy looked a little embarrassed. “All four of us, plus two dozen other people, were at a going away party for a buddy from England whose work permit expired. I drank a lot of gin in his honor. The party started at 8:00, and I crashed into bed after midnight. I was shit-faced commode-hugging drunk.”
“So all four of you were somewhat drunk?” I asked anticipating the explanation of why no one heard anything.
Billy replied, “Well, Sam Gilbert who sleeps in the bottom bunk over here is a Mormon from Provo, Utah. I don’t think he drank any gin, but there were so many people at the party that I really can’t say. I’ve never seen Sam drunk; he won’t even drink coffee. I do know that Jim Otto and Will Blake drank their share.”
After a few more minutes of questions, Amy and I left Billy to go back to sleep and headed for the Maswik Lodge to see the room where Margo Jordan died of unexplained causes. The Maswik is a couple of blocks back from the rim of the Canyon. The room looked like a thousand other motel rooms with two queen-sized beds and normal motel furniture.
Amy explained that Ms. Jordan was believed to have died of natural causes. As a result, she hadn’t spent much time on the case. In fact, she was curious about why I was interested. I explained that the medical examiner in Flagstaff had not been able to determine the cause of death for Ms. Jordan, but I didn’t know of any actual connection to the other deaths. She had died in a locked room, but there was no trace of heart problems, stroke, or other natural causes. I was just curious about the case. Ms. Jordan was similar in age and looks to the other four women who had died recently in falls.
We walked west along the Rim toward the spot where Mary Jane Corliss died. Amy explained, “Mrs. Corliss was a guest at El Tovar. She was a widow traveling alone. Her husband had been killed in a traffic accident only three months before her own death. I spoke with her only son, a welder in Portland. He said she was taking a year off to travel and master her grief. It was the recent death of her husband that caused the investigating deputy to conclude it was a suicide. There was no note or other indication of suicide.”
“Was there something that made you question the suicide explanation?”
Amy looked puzzled. She was trying to pin down what caused her suspicion. “Nothing much, Mike. It was just little things. She had a camera with her. There were a dozen photos taken that same evening. Mrs. Corliss checked in the previous afternoon for a two-night stay at one of the best rooms at El Tovar. She must have reserved the suite months before, maybe even before her husband died. We can check on that. If you come here intending suicide, do you book a room for two nights?”
We walked past the corral where the mules form-up for the trip down the Bright Angel Trail. The spot was musty with the earthy smell of their manure. It accented the otherwise pristine air of the 7,000-foot South Rim. The mules had already started down the trail by the time we passed.
Amy asked if I wanted to take the bus. It stops at each overlook from the Bright Angel Lodge to the Hermit’s Rest Viewpoint at the west limit of the road. It was a magnificent morning, and we decided to walk the half-mile to the point on the trail where Mrs. Corliss met her death. The trail is not as smooth or wide as the trail to the east of El Tovar. It was easy to see how someone would stumble in the twilight. We saw a young couple sitting with their legs over the rim, oblivious to their danger in their focus on each other. Amy asked them to move back onto the trail and we walked on.
The location of the fatal fall of Mrs. Corliss was indistinguishable from many other areas of the Rim Trail west of the Bright Angel Lodge. I could see no special hazard or even a reason why this location would attract someone who wanted to view a sunset. It was not one of the well-developed overlooks at which other tourists would have gathered at sunset. The narrow asphalt trail was about six feet from the edge of the Canyon. The limestone ledge from which Mrs. Corliss fell left no footprints or other evidence. She carried her camera and purse over the three hundred foot drop with her. Amy explained that they had recovered the camera and developed the film, looking for any clues to the death. There were only normal tourist shots of the Rim Trail and the Grand Canyon Village.
There wasn’t much to be learned from looking at this spot on the Rim Trail. Someone who wanted to commit suicide might have picked it for the certain fatality of a fall, but it also might have been chosen as a perfect location for an ambush that could not be observed from either the road or one of the developed observation points.
There were no witnesses to the start of the fall, but several hikers on the Bright Angel Trail looked at the location when they heard Mrs. Corliss scream. They reported her fall to rangers when they reached the trailhead about thirty minutes later. Even after an extensive search, the helicopter pilot could not locate the remains of Mrs. Corliss in the rugged terrain in the dark. The body was recovered shortly after dawn and taken to Flagstaff. I knew that I needed to discuss all of these cases with the Medical Examiner in Flagstaff. She was new to the job but excellent at it for such a small town.
Amy had a little glint in her eye when she asked if I was up to a little hike down the Bright Angel Trail to observe the location where the German Insurance Company worker, Helga Günter, had been killed by a falling rock. Every hike down into the Grand Canyon is strenuous. So far, we had looked only at locations along the easy Rim Trail and in Grand Canyon Village. Amy may have considered this next phase of our journey a bit of a test of a middle aged Sheriff’s Department detective.
CHAPTER 8
I answered Amy Ziegler’s question about the Bright Angel Trail by replying, “Margaret and I enjoy the hike down to Plateau Point. We’ve done it four times in the past two years. I’m not as strong a hiker as my partner back in Sedona. Chad Archer does the Rim to Rim to Rim every October.
I had provided Amy with some reassurance that I could get down to the Helga Günter murder site and still be able to walk back out. Plateau Point is more than half way down to the Colorado River, much farther than the four mile round trip that we’d hike today. At Plateau Point, one of the most astonishing views I’ve ever seen surrounds the hi
ker with the majesty of the Canyon. From that promontory, they can look directly down a 1,300-foot cliff into the foaming rapids of the Colorado River. Margaret and I consider it one of our favorite places on earth.
The hike down the Bright Angel Trail can be very seductive to beginning hikers. It is easy to walk down five thousand feet in the course of less than eight miles, but it’s not as easy to walk back out. The rangers were always rescuing people who were not really in shape for the hikes below the Rim.
My partner in the Sedona Substation of the Sheriff’s Department is only about thirty and a former college athlete. When I said he does the Rim to Rim to Rim, it’s the local code for hiking across the canyon in one day and hiking back across the following day. Believe me, it is possible, but it’s similar to running two marathons on successive days.
It was almost lunchtime, but I didn’t want to do this strenuous hike on a full stomach. I have a bad leg from a bullet that I took on the job in LA. I started hiking as part of the therapy to reach a full recovery. Margaret and I do a five to ten mile hike almost every Saturday now that we live in Sedona.
I retrieved my fanny pack and canteen from my car, and we started down the trail at about 11:30. Amy was keeping a good pace, about three miles an hour. The trail passes through a couple of short tunnels cut into the Kaibab Limestone in the first quarter mile. It soon begins the series of sweeping switchbacks that rapidly take the hiker away from the hubbub of the Grand Canyon Village. There were dozens of hikers on this part of the trail on a fine summer day. This Bright Angel Trail takes hikers down to Indian Gardens, a campground with drinking water and restrooms at 4.50 miles, and to the Colorado River at 7.8 miles. From the Colorado River, following the River Trail, it’s 2.5 miles to Phantom Ranch, the only accommodations down in the Canyon, except for campgrounds. Day hiking tourists often walked down to the first rest house at a mile and a half. A second rest house is at the three-mile point. The death of Helga Günter occurred between these two rest houses after she walked back up about half way from the Indian Gardens Campground.
The Murders at El Tovar Page 4