I asked Will a more personal question. “Why are you here at El Tovar, Will? You graduated from college in December, but took a job washing dishes.”
“I love it here,” he said. He was looking me directly in the eyes. “Dad wanted me to go to law school and join the family firm, but I didn’t get in anywhere. I would have been bored to death in law school. I can’t stand to read anything but the sports pages, and law school is a hundred hours of boring reading a week. Not getting in law school was a lucky break. My dad hasn’t forgiven me, but I’m having a fine old time. Dad is an unpleasant old bastard. He considers me a failure at age 24, I would have hated working with him at the firm.”
I thanked Will for his help and said I’d be in touch if I had other questions. It was 4:00 and when Will left Superintendent Harman entered and sat down across the table.
“Any progress Mike?” he asked.
“Nothing much at this point. There are a couple of things I need to follow up on.”
“Can I help in any way? This case is very important to the Park Service and to me personally.”
“Yes, you can help me get some data. I’d like to correlate the work hours of all the hotel staff and other Grand Canyon Village employees, looking for people who were off duty when the four women died: Peggy Marshall, Rachel Stein, Mary Jane Corliss and Helga Günter. The First two deaths were at dawn and the second two about sunset. Margo Jordan and Jim Otto died in locked rooms in the middle of the night. Their deaths might not help to eliminate anyone, but the other four might reduce our possibilities. I’m especially interested in the men who live in the Colter House. We still may have dozens of suspects, but it might focus things a little for us. If you can get time card data for all six of these dates, I’ll send the information to my partner in Sedona. Chad Archer is a wiz with computers. He can quickly produce a list of anyone off work at all of these times.”
“I’ll have the data for you by tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
I had a second request. “Karl, I also want to know everyone who has a passkey to Jim Otto’s room and all the former residents who are still in the area. Have them check back for the past four years.”
Karl responded, “Will do. I’ll have that list by tomorrow too.”
I asked for another favor from Karl. I wanted him to join me this evening and talk to Peggy Marshall’s family. I understood that the son and daughter were here. At this point, there was no reason not to let the family return to New Jersey, however I wanted a chance to meet Peggy Marshall’s children before they left tomorrow. Karl agreed to set up a meeting at 6:00.
We talked for another fifteen minutes about the case. I explained that there was a good chance that Jim Otto was hiking up the Bright Angel Trail about the same time that Helga Günter died. I asked Karl to have someone check with the bus drivers who would have taken people from the area of the Colter House to the South Kaibab Trailhead between 11:00 and 1:00 on the day before Jim Otto was found dead. Karl left before my 4:30 appointment with the waiter who had served Peggy Marshall the night before her death. I was not optimistic about the case, but I did feel there was a little forward momentum.
CHAPTER 13
Oliver Cavanaugh was fifty-two years old. He was mostly bald and cut his sparse gray hair very short. He wore wire-rimmed glasses rather far down his prominent nose. He was dressed in El Tovar’s waiter’s uniform, but his shirt was more carefully pressed and his black bowtie was more precisely tied than the young waiters that I’d been interviewing. If he put on a dinner jacket, he would look like a seasoned diplomat preparing for a formal reception.
When he came in, I stood to shake hands and to introduce myself. I explained, “I’m Lieutenant Mike Damson of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. I’m investigating the death of Mrs. Peggy Marshall. I understand that you were her waiter at dinner the night before she died, this past Tuesday evening. I’m looking for anything that you might remember about that final meal.”
“Oh yes lieutenant, I saw her photo in the Arizona Daily Sun this morning and remembered serving her. It’s so sad for anyone to die in a terrible fall like that. Her poor family.”
I prompted, “Tell me about your contact with her.”
“She ordered the porterhouse but ate very little of it. She had the clam chowder first, and we serve big helpings. She was pleasant and seemed happy, but it was a busy night and I didn’t really chat with her. She ate all the vegetables and most of the potatoes, but she took three quarters of the steak with her when she left.”
“Was there any indication that Mrs. Marshall was upset, that she might take her own life?”
“No sir; she seemed unusually content, even happy. It was too dark to see the Canyon, but she seemed to enjoy the busy room. We don’t get many women dining alone at El Tovar. Men seem to be more comfortable with eating alone, but women often order room service,” he said. “Mrs. Marshall took some photos of the dining room to show her students. She said she was a teacher. I can’t imagine she killed herself, but there are accidents here every year. I’ve worked here fifteen years, and people fall to their deaths on a regular basis. It’s such a waste. Her students will never get those photos. Sad.”
My cell phone rang. The caller ID indicated that it was deputy Alan Markley. I thanked Oliver Cavanaugh and answered Alan as soon as the dapper waiter left the room.
Alan explained his call by saying, “I’m alone in the room right now, but I need to leave for work in a few minutes. I was assigned to the same room and even the same bed as Jim Otto. I’ve briefly met Will Blake this morning before he went to his lunch shift. I haven’t seen Billy Blackstone or Sam Gilbert yet. The Colter House has been almost empty this afternoon with everyone at work. An Australian named Jason who works a night shift at El Tovar showed me around. He introduced me to Will. Jason was a helpful fellow, but everyone else I’ve met has kidded me about sleeping in the deathbed. Some guys claim that the old building has a ghost who stalks the halls and murders people in their sleep. They think the odds are in favor of me being the next victim. I’m going to be in for a lot of kidding.”
I asked him to explain how he was given the key to his new room.
“I checked in with the Colter House supervisor. She would make a good prison guard. She seemed as hard as a granite boulder. The woman explained a long set of rules and made me repeat them one after another. She unlocked a key safe positioned behind her desk and took out my key. It was the only one on the hook by my room number. She made me sign for it and said there would be a ten dollar lost key charge if I didn’t turn it in when I left.”
“Alan, please describe the lock and how the door works.’
“This building seems like it’s a hundred years old, but each door has a fairly new Yale lock about a foot above the doorknob. The lock engages automatically when the door is shut. This door also has one of those pneumatic door closers, so I’ll need to be very careful not to lock myself out. I don’t relish asking that tough old supervisor for another key if I leave mine in the room.”
“Can you see any sign that the door was jimmied or forced in the recent past.”
There was a little pause as Alan inspected the lock. “No sign of forced entry. Do you think I have a murderer for a roommate?”
“Alan, I don’t know, but you should not do anything to attract attention. Listen carefully to everything that is discussed, but just act normal. You wont be a target unless the murderer sees you as a threat.”
Alan explained, “Before I called, I spent a few minutes looking around, checking in the closets and drawers. I didn’t find anything that would pinpoint our murderer.’
“Alan,” I directed, “do not investigate any private places in the room, places like the other fellows’ chest of drawers. If you found the murder weapon inside a drawer, it could never be used as evidence. You can be in the room as an undercover officer, but you may not search the other guys’ personal things without a warrant. But Alan, did you learn about your new roommates in you
r search?”
Alan replied a little sheepishly, “I learned just a little. Will Blake has a striking photograph on his chest of drawers. He’s at the wheel of a large sailing yacht sitting next to a gorgeous woman. Blake has a lot of hiking clothing and three pairs of expensive hiking boots. Jason told me he was rich and drove a new BMW Z3 roadster that his dad gave him for graduation from some fancy eastern college. Will is very easy going, and Jason said he even loaned the BMW to him a few times to drive to town.”
Alan continued, “I also found out that Billy Blackstone is a slob. Everything is just stuffed into his drawers without folding or anything. He had several pairs of mountain biking shorts. I think he likes to consider himself into extreme sports from all the t-shirts he’s collected, everything from bungee jumping to white water rafting. Billy has hidden cigarette papers and a small bag of Mary Jane under his t-shirts. I think his employer would not be happy to learn that. Maybe that can be leverage with him if we need it sometime.”
Alan concluded, “Sam Gilbert is the opposite of Billy. He’s a neatness freak. He’s probably a Temple Mormon. I found the silly white underwear they use, the kind with the symbolic buttonholes for the compass and the square. He doesn’t seem too serious about it since his underwear drawer was full of carefully folded silk and cotton boxer shorts in bizarre pattens and wild colors. Serious Temple Mormons wouldn’t be caught dead in that kind of secular underwear. I haven’t met him yet, but I’ll bet he’s a weight lifter. He wears extra-extra large t-shirts, but pants with a thirty-one inch waist and short baggy legs. What I found indicates that Will is a rich kid trying to find himself, Billy is an extreme sports pot-head, and Sam is a jack-Mormon weight lifter.”
Alan’s account confirmed my own impression of the roommates. I had assumed that Will was from a well-to-do Boston family. I had noticed a garish tattoo of a mountain biker falling off a cliff on Billy’s back and the signs of a mouth piercing, now removed to meet El Tovar’s dress codes. However, I was surprised that someone as young as Sam Gilbert might be a Temple Mormon. To be admitted to the Temple, a Bishop would have questioned Sam about the strength of his faith. It was not easy to be accepted to the Temple, especially for someone only twenty years old. The garment was a symbolic protection and carried a great deal of importance to serious Mormons, and a Temple Mormon normally would never wear any other type of undergarment. I was certain that Sam hadn’t had the garment on when I saw him this afternoon. I thought the garments might not be his.
“I don’t want to be late on my first day at work. I’ll call you tomorrow when I can find a quiet place,” Allen said.
It was 5:00 already, probably too late to call the medical examiner in Flagstaff. I needed to talk with her about each death on my list. I’d contact her first thing in the morning, perhaps drive down to see her in person.
I called Amy Ziegler at her work phone. I was pleased that she was still there. I started by thanking her for bringing the book about the deaths in the Grand Canyon. I’d read it this evening. I then asked, “Can you help me with a situation that might lower the risk to my undercover agent? You and the superintendent are the only people in the Grand Canyon Village that know Alan Markley is a deputy sheriff.”
“Of course, I’ll do anything I can to help your undercover agent. What can I do?” she asked.
“I have no way of knowing how many copies exist of the key to the room where Jim Otto was murdered. It’s possible that the murderer has one and used it to get in. I’d like to get that lock changed ASAP. There should only be five keys, four for the tenants and the fifth kept under lock and key by the Colter House management.”
“I know Hazel Harkins who manages the facility very well,” she said. “I’ll get the lock changed this evening. I can hand deliver the keys to the tenants and insist that they make no additional copies without the approval of Miss Harkins. It will be changed before the guys go to bed tonight. I promise.”
I thanked Amy and headed back to my room at the Bright Angel Lodge to call Margaret and see how her day at the bank had gone. I was a little lonely as I walked through the crowd along the rim. Two condors were putting on a show, soaring among the rock ledges a hundred feet below. I watched the huge birds for ten minutes until they flew out of sight. Margaret was anxious to see the newly released condors. Maybe they’d be back on Saturday when we hiked down to Plateau Point.
CHAPTER 14
I called Margaret on my cell phone. She could tell I was calling from our caller ID system. She answered, “I sure miss you sweetie.”
“I miss you too Margaret. How are things going in Sedona?”
She pretended to carry on small talk, but I knew she was anxious to hear the latest on the case. “Things were slow at the bank today, but I received a nice bonus for referring Mrs. Ferguson to the trust department. It will be my treat at El Tovar for dinner. I’ll be there by 7:30 tomorrow night, unless you’ve already solved these cases and will be headed home.”
I smiled. Margaret has more confidence in my prowess than I do. If these were crimes committed by a serial killer, it might take a lot of resources and a very long time to apprehend him. Mrs. Marshall had died Wednesday at dawn; it was now Thursday at sunset. I replied, “I’m sure I’ll still be working on the case when you arrive. This will be a difficult one. We have a room reserved at El Tovar. I’ll wait for you in front on the verandah. I don’t want you wandering around alone up here until things are cleared up.”
“That’s great sweetheart. Now tell me about your case. I’ve been thinking of that poor schoolteacher and her terrible fall.”
We had kept our marriage strong by sharing. Margaret is extremely intelligent and understands people much better than I. It was a partnership that had helped solve cases for my whole career.
“This has been a frustrating case. I don’t know if we’re up against a serial killer of middle-aged women, or a single murder of a well-liked young waiter plus four accidental deaths from falls and one death from unexplained natural causes.”
“Mike, you always say that you don’t believe in coincidences. There’ve been too many similar deaths from the Rim Trail this year. You said that the photos of the women even looked similar.”
Margaret was correct about my reluctance to accept that there was no pattern. My instincts told me that a single person murdered Helga Günter and Jim Otto. Helga Günter was traveling alone on vacation from Germany. As far as the investigator could determine she knew no one in Arizona. Her death appeared to be random with no normal motive. If her death actually was a murder, it was easy to draw a connection to the three Rim Trail fatal falls. Four, physically similar, middle-aged women died while hiking alone at either sunrise or sunset.
Margo Jordan’s death didn’t fit the pattern. She didn’t die while hiking. She had been driving across the country to a new job in San Diego and stopped to see the Grand Canyon. She had planned to spend only one night here. She’d died in a locked room at the Maswik Lodge a few blocks from the Rim Trail. The medical examiner hadn’t found the cause of her death. I was including her death in my investigation because Margo Jordan resembled the other dead women and was traveling alone. However, she was the youngest of the group at 39. Maybe she wasn’t connected.
“I think at least four of the women were murdered, but I have no proof,” I said. “I’m following your suggestion to try and solve the Jim Otto case and see if it leads to the others.”
I described the location of Helga Günter’s body on the Bright Angel Trail. I explained my theory of a murderer hiding behind a rock outcropping and bringing the thirty-pound sandstone rock down on her head as she passed by in the twilight. Margaret thought I was on to something useful when she learned that Jim Otto had probably been hiking up that same trail about the time of Helga Günter’s death.
I described what I had learned of Jim Otto’s last day. When I mentioned the locked door, Margaret wanted to know all the details of my interviews with the roommates.
I explained wh
at I had learned from the interviews and from Alan’s unsanctioned search of their belongings. When I mentioned Sam Gilbert’s transfer down to Phantom Ranch at his father’s request, Margaret interrupted.
“Mike, does that seem odd? I would have thought he’d blame the transfer on his mother, not his father. Isn’t that what a mother would insist on. Is his mother living? I’ve read accounts of serial killers and they often had excessively strict, unaffectionate fathers and either absent or neurotic mothers. It’s easy to speculate that killing similar looking middle-aged women might have something to do with the killer’s relationship to his mother. Tell me more about Sam Gilbert.”
I mentioned the temple garment underwear that Alan had found that was not being used.
“Interesting,” she said. “Mormons have to be certified for the Temple each year. Maybe Sam did something to lose the right to wear it. Do you have his employment file with you?”
I wondered what she was after. Margaret is very quick. I answered that I had all the files in the room with me.
“How long ago did Sam graduate from high school?” she asked.
“Thirteen months.”
“Sam claims to have finished his mission to the Ukraine, but there hasn’t been enough time,” she said. “You should try and find out why it was shorter than the normal two years. He would have spent many years learning Ukrainian and church doctrine in preparation. Why did he come home early? Why is he going down to the heat and poor tips of Phantom Ranch instead of getting an apartment in Tusayan and keeping the well-paid El Tovar job? ”
When I mentioned that he had been a body builder, Margaret commented, “That is a rather isolated sport, thousands of hours of exercise and a huge amount of self-control at the dinner table. There’s no teamwork to support your efforts. I think it appeals to a loner who is very self involved but also very self disciplined. It would also make a rather small man able to easily overpower a mature woman.”
The Murders at El Tovar Page 7