When I described Will Blake, Margaret commented about his father being unhappy that he didn’t get into law school. Margaret thought their relationship sounded strained. She said, “His father is pissed because his son can’t join the family law firm, but he gives him a BMW sports car for graduation. I guess I don’t understand the rich. Why would Will Blake move all the way to Arizona and take a kitchen helper job? Was he running away from something in Boston? Is there a more serious problem in Boston than not getting in law school? Did Will know Jim Otto’s girlfriend Liz? They would be about the same age and they’re both from Boston.”
Margaret had even more questions; I had no answers for them yet. I explained Billy Blake’s fondness for extreme sports and marijuana. Margaret commented, “He sounds like a normal rebellious youth. However, marijuana is considered a gateway drug. I wonder if Billy has experimented with speed or other more addictive drugs. Maybe his adrenaline highs from rafting and skydiving weren’t enough. Maybe he needs an even more dangerous game to keep the adrenaline flowing, for example murder.”
My head was dizzy from all the questions, but I was out of time. I said, “Sweetheart, thanks for your comments. I have a 6:00 meeting with Peggy Marshall’s family. I have to run. I’ll see you tomorrow evening at El Tovar’s verandah.”
I hurried back to the stately old hotel for the type of meeting that I hated the most. I would have no answers for the grieving family, but it was my obligation to tell them that I was confident that Peggy Marshall hadn’t taken her own life. Tomorrow morning, I would notify the medical examiner to release the body of Peggy Marshall so that the family could make the arrangements for her transport back to New Jersey.
Superintendent Harmon was relaxing in a cane rocking chair when I walked up the steps to El Tovar’s verandah. He had a serious expression as he waited. This meeting with Peggy Marshall’s next of kin would be difficult for Karl as well.
I greeted him saying, “I’ve found nothing to connect Mr. Marshall to his wife’s death, and the case shows no indication of a possible suicide. Tomorrow morning, I plan to ask the medical examiner to release her body for shipment back to New Jersey. This will be my last face-to-face meeting with the family unless my investigation takes me back in the direction of Mr. Marshall. I want a chance to meet the son and daughter and update Mr. Marshall on my investigation. Karl, I don’t plan to mention the other deaths at this time.”
Karl nodded and said, “Mike, I’ll let you take the lead on how much to say. I’m here for support and to express the condolences of the National Park Service. I have a private room arranged for the meeting. They should be waiting for us by now.”
Karl led me into the north wing of the first floor, and we entered a small room set up like a normal living room. Three people were waiting. Paul Marshal and his daughter Jennie were seated on a sofa with their backs to a window that looked out to the passing crowds along the rim. When we entered, a young man in his twenties was pacing, impatient to get the meeting started.
He turned as we entered and introduced himself announcing, “Hi, I’m Kyle Marshall, Peggy Marshall’s son. I’m here to look after things.”
He seemed to have taken charge after the emotional collapse of his father. I shook hands and introduced Karl and myself. Kyle seemed pleased that the park superintendent had come in person. We met Peggy Marshall’s daughter Jennie. She didn’t say anything during our twenty-minute meeting. She sat next to her father and comforted him. Paul Marshall had a disoriented passive look. He continued to lack any animation, and his eyes were vacant. He let his son do the talking.
I began by explaining, “We haven’t closed the case file on Mrs. Marshall’s death yet, but I can tell you what we’ve learned so far. Mrs. Marshall was killed instantly when her head struck an outcropping of rock as she fell from the Rim Trail less than half a mile from the hotel. She didn’t suffer a lingering death. Her body will be very badly damaged, but most of that damage happened after she died. Her body tumbled down much farther into the Canyon after she was killed by striking the first ledge.”
Kyle and Jennie gasped in understanding, but at least their mother hadn’t suffered long. I hoped to offer some other reassurance in a tactful way. I said, “I spoke with a young man who talked with Mrs. Marshall as she was leaving the hotel that morning. She went out to photograph the dawn so that she could show the photo to her students. The young man who saw her said she was pleasant, clearly happy to be on vacation, and anxious to get her first sight of the Canyon.”
Kyle was following what I said closely. I was glad he was here since I wasn’t certain that Mr. Marshall would even remember what I reported. He had shown no sign that he recognized me from our meeting the previous day.
I continued, “We have no indication that your mother took her own life. If there are any insurance questions regarding that, please give your agent my name and cell phone number. You mother’s body will be released by the Coconino County Medical Examiner tomorrow.”
I handed Kyle a list of the Flagstaff funeral homes, “You can call any of these numbers to arrange for you mother’s body to be shipped home. There is air service from Flagstaff to Phoenix, and from there back home to Trenton.”
“You think she just stumbled and fell?” Kyle asked.
“We have no witnesses to your mother’s fall. No one saw her fall or heard her scream. Unfortunately, perfectly normal people occasionally have terrible accidents here at the Grand Canyon. It’s not a forgiving place. Since the area was designated a national park, there’ve been more than fifty fatal falls. If there are no witnesses, we sometimes never know exactly how it happened.” I felt a twinge of guilt for not being ready to confide in the family about the other recent deaths. The last thing we needed was for word of our concern to reach the press, but I would need to tell the family the full story at a later date.
“If all these people are falling, why doesn’t the Park do something, put up walls or something?” Kyle asked.
“We do have walls in the area near the hotels, but we’ve had accidents even here in front of El Tovar,” Karl said. “Your mother walked along the Rim Trail about half a mile to an area where there are no walls or fences separating the tourists from the Canyon. Kyle, we’ll have almost five million visitors a year. The fifty deaths that Lieutenant Damson mentioned occurred over many decades. It’s like auto accidents, engineers try to design roads to reduce the risks, but they still happen. I’m very sorry about your mother, and I’d welcome any suggestions.”
“I’d like to see the spot where she fell. Maybe I’ll take some flowers and drop them off,” Kyle said. His voice was matter of fact, but his eyes were red. He was holding back tears.
“I’ll be happy to show you the spot after I’ve answered any other questions the family has,” I said, but no one else had any questions now. It was too soon and too shocking.
I walked with the family back to their second floor hotel room. Kyle retrieved a colorful bouquet of cut flowers from the room. I could see several other flower arrangements in the small room. Kyle wrapped the dripping cut stems in his handkerchief, and we left the hotel. Jennie said she’d stay with her dad. This was Kyle’s ceremonial for dealing with his mother’s horrible fall.
We left the hotel through the cluster of tourists that had just left a tour bus. I wonder what they made of two men with somber expressions and a bouquet of cut flowers passing by. We walked quickly east along the Rim Trail with Kyle saying nothing, just looking into the vastness of the Grand Canyon.
After a few minutes, Kyle commented, “Mom was the best teacher in school. She always had more parents trying to get their kids in her class than she had room. They often put student teachers in with her to learn from the best. She was teacher of the year three times.”
“She’ll be a loss to your community.” I knew a great teacher was a wonderful asset to a community.
“I’m so worried about dad. They were the closest couple of anyone I know. He’s devastated. I don’t
think dad has ever lived alone. What will it be like for him at home with memories of mother in every room and every object?”
“Someone should stay with him for awhile,” I said. “When my mother died, dad moved in with my wife and me for two months before he was ready to face living in his house alone.”
Kyle nodded. “He’d be welcome with either Jennie or me.”
We came to the bench. “The rangers found your mother’s purse on this bench. It appears that she sat here waiting for dawn and then walked closer to take a photo.”
Kyle walked directly up to the edge. I said, “Step back a little Kyle. That’s too close.”
He was looking straight down into the depths. Tracing his mother’s final seconds in his head. He tossed the flowers off the rim watching them fall and counting the seconds out loud: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three. He stepped back from the abyss saying, “I could see the ledge. The flowers hit it, their petals scattering and drifting down out of sight. Her fall would have been very quick.”
We sat on the same bench as his mother had and looked into the Grand Canyon. He started to cry, and I tried to comfort him as best I could. Margaret is much better at that sort of thing than I am.
After a few minutes Kyle said, “Mother would have been mad that people carved their initials in this bench.”
He paused a minute and then said simply, “God, this is a beautiful place, but I’m glad dad didn’t come with us. I should get back and make the arrangements for tomorrow.”
I walked with Kyle Marshall along the route of his mother’s final hike. We parted at the hotel, and I headed to the Bright Angel Lodge Dining Room before going to my room to read about the many deaths at the Grand Canyon. I was glad Margaret would be here tomorrow.
CHAPTER 15
I woke up sore and cranky. I was sore from the uncomfortable bed and cranky because of a restless night without Margaret. After getting some strong black coffee and a good blueberry pancake breakfast, I called Kay Sumter, the Coconino County Medical Examiner. I described the cases that I was investigating. I asked if she had time to discuss them this morning. We agreed to meet in her office at 9:30. She had only one hour free this morning; otherwise I would need to wait until Monday. Dr. Sumter and her husband were going to Las Vegas for the weekend and wanted to leave by noon.
I tossed my dirty clothes in my suitcase and quickly checked out of the Bright Angel Lodge. I’d be moving to the more comfortable El Tovar tonight where Margaret would join me for the weekend. It was after 8:00 when I left the lodge. I used the lights on my Sheriff’s Department Explorer to make better time on the drive down to Flagstaff. Dr. Sumter was very competent, especially considering the low pay that Coconino County could afford. I had worked for thirty years on the Los Angeles Police Department. Dr. Sumter has as much talent as her big city peers, even though there are only about a hundred and fifty thousand residents in our county and homicides are infrequent. Unfortunately, she’d also earned quick fame in Coconino County for her temper and sharp tongue. So far, Dr. Sumter had never had an occasion to tongue lash me. I didn’t want to arrive late to our meeting and give her a reason.
I slid into a parking place and jogged to her office, arriving at exactly 9:30. Kay Sumter is about thirty-five with very short brown hair, a good figure, and brown intelligent eyes. She is married to a local fire fighter who’s ten years younger. The rumor around the Sheriff’s Department was that they had met on the Internet. Their marriage had brought her from St. Louis to Flagstaff just as our previous ME had accepted a position in Tucson.
Dr. Sumter’s door was open, and she stood up to greet me. “Lieutenant Damson, you have quite a case going.” She pointed to the files I had requested and smiled. I’m certain that she likes to unravel mysteries, and she’d guessed that this collection of files might point to an interesting one. She continued, “You do seem to catch some fascinating cases, but can you really tie these deaths together?”
“Not yet, but maybe with your help we can discover if there’re connections.”
She moved to a small conference table placing each file on it as she said, “Number one, Margo Jordan died four months ago, cause unknown. Number two, Mary Jane Corliss died three months ago, multiple traumas, died from a fall from a great height. Number three, Rachel Stein died two months ago, multiple traumas, died from a fall from a great height. Number four, Helga Günter died two weeks ago, blunt force trauma to the cranium from a chunk of sandstone. Number five, Jim Otto died within eight hours of Helga Günter, blunt force trauma to the cranium, probably from a carpenter’s hammer. Number six, Peggy Marshall died on Wednesday, multiple traumas, died from a fall from a great height.”
We sat down on the same side of the conference table with the files lined up in chronological order in front of us. Dr. Sumter said, “Mike, if you were any other detective in Coconino County, I’d think you were wasting my time, but I’ll admit your request to review these six files has me intrigued.”
That was the first time Dr. Sumter had ever used my Christian name. She was interested in helping. I asked her to show me the autopsy facial photographs of each woman. She sorted through each file and put the best facial photograph on the top of the deceased’s file folder. We looked at them together. After a twenty-second pause, Dr. Sumter said, “Damn.”
The color photos clearly showed five women who could be sisters. They had the same general facial shape and brown hair of about the same length. Although their eyes were closed in the photos, I knew from our files that they were all blue. I had seen snapshots of each woman in the Sheriff’s Department files. However, those photos were taken of the victims in situ with a variety of clarity and with inconsistent distances from each face. The autopsy photos were taken in a consistent manner, with consistent lighting, and from the same camera position. The similarities were much clearer.
After a short pause contemplating the photos, Dr. Sumter asked in a voice that betrayed her excitement, “Is there a serial killer at the Grand Canyon?”
She was a very smart woman. I said, “I hope to figure that out quickly. Notice that frequency of deaths has increased from monthly to every two weeks.”
“Mike, I have no way to determine if someone fell or was pushed from the rim of the Grand Canyon. The three women who were victims of the falls had contortions and traumas all over their bodies. However, there was nothing to indicate defensive wounds. I’ll do whatever it takes to help with this case, but the bodies of Mary Jane Corliss and Rachel Stein are gone. Even if we exhumed them, I don’t know what I could find to establish that they were murders. I still have the body of Peggy Marshall. I’ve just completed a very through examination, and I can’t determine that she was murdered.”
“I understand the problem Dr. Sumter. You have my OK to release Mrs. Marshall’s body to her family if you’re finished with her. I’ve been concentrating my investigation on Helga Günter and Jim Otto. We know that Jim Otto was murdered. I think he was a witness, even if he didn’t realize it, to an ambush that killed Mrs. Günter. Obviously, Mrs. Günter resembles the other women. I haven’t found a connection to Margo Jordan, but her death is still not explained, but she looks a lot like the other women.”
Dr. Sumter paused to think for a few seconds and said, “Maybe I can do something else. The Helga Günter and Margo Jordan cases have both bothered me. It seems so implausible that Mrs. Günter could have been hit in that exact spot on the back of her skull with the sharpest part of that thirty pound rock. Her body is gone; shipped back to Germany. Your office should still have the sandstone rock. I suggest that you send it to the State Crime Lab in Phoenix. Maybe they can find prints or DNA that don’t belong to the victim. I have samples left from Mrs. Jordan. Her case was a real puzzle.”
“Tell me more about Margo Jordan. There was not much useful information in her file.”
Dr. Sumter opened the autopsy file and glanced through its contents refreshing her memory. She explained, “Mike, I had no indicati
on from the investigating officer, Deputy Callison, that the death was suspicious. Margo Jordan didn’t check out at the time expected, and the cleaning staff investigated her room. Maintenance had to enter by cutting the night chain on her door. She had died during her one-night stay at the Maswik Lodge. Mrs. Jordan’s body showed no signs of trauma, and the death appeared to be from natural causes. Her body was brought here, and I did an autopsy the day following her death.”
“But you didn’t identify a cause?”
Dr. Sumter replied, “It was a real puzzle. Sometimes we never figure things out, but that’s usually on elderly people who have multiple pathologies. We sometime can’t tell which problem actually killed them. Mrs. Jordan was only thirty-nine. She had no sign of degenerative diseases like heart problems or diabetes. In fact, if she hadn’t been dead, I would say she was in excellent shape.”
“Did you test for poisons?” I asked.
Dr. Sumter frowned, “Only very basic tests. Most ingested poisons would have left signs I could detect. Certainly, there are more tests I could have done if there had been any indication that this was a homicide. Since I found no other poison indicators in the stomach tissue or blood, there is a chance that some sort of nerve poison was used. There are poisons that paralyze the autonomic nervous system. They just stop the heart and lungs without leaving many clues. It could not have been most common poisons. I’d have found some trace of those.”
I wondered if this was getting too far fetched to connect to the other deaths. Some sort of nerve toxin was much subtler than hitting a sleeping guy with a hammer. I said, “That possibility seems too complicated to fit within the pattern of pushing someone off a cliff or hitting them with a stone or a hammer.”
“I can say for certain that Mrs. Jordan wasn’t hit with a hammer, smothered with a pillow, or strangled with an extension cord. If she was murdered, it was a very subtle method.”
The Murders at El Tovar Page 8