I drove Margaret to the bank and waited until she was inside. Chad was at the office when I arrived. He was already aware of the trespasser at my house that morning.
“Jason’s a fool to come here when he could be anywhere in the country by now. We’ll get him today,” he said in a tone that indicated he really believed it.
The local deputies had driven through every motel parking lot in the area looking for the car Jason might have been using. Unfortunately, they had found fifty-seven cars that might fit the sketchy description that Graham had provided. None of them had been reported missing by their owners.
Chad and I called Dr. Sherman-Jones on the office speakerphone. I explained the details that I’d learned from Australia, and I described the trespasser at my house this morning. She listened without comment to everything Chad and I had to say until we were finished talking.
“Gentlemen, you’re not going to like my answer.”
I thought that I’d like any answer that could help us catch this killer. The profiler continued, “Serial killers have a strong tendency to spin completely out of control. The frequency of murders may increases and the past pattern of killings may break down. Jason (or Rocky) is collapsing into the total breakdown of his already tenuously integrated personality. No matter what the root cause of his distorted pathological personality, Jason was able to function quite well in normal society at the Grand Canyon. He had friends and a job. People liked him. Detective Damson, you destroyed that normalcy for him.”
“His going after me is his weakness. If he had just taken off for parts unknown, we might never have had as good a chance to stop him.”
She explained, “This disintegration of his pattern will make him much less predictable. If he tried to get to you once and failed, he might try something completely different or he might try to come after you again. I can’t guess his next move except that he’ll stay in your jurisdiction for his next crime.”
“We’ll have to find him before he kills someone in Sedona,” Chad said.
Dr. Sherman-Jones said, “Gentlemen, don’t assume that you know his next move. He’ll want it to be a surprise. He’ll also want to continue his pattern of making the deaths look like accidents. He may have been at your house, Detective Damson, to case it for a future accident. Whatever he does next, he’ll want it to hurt you personally. That doesn’t necessarily mean physically hurt you, emotional trauma might seem even better revenge to him. He’ll want to make you fail at your job. Maybe if he feels he’s outsmarted you, he’ll move on to another resort area or to a big city and start over.”
After the call, Chad and I drove up to Flagstaff to brief the police and local deputies on the hunt for Jason McKinney, a.k.a. Rocky Burns. After the briefing, I updated the Sheriff on my early morning visitor. He said, “I’m putting Margaret under surveillance. Someone will be watching her starting this afternoon, and your house will be watched at night.”
“She doesn’t want our normal life interrupted,” I said.
He said, “Bull shit. Your guest room will be occupied until this scumbag is caught. You should have someone you trust with you. Chad, you’re on for tonight. I’ll have someone at the bank to watch Margaret during the day.”
We were driving back to Sedona when the cell phone rang. An early morning hiker had fallen off a steep ledge at Cathedral Rock, one of the most dramatic and best-known rock formations in Sedona. The thousand foot high broken butte resembles a giant gothic church, and it’s reported to be the location of an important vortex of power with a connection to another dimension or some such thing. New Agers hike up to the vortex location to watch the sunrise and burn small bundles of sage, or they chant and pray to channel the forces of the other dimension. It’s a difficult hike. An accident was certainly possible on the slick sandstone rock of the steep trail. The message said the woman was confirmed dead. The Sedona Fire and Rescue Unit was recovering the body and putting out a small brush fire near the area where she fell.
We drove south on highway 179 to Back o’ Beyond Road. The trailhead is in an exclusive neighborhood of million dollar plus homes. It’s about a ten-minute drive from my house. The homes in Back o’ Beyond are on large two to five acre lots. Most are southwestern style, but all of them have a lot of glass and spacious decks to enjoy the spectacular views. Since many of the houses were focused on the view of Cathedral Rock, there was a chance that someone saw the woman fall. The responding sheriff’s deputies had blocked the road to the trailhead. About a dozen people from the neighborhood had gathered to watch the recovery. When we reached the parking lot, the corpse was already in an ambulance. The parking lot was empty except for emergency response vehicles and a battered light blue ten-year-old Honda.
Deputy Brett Hall was the first law enforcement officer on the scene. He’d taken the cell phone call from a mountain biker who noticed the body on a shelf above the circumference trail. Brett approached and said, “The victim is in the wagon already. It’s a young woman, maybe twenty-five, five feet six inches, and light brown hair. We found no identification with her, but the car insurance form and registration indicate that the vehicle belongs to Muhammad al-Quatan of Dallas. We’re running a trace on her car’s Texas plates and attempting to contact the owner.” He pointed to the Honda. I doubted that he would find the owner alive.
We walked over to the faded Honda. I could see a blonde wig and a discarded frilly white blouse on the backseat. A bra stuffed with newspaper was on the floor of the backseat.
The Sheriff’s helicopter was approaching as Chad and I instructed everyone to keep away from the Honda. I wondered if the evidence had been contaminated. I could smell ammonia through the open window. Jason had probably been careful to clean it like he did the Jeep Liberty and the Chrysler 300 rental car. Neither had provided any evidence of his presence. Maybe the wig or clothing would help tie him to the crime scene.
Chad and I checked the dead woman. She didn’t resemble the victims at the Grand Canyon. The unfortunate hiker was the victim of a crime of opportunity. Chad took digital photos of her young face to use in our search for her identity. Jason had repeated the pattern of changing cars at a trailhead. This time he’d killed to get a car, probably trailing his victim until he could kill her unobserved from the trailhead or the main trail. Jason had probably taken her car keys to get her vehicle and also taken her wallet to slow our identification. Until we identified her, we had no idea about what sort of vehicle Jason had stolen.
Sheriff Taylor and the medical examiner, Doctor Kay Sumter, walked up to the ambulance. Dr. Sumter began to examine the body while I updated the Sheriff on the crime scene. Deputy Hall had three witnesses waiting to talk with us. First he brought a woman from the neighborhood over to speak with us.
Christie Lowell lived about a quarter mile from the trailhead and had walked over from her house. She hiked the trail almost every day, and she’d recognized the dead woman as someone who was on the Cathedral Rock Trail several times a week. Mrs. Lowell said that the young woman hiked up to the vortex area and meditated. The victim always said hello, but Mrs. Lowell had never learned her name. The information indicated that she was local which would make the search for her identity much easier. We were probably looking for an automobile registered locally too.
Kay Sumter approached and said, “This is definitely not official until I do a lot more work, but it’s murder. You should be looking for a large chunk of red sandstone with blood and brain fluid on it. It will have one sharp end. My guess is that she was hit from behind very hard several times before her body was pushed off the ridge. The victim was probably seated when she was hit from behind. She was already dead when she was pushed off the ridge. This was not an accidental fall.”
The sheriff sent a group of deputies to look for the rock, and Brett brought another person over to be interviewed. He was a mountain biker who lived in the Chapel area of Sedona across Highway 179 from the trail. He was making the loop trail around the base of the formation when he
spotted the body on a ledge above the trail. The young man did not see anyone else that morning in that part of the trail, but there were two cars in the trailhead lot when he started his ride. One was the Honda that was still there and the other was a small green SUV. The Sheriff sent the young man with a deputy to the Sedona Substation to see if he could pick out the type of SUV from a book of color auto photos that we keep in each office.
After several hours looking for the right red rock among the thousands that covered the area, a deputy finally found one that fit the medical examiner’s description and tested positive for blood. After five hours of searching the rough terrain by half of the law enforcement officers in the area, we’d found nothing else useful. It was possible that the rock would have Jason’s DNA signature with that of our victim. If that were the case, we’d have him for murder one.
It was about three in the afternoon when we gave up the search. When Chad and I got into the car, I realized that I’d promised Margaret that I’d pick her up for lunch. She had no car at work, and hadn’t taken her lunch.
I called to apologize for missing our lunch date. I updated her on the victim at Cathedral Rock. She suggested, “That’s OK. I assumed you were too busy. I had Katie pick up a sandwich for me when she went to lunch. You owe me a special dinner to make up for it.”
She often has good suggestions about my cases. She commented, “If Jason has the victim’s purse, he’d be able to get in her house. That might be a good place for him to hide during the day and to change disguises in preparation for whatever is next. If you bring her photo by the bank and also to the other bank branches in town, someone might recognize her. You might also try the grocery stores. Once she’s identified, we’ll know her address.”
I had a hunch that Chad had been correct when he said this morning that we’d have him before the day was out. It was a mistake for him to come to Sedona. I had failed to stop another death. I would not fail again.
CHAPTER 39
Chad and I began the search for the identity of the victim at Cathedral Rock by taking the young lady’s post mortem facial photo to the local bank branches. The reaction varied, but no one at Bank of America, National Bank of Arizona, Chase, Wells Fargo or the other banks recognized the unfortunate young woman. Finally, at the small Coconino Credit Union branch, a teller thought the woman had a checking account with them, but she seldom came into the branch. Like a lot of customers, she probably used an ATM for most transactions. The teller could not recall the woman’s name, but she was certain that she was a local resident.
Next, we checked at the IGA in the Village of Oak Creek and at the Safeway and the Bashas’ in Sedona without any success. Sedona is a small town. It should not have been difficult to find the young woman’s identity. Everyone had to buy groceries.
It was when we checked in the Whole Foods Store that we finally found someone who pointed us in the correct direction. A clerk at the deli counter said that the young woman came in at least twice a week. The murdered woman had been a vegetarian and only bought organic items where no animals had been harmed in their production. I learned that she used the name New Moon and worked at the Enchanted Crystal and Sacred Bee Gift Shop in Uptown, Sedona. I should have realized that a New Age adherent, who hiked up to a difficult vortex several times a week to burn a small bundle of sage, would shop at Whole Foods or Natural Grocers. Because she had time to hike on weekday mornings, I might also have guessed that she didn’t start work until 10:00 when some of the small gift shops opened.
The owner of the Enchanted Crystal gave us the victim’s real name and local address. She was Tami Sue Harris, and she lived in a small apartment complex a block from the Uptown shops. She was nineteen and had moved to Sedona from Borger, Texas about six months before her death. The storeowner confirmed that New Moon was a committed vegetarian and very ecology minded. The murdered woman followed the doctrine of living by leaving the smallest possible footprint.
The victim had lived in an inexpensive apartment near the Chamber of Commerce Building. We found her small green Suzuki SUV parked on the narrow street across from the tan 1960’s style apartment complex. There was a chance Jason was in the apartment. I asked the Sedona Police to take charge of entry and surround the area to prevent a possible escape. The Sheriff’s Department has an excellent relationship with the very competent Sedona Police Department, and joint actions were common. The Cathedral Rock area is not in the city limits, so this was a county murder case, but the apartment was clearly their jurisdiction. Since Jason might be using a disguise, the police planned to detain everyone suspicious and hold him or her for me to identify.
I was right behind the heavily armed police unit as we broke down the steel door of the second floor apartment. No one was in the apartment, and at first glance nothing was suspicious. The small refrigerator held very little, and the food in the kitchen was mostly whole grain cereals, soy products, and dried beans. Most of the victim’s belongings seemed to have been purchased at thrift stores or garage sales. She was not committed to conspicuous consumption. I noticed several things that seemed out of character for the New Age ecology-minded Ms. Harris. The dishwasher had been run with only one plate, a coffee cup, a small bowl, a single jelly glass tumbler, and one place setting of flatware. The washing machine contained three still-damp towels. The apartment bathroom smelled of ammonia.
I cleared everyone out to preserve the apartment for the crime scene technicians. My guess was that Jason had showered and eaten in the apartment before he changed his disguise and moved on. The towels were used to dry himself and wipe down anything he touched. By washing the dishes and towels he’d probably destroyed the evidence that he’d been here, but it’s easy to underestimate what modern DNA analysis can do. Even a few hairs left in the bathtub drain could prove he’d been here.
The Sedona police began a systematic search of the Uptown area. Just a few blocks from the busy strip of tourist oriented shops and motels along Highway 89A is the original small town of Sedona. It has quiet winding streets that travel up the steep red rock hills to provide the houses with the best possible views. Uptown has a mix of old and new homes in a variety of styles and prices, but it is a real neighborhood in the way many of the newer areas of town are not. People speak to their neighbors as they walk their dogs or walk to the nearby hiking trails. The wilderness boundary begins just beyond the homes, and trails lead from the Jordan Park trailhead to the backcountry north and east of town. It is the kind of small town neighborhood where people know their neighbors and might notice someone suspicious.
Unfortunately, Jason had proven very skillful at avoiding suspicion. The charming young man with good manners and an Australian accent had fooled a lot of people at the Grand Canyon, including me. Uptown was also a place where a charming young man might con his way into a house. We knew that he’d purchased several uniform-style coveralls at the Wal-Mart in Flagstaff.
It was now nearly eight hours since Ms. Tami Sue “New Moon” Harris was killed. The victim’s apartment was only one block from the busiest tourist area in Sedona. Jason might have charmed himself into a ride from one of the hundreds of tourists wandering the Uptown shops. The fact that his photo was in almost every window would not help if his disguise were good enough. If Jason had gotten a ride, he could be anywhere by now. He had already killed at least two people in two days to steal their car. He was totally out of control, and he was still one step ahead of us.
Chad and I spent the rest of the afternoon searching for Jason in the Uptown area on foot and in Chad’s personal car. At 5:00, I had Chad drop me off at the Sheriff’s Substation to pick up my Sheriff’s Department Ford Explorer.
Chad would be spending the night at my house at the Sheriff’s insistence, and he needed to go by his condo and pick up some clothing for tomorrow. It was time for me to pick up Margaret at the bank. I didn’t want to stand her up like I had at lunchtime. I also didn’t want her alone. I had the uncomfortable feeling that Jason was somewhere
nearby watching me. If Jason wanted to truly wound me, Margaret was his likely target.
When Margaret got in the car she kissed me and said, “It’s my special treat for dinner. I’m sure you’re famished after missing your lunch.”
Until she mentioned it I had been too busy to think of food. Now I was hungry. I said, “That’s great sweetie. I’m sorry for standing you up at lunch.”
“I know how important your job is, but I want to take your mind off the case for at least an hour. I was able to reserve a creek side table at L’Auberge de Sedona for 5:30.”
It was the most expensive place in town, but the food was outstanding and the service exceptional. However, the real treat for me was not the food but the setting. The L’Auberge was a collection of elegantly finished cabins and a small lodge on the banks of Oak Creek directly below the ridge on which Uptown Sedona is located. The lush resort landscaping, the giant sycamores, and other mature trees along the creek provide a quiet and shady oasis from the tourist hustle of the business district a hundred feet above the resort. A landscaped walkway and a small tram connect the resort to the Uptown businesses.
Margaret had secured an outside table on the wooden deck directly next to the bubbling clear creek. The creek side table would be less formal than the country-French style dining room, and it is the most relaxing dining location in Sedona. We only ate dinner at L’Auberge on special occasions, usually with out-of-town company.
Margaret explained, “I know how much you’ve been shaken by a death right here in Sedona. But remember, you figured out that the women at the Grand Canyon were being murdered. They had all been treated as accidents. You found out who killed them. It was your investigation that solved the case. It’s just a matter of time until Jason is caught and punished. You’ve done your job. You can’t expect to find him yourself with hundreds of people looking.”
The Murders at El Tovar Page 23