Earthcrack: A Lin Hanna Mystery (13 page)

“That is true,” Sarah nodded, “but it is
also true that the authorities do not always look for the whole story when a
native has died.
 
Sometimes they are
too quick to form an opinion, I’m afraid.
 
There are so many such deaths.
 
Too many, maybe they assume what the answers will be so they do not
always ask all the questions.”

Lin could only nod in agreement.
 
She was sorry to see this wise woman so
saddened.
 
She felt perhaps she had
said too much.
 
Changing the
subject, she brought the focus back to the upcoming celebration.
 
Soon Sarah was chatting happily about
the upcoming party.

“Come up to get me early that afternoon,”
she offered.
 
“Maybe I can help you
get ready.
 
I would like that.”

Promising that she, or someone, would
arrive early in the afternoon of the celebration, Lin thanked Sarah for the
refreshments and the good visit and said that she would come to visit again.

“I would like that.
 
This place can get lonesome sometimes,
with just me and these goats,” she laughed.

Soon Lin was winding her way down the
rough track toward the park road.
 
This visit had provided more information than she expected.
 
She was now more concerned than before
that the investigation had not gone far enough to determine the cause of death
for this young Hopi man.
 
She had
more questions than ever before.

I am not going to drop this, she
thought.
 
This man and his family
deserve more answers.
 
They deserve
more than to have everyone think he died as a drunk.
 
As she got on the park road and
approached the visitor center, Lin knew where she had to start to find her
answers.
 
She needed to see that
police report Deputy Taylor brought out to Danielle.
 
She was determined to find a way to read
it for herself.

The afternoon was pretty much
routine.
 
Visitors came and
went.
 
Lin did a couple of walks
around the ruin and stationed herself on the back walkway for an hour.
 
Here she could answer questions and talk
to visitors a bit about the very first ranger in the park.
 
The young man and his wife had actually
lived in a couple of rooms in the ruin that had been basically rebuilt for
their use.
 
That would have been
quite the adventure in those days when even a trip into Flagstaff would have
taken about half a day!

 
Although the young man was actually the ranger, his wife had done much
work also and later went on to become a park ranger in her own right—one
of the first women to do so.
 
She
had written letters about her Wupatki experience that were later put together
into a book by a graduate student studying the history of the park.
 
Lin had already noted that sales of this
book increased when she or one of the other staff members had been talking to
visitors about these experiences.
 
It was a very interesting story and made good reading.

Working outside on the ruin trail kept
Lin focused on the visitors and their experience but the death of Cullen
Honeyestewa remained just below the surface of her thinking.
 
She was still considering how she could
get more information; specifically, how could she get hold of the police report
to read for herself?
 
She knew that
the death had been ruled accidental and the case was considered closed by the
authorities; but she also expected that there was other information in the
report that had perhaps not been followed up on.
 
She wanted to know just what the
authorities had actually found and how they had decided on the accidental death
ruling.

Lin was still thinking about this as she
left the ruin to return to the visitor center shortly before closing time.
 
Toby was manning the desk this
afternoon.
 
Danielle was out of her
office having gone into Flagstaff for a meeting at headquarters.
 
Lin had hoped she would return
early.
 
She wanted to tell her what
Sarah Chee had said about reports someone was looking for pottery in the park
after hours.

Lin had just sat down at her desk in the
staff office when she heard the phone ring.
 
Toby was still at the desk ringing up
the last of the bookshop sales so Lin picked up the receiver.
 
It was Danielle.

“ Oh, it’s you, I was expecting Toby to
be on the desk,” Danielle was surprised at Lin’s greeting.

“He is, I just came in from the ruin, but
he has a line of last minute customers out there so I picked up,” Lin
responded.

“That’s fine.
 
I just need one of you to do something
for me before you leave for the day.
 
I realized I was not going to be back before closing and I have another
meeting tomorrow morning and need to get some information together tonight.
 
If you could get some papers from my
office and leave them inside the back screen door at my house it would save me
having to go over tonight and get them.”

“Sure, I’ll take care of it,” Lin
replied, “just let me get something to write with so I can make a list of what
you need but first I need to tell you something.”
 
Lin briefly told Danielle about Sarah’s
nephew reporting someone talking about looking for pottery in the park after
hours.
 
Danielle was concerned but
without more help was not sure what could be done about it at this point.
 

“Maybe later, when we have the SCAs on
board, Toby and I could find more time to patrol,” she sighed, “but it is not
likely we can cover the area very well—we’ll have to see what we can do—but
not right now.”
 

Lin got some paper so she could make a
list of what Danielle wanted.

Danielle outlined for her the reports she
needed and told her where they would be located in her office.
 
Lin made a list and assured Danielle
that she would call her back if she couldn’t locate any of the information.

Toby had finished closing out the cash
register and was busy tidying things up. “Who called?” He asked, as Lin came
down the hallway.

“Danielle, she needs me to get some files
for her from her office and take them to her house.
 
She has another meeting tomorrow and
couldn’t get back before closing to get the material she needs.”

“ I see,” Toby responded, “she sure does
have a lot of meetings and paperwork.
 
Makes me wonder about how far I want to advance in my park service career
sometimes.
 
It seems the higher you
go, the less time you get to spend in the parks.”

“True,” Lin teased—“but first you
have to get permanent employment—then you can worry about advancement.”

“Alright—that’s true,” Toby was
grinning. “Actually, I saw a couple of permanent positions posted just today
that I think I might have a shot at.
 
I think employment may be picking up a bit.
 
I hope so anyway.”

“Positions here?” Lin questioned.

“One of them was at Walnut Canyon which
is, of course, under the same administration as here. The other was with the
forest service out in Washington state, somewhere on the coast.
 
I think I’d like that too.”

“Sounds good, well I hope you’re
successful,” Lin spoke sincerely.
 
Toby was a good employee with a lot of promise and he needed to find a
firm career path soon she knew.

“Well, everything is ready and locked up,”
Toby told her. “Just make sure you use the main door and see that it is firmly
closed when you leave.
 
Oh, and you’ll
need to set the alarm do you know the code?”

“Yes,” Lin responded, “Danielle made that
part of my training in case I had need to open or close.
 
I’ll take care of it.”

As Toby left to go home, Lin realized
that this was the first time she had actually been alone in the visitor
center.
 
Here she was with the
perfect opportunity to look for that police report regarding the remains
found.
 
She felt only a slight
twinge of guilt at this thought but, after all, she had permission to look for
files in the office and she would never have a better opportunity.

Entering Danielle’s office she closed the
door behind her—even though she was alone in the building.
 
Following the instructions she’d been
given, she located the reports Danielle needed pretty quickly in her
files.
 
She didn’t see the police
report as she did this.
 
After she
had collected Danielle’s material, she proceeded quickly to examine the other
drawers in the file cabinet.
 
It didn’t
take long to find a section labeled Law Enforcement in the third drawer down
and there it was, clearly labeled, the police report concerning Cullen
Honeyestewa.
 

Lin extracted the report from the
file.
 
It was only four pages long
but it was single-spaced and would take some time to read thoroughly.
 
She had an idea.
 
Every night she had been taking the file
of archeology articles back to her apartment.
 
She tried to read at night, as well as a
few moments during the day.
 
If
anyone was about (and she was pretty certain no one was) and observed her they wouldn’t
think it unusual that she had a file in her possession.
 
She quickly slipped the report out of
its file and crossed the hall to the copier.
 
In a few minutes she had her own copy of
this report and had returned the original to its proper place.
 
She slipped the copy in among the
articles she still had, picked up her file and Danielle’s reports, and quickly
left the center, first making sure she set the alarm and locked the door. Lin
looked at her watch and realized that she had only taken ten extra minutes to
do all this.
 
She still felt a bit
guilty, though.
 

She had the feeling of being watched. That’s
ridiculous, she thought.
 
I was
doing what I was asked to do, plus just a bit more.

Lin placed the papers Danielle wanted
behind her screen door at the rear of the house and hurried back to her own
place.
 
She had observed Toby
leaving in his car shortly after he left the center and the archeologist, who
was currently living in the other house, had not appeared for the past few days.
His car was not there.
 
Lin thought
he was probably in Flagstaff with his family at the moment.
 
Danielle, of course, had said she would
be later returning.
 
She might be
staying in Flagstaff for dinner with some of the other park employees.
 
It seemed a perfect time to read this
report without having anyone drop in on her.
 
In fact, she might even sit outside to
read.
 
That way she could be sure
she saw any cars as they drove into the area and would know when the others
were back for sure.

Lin went inside to change into more
comfortable clothes.
  
It was
still early for dinner but she did grab a can of soda from her refrigerator and
picked up a granola bar for a snack.
 
Soon she was settled into one of the yard chairs with her folder of
articles on the picnic table beside her.
 
Eagerly she pulled out the copy of the police report and began reading.

The more she read, the angrier she
became.
 
It seemed evident that the
authorities had made several assumptions from the start of the
investigation.
 
The entire report pointed
to irresponsible, possibly drunken, behavior on the part of the victim
himself.
 
The report noted the
absence of any physical evidence in the area around the victim but raised no
questions or concerns about that lack.

There was a profile of the victim.
 
Information had been gathered from his
family and from tribal clan representatives after he had been identified.
 
As Lin read this profile she could tell
that his family and his friends were surprised that he was alone in that area.
 
The tribal representatives acknowledged
that he did have the responsibility of collecting eagle feathers and eaglets
for ceremonies but his partner in this duty said that they did not collect in
the box canyon.
 
In fact, they
approached the area, which was nearby, by another route.
 
He had not revealed this location;
however, as it was a sacred, tribal secret.
 
Both the tribal representatives and the
family members had insisted that Cullen was not a drinker but the report had
glossed over that information, possibly considering it not reliable.

The most interesting part of the report
concerned the truck belonging to the victim.
 
Apparently it had been found abandoned
and reported by a ranch hand about two weeks after Cullen had disappeared last
year according to the family.
 
That
part of the ranch was not visited frequently and the truck had been parked
among some junipers and was fairly well hidden.
 
It appeared that the authorities had not
carefully examined the truck when it was found.
 
They had contacted the family who had
reported Cullen missing to tribal authorities.
 
The family had arranged to take
possession of the truck hoping that Cullen would turn up soon.
 
Lin sighed, that probably meant that any
clues to his disappearance that might have been in the truck were probably long
gone by now.

When she had finished reading the report,
Lin felt saddened that this man’s death had not called for a more detailed
investigation.
 
He and his family
deserved more than this she felt.
 
Instead of answering her questions this report raised more.

She was able to obtain the names and
address of Cullen’s family, however.
 
Apparently he was single and lived with his parents, his sister, and his
nephew in Moenkopi.
 

Lin went back into her apartment where
she wrote the names and address of the Honeyestewa family on a small card that
she placed in her wallet.
 
She then
removed the police report from the file of articles, placed it in an envelope,
and put it at the back of the only drawer in the small desk provided in the
apartment.
 
It would be well hidden
among the other business envelopes she had put there.

Lin fixed herself some dinner and sat
down in her small living room to eat.
 
TV reception was practically nonexistent out here—there was
certainly no cable—so she put a disc of her favorite music in her CD
player and listened as she ate.
 
What should she do about her questions and concerns?
 
She knew she could not let this
drop.
 
Too many things were nagging
at her about this incident. Where to begin to get some answers?