The Skull Canyon Murders

By John A. Miller, Jr.

A dead man leaves his money to his father and niece, but who is the dead man? A man’s body lies on a narrow ledge in a remote Arizona canyon, but who is he? Is the old gold mine really a mine? Why was the girl murdered behind the mountain cabin? What’s it like to be lost in a desert mountain range without food, water, or shelter? Finally, who are the mysterious riders, and what are they up to in the dead of night?

Join Art Parker, his daughters Heather Parker and Mary Ann Markham, and their best friend Jennifer Martin as they travel to southern Arizona to try to answer these questions and stumble upon the solution to several murders as well as other illegal activities. The Cochise County Sheriff’s Department is not amused, but that’s a normal reaction to this team of amateur sleuths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John A. Miller, Jr.
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370963393

John A. Miller, Jr.

John Miller, writing under his full name of John A. Miller, Jr., started writing novels back in late 1991 after working for many years in the mainframe computer and telecommunication fields. He had lived in southern Arizona so he knew the area well and set his first novel, Pima, in that area. Shortly after writing that novel he moved back to southern Arizona where he wrote five more novels in the Pima Series. He returned to his home area near Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1999 and continued to write, launching the Victorian Mansion Series with its nine novels.Since retiring from their day jobs John and his wife have enjoyed visiting Cape Cod and The Bayside Resort in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts at least once every year, so with their permission he partially set there a standalone novel, The Bayside Murders.Recently, after reading a number of cozy mysteries, John decided to launch a new series in that genre and named it Three-Zee for its main character, Zelanie Zephora Zook.

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The Skull Canyon Murders

John A. Miller, Jr.

Copyright 2017 by John A. Miller, Jr.

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The Skull Canyon Murders

Book Number 9 in the Victorian Mansion series

** ** **

This is a work of fiction. Except for actual historical figures, any resemblance between any character in this story and any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

This book is not intended for children. It contains some inappropriate language and sexual situations.

Look for more books in the Victorian Mansion series and other books by John A. Miller, Jr., either available now or soon to be available at SmashWords.com.

(1) The Victorian Mansion Murders

(2) The Lakeside Murders

(3) The Beach House Murders

(4) The Pirates’ Hill Murders

(5) The Waterfall Murders

(6) The Christmas Tree Murders

(7) The Backstage Murders

(8) The Fish Hatchery Murders

(9) The Skull Canyon Murders

Table of Contents

Day 1 Monday

Day 3 Wednesday

Days 9 11 Tuesday through Thursday

Day 12 Friday

Day 13 Saturday

Day 14 Sunday

Day 16 Tuesday

Day 17 Wednesday

Day 18 Thursday

Day 19 Friday

Days 22 27 Tuesday through Saturday

Day 28 Sunday

Day 31 Wednesday

Days 32 34 Thursday through Saturday

Day 35 Sunday

Day 36 Monday

Days 37 40 Tuesday through Friday

Day 41 Saturday

Day 42 Sunday

Day 43 Monday

Day 44 Tuesday

Day 45 Wednesday

Day 47 Friday

Author’s Note

About the Author

Day 1

Monday

Because we live in a rural area approximately twelve miles north of the little town of Bearford we receive our mail deliveries in a large box on a post at the foot of our private lane. The mail usually is placed into the box around noon and today was no exception. Hiram Blasko, our live-in gardener, chauffeur, and general handyman, had picked up the mail and handed me a few household bills and unsolicited advertisements—I get those because among my other duties I’m the property manager for Charles Drummond’s huge Victorian-style mansion and surrounding grounds. I was sitting in the library opening a bill from the purveyor who delivers some of the groceries to our house when I heard Charlie’s voice calling me from his study, the next room along the main hall toward the front door.

My name for those of you who haven’t already guessed from reading my earlier exploits is Arthur Parker, Art to my friends and Dad to Mary Ann Markham, Drummond’s granddaughter and the adopted daughter of me and my wife, Dr. Marsha Parker. Mary Ann occasionally has other names for me but we won’t go into that. Let it suffice to say that publishing some of them would earn this chronicle at least an R rating, possibly worse.

Mary Ann is eighteen and acts twenty-four. Heather, my nineteen-year-old, was unknown to me as my child until my former wife located her in a nearby homeless shelter and deposited her with me while I was engaged in tracking down a series of murders at a local trout nursery. However, to date Heather’s been much more respectful than Mary Ann. Three days ago Heather had a cast removed from the leg she’d broken when falling off a ladder, but that’s part of another story.

To get back to the voiced demand from my employer I dragged my carcass into the hall and found him sitting behind his desk in the study. Ever since Mary Ann was four Drummond has had extremely limited use of his lower limbs after the vehicle he was driving crashed and killed his only daughter, the girl’s real mother, and her husband. Now he spends most of his days in his electric wheelchair. When I entered the study he was holding a letter in one hand and an envelope in the other and looked extremely perplexed.

Art, do you know anybody in Arizona?

Not that I recall; never been there, either. Why do you ask?

I just got this letter from an attorney in Tucson. Immediately, I decided this was probably not a good thing. In my experience letters from attorneys except maybe from your own are seldom harbingers of good news.

You aren’t being sued for anything, are you? Drummond, like Scrooge McDuck, has a money bin full of the green stuff, mostly acquired by selling his auto parts business some years ago followed by a series of wise investments. However, the wealthy, even nice guys like Charlie, frequently find themselves being sued for things well above and beyond their control.

No. If this were that kind of letter I’d send it to Frome and let him handle it. Ethan Frome—yes, that’s really his name—is Drummond’s attorney.

So what does this legal eagle want with you? I can’t imagine that a Tucson lawyer would be sending out letters in hopes of soliciting your business the next time you need representation in the Grand Canyon State.

No, read this.

The letter, neatly typed on letterhead stationery read:

Dear Mr. Drummond:

As executor of the estate of your late son, Mr. Jeffrey Drummond of Tucson, Arizona, I am notifying you that you and your granddaughter, Miss Mary Ann Markham, are the sole and equal beneficiaries of his estate. Please contact me immediately either directly or through your attorney to file a claim for this bequest.

Yours very truly,

Joseph E. Ponderby, Jr., Esquire

That’s funny. I didn’t know you had a son.

Neither did I, and certainly not one in Arizona. Like you, I’ve never even been there. Drummond looked sad. No, Mary Ann’s mother was my only child. I’m pretty sure my wife wasn’t harboring a secret son, and while I’ve committed my share of sins in my lifetime, none of them included leaving an unacknowledged bastard behind; hell, not even an acknowledged one.

Well, this guy certainly knows your name as well as Mary Ann’s, and he got your address right.

In this Internet age not much is secret. However, I find it difficult to believe it’s a scam considering he’s saying we’re the beneficiaries and he’s not asking for money.

Unless he wants cash up front to release the bequest, preferably in the form of prepaid gift cards.

Yes, that would be a scam. I think this must go to Frome for further analysis.

Absolutely. I’ll even hand-deliver it to his office.

Day 3

Wednesday

Frome is extremely prompt in dealing with requests from Charles Drummond, probably because Charlie has more money than most, if not all, of his other clients. There is some other wealth in Mercer County, mostly in the hands of the paper mill and forest products interests that provide much of the employment. However, I have no idea whether Frome represents any of those entities.

By noontime Wednesday Frome had been in contact with the Tucson attorney and confirmed that the bequest, while confusing, was at least not a scam and that Mr. Ponderby was who he said he was. This led us no closer to determining who Jeffrey Drummond was or why he had thought he was the son of Charles Drummond. To add to the confusion, Jeffrey Drummond had died in a remote cabin in a place called Skull Canyon.

Meanwhile, Mary Ann and Heather had been googling like mad to look up the map, satellite, and street views of Skull Canyon—okay, no street views there—and even the attorney’s office in Tucson. It turns out that Skull Canyon is a lonely, rocky defile in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona, somewhat north and east of the city of Douglas and near the New Mexico border. A narrow dirt road provides access, and the satellite view shows a couple of small structures, one of which may or may not have been the scene of the demise of the late Mr. Jeffrey Drummond. Frome had been in touch with the Cochise County property gurus in Bisbee, but their records showed all of Skull Canyon plus surrounding areas are part of the Coronado National Forest and the nearby Chiricahua National Monument although some small pieces of private property do exist within the national forest boundaries. However, they had no information about Jeffrey Drummond.

Evening found us gathered in the summerhouse next to the pool, a structure we’d not used frequently until recently, but which had now become our family gathering place on pleasant summer evenings because Drummond could ride there easily on his wheelchair and the rest of us were still not too lazy to walk the couple of hundred yards. Mary Ann’s best friend, Jennifer Martin, had come to our place for the night from the Bearford Medical Center, a clinic established by Drummond and run by Marsha. Jen works there as a receptionist Tuesdays through Saturdays as well as helping her mother, Adele, who is the clinic’s accountant. However, because Jennifer doesn’t have her own car she must rely on her mother when she goes to and from home or on Marsha when she comes to the mansion. She keeps a supply of clothing in one of the spare bedrooms, of which we have several, and I bet if I kept track I’d find she actually spends more nights at our house than with her mother.

Drummond was sitting in his wheelchair staring out one of the broad windows at his evening sunlit lawn and gardens. A million bucks for your thoughts, I said as I walked up behind him.

They aren’t worth that much. The old cliché offering me a penny is probably more accurate. I still don’t understand how or why somebody would leave me and Mary Ann his estate, at the same time claiming to be my son.

Did Frome find out how much money is involved?

The Tucson lawyer didn’t know for sure but he thinks it’s in the neighborhood of two or three million.

Oh, that I would be so lucky.

Yes, I know. That old adage that ‘them who has, gets’ is frequently quite accurate.

And I don’t have, so I won’t get.

Mm. Art, I have a suggestion.

What? Drummond is my boss because I’m both his property manager and Mary Ann’s writing coach—the kid had written a novel several years before and I’d been hired originally to help her with her second. The whole adoption slash property manager thing came a couple of years later after I married Marsha whom I’d met when we all spent a month in Marsha’s Atlantic seashore hometown of Shipwreck. Anyway, Drummond’s suggestions are usually more-or-less direct orders.

Why don’t you go to Arizona to Tucson and this Skull Canyon place to see what you can find out?

And we’ll go with him. Mary Ann’s voice. I turned my head to see her and Heather standing at my shoulder.

Me, three, Jennifer said. She had come up behind Mary Ann.

You’re working, Mary Ann said.

Oh yeah, I forgot.

Drummond chuckled with his usual cackling laugh. Why would you want to go with him? The more of you who go, the more you’ll slow him down.

Dad will only get into trouble without us to keep him out of it.

And who’s going to keep you out of trouble?

Oh yeah, well, we’ll manage.

"To get into trouble, which seems to be one of your biggest skills."

Besides, Uncle J.J. will be glad if we get out of town for a while, Jennifer said. Her mother’s brother, J.J. McClure, is a sergeant in the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department. He has often expressed a desire for me to keep the girls under control, a task somewhere beyond impossible. Mary Ann and Jennifer, with the recent addition of Heather, have shown a remarkable penchant for discovering dead bodies, and not those of people who’ve experienced a more-or-less natural death. I must admit that I’ve been involved in several of those discoveries myself. Because murders in Mercer County usually mean more paperwork for Sergeant McClure he’s less than happy when we turn up a new corpse. While I had no expectations that our body-finding abilities would fail in Arizona—they seem to follow us wherever we go—at least they wouldn’t be on his turf.

Getting out of town where? Marsha asked from my other side. Apparently she hadn’t been within earshot for the earlier part of the conversation.

Southern Arizona to look up Charlie’s mysterious son, I said.

Hm. I’d love to go with you, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to reschedule coverage at the clinic on such short notice. Oh well, I’m sure the girls will be able to keep you in line.

There’s an Internet abbreviation ROTFL, which means rolling on the floor laughing. While Drummond wasn’t actually rolling on the floor—his physical limitations probably wouldn’t allow that—he was as close to doing it as he possibly could.

Days 9 11

Tuesday through Thursday

It was late afternoon when we walked off the plane at Tucson International Airport and headed for baggage claim. There are definite advantages to working for a wealthy man like Drummond because when he flew he always rode first class and he expects his granddaughter and associates to do the same. Security is a big enough pain in the butt without extending one’s travails to the ever tighter seating in coach. A person with an especially big nose probably wouldn’t be able to squeeze into one of those rows let alone somebody ten pounds or more overweight.

Jennifer had joined us on the trip after Charlie decided he would hire her officially to assist in the investigation of his affairs. He gave Mary Ann and Heather similar titles and salaries. Me, well, I was on the hook as his property manager anyway and certainly well enough paid considering that my compensation includes full room and board for me, Marsha, and Heather. Mary Ann, as granddaughter number one, is covered automatically. Fortunately, Marsha had had a young woman come in only a week or two ago looking for work, so she was able to hire a new receptionist immediately. The clinic was now so successful that Jennifer would be able to return to work there as soon as she got home, probably more in helping her mother with the increasing accounting workload.

We hauled our bags outside to the curb where the car rental vans were prowling, and soon we were on our way to pick up the four-wheel-drive Jeep we’d rented that would be appropriate for both highway and off-road use. An assortment of desert vegetation including a few tall palm trees and a number of giant saguaro cacti bordered the street. I’ve learned since that the palms are not native to the area but were planted merely as decorations. However, the cacti grow wild all over the surrounding desert.

We had booked rooms at a hotel in Tucson for two nights with an appointment on Wednesday at the attorney’s office. Then after checking out on Thursday we would head east along Interstate 10 to the town of Willcox where we had rooms reserved for one night. The broad valley between Willcox and Douglas, which lies more-or-less due south on the Mexican border, is quite lonely, but rooms are to be had in both those communities as well as in a few small towns in between. In the Chiricahuas themselves, which border the valley on the east, most accommodations are of the guest ranch variety. Although money wasn’t an object we didn’t want to book into one of those until we were sure it was necessary. One minor problem was that although all three girls are licensed drivers the car rental agency would not accept them as alternate drivers because of their ages. That made me the only legal driver of record.

As none of us had ever visited the area we were amazed at the incredible visibility and the high mountain peaks that border Tucson on all sides. I started singing On a clear day you can see forever until Mary Ann threatened to cut out my vocal cords. I’m not sure whether she was objecting to the song, which I think is quite nice, or my rendition, which probably wasn’t.

Mary Ann had her cell phone with its GPS activated, so we were able to navigate Tucson’s broad streets and boulevards quite easily. I was surprised to see tall white clouds hovering above the nearby mountains, but the hotel desk clerk explained that this was the summer monsoon or rainy season when thunderstorms are frequent, sometimes daily, occurrences. If I’d been expecting something like the rainless sand dunes of the Sahara, I would have been sorely disappointed. The soil is beige and baked hard, not at all loose sand although it does have a sandy texture. One thing similar to the Sahara was the heat although I guess the summer monsoon season is cooler but more humid than other parts of spring through autumn. Winter temperatures can actually dip below freezing for brief periods although snow is a rare occurrence at Tucson’s elevation.

One thing we planned to get from the attorney during our Wednesday visit was the name of a good outdoor supply store where we could pick up camping supplies and topographical maps. While we didn’t know whether such things would be necessary we figured it would be much easier to find what we needed in a major city like Tucson than in a tiny town in the middle of the desert.

Tucson has pretty much everything, but the thing that really surprised me was the fact there’s a small ski area in the Santa Catalina Mountains just to the north. None of the Arizona mountain peaks is snow-covered all year long although the highest rises to more than twelve thousand feet—more than nine thousand near Tucson—but they do get plenty of snow in the winter. Fortunately, in late August snow wasn’t something we had to consider. However, adequate water if we had to do any camping or hiking would certainly be an issue.

** ** **

Nine o’clock Wednesday morning found us in the offices of Ponderby, Benner, and Slughorn on East Broadway Boulevard. Joseph Ponderby, a tall, thin man in his early thirties, seemed pleasant enough but he knew little about his late client. Apparently the man who called himself Jeffrey Drummond had written his will when Joseph Ponderby, Senior, now unfortunately deceased, was running the firm and before Joseph Ponderby, Junior had graduated from law school. Also, none of the current partners or other employees had been there at the time so nobody was able to provide much information.

The original will, which Ponderby had in his possession, had been found in Jeffrey Drummond’s Tucson apartment after the police obtained a court order to search the place. It named the Ponderby firm as executors and was typewritten and then signed in ink by both Jeffrey Drummond and two witnesses. The witnesses were former employees of the firm, and Ponderby said contacting them would be of little use because they would have known nothing about the client except that he was the man who had signed the document. Also, because no foul play had been suspected the Cochise County Sheriff had turned over the entire process to the executor.

The estate was to be divided in equal portions between Jeffrey Drummond’s father, Charles Edward Drummond, of Bearford, and Jeffrey’s niece, Mary Ann Markham, also of Bearford. It was dated ten years ago, just four years after the death of Mary Ann’s parents, so Jeffrey Drummond knew at least that much unless he was merely cutting them out of the will. Jeffrey’s body had been found inside a cabin in Skull Canyon by a hiker and had been identified by a sheriff’s deputy who found a driver’s license in the cabin with Jeffrey’s photo and the address of his apartment in Tucson. The only other cabin in the canyon was currently unoccupied, and nobody in the area seemed to know much about its former occupant or about Jeffrey Drummond. It had taken several weeks for various searches for information to come together and the link to Ponderby discovered. However, the deputy had found a bundle of negotiable securities in the cabin and that’s where the estimate of two to three million had come from. The cabin was on government land and not deeded, so in itself it was pretty much worthless.

I’m surprised nobody had looted the cabin and made off with the securities, especially if they were bearer bonds, I said.

That’s really lonely country so I’m not sure a lot of people go through there. However, I guess we were lucky to find an honest hiker who didn’t rob the place but notified the law after he found the body.

How did Jeffrey die?

Rattlesnake bite. There were puncture wounds on his right calf and the leg was swollen and had started turning black. I glanced at the girls. Jennifer, who doesn’t handle gruesome well, was turning green, and neither Mary Ann nor Heather looked especially pleased, either.

Did they do an autopsy?

Only a cursory one because the body was beginning to decompose and the bite was obvious.

So it could have been something else, even murder.

I doubt it. As I said, the bite marks were clear and the symptoms matched those of rattlesnake bite. Also, the only motive for murder probably would have been robbery, but those securities were still there.

For all to see.

Well, no. The deputy found them rolled up inside a hollow bed leg, but that’s a frequent hiding place for people with metal bed frames in lonely cabins, which is why he looked there in the first place.

So a murderer might not have found them if he didn’t know about that frequent hiding place.

No, I guess not. Still, as an attorney I must go with what’s on the death certificate, and the one thing I know for certain is that Jeffrey Drummond is deceased and has left this will. We compared the signature on the will with the one on the driver’s license, and given normal variations because of the years between signings and other factors the signatures match.

Yes, I’m sure you would have checked that out carefully. By the way, the girls and I are planning to visit the mountains and desert and maybe even Skull Canyon to see where the body of Mary Ann’s uncle was discovered. Can you direct us to a good outfitter so we can get appropriate clothing and gear?

Of course. There are several here in town including one in the mall just down the street. You might as well enjoy your vacation.

Ponderby walked us to our car because he said he needed a smoke and didn’t allow smoking in the office. He waved to us as we pulled out of the lot, a lit cigarette already dangling from his lips.

** ** **

He’s the murderer, Mary Ann said after we were back in the Jeep headed for the mall.

That’s a pretty bold accusation, I said. You’d better not let it get back to him. After all, he’s an attorney and probably would sue your pants off for libel.

And then Mary Ann would get arrested for public nudity, Jennifer said with a laugh.

"Shut up or I’ll rip your pants off," Mary Ann snapped.

Girls, girls, cut it out. I glanced at Heather who was sitting beside me in the front, convulsed with laughter. Heather, when we leave the mall you ride in back with Mary Ann and Jen can sit up here with me.

No, Heather said between bursts of laughter, "you’d better put Mary Ann up here in front or she might rip my pants off, too."

What’s this with wanting to depant each other? Do you girls think you’re still out in the woods playing September Morn?

No, just skinny dipping, Jennifer said.

I was beginning to wonder what I’d gotten myself in for. Okay, behave yourselves if possible because I think we’re at the correct mall, and they probably have a sign that reads, ‘No shoes, no pants, no service.’ 

** ** **

We found a nice place for breakfast Thursday morning before locating Interstate 10 and heading east out of Tucson. The comfortable freeway climbs gradually to the tiny town of Mescal, drops into the San Pedro River Valley in Benson, and then climbs again through Texas Canyon before reaching Willcox in what the map calls the Sulphur Springs Valley; why, I’m not sure. However, the map does show a vast dry lake bed just south of the small city. Speed limits are high in Arizona, so the entire trip from Tucson took less than two hours even though we had stopped at the big rest area in Texas Canyon to admire the spectacular rock formations.

One thing we did not see was many trees. The Arizona desert has a lot of vegetation, but any treelike plants seem to be mostly mesquites and low shrubs. The giant saguaro cacti pretty much peter out a few miles east of Tucson, I guess because of the higher elevation, but there are still a lot of smaller varieties. Also, yucca, those spiky leaved things that look like they’d be as uncomfortable to embrace as a cactus, abound. Another strange-looking plant consists of bunches of long, thorny sticks with tiny leaves that emanate from a common point on the ground. I looked it up later to find its name is ocotillo, a Spanish word with the double ell pronounced like a y. Apparently, during the dry seasons the plant loses its leaves and regrows them when it has adequate moisture.

The girls behaved themselves for the entire trip and at no time did any one of them attempt to remove the shorts from either of the others. Of course, I didn’t follow them into the ladies’ room at the rest area, so what they did inside was their own business.

(We behaved ourselves there, too. Too many people around.—signed, Mary Ann)

We found our motel near the central Willcox exit from the Interstate and were able to check in early. Then we gathered in my room—the three girls shared the other—to spread the topo maps on the spare bed and plan our strategy.

If this is Jeffrey Drummond’s cabin—I pointed to a tiny black square in Skull Canyon—we should be able to drive to it assuming the road hasn’t washed out during a flash flood or something.

What do you think we’ll be able to find? Mary Ann asked.

I guess it would be too much to hope for a birth certificate, but I can’t believe he had a bundle of negotiable securities stashed away without some other documents.

"Maybe the deputy missed