Everybody’s Hometown: The Murder Mystery of the Forty-Fives

By Irene Riley

Sergeant Anya Jones, part Yavapai Indian and Acting-Chief-for-a-day of Prescott, Arizona’s Police Department, finds herself facing the City’s first double homicide in recent memory. Two of five elderly ladies collectively known in Prescott as the Forty-Fives, are slumped over their table, dead, at the Lone Star Cafe where they usually have lunch together every Thursday. The Medical Examiner suspects poisoning.

Over the next four days leading up to Halloween, Anya confronts a new permanent Acting-Chief from Los Angeles, her own fractious detective staff, and the discovery of a child’s bones in Watson Lake. As if that wasn’t enough, she must also tolerate a touchy-feely Mayor who means no harm, the press, and her own bad dreams.

Intertwined with the present-day story is the saga of Albert A. Andersson who arrives in Prescott in 1868 from Virginia City, Nevada where he had set type for the Daily Territorial Enterprise. Albert itches to find gold. He leaves his belongings with a young girl from his Boarding House and heads for the Arizona hills accompanied by two half-crazy brothers. He loses his gold, his belongings, and the young girl. His journey to pick up the pieces of his life takes him across America then back to Prescott, meeting many an interesting character along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brighton Publishing LLC
• Release date: Sep 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781621835011

Irene Riley

Irene Riley worked for Los Angeles County her entire career, primarily in Health Services. She traveled frequently to Sacramento and Washington D.C. testifying on governmental relations and financial issues. She attended law school, became an attorney and worked for County Counsel. Ms. Riley is retired and resides with her husband in Southern California. She has three children and four grandsons.

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Prologue

The Yavapai Creation Story

Many years ago, the Yavapai people lived in a hole in the ground believed to be where Montezuma’s Well is now situated, not far from the present day town of Prescott, Arizona.

Content, comfortable, and secure, the Yavapai kept to their hole, for it was home, no one venturing forth except for the curious dove that once peeked cautiously over the hole’s top edge to see the world, flew around for a look-see, then quickly returned to safety.

Out of the blue torrential rains came, some say for forty days and nights, and the Yavapai’s safe hole was filling fast. The Yavapai realized that unless they acted quickly, they would all perish.

A young girl was selected to save the Yavapai race. She was put into a log canoe, and with the dove as her guide to lead the way, she buoyed up and out of the hole to the world above.

The girl and the dove floated about for a time and eventually encountered the Sun. The Sun, smitten with the girl, impregnated her, and she gave birth to a daughter. The daughter became impregnated by the Cloud and had a son she named Sakarakaamche, meaning Lofty Wanderer. The daughter ventured off to a brook one fine day to gather watercress, never to return. She is no longer part of this story, although her personal adventures continue on, to be retold at a later time.

The grandmother, Kamalapukwia, which means First Woman, reared her grandson, Lofty Wanderer, whom she loved unconditionally. Even so, grandmother First Woman, and grandson Lofty Wanderer didn’t live happily ever after because they were lonely, understandably so. There was just the two of them, you see.

As it happened, Lofty Wanderer, wandering aimlessly along a creek bed, reached down and picked up some red clay which he distractedly formed into a person. Then he made another. And another. Soon, Lofty Wanderer had many happy family bands to keep him and First Woman company.

As is inevitable, the families became argumentative and hostile toward one another. Mere disagreements developed into full-blown battles. Lofty Wanderer stepped in and decreed that it was time for the family bands to go their separate ways. He sent one band west, the Tolkapaya (Dolkabaya), to Yuma. Another, the Kewevkapaya (Guwevkabaya), he sent southeast to the Valley Verde and Salt Rivers. A third, the Wipukepa (Wiipukepaya), he sent to the northeast. The fourth band, the Yavbe’, was allowed to stay where they were created, in and around the mountains of Prescott, Arizona. Although separated by land, the four bands remain united as Yavapai, People of the Sun.

North-South or East-West

The events leading up to Arizona’s Territorial status in 1863 and eventual Statehood nearly fifty years later, are relevant to the Prescott Yavapai’s history.

In 1848, the Hidalgo Treaty that ended the Mexican-American War, annexed over half-a-million square miles to the United States for a payment of fifteen million dollars to Mexico. The bulk of the land purchased was a huge mass of acreage along the southern border of the United States, stretching from Texas to California. Two years later, that purchased land was declared the Territory of New Mexico.

The 1848 Hidalgo Treaty did not end all land disputes between the two countries. The most contentious being over ownership of the town of Mesilla, which both Mexico and the United States claimed. Mesilla’s big draw for the United States was that it stood on the planned pathway of a not-yet constructed and much desired railroad that would connect the East Coast to the West Coast along a southern route, the Southern Pacific Railroad.

In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase, at a cost of ten million dollars, provided for an additional acquisition of thirty thousand square miles along the existing Mexican-American border, which included Mesilla. Thus, Mesilla was incorporated into the United States Territory of New Mexico.

Three years after the Gadsden Purchase, numerous appeals were presented to Congress to divide the Territory of New Mexico into two territories, New Mexico and Arizona. The Territory of New Mexico even presented its own proposal–to split their existing territory north-south, with the Western portion to be called Arizona on the condition that all Indians in New Mexico would be removed to the new Territory of Arizona. Congress was not persuaded for a variety of reasons but primarily because, as Congress purported, the current New Mexico Territory didn’t have enough people to support two separate territories. The proposed condition of moving all Indians to the new Arizona Territory had nothing to do with Congress’ inaction.

By 1860, the would-be Arizona Territorians had had it. They approved their own constitution, dividing the large Territory of New Mexico horizontally in an east-west direction and claiming the southern portion for themselves, which included the town of Mesilla. In March of 1861, during the Civil War, the Arizonans established a Provisional Confederate Territory of Arizona and requested admission to the Confederacy to legitimize their existence.

Three months later, Lieutenant Colonel Baylor led a small contingency of three hundred Confederate Texans against the Union soldiers, at Fort Fillmore, near Mesilla, taking over the Fort. Baylor declared himself Governor of the Provisional Confederate Territory of Arizona, with Mesilla as its capital. On February 14, 1862, Jefferson Davis proclaimed the Territory of Arizona as part of the Confederacy.

The following month, in March of 1862, the House passed a bill to create the United States Arizona Territory, with Tucson its capital, by splitting the existing New Mexico Territory vertically in a north-south direction. On February 24, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the final bill into law, making Arizona a Territory of the United States. Tucson wasn’t named the capital because the consensus was that the town had a surfeit of Spanish-speaking residents, it had sided with the Confederacy, and geographically speaking, it was an uninviting wasteland. Instead, a northern town, soon to be named Prescott, was chosen as the capital.

Fortuitously, a few months later in May of 1863, gold was discovered by the Joseph Walker Party at Lynx Creek along the Hassayampa River headwaters about a mile and a half from Prescott, Arizona Territory. The Walker Party consisted of wild, half-crazy men of the West and United States soldiers on leave, about thirty men altogether.

The miners immediately staked claims. The Union, in the throes of the Civil War and in need of funds, wanted to keep the newly found gold out of Confederate hands. Adventurous Americans, with gold stars in their eyes, followed the cry of ‘Go West’ to pursue their dreams. The gold seekers came and the soldiers came and the politicians came to the young Arizona Territorial capital. The soiled doves of Whiskey Row were already there.

The Yavapai Annihilation Story

The Yavapai believed, and still believe, that land cannot be bought. Land is not given to you by your parents. It is loaned to you by your children.

These new intruders pouring into Arizona were of an opposite philosophy, having bought land and fenced it off as a matter of course, for generations. They didn’t want the Yavapai on their land. They didn’t even want to see them. They were Indians! And the only good Indian was a dead...

It’s impossible to say, with exactitude, how many Yavapai lived in and around the Central Arizona Prescott Mountains before gold was discovered. Estimates range between five thousand to fifteen thousand. Suffice to say that there were significantly more Yavapai existing before gold was discovered in 1863 than in February 1875, twelve years later, when what was left of the Yavapai Prescott tribe was herded to Camp Verde to join other Yavapai and Apache tribes, then, as a combined band of fifteen hundred, forcibly marched across the Arizona mountain range, in the dead of winter, over a nearly two-week period to San Carlos Reservation in the middle of the Arizona desert.

The San Carlos Reservation was and remains a reservation for the Apache, a long-time enemy of the Yavapai. San Carlos’ conditions were somewhat less than cordial. Both tribes refer to their trek as the Trail of Tears and commemorate the ordeal every February 27th as Exodus Day.

The Yavapai were held in captivity on the San Carlos Reservation for twenty-eight years. They were prisoners. Those Yavapai who escaped and survived the return to their homelands found that their land had been usurped by white squatters. They had nowhere to go.

In 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt, after sending his personal agent to report on the Yavapai conditions, issued an Executive Order ceding reservation land to the Fort McDowell Yavapai, who, in the official order, were mistakenly referred to as Mohave Apache. The Indian Reorganization Act, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934, generously allotted seventy-five acres for a reservation to the Yavapai Prescott tribe. Their reservation land was expanded to slightly over fourteen hundred acres in 1956 and remains at that level today, a far cry from the twenty thousand square miles of open range the Yavapai once traversed. Fourteen hundred acres is about two square miles, one ten-thousandth of the land they freely roamed in times past.

The Yavapai Prescott Indians were moved off their land, not by rain and not by Lofty Wanderer, but by soldiers, ending in a harsh trip of nearly two hundred miles, over snowy mountains’ majesty and burning grains of sand, during which many died.

Today, the number of full Yavapai people living on the Yavapai Prescott Reservation has dwindled to between eighty and one hundred fifteen tribal members who may be interbred out of existence within a few generations.

But there’s hope. The Yavapai Prescott are not dead yet. They run a hotel and two casinos, with a planned third casino in the works.

Chapter One

Prescott–All Saints’ Day

Anya shuffled her notes on the dais’ surface, said and spelled her name, gave her rank, then addressed the hungry horde of media hounds. She began, This should’ve been a fairly simple case to solve. The crime was identified–the Where, the What, the When. All that information was determined from the start. What we lacked was the How, the Who, and the Why.

Prescott–Late October

Thursday

Anya Jones knew she was part Yavapai, but how much a part, she had no clue. All she was certain of was that she had some Indian blood coursing through her veins, and she’d learned that primarily from the hints dropped by her grandmother, inadvertently and purposefully, over the years.

What Anya clearly remembered was the cold, wet morning when Mormor, her grandmother, dressed her in two sweaters, double pants, hooded jacket, boots, mittens, hat, and drove for what seemed an eternity through barren hills and over muddied roads. Anya’s grandmother didn’t say a word the whole trip and drove as if on a mission, steadily, slowly. That’s probably why the trip seemed to take forever but was only about twelve miles. Twelve miles can take an hour, and an hour can seem endless to a child. It was the twenty-seventh of February, her birthday, and Anya was five.

Mormor stopped the car and turned around to the middle seats where Anya was staring out the blurry, steamed-up window of a 1978 Chevy Suburban. We’re here, Mormor announced. I have something to tell you. I’m going to tell you this only once. I don’t want you to ask me any questions or ever talk to me about this trip. Not ever. Do you understand?

Anya said nothing. This was the first time Mormor had acted so mean to her, and she hadn’t done a thing. Not one thing.

Do you?

Yes, Mormor. Anya barely got the words out.

Her grandmother went on. You are going to meet some people. They live here. You are related to them. That means you share the same ancestry, the same relatives, the same family, the same blood. They deserve to meet you. They want to meet you. I promised. I can’t break my promise to these people. They’ve had enough broken promises. Today’s the day.

With difficulty, Anya’s grandmother went on. This was hard on her. You must mind your manners, Anya. Be nice to these people. Don’t be afraid. They’ve been through extreme times. Very extreme times. They are Indians.

That was the first time but not the last that Anya had been on the Yavapai Prescott reservation. She’d return again and again in her official capacity as a Prescott Police officer.

***

The office phone rang. Her cell phone rang. There was a knock on the door.

Yeah, Anya yelled at the door, glancing at the caller’s name on her cell phone and picking up the office phone.

A face peeked around the door. She waved him in from her chair and spoke on the phone. I understand, Councilman. I really do.

Pause.

Of course. I’ll let you know immediately.

Pause.

You’re welcome, Councilman. Anya gently put the phone down certain that if she wasn’t careful, she’d break it.

She looked up at the officer standing at her desk, a slow process because of the neck brace she was wearing. He certainly looked young. A new guy, no doubt.

I don’t belong here, she thought. Yes? she asked.

Sergeant Anya Jones wasn’t used to an office with a closed door and all this knocking business. Located in the middle of a long hallway towards the other end of the building, her team usually just wandered in and out of her cubicle, not an office really, through a plastic and cloth-covered Herman Miller door that was perpetually ajar. Not like the chief’s office where she was now, where she didn’t belong. All because of yesterday’s event that’d sidelined him. Nobody knew for how long. And if they did, they weren’t saying much.

Chief, her visitor began.

Anya shook her head tenderly.

I mean, Acting Chief.

Anya dared to shake her head again, slowly.

Sir. I mean, miss... I mean... what do I call you? He had apparently exhausted his nomenclature inventory.

Sergeant will do, officer. And your name? she asked.

Morgan, sir. Sergeant. Officer Morgan.

How long have you been here, officer?

About a minute, sir. Sergeant. I just walked in.

I mean, in the police force, Officer Morgan.

I’ve been in law enforcement two years, seven months, sir. Well, nearly seven months. And the two years.

She would’ve thought he’d just upped the week before. She hadn’t seen him around, or if she had, she didn’t recall. Funny how you could become so engrossed in your own little world and not even notice people right in front of your nose.

So Officer Morgan, why are you here?

To drive you to the scene of the... well, the scene.

Ah, yes. The scene.

Anya would’ve normally walked the three or so long blocks, but as acting chief, even if acting only for a day, she didn’t dare arrive at the scene on foot. That would be contrary to tradition in the City of Prescott, a town where appearances ruled and required, regardless of the distance, the acting chief, even for a day, to arrive in formal attire–that is, in a black and white.

Did you drive the chief? she asked Morgan.

A couple times. I haven’t been here that long, you see. But I was told to drive you personally, sir.

By whom?

The mayor. He said to watch over you like a hawk, sir.

Yes, I see. Ready, Officer Morgan?

Ready, sir. I mean, ma’am.

Your first name wouldn’t be Harry, by any chance, would it?

No. But I have a second cousin named Harry.

In the police? Anya asked.

No, actually he’s....

Anya cut him off. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have asked.

She stood gingerly, holding on to the edge of the desk. Not her desk. She really didn’t belong here. She still got dizzy if she stood up too quickly. The aftermath of being rear-ended.

Let’s roll, Officer.

Morgan drove. They went the three blocks to Gurley Street in complete silence, then made the right onto Cortez. There was a modest crowd of about twenty or so in front of the scene. All the parking places at the curb were full. The Medical Examiner’s County van, a private ambulance, and another Prescott Police car were more or less triple-parked, edging into the center of Cortez Street. Morgan pulled up behind a small fuel-efficient vehicle that was already double-parked behind two civilian cars, hemming them in their slots. There was a press pass permit decal on its windshield.

She recognized the two crime reporters, as they called themselves, from the Daily Courier, in the crowd outside. They recognized her. She’d dealt with them many times before. She hadn’t expected reporters. Not yet. It’d only been a little over an hour or thereabouts. These two were young and ambitious and relentless.

Morgan, Anya said as she undid her seatbelt and turned her body to face him at the wheel, holding her neck stiff. She had no choice. Stick with me. Leave the car here, lock it, and stay behind me.

Got it, Chief.

Sergea... she started to say, but he was already out of the police car, coming around to open her door.

The barely discernable soft murmurs of the crowd hushed completely when Sergeant Jones, Acting Chief for-a-day, stepped out of the car. The reporters, being reporters, commenced to each ask her five questions at once.

Who exactly died in there, Sergeant?

Is it true that she was strangled?

Have you been appointed chief, Sergeant?

Are you in charge here?

Was it suicide?

Anya took a deep breath and counted to seven. That was her lucky number and had served her well in her past dealings with these two.

Hello, Crystal, Jason. Anya said as politely as she could. I’ll be able to make a statement after I assess the situation. You probably know more than I do at this point. But don’t quote me on that. If you’ll excuse me. Anya turned to Officer Morgan behind her. Cover my back. Let no one in.

Yes, sir. Morgan saluted and followed her directions.

With Officer Morgan behind her, Anya slid between two cars parked in front of the doorway, easily recognizing the one in the handicap slot, crossed the doorsill and entered the Lone Star Cafe on Cortez Street, in the City of Prescott, Arizona.

It was as dark on the inside of the Cafe as it was bright on the outside. The Lone Star was medium-sized for a Prescott eatery, with an aisle down the middle running from front to back, roomy booths on the right and small wooden tables and chairs on the left. There were no windows. The only natural light pushed in from the front double-doored entry, through the stained glass inserts that adorned the doors’ top halves. Any light that came from the wagon wheel chandeliers seemed to be absorbed by the painted walls.

The walls themselves were covered with cowboy paraphernalia–paintings, pictures, prints, hats, horseshoes, chaps, belts, a saddle, branding irons, pots and pans, not to mention, pistols, holsters, and rifles. That kind of stuff. There was even a pair of dried-out steer horns, reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe, perched precariously over the bar that stretched along the back wall of the establishment.

Initially, Anya couldn’t take all this in. Her eyes had enough trouble just adjusting to the inky blackness. This was the first time she’d been in the Cafe. It was newly opened, well not that new. It’d been open about three years. She didn’t get out much. She told herself she should get out more.

There were people in the Cafe. She could hear them but couldn’t make out how many or exactly where they were.

A voice from the back of the Cafe called to her,

Over here, Anya.

It was Karbazibidian, the medical examiner.

She took a few steps towards where she thought the voice had called her but bumped into a stool. Catching herself, careful of her neck, she nearly took a gainer, but instead stumbled into the wall, coming nose to nose with a faded picture of a generously mustached, worn-out cowboy on a horse.

She had just come face to face with her great, great grandfather. And she didn’t even know it.

Chapter Two

Prescott–Arizona Territory

Late May 1868

Letter to Sheriff John P. Bourke, dated April 25, 1868, from Virginia City, Nevada

Dear Sheriff Bourke:

With your indulgence, sir, please forgive the liberty of my writing to you without our having actually met. I once had the privilege of meeting your kind wife and family in San Francisco as a reporter for the Daily Morning Call. They were most cordial and spoke highly of you. That was four years ago. At that time, you had already left California for the Arizona Territory. I understand that you are now a sheriff in Prescott. My condolences.

This will serve as an introduction to the bearer of this missive: a Mr. Albert A. Andersson. He is a stable, honest, hard-working young man who, for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, is journeying to Prescott, he says to make his fortune. He hears there is gold there.

I first encountered Mr. Albert A. Andersson, a rather tall individual you will note, when he was about sixteen years old, six years ago here in Virginia City, Nevada Territory. Even then, he fancied himself a miner. He is a much better typesetter.

I am not recommending Mr. Albert A. Andersson for employment or for any other particular endeavor. Those who know me firsthand know I do not do that.

I will not speak to Mr. Albert A. Andersson’s ability to perform any specific duty, but I am able to speak to this fellow’s character with great authority. I like the lad. He has good qualities, especially for his height. You will note, he is exceedingly tall.

He says he is coming to one of my lectures at Piper’s Opera House here. He had best have tickets for I hear the venue is sold out and I will allow there to be no ‘standing room’. I dislike with intensity, ‘standing room’.

When Mr. Albert A. Andersson said he was from Elmira, New York, which I did not realize until this very night, and on his way to Prescott, I was speechless. I am not ordinarily speechless. Speechlessness does not pay well in my line of work.

I have come up against coincidences before, but they usually occur one at a time. Here were two. I knew of your presence in Prescott from your wife, and I, myself, am shortly to embark on my first visit to Elmira after a hopefully short stopover in San Francisco that I cannot postpone.

At Mr. Albert A. Andersson’s bequest, I take this opportunity to advocate for this rather tall but engaging individual who, by all accounts, will make your fair City proud.

Perhaps on my next trip to the West, I will make your personal acquaintance.

Yrs trly,

Mark Twain

The man with the badge sat on the other side of the desk from the newcomer who’d handed him the letter. The two stared at each other like two dogs trying to decide whether the other was friend or foe. Smile or bite.

The man