Earthcrack: A Lin Hanna Mystery (9 page)

“I’m flattered, and I’m happy you dropped
by today.
 
I had no real plans and
it’s nice to be out enjoying such a nice day.” Lin turned her attention to the
road that was ascending the plateau that led to the east entrance to the Canyon.
 
The foliage was changing from pinion and
juniper to ponderosa pine as they approached the top.
 
In the distance, the colorful vermillion
cliffs rose majestically—it was quite a sight.

Soon they were entering the national
park.
 
They stopped at Desert View
for that wonderful, initial sight of the canyon and they headed into the
village area where they parked, leaving the car to enjoy the area on foot.

The afternoon passed quickly.
 
They enjoyed walking on the rim trail—taking
in the spectacular views, browsing the village shops, even stopping for a
delicious cone of canyon crunch ice cream.
 
Lin found herself really enjoying the company of this interesting and
intelligent man.
 
She certainly
forgot about her reservations regarding his hesitancy to discuss the earlier
events of the week.
 
The subject
never came up anyway.

As the late afternoon shadows began to
cast interesting shapes in the canyon below, Lin realized that this afternoon
had been one of the most pleasant she had experienced in a long time.
 
She admitted to herself that she liked
Neal Smith very much.
 
She would not
mind getting to know him better at all.
 
Could there be a “summer romance” for a retired school marm with two
grandkids?
 
Who knew, she
thought.
 
I’m certainly not seeking
a serious relationship but I do enjoy this man’s company and I definitely hope
we can see more of each other.

“How about an early supper?” Neal asked, “
We could try the restaurant at the Bright Angel Lodge—even the El Tovar
if you would like?”

“Oh, let’s not do anything too fancy,”
Lin responded, “If I remember correctly the chili at the cafeterias is
absolutely marvelous.”

They decided on the Maswik Lodge with its
expansive dining room and free flow cafeteria.
 
Lin got her bowl of vegetarian chili
while Neal opted for a hot dog loaded with all the extras!
 
It was a perfect meal to round out a
perfect afternoon.

As they wandered back to the car, they
paused to look at the changing colors of the canyon in the sunset.
 
Neal put his arm lightly around her
shoulder, “Sometime soon we’ll have to come up and go out on the rim for
sunset.
 
I know a spot on the east
rim where you can be completely alone and have a spectacular view away from the
crowds—they all go to the west rim.
 
Then maybe we can have that fancy dinner at the El Tovar,” he gave her a
gentle squeeze.

Lin turned to smile at him, “I’ll look
forward to that.”

As they drove back into the parking lot
at Wupatki, an hour and a half later, Lin noticed that there were still lights
on in the office area of the visitor center.
 
Danielle must still be working.
 
She remembered her offer to find some
material on archeology in the park.

“Just drop me off in front of the center,”
Lin told Neal, “ Danielle is catching up on some work tonight and I need to get
some articles I want to read.”

“Sure,” Neal seemed maybe a little
disappointed that she had not invited him to stay for a bit.
  
He pulled up to the curb next to
the entrance. “I enjoyed today and I hope we can see each other again soon.”

“I’d like that,” Lin said sincerely as
she exited the car.
 
“I’m not sure
what this coming week will bring—it promises to be busy—but you can
always call me at the visitor center.
 
If I’m not there, someone will take a message—besides, I’ll see
you when you come with the students.”

“Indeed, you will—but I’m looking
forward to our having more fun together. I’d like to get to know you better,”
he smiled.

“Same, here,” she returned his
smile.
 
As she watched him drive out
of the parking lot her thoughts were a bit confused.
 
She definitely enjoyed Neal’s company
but she also wanted to keep business as business and not mix it up with her
social life.
 
She would have to be
careful when working with Neal and his students.
 
She would have to tell him that he would
be strictly Dr. Smith at those times.
 
Still it was nice to think that they could enjoy more good times through
the summer

 
The lights were still on, evidence that
Danielle was still working in her office.
 
Lin walked to the side of the building where there was a door to the
office area.
 
Trying the knob she
found it locked.
  
She knocked
on the door.
 
Shortly, Danielle
appeared and let her in.

“Where were you all afternoon?
 
I went by your place before I came over
here but you were gone,” Danielle asked.

Lin told her about Neal’s surprise
arrival and the wonderful afternoon and early evening they had passed at the Canyon.
 

 
“I see,” Danielle gave her a teasing
glance, “maybe a new boyfriend here?”

“A new friend,” Lin corrected, “Neal is
very charming and a lot of fun but it will be strictly business working with
him here at the park.”

“Oh, I’m not concerned about that,”
Danielle was sincere, “I’m just glad you seem to have found someone to have
some fun with while you are here.
 
Now let’s see if we can find some of those articles I told you about.”

Within a few minutes they were busy going
through files of published papers and articles regarding anthropology and
archeology in the park.
  
Lin
found these things fascinating, this was one of the main reasons she had
volunteered here.
 
She took stacks
of the materials to a table and sorted through them, selecting items that
seemed most relevant to the work that Neal would be doing with his students—looking
for sites that might contain pottery and other artifacts as yet uncovered by
earlier work.
  
She placed the papers
she had selected, along with a detailed topographical map of the area, in a
file folder and asked Danielle if she might take the materials to her apartment
for further reading.

“Sure,” Danielle responded, “just leave
me a list of the materials you have.
 
That will be fine.”

Lin prepared the list then told Danielle
she was going home.
 
Danielle
indicated that she was almost finished and, if Lin could wait just two minutes,
they could walk back together.
 
Lin
agreed and started to read the first paper while she waited.
 
Soon, Danielle was ready to lock up the
office and the two of them headed back to the housing area, enjoying the cool
evening breezes as they walked, watching the stars that dotted the clear desert
skies.

Fascinated by the bit of the first paper
she had read while waiting for Danielle, Lin was eager to get back into it upon
returning to her apartment.
 
Soon
she was as engrossed in this story as she had been in the mystery she was
reading earlier in the day.
 
It
seemed that there was every reason to believe that good finds of pottery could
still be made in this area.
 
Certainly, much had been found and taken or even destroyed in the years
before the area was made a park.
 
There were even tales of cowboys from ranches nearby using pots they had
found for target practice.
 
Much of
the pottery and other artifacts that had been uncovered by earlier
archeologists now resided in the collections at the Museum of Northern Arizona
and other museums in the southwest.
 
Still, it seems, Wupatki had been known to be a trading center.
 
Materials found there earlier could be
identified as coming from several different geographic areas and trading paths
stretched out from the area.
 
There
were probably places where traders had camped and maybe even stored their
wares.
 
Some of these might still be
found yet.

As she read, Lin could understand why
Neal was so interested in working in the area with his students.
 
True, his project was focused on
training students for future archeological work, no digging was to be done and
no artifacts could be collected; however, Lin could easily see where evidence
of possible promising areas might be uncovered.
 
These discoveries could lead to future
requests to conduct excavations and further studies.
 
The park service maintained its own
staff of archeologists but digs were expensive and funds were scarce.
 
Most of their work focused on
preservation and reconstruction of ruins.
 
She felt sure that Neal would probably want to look for grants to fund
full-scale digs, if he or his students found evidence that such would yield
good results.
  
She was certain
that his interests went beyond simply teaching students what to look for but,
of course, that was not her business.
 
Nevertheless, this added to her curiosity about the man and his interest
in the park area.

Her curiosity more aroused that ever, Lin
closed the file on the paper she had just finished and got ready for bed.
 
She would certainly read more tomorrow.
She was just beginning to learn about this interesting place.

Darren Steele awoke slowly in the cramped
bedroom of the small trailer where he had been living for most of the past
year.
 
He had a headache—must
have had too many beers last night.
  
The scattered cans on the counter in the tiny kitchen confirmed that fact.
  
Darren sat up and looked
around.
  
He hated this
place.
 
Not only was the trailer too
small and too uncomfortably warm during these spring days on the reservation
but also it was too isolated—at the end of a small canyon deep in the
Chuska Mountains.
 
Darren’s maternal
cousin, Marvin, owned the trailer but he had moved into Chinle when he got a
job at the supermarket there and had left the place.
 
He had let Darren move in and promised
he would tell no one where he was.
 
Even he did not know what Darren had been involved in.

 
Darren had told no one other than Raymond
Tso, who was also a cousin but on the other side of Darren’s family, about the
plan to steal the pottery.
 
He had
told Raymond about his idea to get the pottery while leaving Sessions and Smith
out of the deal altogether. That had probably been a mistake. He had been
afraid not to let Raymond in on the deal; he was not to be trusted otherwise,
as Darren knew from past experience.
 
Darren was planning to share his cut from the sale with Tso. The bulk of
the money to be had would remain with the man Darren considered his new boss,
Lee Chou the Santa Fe art dealer.
 
Chou only agreed to work with Tso included if Darren shared his own cut.

 
Actually Darren was also somewhat afraid
of Chou.
 
He knew him to be a
ruthless, hard-nosed businessman.
  
He had been fearful of what Chou might do when he failed to deliver on
the pottery deal the first time but so far nothing had happened so he felt more
relaxed than he had earlier.

When he failed to find the pottery, he
thought he would lie low for a while and then return to find it later. His
fears having caught up with him, he became afraid of returning to the
park.
 
Darren had realized that John
Sessions didn’t seem to believe him when he reported that the Hopi contact had
not shown up and that he had not found the pottery.
 
He could hear the doubt in his
voice.
 
That had led to his decision
not to show up for work the next day.

Darren was already in trouble enough,
having both Tso and Chou expecting him to come through with the pots.
 
Disappearing for a while seemed the only
answer. Anyway, he thought he had plenty of money.
 
He had the Hopi’s share of the deal.

 
At first he had been ok.
 
He
went to New Mexico and stayed in Farmington for a while.
 
No one knew him there and it was far
from Tuba City and Flagstaff.
  
However, it was pretty expensive to rent a room there and he couldn’t
try to find work without using his true identity. He had no other ID and
employers were more careful these days.
 
Finally, he had decided he had to disappear on the Rez where he could
hide until he decided how to proceed.
 
He still felt he could save the situation somehow.
 
His cousin, Marvin, had offered to help
him with this place to stay. He appreciated this but the isolation was driving
him crazy.
 
Darren kept thinking
that he would move forward and try to find the pottery but kept putting it off,
afraid of being caught if he came out of the shadows.

Now he was becoming more desperate and
his money was fast running out.
 
He
had to get out of this place.
 
Desperation and the long period of isolation had caused him to rethink
his situation.
 
He had to do
something.

He was not really too worried about John
Sessions.
 
While he knew that he
could never go back to that job, which was the best one he had ever had, he
also knew that Sessions would not be looking for him. He would not want to be
connected to him in any way at this point.
  
Sessions’ main concern was his
business and continuing to deal in stolen artifacts under cover.
 
He wouldn’t want to risk that so he
would forget about Darren and move on.
 
Maybe he had already found the pottery. Darren couldn’t be sure because
he had been away from any news for so long.
 
Sessions would certainly have another
plan to try to find it but…

Darren was more afraid of Raymond
Tso.
 
He was a cousin of Darren’s;
however, Raymond was no one to mess with.
  
Darren hadn’t really wanted to get
involved with him in the first place but he couldn’t really avoid it.
 
He should never have bragged about the
pottery in front of Raymond. That was stupid in the first place! He should have
known Raymond would want in on that deal and could bring pressure on him.
 
You did not want to be on Raymond’s bad
side.
 
Reluctantly Darren had agreed
to include Tso.
  
Darren had
worked with Sessions long enough to know that he dealt with a man in Santa
Fe.
 
This guy, Lee Chou, was really
the one who had the customer contacts. Chou could market anything and very
profitably.
  
The artifacts
would leave the country heading for Hong Kong where they would disappear into
the collections of wealthy folk all over the world and most would never be
recovered.

Darren had gone behind Sessions back and
contacted Chou directly.
 
Using
Raymond’s idea to hunt for more such finds throughout the area, including the
reservation, Darren had succeeded in getting Chou to agree to take the pottery
even if Sessions were not directly involved.
 
After all, even adding Tso to the deal,
Chou stood to gain.
 
Both Sessions
and Smith would be out of it.
 
Also,
Tso might be a good contact for future deals.
 
Chou had often found that good deals
could be had dealing with the Navajo on the reservation.
 
There was a lot of remote territory
there and items could be hidden easily.
 
Besides, most of the folks on the Rez were always in need of money and
would take whatever he offered.
 
He
had done many deals in art objects and artifacts brought to him and he would
really like to have a steady source on the reservation.
 
Given all that, he had agreed to work
directly with Darren, bypassing Sessions.

Now, desperate for money and with limited
options, Darren decided to take a chance and contact Chou.
 
He would have to have a plan and a good
story for why he had not produced the pottery on time but he knew that Chou was
greedy and he hoped that meant he would agree to give him an advance so he
could go back and search for the pots.
 
For sure, Chou would have heard if they were already found.

 
Darren felt encouraged by this new plan he was forming.
 
He would take his remaining money and go
to Santa Fe tomorrow.
 
He barely had
enough for gas and a cheap motel room where he could get cleaned up.
 
His cell phone no longer worked; he had
been forced to give that up earlier. He would have to call Lee Chou after he
got there but, hopefully, he would leave with a new deal and some funds to tide
him over until he could find the pottery.

 
Darren had high hopes this time.
 
He knew that Cullen Honeyestewa was a Hopi and Raymond had told him that
he was one of those who collected eaglets in the park for ceremonial
purposes.
 
That meant that he might
have hidden the pots somewhere other than the box canyon.
 
Darren knew that there were only limited
areas where eagles might nest and the pots could not have been too far from the
canyon or that would not have been the meeting place.
 
He had had a lot of time to think about
this during the past year and he thought he knew some areas worth
searching.
 
He just needed to get
back into the park and he needed some money for tools and to live on while he
searched.

His head now clear and his thoughts
focused, Darren sat back and began to flesh out the details of his new
plan.
 
It was time to act; he could
not afford to hide any longer.
  
He was feeling more confident that there was still a future for him in
the stolen art and artifact business.

***

The next day dawned brightly.
 
It was a beautiful spring day and Darren
awoke in much better spirits.
 
For
one thing, he was not hung over this morning.
 
The more he thought about his new plan
the more encouraged he felt.
 
After
all, he was pretty sure he had narrowed the options for hunting for the pottery
and he really doubted that Sessions had already found it.
 
Any searching Sessions might have done
would have had to be hidden behind other activities.
 
Sessions could not afford to be an
active presence in the park.

 
It would be much easier for a native
person to be seen in the backcountry—after all they were often there for
legitimate reasons.
 
That meant that
Darren had a better chance to find the valuables.
 
Once that was accomplished he could then
face Raymond, this time with the goods and a buyer waiting in the wings.
 
This would give him the upper hand.
 
He would work with Raymond all right,
but he would take the lead.
 
With
these positive thoughts in his head, he dressed, exited the trailer, started
his truck, and set off for the interstate.
 
Soon he was on his way.
  
He should be in Santa Fe by afternoon.
 

Later that day, just before closing time
for the gallery, Lee Chou heard the phone ring in his office.
 
There were no customers about so he
ducked through the door to answer.
 
He was alone, his assistant having left early for a dental appointment.

“Mr. Chou,” the voice on the line said, “this
is Darren Steele, remember me?”

Chou did a double take.
 
He had not expected to hear from Steele
again.
 
He had already written the
entire episode off as a deal gone bad.
 
John Sessions had called him to report the failure to find the pottery
and Steele’s subsequent disappearance. Of course, Sessions was unaware that
Chou already knew about Darren’s failure because of their “under the table”
deal. In spite of Sessions insistence that he had other options and would
continue to try to locate the valuable pieces, Chou doubted anything would come
of it. He figured neither man would come through with the stuff.
 
Now here was this man Steele calling
after all these months had gone by.

“Mr. Steele,” he ventured cautiously, “I
did not expect to hear from you after you disappeared on us last year.
 
I hope you have good news for me
regarding our earlier business venture.
  
Perhaps you are ready to complete
the transaction?”

“Well,” Darren responded cautiously, not
wanted to reveal so quickly that he did not already have the pottery, “I want
to talk to you about that.
 
Can we
meet somewhere?”

Chou was not at all sure he could trust
this situation after Steele’s strange behavior but he was, after all, a
businessman and he was sure that this Navajo could not actually outsmart
him.
 
He was the inexperienced
one.
 
If the early information
regarding this pottery was accurate, this was too big a deal to simply turn one’s
back on.
 
He decided to hear this
man out

“Where are you staying,” Chou asked, “ I
will be closing up shop soon.
 
Perhaps we could talk this evening.”
  
Chou wanted to ask directly about
the merchandise but maybe he should wait—after all, he had waited this
long.

“ I’m staying at the Motel 6 just off
I-25, but I’ve forgotten the exit number,” Darren was nervous but he hoped his
voice was firmer than he felt.

“Never mind, I think I know the place,
there is an old-fashioned diner next door?”

“Yes,” Darren responded,
 
“I was planning to eat there
tonight.
 
Perhaps you can join me
and we can…. discuss business.”
 
He
hoped he sounded confident.

“Good,” Chou said. “How about 7 o’clock?”
 

Darren readily agreed and hung up the
phone, relieved to have taken this first step.
 
Now he had to decide how to approach his
plan.
 
He would have to eventually
tell Chou that he did not have the pottery with him now, but he had to convince
him that he knew where it was and could readily produce it.
 
He needed to convince him that he needed
a little money to travel to the park and maybe get some tools to dig at the
hiding place.
 
That was it he
thought!
 
He would tell him he had
found the items earlier but was forced to hide them again in a different place
because there was too much talk on the Rez about Cullen’s disappearance and he
feared people would be searching the park hoping to find him.
 
Now Darren felt it was safe for him to
return.
 
The search for Cullen had
been abandoned.
  
He lay down
on the bed in his room and tried to relax and rest.
 
He wanted to be calm and confident at
this meeting.