“How much is this piece of petrified wood?”
The clerk, Jenny, was a former librarian who also ran the national park's museum and bookstore. Sequestration has taken its toll and she had to multitask. As Ric spoke to her, she was crafting today's blog entry in her personal weblog. She looked up.
“$19.98 unless you have a National Parks Senior Pass, and then it's $14.98.”
Ric smiled. “Really? I can save that much money with a senior pass? Those things are really a good deal!”
She looked blandly at him. “Yes, but if you don't have one, you'd better pretty soon because Congress is thinking about raising the price – or even eliminating them!”
Ric thought to himself: “I must ask her out. And I must get one of those passes.” He rejoined, “Where can I get the pass?” Jenny pointed to the main counter in the visitor center. Ric ran over, purchased the pass and returned.
“Here,” he said, “Now I have a pass, so I'll buy this petrified wood.”
“Whatever,” Jenny replied.
“By the way,” Ric ventured, “ Are you doing anything this morning? Would you like to watch the park movie with me?”
Jenny thought a moment. “Okay,” she said, “But make it quick because I can only take a 10 minute break.”
The movie had been wonderful. Ric learned how the petrified trees had fallen during the Triassic Period, been buried in sand and ash and preserved, until minerals leaching from the water above and around them replaced the molecules in the cell walls. He decided to take a walk into the wilderness around Blue Mesa to find more petrified wood.
The trail was dry and hot. He had forgotten to bring water, and he was getting thirsty, but it was only a half mile or so back up to the pullout on the Blue Mesa road. What was that shadow moving in his peripheral vision?
“Hey there!” It was a swarthy man, just a little taller but clearly much stronger than Ric.
“Yes?” Ric responded tentatively.
“I saw the signs that you can't pick up the petrified wood here, but I just wanted you to know that I have some samples I gathered on private lands. I need to get them to some friends and was wondering if you could help me? It's completely legal.”
Ric was on alert, but curious. “What to you mean?”
“Well, the swarthy stranger continued, “where are you from, for example?”
“Schenectady.”
“Wow! What a coincidence! One of my friends is in Schenectady. He lives on North Street, near Riverside Park. I told him I'd get him one of these samples. Would you be willing to take one back to him when you go?”
“I don't know,” Ric demurred, “I'm not sure I feel comfortable transporting petrified wood I picked up from a stranger in the Petrified Forest National Park.”
“Come on,” the stranger urged, “I'll make it worth your while.”
“I don't think so,” Ric concluded. “Not my cup of tea.”
The stranger grimaced and pressed, “Look. My name's Roberto. I'm from El Paso. I can't afford to drive up to New York. You'd be doing me a great favor.”
“Nope. Sorry. I don't think so,” Ric emphasized.
Roberto pulled a gun out of his waistband. “I'm serious about this, dude.”
Ric turned white. “What? Why are you doing this? Don't hurt me. What do you want?”
Roberto the swarthy one growled: “I said, either you take this piece of petrified wood up to my friend in Schenectady or this gun barrel will be the last thing you see in this life.”
Ric shook uncontrollably. He thought frantically. “Why the heck would someone want me to take a piece of stupid petrified wood to a friend, and be willing to kill for it. This guy's not for real.” Ric stepped back. “No, Roberto, I'm not going to do that. Now just please let me continue on my way.”
A shot rang out. Ric saw nothing but the sky and then his eyes went vacant. Roberto started to run back to a white pickup parked by the pullout whose engine was still running.
“What? What was that!” A young woman was running toward the pullout from where she had been hiking with her dog. “Hey, you, what are you doing?” She yelled after Roberto. Roberto turned and growled at her. In one instant, reacting to the growl, the young woman's black dog leaped at the stranger and bit him on his forearm – above the gun hand. Roberto screamed in pain. He raised his arm as if to shake off the dog, but the dog sank her teeth more deeply into the stranger's arm. “What th--?” he yelled, and fell to the ground. The young woman yelled to the dog, “Muggie, leave it!” Muggie released Roberto's arm and, her ears cocked in pride, ran back to her mom. With that, the young woman and dog ran back toward their car. Roberto, yelling in pain, tried to aim the gun at them and fired twice, uncontrollably, missing them by a wide margin. Yelling in pain, he struggled to his feet, tried to run after them, but seeing that they were already in their car and racing away, he made quickly for his truck. Clearly, his old jalopy couldn't possibly keep up with the SUV. He drove off in the other direction, hoping to get out of the park before an alarm was raised.
The young woman drove her dog to the visitor center, jumped out of the car, and yelled as they ran in the front door, “A man's been shot. I think he's dead! The guy got away and he's headed out the south entrance!” A wispy man was attending the desk at the visitor center. He froze for a moment, then ran to the back office.
Out rushed a woman with grey hair tied in a bun, wearing glasses and a wolf sweat shirt. “I'm the superintendent. What's the problem?”
The young woman, still almost yelling, replied, “A man's been shot. Over by Blue Mesa. On the trail. I think he's dead. My dog Muggie bit the shooter. He tried to shoot us, but he missed. We got away. I saw his truck heading to the south entrance in my rear view mirror as we drove back here.”
The superintendent waved to the ranger at the desk, “Call Becket and tell him to get over to Blue Mesa. And take his pistol!” The wispy male ranger picked up the phone and frantically dialled. The superintendent turned to the young woman.
“What's your name, my dear?”
“Kat. Kat Notnarcs.”
“Where are you from?”
“I live in Princeton, New Jersey. I'm a post-doctoral fellow there. It's the spring break, and I took the opportunity to come out to hike here in Arizona.”
“What did you say about your dog?”
“My dog – Muggie's her name – bit the guy. On his arm. He couldn't shoot his gun after that. Thank goodness or he would have shot us, too!”
“What a blessing, dear. Look, thank you for reporting this. Could you please give me your contact information, and then you're free to go. Try to relax and don't worry. We'll see after the poor fellow who got shot. And you can be sure that we'll catch that perpetrator! Here's my card. My name's Indell. D.G. Indell. Someone from the NPSCIS will contact you.”
“Thank you so much. I hope that man is okay, but I think he's dead.” Kat whispered calmingly to Muggie and the two of them left the building. Their SUV pulled slowly out of the parking lot and off in the direction of Flagstaff.
D. G. Indell called the ranger at the south entrance. “Esposito, be on the lookout for an old white truck, which will be heading from the north entrance. If you spot it, try to stop it. But watch out, the driver's probably armed and dangerous. Don't do anything foolish. At least get a plate number if you can. Get out to the gate, close it and check each vehicle coming out. Check if anyone saw or heard anything suspicious, and if so, have them come up to me at the visitor center. I'll call the Holbrook police department and have them send someone out to help you as soon as they can. Be careful.”
Indell walked back into the office behind the desk and sat down next to her assistant. First, she turned to the wispy ranger who had been manning the desk. “Castle, I want you to run over to the north entrance. Stop each person leaving and ask them if they saw or heard anything suspicious. If anyone has anything to say, bring them in to me.”
Castle nodded quickly and ran out the door.
Indell then turned to her assistant. “Ryan, if this is a murder – and I fear it is – we're going to need some expert help. I know one of the best investigative rangers in the NPSCIS. Her name is Kitti Skies. I recall she'd been posted down to Big Bend National Park. Said she wanted some R&R after that stressful murder that occurred up in the Smoky Mountains last year. She may still be down there.” Indell fished around in a file and found a slip of paper with a name and number on it. “Here it is. Stay right here, Ryan, I want you to listen to this. If she'll help, you'll be detailed to assist her.”
Indell dialed the number. One ring, two rings.
“Skies here,” a voice answered.
“Kitti, it's Deb, up here at Petrified. I think we've had a murder here and I want you to come up here and give us a hand with it. We may have to track down an unknown killer.”
“I don't know, Deb. I feel like I'm just starting to unwind down here. I have a little place off the grid down here in Terlingua. It's quiet. I'm just now getting around to thinking about what I want to do next, but I haven't even started that process yet.”
“We really need you Kitti. I wouldn't accept anyone less able than you.”
“Thank you Deb, I appreciate that. Let me think about it and I'll call you back.”
“Well, hurry, Kitti. If this is a murder, it won't be two days before Sec-Int assigns someone else. Then I'll be up a dry creek without a paddle.”
“I'll call you back by tomorrow, Deb.”
Kitti paused. She remembered how the last investigation hit a dead end. No sooner had she arrived in Terlingua then the superintendent at Big Bend National Park had called her to ask her to rush over to Borquillo Crossing to assist a border patrol officer who had been shot. She had been sitting, that day too, on the Terlingua Porch, and had thrown down her beer, turned to Dr. Doug who was sitting next to her, and exclaimed, “Doug, I need you to come with me right now over to Borquillos. A border patrol agent has been shot. We have to assist him. He needs medical help.
Dr. Doug looked up at her with that manyana look he always had in his eyes, smiled, and said, “Why sure, Kitti, I'm always one to help. But I got to get my nurse to come along too.”
“Of course, of course,” Kitti soothed. But hurry, we need to get right over there.
Dr. Doug dialed his cell phone, a young woman answered, they spoke a few words, and he was off the phone. “She's ready. We can pick her up as we pass by.”
Kitti and Dr. Doug raced to her four-by-four and sped down the dusty road, past the Terlingua Ghostown sign, through the little village of Study Butte. The car screamed to a halt in front of a little adobe shack and a young woman with dark hair rushed out.
Dr. Doug interjected: “Kittie Skies, this is my nurse, Due Savis. Due, this is Kitti.”
The women greeted each other as the SUV slammed into gear and the wheels screeched across gravel back onto the road and down into the national park, waiving their passes at the ranger sitting in the entrance station. The SUV tore up and down the hills toward the Borquilla Crossing Ranger Station.
They arrived in time to see the border guard, Lave Daroche, lying on a bed, breathing heavily, with one of the other border guards attending him. Kitti blurted out, “What happened?”
Daroche looked up at her, tried to raise his head, and let it back down on the pillow, unconsciously putting his hand on the bandage over the bullet wound in his thigh. “We saw some suspicious people crossing the Rio Grande just upstream of the Rio Grande Village. We stopped them, asked them to identify themselves. Then they started shooting. We took cover. They started running back across to Mexico, and we chased them out into the stream. But one of their gang was still on the U.S. side and came up behind us and shot me in the thigh. Mike and Nick tried to catch him, but he ran north, through the Park, and disappeared into the desert. Nick and Mike chased him as far as they could. I could only limp after them. But I got a good look at him. It was Roberto.”
Due Savis looked at Lave Daroche. She blurted out, “Not THE Roberto? The one that threatened me a couple years ago?”
Daroche nodded. “That's the one.”
Due looked at Kitti. “Roberto's not right in the head, Kitti. He's dangerous. He's a pretty big deal in that drug gang you've been chasing.
Kitti looked at her. “You mean the Evil League of Drugs?
Due nodded.
“This is serious,” Kitti continued.
Kitti had spent the ensuing 6 months, off and on, while trying to destress from her prior assignment, tracking down Roberto, to no avail. It had been very frustrating. She wanted to devote her full time to the investigation, but she was supposed to be down here for her mental health. But she also couldn't just turn her back on a shooting of a border guard. She wasn't the only person in the world.
It gnawed at her that she hadn't found Roberto. Now Deb calls. What had been a dilemma had now become a trilemma! Chase Roberto? Destress? Move to Arizona and solve a murder? How could she decide?
Kitti Skies closed her cell phone and turned to the bearded, red-haired man sitting next to her on the porch of the Terlingua General Store. “It was my old friend D. G. Indell. She wants me to head up to Arizona and help with what looks like a murder investigation at the Petrified Forest.
The bearded man moved his beer bottle from one hand to the other and looked at her. “Kitti, I thought we just got done talking about how we were going to give it a year here in Terlingua. You can't be serious.”
“Well, that's how I felt, but I didn't know Deb was going to call me.”
He looked away from her. It had been eight years since Grizzly Storm had moved down to Terlingua from Wyncote, Pennsylvania, trying to escape his former life as a banking lawyer. Trying to reduce the stress and figure out how he was going to live the rest of his life. Then Kitti showed up out of nowhere. It had been years, and she showed up out of nowhere. Before she came, he had made a huge mistake and bought a patch of desert ground in Terlingua Ranch. Now, there were no utilities, the homeowners association was a bunch of no-good, do-nothing retards. He had no electricity, no water, no sewer. He was living in his RV off the grid, barely scraping by, and Kitti shows up. It was like a beautiful sunrise over Casa Grande, all reds and blue and orange and full of the light of day. And so they started talking. Every day when they could, over a beer or two on The Porch. Even over a whole day at the chihuahua races. On and on they talked, about nothing and everything. Before she came, he'd started to drink heavy. Mainly Tennessee moonshine stocked by the storekeeper at the General Store. Knocked him right out. He'd been getting pretty long in the tooth. Before she came.
Now Kitti was here and he was slowly putting his life back together again, tentatively starting to think about the future – their future together, perhaps. Then Kitti gets this call.
“This isn't fair, Kitti. I thought we were getting serious. I thought we were headed for something permanent. I guess I know better now. You'd just toss it over for another investigative gig?”
“I didn't say I was going to do it,” Kitti replied, defensive. “I didn't even ask for the job.”
Grizzly sulked. “Well, then, I guess I'll have to ask you to marry me. Will you marry me, Kitti?”
Kitty startled, looked him in the eyes, searched to see whether it was the liquor or Grizzly talking. He seemed pretty sober. “Why, I think I will, Grizzly.”
“Well, then, it's settled,” he said. We'll get married and then we'll pack up the RV and moved to the Petrified Forest National Park.”
Kitti almost swooned. Where had Grizzly gotten such backbone? How could he have become so decisive? She looked at him. She whispered, “Oh, Grizzly, you dear. But let's not rush into this. Will you come with me to Arizona, while I try to catch this perp, and then when that mission is complete, we can talk about our future?”
Grizzly nodded drunkenly. Kitti took that as a yes. She picked up her cell phone and made the first of two calls, to her contact in the Mexican Federales. “Juan? Kitti. Yes, I'm well. Juan, we have a problem here. I've been trying to catch Roberto. Yes, that's the one, the guy in the Evil League of Drugs. But now I have to go up to Arizona. I was wondering if you could detail two guys to take my place and help with the Roberto investigation? You can? Oh, you're such a dear! Who will it be?”
She wrote the names “Eduardo” and “Jorge” on her notepad, with a phone number next to each.
Her second call was to Homeland Security. “Hillary, is that you? Right, Kitti here. Listen, I know things are a little busy there right now, what with Benghazi and all, but could you spare someone to help me with a murder investigation in Arizona? It could be a tough one so I need one of your best officers.
Hillary paged through her Rolodex and stopped at a name: “Kitti, I know just the guy. He's between tours of duty and he's the tops. Natt Xing. I'll send him an e-mail. Where does he need to report?”
“Have him meet me at the visitor center for the Petrified Forest National Park this Monday, as early as possible.”
“Done. Good luck, sister.”
“Thanks. I owe you one. Bye.”
Having taken care of business, Kitti turned to the personal. “Griz, can I come over to your place tonight? I'll pack my bag and bring it. You don't mind if we use your truck?”
Grizzly smiled, “Not at all, Kitti. I hope you don't mind sharing a fifth wheel with a cat?”
“Oh, you mean little Frontster? He's a sweetheart. We get along famously.”
“He's not so little. Twenty pounds of stubborness, I'd say.”
“Takes one to know one?”
“Look. We get to a new campground, he wants out to explore. I understand that. I put his collar on and hook the leash. I hold the door open. He sits there. Doesn't go out. I close the door. He meows to go out. I open the door. Same drill all over again.”
“But he is smart, isn't he?”
“Sure. I had him trained to alert to drugs and explosives. He's very reliable that way. Gets near something like that and his tail goes straight up in the air, his back arches, and his whiskers stick out. He hisses. Very reliable that way. I used him in a couple of sensitive situations before I retired.”
“Wow. Alerts to explosives and drugs. He could be useful!” She smiled.
“He also is useful in baiting dogs.” Grizzly gazed over at a fat, black cat moving quietly along the front edge of the porch, crouched, staring intently at a pit bull sleeping, unaware, by a rocking chair near the front door of the store. Frontster's backside waggled, he sprang. The dog yelped. The cat ran off, straight down the porch, leaped into Kitti's lap, and started purring, as if nothing had happened.
Grizzly smiled back. “Come on over when you're packed. You can have the bed, I'll take the sofa.”
Kitti crossed the parking lot to her car, opened the door, entered, closed it, and the car drove down the road toward her cabin. Grizzly put his beer bottle down, looked down at the cat, and moved slowly toward his truck. Frontster paused, turned a few different directions, and decided to sit on the porch. Grizzly called from the truck, “Frontster! Here, kitty.” Frontster stared at him. Grizzly got out of the truck, trudged over to the porch, scooped up the cat, hauled him into the front seat of the truck, slammed the door, and left a small dust cloud behind him as he drove off to the RV park.
Two days later, Kitti, Grizzly and Frontster had arrived at Petrified Skies RV Park, just outside Holbrook, Arizona, not far from the Petrified Forest National Park. It was mid-morning. Grizzly's fifth wheel trailer sat perched on a spacious gravel site, next to a shady tree. His Ford F-550, suitably brawny, sat beside the trailer awaiting its next duty. Kitty had rented a car and was over at the visitor center in her initial conference with D. G. Indell. Frontster sat on the dining table in the trailer window, staring intently at a rabbit that was twitching its nose under the picnic table next to the trailer.
As he stepped down out of the trailer with his coffee cup in hand, Grizzly noted that a Winnebago had pulled into the site beside him. A tall, gangly bald fellow in jeans and a bright yellow Wawa t-shirt was puttering around the storage compartment. Grizzly kicked the cat back into the trailer, turned to the neighbor and introduced himself. “Mornin'! When'd you get in?”
The neighbor turned, gave Grizzly a friendly smile, walked over, offered his hand. “Good morning! T. J.'s my name. We got in last night, late. We're just here for the week. How long are you here?”
“Indefinitely. Happy to offer you help finding your way around, but I'm new here too. I just got here a couple days ago. About all I've done is tour that Indian Trading Post east of here. Are you on vacation?”
“Yes. With my wife Leen and our two kids, Ing O. and Flam. We're planning to go on to the Grand Canyon next week and then head back to Philadelphia after that.”
“Well, welcome!” Grizzly started his morning coffee stroll around the campground, noting the various types of RV's, the states they were from, stopped to pet and talk to each dog being walked, gossiped with their masters. He thought, “I'd better find something interesting to do or I'll go crazy in this forsaken place.”
Meanwhile, at the visitor center, Kitti had been briefed by Superintendent Indell. During the time since the murder, several tourists had shown up at headquarters with various injuries. Strangely, they were reluctant to explain how they got injured, or their stories didn't seem to make sense. Kitti looked at Indell and said, “Deb, let me start with the tourist who witnessed the murder. Then I'll get in touch with the injured tourists and see if there's any connection.”
Kitti called the young woman, Kat Notnarcs, and invited her to lunch to discuss the details of what she saw. She then called Natt Xing and asked if he would join them. Natt agreed. The session lasted several hours, and the young woman looked drawn and tired when the three cars headed their separate ways. Kitti left Kat with the observation: “I may need your help later. Will you be around for a week or two?” Kat nodded, said she hadn't finished her touring of the Four Corners region. She said Kitti could reach her anytime by cell phone.
Kitti called the park office and asked that the first two sets of injured tourists be invited to the visitor center so that she could speak to them as soon as she arrived. She turned to Natt. “Let's see what's going on with these other tourists.”
Natt responded, “I have a feeling there's a connection. The mysterious injuries just showed up around the same time as that murder.”
Kitti and Natt walked into the conference room at the park visitor center. Two women sat there, looking dazed. They each sported bandages on their heads. Kitti introduced herself and Natt, and asked them to introduce themselves and recount for her what had happened.
They were from England. The taller one was named Cam and the shorter one Jan. They had been on a road trip across the U.S. and had stopped for an hour or so at the Petrified Forest. They were walking along the path near the Painted Desert Inn when a swarthy man approached them, struck up a conversation, and eventually asked if they would take some petrified wood specimens to a friend of his who lived in Flagstaff. They demurred and he threatened them. Frightened, they had tried to run back to the Inn, but he caught them and beat them both about the head. Bloodied but not seriously injured, they sought help from the ranger in the Inn. That was as much as they knew. When asked for a more detailed description of the man, they could only recall that he said his name was “Roberto.”
“'Roberto,'” Kitti repeated. Can it be the Roberto she had been hunting in Big Bend? Perhaps it was a coincidence. Why would a drug dealer like Roberto be involved in stealing petrified wood and selling it for chump change when he had so many other, more profitable illicit activities to pursue? It didn't make sense.
Pondering this question, Kitti and Natt moved on to another witness, who was ushered into the conference room after the Brits had left. Her name was Red Iver, a baghwan who headed a women's religious cult in California. Ms. Iver was serious, but with a dry wit, and seemed to always know instinctively what Kitti might say next, starting her answer before the question was finished. She, too, was bandaged around her head, and she recounted a similar story about being accosted at Puerco Pueblo by a swarthy man named Roberto, who demanded that she carry some pieces of petrified wood to a friend of his in Santa Monica. Again, when she refused, he attacked her. She was only able to just escape him when a park maintenance person drove up to do some trail worked.
“Roberto again,” Kitti whispered to Natt. Natt nodded knowingly. Kitti continued, “Natt, let's see if we can reconstruct the murder. Can you contact Kat Notnarcs and have her bring Muggie to the crime scene. My friend Grizzly Storm is with me. He's the creative sort and may have some good ideas, and his cat is specially trained to alert for drugs, explosives, gunshot residue and the like. We might find something on the ground that the park police missed so far.”
The next morning, Kitti and Grizzly hauled Frontster into Grizzly's truck and drove to Blue Mesa. Just as they were getting out of the truck, Natt pulled up with Kat and Muggie. Kat walked through the events for them, showing where her car had been parked, and where she and Muggie had been standing when they first heard the disturbance. She showed where poor Ric had been standing, and the evil Roberto as well. As she was helping them map the events, Frontster arched his back, straightened his tail, and started hissing, all the while staring at a rock that looked like petrified wood. It was sitting by the path about 3 feet from where Muggie had bitten Roberto.
Grizzly frowned. This didn't make sense. “Frontster only alerts to things like gunpowder, explosives, drugs and so on. Why would he get excited about a piece of petrified wood?”
Kitti answered, “Maybe this isn't petrified wood. Maybe it's an explosive, like C4 or something. I think we'd better get this rock back to the lab. There might be fingerprints on it. Perhaps this is one of the rock Roberto was trying to get the tourists to carry to his associates.”
Having thanked Kat and driven her and Muggie home, Natt joined Kitti and Grizzly at the NPSCIS lab, conveniently located at park headquarters. The two lab technicians, Tate and Tarmen, tested the rock Frontster found. “Kitti, it's not petrified wood,” Tate announced.
Kitti responded, “I had a feeling. It looked like it might be an illegal explosive. I wonder what Roberto wanted to do with high-powered explosives?”
“Kitti, it's not explosives,” Tate rejoined. “It's highly concentrated crack cocaine in rock form. I've never seen crack so concentrated. It's almost as hard as a real rock and you can't cut it except with a diamond saw.”
“But we admit it sure looks like petrified wood,” Tarmen added sympathetically. “We're still not sure how the unique color patterns of petrified wood were introduced into it.”
Tate looked at Tarmen. “You know, Tarmen, this reminds me of that time we discovered a unique material that one of the Romulans brought up to the stage when we spoke at that Star Trek Convention in Hunt Valley several years ago.”
Tarmen looked strangely at Tate, as if trying to remember. “Wait, Tate, do you mean that material that we submitted to the National Science Foundation and they dubbed, 'The Devil's Heart?' You're right. It was just like this material. You couldn't cut it with anything but a diamond saw. Gee, maybe we should drag out that old scientific paper I did on The Devil's Heart and see if the materials are related – or maybe even the same.”
Tate nodded. The two rushed out of the lab, yelling something about having to rush back to their house to find the file and compare the materials.
Kitti shrugged. Most importantly, they had learned that this was highly valuable crack cocaine. Now it made sense. Now Kitti could understand why Roberto would spend his precious time with this “petrified wood.” He had devised a new method of distributing the drug, by persuading or intimidating innocent tourists to carry it for him all over North America!
Kitti asked Deb to notify all park personnel of the nature of the man they were hunting. The next day, Deb called Kitti and reported, “Kitti, one of our employees thinks she can offer some help.” Kitti rushed over to the visitor center.
Deb was standing in the lobby with Jenny, the gift store manager. Jenny described a strange encounter she had had with a swarthy man the day of the murder. He had come into the gift shop looking for medical supplies to bandage his arm. He didn't say how he had injured it, but Jenny thought it looked something like an animal bite. Natt, who had joined Kitti and Jenny for their conversation, said to Kitti: “Muggie!” Kitti and Natt talked further and decided to set a trap for Roberto.
Natt would go undercover to pose as a tourist visiting the park. Kitti said it would be very dangerous. She wondered how Natt's wife Gillian would feel if she knew that Natt was undertaking a life-threatening mission. And how about Natt's young son, Howie? What would happen to Howie if Natt were seriously injured – or killed?
Natt demurred. He said, “Kitti, this is just part of the job. Gillian doesn't like it, but she understands this is what I have to do. I understand the potential consequences. But if we manage this ruse properly, I won't be in very much danger.”
Kitti reluctantly accepted Natt's offer. They conferred with Grizzly to try to guess, based on the pattern of Roberto's prior reported attacks, where Roberto might try to approach a tourist the next time. They decided it could possibly be the Agate House; tourists there would be particularly interested in petrified wood and may be more willing to assist this stranger in his plans.
The next morning when the park opened, Natt drove to Agate House and strolled leisurely around, gazing intently at every rock he could find. Shortly, a swarthy figure approached him.
“Hello, sir.”
“Good day.”
“These rocks are beautiful, are they not?”
“Yes they are, strikingly so.”
“Are you a scientist?”
“No,” Natt responded, “Just a tourist. I'm visiting the park on a trip around the West.”
“If you don't mind my asking, where are you from?” Roberto baited the trap.
Natt knew the script: “Falls Church, Virginia. I've never seen this section of Arizona before.”
“Would you like to see some samples of petrified rock I have found? They are particularly colorful.”
Natt nodded. Roberto reached into his backpack and brought out a handful of the most brilliant, colorful pieces of rock that Natt had ever seen. Natt drew in his breath.
Roberto continued. “I need to deliver some of these to a friend of mine who, as it happens, lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Would you be willing to take these to him when you return home?”
Natt gazed at Roberto, paused, and then said in an even voice, “I don't get involved in drug smuggling.”
Roberto startled, stumbled backward, stunned by the response. Sensing he was about to be apprehended, he reached into his backpack again, this time drawing out a gun.
At this moment, Kitti and Grizzly jumped out from behind a giant petrified log, just to the right of and behind Roberto. Aiming their guns steadily at him, they told him to drop his weapon. In the instant that Roberto paused and looked around, Natt drew his weapon. Roberto turned, saw the impossibility of his position, and carefully laid the pistol on the desert sand.
Kitti walked up to Roberto, and as she was cuffing him, rolled up his sleeve. There, on his right forearm, was the mark of a recent animal bite. “Good Muggie,” Kitti laughed.
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