Author's Note: This story is a spin-off of 'I'll Never Find Another You', which features the Reagans, along with Dr. Edwina Talbot Reagan, aka Teddy. This story is set about three months after Jamie and Teddy's marriage, so it would be three months before the last chapter of the first of story.
This is my first attempt at writing a mystery, something I have always wanted to do. I hope you enjoy it!
The story will be a short (six to eight chapters) adventure. I am going to incorporate both Navajo and Mormon history into this story. For the most part the Navajo history will be based on actual fact, but I will take a little bit of artistic license, to help the story line. The story is rated 'M' but only certain chapters will contain mature content, and it will be between a married couple.
I mean no disrespect to the Mormon or Navajo people, and I do not own 'Blue Bloods' and this is a work of fiction. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
Cheap in Manhattan
Owen Lewis Slaughter, B.S. Engineering Citadel Military College, double M.A. Art History and Anthropology Brigham Young, PhD Arizona State, was known for being cheap. His siblings were sure it would be the undoing of him, and were proved right. His ex-fiancée, while not blaming his cheapness for the end of the relationship, didn't relish remembering examples of his tightfistedness that she saw while they were together. His current wife, discretely separated from him, was glad that her Father had negotiated the prenuptial agreement that kept Owen paying her bills even after their marriage was in name only.
Dr. Slaughter was an archeologist that specialized in Anasazi and Native American cultures. He was well known in the Four Corners areas, but nowhere else. However, that was all going to change with his recent discovery. It was too bad that he would not receive the recognition from his peers, but the financial reward he'd been promised made up for it. Owen had also been promised financial backing for his next dig. The last three years had been hard, after his grant funds had dried up. Money would always win out with him.
He had done his mission, the one that all young Mormon men were expected to do, in Spain. It was hot and dusty, and no one was interested in the teachings of Brigham Young. He and his partner had spent their time going to museums and reading journals from Spanish explorers who had gone to the new world with Cortez and other great leaders. Owen spoke fluent Spanish, due to the fact that his Father, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, had been in charge of the LDS Church in Argentina.
It was in an old castle north west of Seville, that he'd found the journal that changed his life. His passion had always been archeology, and how the Anasazi culture tied into the ancient Mormon teachings. Owen was fascinated with what the Spanish explorers, coming across the ancient settlements for the first time, had seen. The castle was ancient, just outside of a sleepy town that didn't even make most maps. The nobleman, old and lonely, was glad to welcome two clean cut young men who spoke fluent Spanish, and wanted to learn about the great library the castle housed.
They had spent almost three months at the castle, with Owen reading all the notes and journals in the family archives. What he found made up for the over spiced food that was served too late at night, as well as their host's smoking habit. Owen did like the fact that the lodging and food were free, while the library was cool and dim.
The hard part had been going back to America and spending the next six years getting his degrees, before he could begin his work. He came from an old Mormon family, via South Carolina, and it was tradition for all male members to attend the Citadel Military College, in Charleston. Owen majored in engineering, figuring it would come in handy at a dig site. He then went to Brigham Young University, to study art history and anthropology. He'd wanted to study archeology at Yale, but had not gotten into the program.
The PhD was through Arizona State, and had given him the excuse to work in the Four Corners area. Owen had his legitimate project, and then his covert hunt for the artifact that the Great-Grand Uncle of the owner of the castle had written about. Owen silently cursed the lack of specific directions in the journal, which he'd tediously copied, but the landmarks were still the same.
It had all paid off in the end, when he'd found the object that he'd spent ten years looking for. Getting it off of the reservation had been a bit of a problem, because the Navajo were very suspicious of him. Owen had had to enter a scared area to get the artifact, and he'd almost gotten killed in the process. He'd felt like Indiana Jones in the movie when he'd been successful.
Owen was in Manhattan, to meet with the man who was going to buy the object. He would have loved to have written a paper on the history of the item, and seen it published with his name. However, that would bring him recognition, but no money, and Owen liked money. That, along with his stealing of scared property, caused his death.
The Slaughter family was very wealthy, and Owen had a large trust fund that provided him a generous income. He could have checked into the Plaza, or a similar hotel, with no problem. In addition to greater comfort, Owen would have enjoyed greater security. The two Navajo men, who'd been trailing him since he left Arizona, would never have made it passed the lobby. Of course, the other person trailing Owen was very glad for how things played out.
However, Owen was not going to pay what the Plaza would charge, and instead went to a mediocre hotel in mid-town Manhattan. The AAA book said it was clean and decent, and when Owen checked in he made it a point to show his AAA card, so he could get five dollars off the cost of the room. He was appalled at what the price was anyway!
Owen had checked into the hotel on Friday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon Det. Danny Reagan and his partner Det. Jackie Curatola were looking at his bloody corpse in his clean, decent hotel room. They found it interesting that in spite of the savagery of the killing, the corpse was laid out spread eagled, and a mixture of sand and something else was sprinkled around it.
The hotel manager had said that Dr. Slaughter had checked in yesterday, showing a Utah driver's license and a black American Express card. It was the card that caught the attention of the hotel clerk, because he knew they were only issued to extremely wealthy individuals. Well that, along with Dr. Slaughter flashing his AAA card to get his five dollars off the room! The manager didn't know what the sunburned, fair haired, well dressed man was doing in his run of the mill hotel, but part of his trade was not to ask questions. He had noticed that Dr. Slaughter had a Coach Leather briefcase, and one airline type suitcase. The manager had noticed that the baggage tag indicated the man had come from Phoenix.
"What do you suppose a Mormon archeologist is doing here?" Jackie asked, and Danny said "Getting himself killed, and then purified in an Indian ritual? He could have stayed in Arizona for that!" The Medical Examiner, an oriental woman, said "What do you mean, purified in an Indian Ritual?" Danny laughed and said "I have read some mystery novels that take place on the Navajo reservation. This is right out of one of them."
Danny was bothered by that fact, along with the why of it. He'd always wondered how much of the Navajo details in those books were real, and how much was made up. "I find it interesting that his money and credit cards are all here. Robbery was not a motive." He said, and Jackie said "They, I'm assuming more than one was involved, were looking for something though. His luggage has been ransacked, and the room torn apart!"
The Manager was standing outside, and they could hear him bitching about how much the clean-up was going to cost. Several uniformed officers milled around, while the personnel from the M.E.'s office waited for their boss to finish her work. Jackie said "Let's hope we can wrap this up soon. I have a date tonight!" Danny laughed and said "Oh, a new man? When do I get to meet him?"
Jackie shook her head, and said "You sound like my Mother!" Danny said with a grin "I have her on speed dial you know!" His partner was still amazed at the changes in Danny since he'd been getting some counseling. There were times though that Jackie missed the old, sardonic Danny. "Look, I'll go back to the precinct and make some calls. Maybe Dr. Slaughter's family or friends will know what he was doing in New York!"
"He looks awfully clean cut, and well dressed for this part of town." Jackie observed, and added "I would not have thought he was an archeologist if you hadn't found his business card." One of the uniformed officers, and older sergeant said "Did you expect him to have a hat and whip like Indiana Jones?" Danny said "It probably would have helped him if he'd had the whip!" Jackie thought that he sounded like the old Danny when he said it.
Once Danny got back to the precinct, he started with the home address on the driver's license. It turned out to be Dr. Slaughter's parents' house, and from what the 'house manager' had said, his parents had not seen him since the first of the year. However, the woman offered the name and number of Dr. Slaughter's wife, who resided in South Carolina.
Grace Connor Slaughter, when Danny finally got hold of her, after going through a butler, made it very clear that she knew nothing about what her husband had been up to. Danny thought it interesting that Mrs. Slaughter felt it necessary to give him a song and dance about how busy and important her husband was, and why they had not spoken in a while. Once she knew that he was dead, Danny found himself being told to talk to the family attorney.
Danny had more social skills than most people thought, and knew better than to contact southern lawyers past the cocktail hour. He instead tried Dr. Slaughter's office at Brigham Young University, hoping the time difference would work in his favor. All that he found out is that Dr. Slaughter had spent the last year working outside of Shiprock, Arizona, on an Anasazi fire pit site.
It was now almost 6:00pm, and Dr. Slaughter was the only pressing case he had. Danny had read all of Tony Hillerman's novels, and knew that the Navajo reservation was a semi-closed area. Very few white people had true access to the area, and if what he read was true, they all knew each other. Danny decided that he'd talk to his sister-in-law tomorrow, at the family dinner. She'd spent time on the reservation, and Danny knew she was held in high regard. Teddy might not know Owen Slaughter, but she probably knew people who would.