Shadows of the Stone Benders (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 1)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “Thank you,” a relieved Anlon responded. “Just send anything I need to sign to Devlin’s address for now. I’ll be staying there for the next couple of weeks. I assume from your earlier comments about his trust that his home and contents are essentially mine now? No long, drawn out process?”

  “Yes, that’s mostly right,” replied Mr. Grant. “There are some tax consequences that will need ultimately to be addressed and the formal process of transferring the deed must be completed, but ownership for all intents and purposes transferred to you as a beneficiary of the irrevocable trust Devlin established. Of course, you can’t dispose of any assets until the official documents are approved.”

  “Okay, thank you. As you might have guessed, I have my own battery of attorneys and I will make sure they contact you today to start the ball rolling on the documents, tax issues and any expenses your firm incurs on my behalf,” Anlon said as he rose to shake Mr. Grant’s hand.

  “Absolutely, we’ll do our best for all parties concerned. There are two matters, however, we should discuss before you depart,” hesitated Mr. Grant as he stood to return Anlon’s parting salutation.

  “Oh?” Anlon replied with a slight air of surprise.

  “Yes, I have something here in my possession that Devlin specifically, dare I say adamantly, demanded we hold in our office safe for you. Also, he demanded with equal fervor that you discuss Ms. Simpson’s bequest with her directly,” stated Mr. Grant.

  Jennifer pressed the end-call icon on her cell phone and frowned. Strange, she thought, that Matthew Dobson was so convinced that Devlin Wilson’s death was not accidental. She had just spoken with the Meredith Police Department officer who was first on the scene where Devlin fell. He filed the original police report and, she learned from her conversation with him, was the officer Dobson approached to ask if his fall might not be an accident.

  The officer, Sam Keller, recited the police report to her over the phone, adding in a few additional tidbits from the autopsy report and agreed to send Jennifer copies of both. Devlin Wilson had been found lying on his side some 200 feet below a steep rocky section of the Blueberry Ledge Trail on Mt. Whiteface in the White Mountain range in New Hampshire. It appeared he slipped and fell backwards, hitting at least one tree and multiple sharp rock edges on his way down before rolling to a stop on a small flat area covered with pine needles.

  He died from internal injuries sustained in the fall. His body was battered with bruises, cuts and abrasions that were consistent with those expected from a fall. In other words, Officer Keller clarified, none of the injuries appeared to be defensive wounds associated with fending off an attacker.

  He was found by a group of hikers making the ascent on Mt. Whiteface at around 9:00 a.m. They did not hear or see Devlin during their hike, nor did they see anyone else coming down the trail, though they passed a few hikers going in the same direction. The coroner estimated the time of death between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

  His wallet, car keys and cell phone were found among the other items in his backpack, so there was no suspicion of robbery. Officer Keller also inspected Devlin’s Land Rover in the parking area near the trailhead and found the vehicle locked and the contents undisturbed as best as he could tell.

  Officer Keller stressed that the Blueberry Ledge Trail itself is considered a strenuous hiking trail and it is not uncommon for hikers to sustain sprains and broken bones on the trail. He did allow, however, that it is unusual for someone to outright fall to their death. In his recollection, Devlin was the only one on that trail to die from a fall.

  The coroner, he said, wondered if Devlin experienced a heart attack or some other medical emergency that caused him to fall but she found nothing in the blood work, toxicology report or in her physical examination that indicated a medical emergency prior to the fall. The only odd thing to her was that the extent of the internal injuries seemed excessive for a 200 foot fall. The condition of the body was more consistent with a much longer fall, but the section he fell from did not wind back above the same area as it ascended. With no other explanation available from the physical evidence, the coroner noted her finding, but affirmed injuries sustained in an accidental fall as the cause of death.

  Stevens only asked Officer Keller a few questions while she intently scribbled notes, mostly about Matthew Dobson and his visit with Keller the day after the accident. She explained first that Mr. Dobson died a few days after Dr. Wilson and that the circumstances of his death were suspicious. Elaborating further, she said that Mr. Dobson had expressed misgivings about the accidental nature of Dr. Wilson’s death the night before he died himself. Though there was no overt connection between the two deaths, she was delegated to follow up to make sure.

  “Ask anything you like,” Keller said.

  “It might be hard to remember,” she acknowledged, “but can you recall the precise words Mr. Dobson used when he asked about Dr. Wilson’s death?”

  “Hmm, I don’t remember the specific words he used, but it was along the lines of, ‘are you absolutely certain he wasn’t pushed?’. I told him there was no evidence indicating he’d been pushed but I also told him there was no way to rule it out as a possibility either. I asked him why he thought someone might have pushed the Professor, as Mr. Dobson called him. He said it wasn’t like the Professor to hike on his own and especially so, given the rugged terrain of the trail where he fell. And he said was certain Dr. Wilson had never mentioned the White Mountains before and was baffled why he came there in the first place,” Officer Keller recounted.

  “Were those the only reasons he gave you for his suspicions? Did he mention a possible motive?” Stevens queried in response to Keller’s commentary.

  “Not that I remember. I did ask him if he had reason to believe Dr. Wilson was in danger. Or if someone recently threatened him, or if he thought he was in some kind of trouble. He said no to all three questions, but between you and me, he did hesitate before answering. I told him that without something more tangible to go on, it was tough to look at the evidence and conclude there was something sinister behind his fall.”

  Stevens agreed with Keller’s assessment, but she noted his comment about Dobson’s hesitation. She thanked Officer Keller for his time and insights and asked one final question. “Oh, one last thing. Did Mr. Dobson say anything that struck you as out of place?”

  “Hmmm, let me think. You know, now that you mention it, he did ask a question that was a little odd. He wanted to know if we found any unusual-looking stones or artifacts near the body or in his backpack. I assured him that we hadn’t found anything of the kind and I asked him why. He said the Professor was an archaeologist and wondered if he’d gone on the hike to search for relics.”

  Exiting her car at the Mt. Whiteface trailhead parking area, Stevens adjusted her backpack and ropes while mentally replaying the conversation she just finished with Keller. Looking up at the sheer cliffs of the summit, she muttered, “Stones again.”

  Anlon glanced down at his watch as he waited for the funeral home director to re-emerge with the estimates for Devlin’s and Dobson’s burials. It was now 2:00 p.m. and Pebbles’ flight would arrive in Albany in two hours.

  When wrapping up his conversation that morning with Mr. Grant, the attorney mentioned that neither Devlin nor Dobson had family in the area. Given this, Anlon decided to take charge of making their final arrangements while Mr. Grant sought to find and alert their relatives.

  After leaving Mr. Grant’s office, Anlon returned to Stockbridge to meet with the rector of the town’s quaint stone Catholic church to discuss service arrangements for both men before driving to nearby Lenox to speak with the funeral home director.

  Driving to and from these important errands gave Anlon the time to absorb and process the discussion with Grant and to ponder the new artifact Devlin left with Grant for safekeeping. It was another square stone like the one in the safe back at the house, but it was black instead of reddish, and this one had different markings on the face of
the stone.

  At the center was a sun-like etching with six “rays” extending from the center-circle. At the outer terminus of each ray were distinct etched figures, though the figures didn’t make much sense to Anlon when he first studied it. Most confounding, Devlin left no note for him explaining the stone and he still didn’t know how to access its contents…assuming this stone was similar to the one Dobson described.

  Interrupted from his train of thought by the appearance of the undertaker from behind a curtained doorway with the estimates, Anlon wondered if he would have enough time to stop back at Devlin’s house to place the new stone in the safe before driving to Albany to pick up Pebbles at the airport.

  He felt a nagging sense of unease with the stone just sitting in its cushioned case inside the rental car, considering the length to which Devlin resorted to protect it. It obviously was very precious to Devlin and Anlon needed to figure out what it contained and why it was so important to him.

  After all, why would Devlin have taken the stone to Grant’s office only four days before his death? He had his own elaborate safe at home, why not just put it in there with the other stones? It seemed to indicate, Anlon mused, that Devlin believed he or the stone or both were in danger shortly before his freak accident. Maybe Dobson’s suspicions were justified.

  As he exited the funeral home, he gasped. In the parking lot, a hooded figure stood at his rental car with the driver door open peering inside the SUV. Anlon started to run towards the man shouting, “Hey! What are you doing? Get away from there.”

  The figure froze in place for a second and then took off into the woods behind the parking lot without ever looking back. Anlon gave a brief chase, still shouting loudly at the scurrying shape before his mind leapt to the stone, exclaiming “Oh my God, did he take it?”

  He altered the direction of his dash back to the open car door. Scanning quickly, he uttered an audible sigh of relief upon spotting the case still on the floor behind the front passenger seat where he’d placed it. Lifting the case, he noticed the lock was untouched. Fishing in his pocket quickly, he withdrew the key and opened the case. The stone was still there. Whew, he thought.

  It wasn’t until he had calmed down for a few moments that he realized that something else was missing. The thief had taken Anlon’s copy of the will, along with his notes, and more importantly the contact information for Miss Anabel Simpson. As he dialed Jennifer, Anlon blurted out, “What in the devil’s name is going on!”

  When the call connected, Anlon gave Stevens a breathless summary of the incident. The detective told him she would send an officer to meet him at the funeral home to take his statement and to do a forensic examination of the car. She explained that she herself was driving back from the White Mountains and wouldn’t be back for a couple hours, but that she would stop by Devlin’s house to check in on him later.

  “White Mountains?” a surprised Anlon queried. “That’s where Devlin died. Any connection to your trip?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I spoke with the policeman who was on scene and I went to look at the scene myself,” she responded.

  “Wow, you don’t let moss grow under your feet do you? So you think there’s something behind Dobson’s hunch? Did you find out anything new?” Anlon blurted in staccato fashion.

  He could hear her snicker softly through the phone before retorting, “Hold on Doc, I’m the cop here! The answer is…maybe. Given your break-in I’m leaning towards a strong maybe. But I need to go over my notes from the trip with my Captain when I get back and get his input. He’s shrewd. If there’s something fishy he’ll zero in on it. Like I said, I’ll stop over later tonight and we can talk more then.”

  Anlon slumped down on the curb next to the rental car, suddenly exhausted, and said, “Okay, I understand. Makes sense. Do you think it will take long for your officer to get here? I need to go pick up my colleague at the airport in Albany.”

  “No, I’ll get someone there pronto. Probably will be an officer from the Lenox Police Department. They can get there quicker than someone from my barracks. By the way, did you meet up with Pacal?”

  “No,” Anlon answered, “unfortunately not yet. I had too much to do this morning, but I did leave a note for him on the barn door asking that he not enter the shop until we spoke. In the note, I asked him to come by the house tonight at 7:00 p.m. Oh, and I also found out his last name and address from Devlin’s attorney. His last name is Flores, but I don’t have the address. It was written on the copy of the will that was stolen from the rental. If I recall correctly, it was in Great Barrington.”

  “Got it, thanks. I’ll find out his address, but if its Great Barrington, it’s pretty close to Stockbridge. How about I plan to be at your place at seven in case he shows up. That way we can kill two birds with one stone,” she winced, her voice trailing off as she realized the unintended lame pun.

  Anlon snickered himself, “Ha ha, Jennifer. Sounds good. If he’s somehow involved, it would be good to have you there. See you at seven.”

  An hour later, Anlon was on his way to Albany in Devlin’s Land Rover. After the Lenox police went over the rental SUV for fingerprints and other clues, he drove it back to Devlin’s house and switched vehicles. He reasoned that the thief must have followed him to the funeral home and so knew the kind of automobile he was driving. He hoped by switching up vehicles there was less chance of being followed. Plus, at the moment, he felt the rental had some bad mojo hanging over it, having now been the subject of police searches twice in as many days!

  VII

  WAITING ON PACAL

  Anlon and Pebbles warmly embraced in baggage claim and awaited her oversized zebra-patterned duffle bag and his titanium shell rolling suitcase to emerge.

  He was taken aback by her subdued appearance, but managed to hide his surprise. She’d dyed her hair jet black and had it pulled into a bun atop her head. She wore no lip ring, nose stud or eyebrow rings. She stood in a plain white t-shirt, faded tight-fitting blue jeans and simple red flats. No bangles, just a thin wristwatch. If one discounted the tattoo on her neck and the other two on her wrists, one might have thought she was a fashion model returning from a weekend getaway.

  “It’s so great to see you, thank you so much for coming,” Anlon said. He didn’t mention her changed appearance, even though he was curious about the transformation.

  “You needed me, I came. That’s what friends are for, right? Oh, and thank you for the first class seats. You didn’t have to do that,” she answered, wrapping her hand in his with a squeeze.

  “Hey, I needed you, you came. It’s the very least I could do by way of thanks,” he replied.

  When the bags finally arrived, they loaded them in the Land Rover and started the drive back to Stockbridge. Along the way, Anlon filled Pebbles in about the visit to Devlin’s attorney, the theft, the mysterious new stone and a snippet from his call with Jennifer.

  When he finished his monologue, Pebbles said, “Wow! Who knew so much could happen during six hours and two plane flights. So you think Pacal and the detective will show up at seven? That’s like in 45 minutes.”

  “Yes to both. You’re going to jump right into the cauldron with me. So, I’ve given you a bunch of random threads. What do you think?”

  Pebbles took no time to answer. She burst out with, “Oh, they definitely were killed on account of those stones AC. How are we going to figure out how to use them? I can’t wait to see what they look like!”

  Unvarnished, no hesitation, straight to the heart of the matter. It was exactly the kind of feedback Anlon needed. Even if her conclusions didn’t jibe with his own, at least he’d have someone he trusted to debate their findings. And he had to admit, he found her enthusiasm for the mystery inspiring. Anlon wasn’t sure though that she appreciated the potential danger of the situation, but he didn’t raise it for fear of dampening her enthusiasm.

  When they finally arrived at Devlin’s house, they had enough time to stow Pebbles’ duffle bag in o
ne of the upstairs bedrooms and settle on the leather sofa in the study with glasses of Cabernet in their hands and the ancient stones on the table before them.

  Pebbles, with fascination glittering in her eyes, stared down at the three stones. Sipping on her wine, she asked, “So the square ones are the ones with the recordings on them?”

  “Yes, that’s what Dobson said. He said they were very magnetic, so I think somehow they must need some kind of player that can interpret embedded magnetic data. If you flip the stones over…carefully…you can see a round depression in the middle and two semi-circular depressions on two opposing sides. If I had to guess, I think those depressions are notches that must align with prongs on whatever device is used to play them. Sort of like how a cassette tape fits into a tape recorder…though you may be too young to remember what a cassette player is,” Anlon smirked as he nudged Pebbles’ thigh.

  “Ha ha,” she retorted sarcastically. “I’ve seen them in museums. I can see what you mean. They do look like they should fit into something. So, if you’re right, we need to find the player, right?”

  Anlon nodded in agreement, “Yes, but before we look for anything I’m hoping Pacal will be able to tell us what we’re looking for. I’m actually hoping he knows where the player is, and I’m betting it’s in the barn I pointed out to you when we parked.”

  “You’ve given this a lot of thought already, haven’t you Dr. Cully?” she winked, admiring Anlon’s ability to visualize how the square stones were accessed. Guess he really is a scientist, she thought.

  Peering back down at the two square stones, she noticed the two distinctly different etchings on the front of each artifact. She ventured, “What do you think the different etchings signify? Maybe they hint at what’s on each stone, kinda like a label on those bygone cassette tapes you talked about.”

  Anlon smiled admiringly at her, impressed with her deduction, “Not bad Pebbles. I hadn’t really given that as much thought yet, but I think you might be right. If there are bunches of these and someone wanted to find the right one, it would make sense for them to be labeled or somehow coded. Otherwise you’d have to look at each one individually to find the recording you wanted to view.”