Stone Groove

by Erik Carter

  “What do you think the double meanings are in this one?” Wilson said.

  Dale took the note back from him. “A word that sticks out to me is upend. Too formal. That’s key to this. But to upend a flag …” That’s how Dale always began examining riddles, by looking for the words that stood out.

  “Maybe he means flying a flag upside down,” Wilson said. “To desecrate it.”

  “That’s not the only reason one flies a flag upside down.”

  “No?”

  “Flying a flag upside down is a sign of distress.” American flags had historically been flown upside down in times of trouble, on sinking boats or besieged outposts. “You know, Wilson, you might be onto something.”

  “What about flag?” Wilson said. “Maybe there’s a double meaning there.”

  Dale had been focusing so much on upend that he hadn’t consider alternative meanings for the word flag.

  “Banner, pennant …” Wilson said.

  “Ensign, standard … Streamer. The colors. Stars and Stripes.”

  “Old Glory, Union Jack.”

  “Jolly Roger.”

  The two of them were quiet for a moment as they thought.

  “Any of those lighting a bulb?” Wilson said.

  Dale thought about it. “Heck no,” he said with a chuckle. Wilson handed him the note, and he put it on the table.

  “So what do you think?” Wilson said. “Is this a BEI case?”

  Dale shook his head. “Nope.”

  Wilson gave him a confused look. “But it has all the requirements. A word chiseled into a piece of rock, a connection with a centuries-old mystery, a note with a riddle …”

  “All true, but here’s what I think. Those folks are in a world of hurt, and you got to find them as soon as possible. The note on the girl is clearly from the kidnapper. But as far as the word Roanoke being scratched on the rock, I think that some piece-of-crap high school student read about the colony in history class, heard about the abduction, and decided to play a little prank. You’ve got a real sicko on your hands, but not the kind that the BEI deals with.”

  The parameters on what constituted a BEI case were quite stringent. Since there were so few BEI agents—currently seven—the use of the Bureau’s limited resources was carefully allocated. It was the responsibility of the agent to make the determination, and if Dale continued on with this case knowing that it wasn’t fit for the Bureau, SAC Taft would pop a seal. Dale once tried to smudge the definitions so that he could continue on with an assignment in Hawaii. Taft’s wrath upon his return to D.C. had been immeasurable.

  Besides, Dale was ready to get home. He was ready for some rest. He was ready to see Arancia. And, if he played his cards right, he was hoping for a date with Julia from Rich’s Diner.

  Wilson took a sip of his beer. “So what do you suggest we do?”

  Dale pointed at the note. “I suggest you get a good cryptographer.”

  Chapter 11

  The note from the Marshall Village was sitting on dirty, matted carpet. It drew closer to Dale’s face, then farther away, over and over. He’d placed it on the floor between his arms, in line with his face, as he did pushups, sweating out the poisonous alcohol he’d consumed. Since he’d determined this wasn’t a BEI case, he had only until the morning to contribute. And he’d be damned if he was going to let the riddle beat him.

  The only light in the room was from the lamp on the nightstand, which put out a warm, golden glow in the darkness. A drop of sweat fell from the tip of his nose and landed on the plastic bag covering the note. He read the words repeatedly, obsessively. If he tried long enough, he’d have his moment of clarity when everything would click. At least that was the plan.

  He upped the speed of his pushups, propelling himself faster and faster. The riddle sitting before his face was simple. Six words. So why the hell couldn’t he figure it out? For most of his life, Dale had been a bonehead, but he refused to believe he was too stupid to figure out this simple riddle.

  His pecs burned, and his arms began to shake. This was his final set, and he gave it his all before the last repetition, letting himself drop. Lying on the floor, his chest heaving, he stared at the note.

  “Think.”

  Flags? What the hell could they have meant by flags? The word danced around his brain, touching every corner but leading him nowhere. He didn’t have a damn clue.

  He stood up and slung the note in the direction of the bed. It fluttered to the ground.

  After a shower, Dale stood by the air conditioning unit in a fresh pair of briefs. The cool breeze felt good on his moist skin. He caught his reflection in the mirror. His chest and arms still had a nice pump from the pushups. He nodded his approval. A woman he dated once said he was the vainest man she’d ever met. He was comfortable with that.

  He climbed into bed and slid the note under his gun, which sat holstered on the nightstand. It was a Smith & Wesson Model 36 Chiefs Special revolver. Five-shot, chambered in .38 Special. Nickel-plated. Round butt with original S&W wood grips. A tiny but powerful weapon. The small holster fit under the waistband of his jeans or even in his pocket—it was just as inconspicuous as Dale himself needed to be.

  He stared up toward the ceiling, his hands behind his head. Wilson’s words echoed in his mind. “You figure that’s why you were assigned this case? Because of your past?”

  Dale had always done his best not to think about his past, particularly the part Wilson was referencing. But there were times like today, with Wilson’s help, when he had no choice but to remember.

  The images came upon him in quick flashes. For a moment, he was back there again. There was the noise all around him, so loud and chaotic that it made his ears hurt. People shouting, screaming. And the bell, clanging loudly, incessantly, outside.

  He was on the bed, his arms and legs lashed to all four corners. The rope was made of hemp, coarse, and it dug into his wrists. He was naked. They’d stripped him.

  Selfish. He was being selfish. He wasn’t the only one suffering. Dale turned his head to the side, and he saw Spencer on the other bed. He too was naked, tied down. Spencer was crying.

  Dale yelled out to him, screamed his name at the top of his lungs. This angered the people looming over him. A large woman moved into his line of sight and slapped him across the jaw, hard enough to snap his head back to the other side.

  He looked now at the people standing above him. They were shouting, and their faces were stoic, but a couple of them were stifling jeering grins.

  The bell continued to ring. The damn bell.

  Dale thought of the POWs in Vietnam and how much they were enduring. He tried to use this as strength. Mind over matter. If he could just focus on some other detail. He turned his face from the people and tried to concentrate on the ground. The floor was dirt with a spattering of steppingstones. Grass grew in the spaces between.

  One of the men spat upon him. Three more of them did the same. The shouting was so loud, so chaotic that he could not understand what they were saying. He only caught the occasional word.

  Coward.

  Righteous.

  God.

  Punishment.

  Presently the chaos of the voices began to clear, and the shouting synchronized. They were chanting.

  “You shall not leave! Ours is the way, and we cannot deviate!”

  They shouted this in unison. Over and over. The voices got louder yet. The volume was oppressive, melding with the clanging of the bell. Dale could feel the sound on his face.

  One of the men stepped forward holding a bullwhip. He loomed over Dale.

  Darnell Fowler. His ugly face was contorted in rage. Short, red, coarse hair. Flushed skin. Lips curled back over a line of spear-like teeth.

  “Ours is the way!”

  Dale jumped out of bed. He breathed heavily and put his hand to his forehead.

  He grabbed the coffee mug from the nightstand, filled it at the sink, and gulped down the water. His 501s were laid across th
e chair in the corner. He threw them on, buttoned the fly, and then opened the door.

  He leaned against the doorway. The temperature had dropped quite a bit since the heat of the day. He took a few deep breaths. It had been a long time since he’d thought about all that.

  A line of paving stones led up to his doorway. They were red and weathered. Most of them were cracked. His mind flashed to the stones from his memories, the stones on the floor, the ones he’d tried to concentrate on during the ordeal.

  And then something clicked in his mind. It was the eureka moment after all.

  The stones.

  He ran inside and grabbed the note off the nightstand. He squinted his eyes, focused on the word flag. That was it. Sometimes all it takes is a traumatic memory to jog a guy’s creative juices.

  He ran to Wilson’s room and pounded on the door. Wilson opened the door, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  “What the hell, Conley?”

  Wilson rarely cursed, so even saying “hell” meant that Dale was really pushing his luck.

  “I’ve figured it out. Get dressed,” Dale said.

  “Figured what out?” Wilson said, still rubbing his eyes.

  “The note. Hurry.”

  “Wait a sec. How did you figure it out?”

  “Upend every flag. Double meanings. We were focusing on the wrong word—upend. We should have been looking at flag.”

  “We did. Banner, pennant, ensign, standard. Remember?”

  “Yes, but we were thinking too literally. Flag. Flagstone. Stone! Upend every stone. Leave no stone unturned. The Dare Stones.”

  It was the moment of clarity Dale had been looking for. Often with these riddles the whack jobs writing them tried to use the most obscure synonyms possible in a dull attempt to conceal their own lack of creativity. The thesaurus had become Dale’s best friend over these last couple of years. A more obscure name for a steppingstone is flagstone. Since someone was emulating the Dare Stones, the connection between flag and flagstone could not be a coincidence. They wanted Dale to go back to the village and upend the rock with ROANOKE carved onto it.

  Dale knew it had been wise to not give up on the riddle. As he always said, everything works out if you give it time.

  Wilson began to nod. It was clear that a light bulb had gone off in his head. “The stone at the Marshall Village …”

  “That’s right. The first Dare Stone had the obituary information for Virginia Dare and her father on the top. But when the hiker who found the stone turned it over, there was more written on the other side.”

  “And you’re thinking that—”

  “That there’s more information on the back of that stone in the village.”

  Chapter 12

  The village was pitch black. The stars were out, but the moon was hiding in the clouds. Wilson left the Custom Cruiser’s headlights on, and the light went about halfway into the village, nearly to the well.

  Dale and Wilson stepped under the police tape. They each carried a large Kel-Lite. The wind was blowing.

  “I hope you’re right about this,” Wilson said. “Something doesn’t feel right about coming out at one in the morning to the spot where a hundred and fifty people just disappeared.”

  “You scared of the dark, Agent Wilson?”

  “No, I just don’t want to end up as part of somebody’s living doll collection.”

  Wilson had a point. For all they knew, the creep—or creeps—behind all this could be hiding out in the trees somewhere. Hell, there could be someone in the village itself, waiting behind the supposedly empty doors of the buildings to snatch the agents.

  As they continued across the village, the light from Wilson’s station wagon began to fade. Their path was lit only by the bouncing spheres of yellowish light from their flashlights.

  “Be a heck of a time to see a bear, wouldn’t it?” Dale said.

  Wilson grumbled. “So what was written on the other side of the Dare Stone?”

  “I’m not sure. Remember, the Dare Stones were discredited a long time ago. But it outlined what happened to the colonists, why they weren’t at the fort when John White returned.”

  “So our stone might just tell us what happened to the Marshallites.”

  “Bingo.”

  They slowed down as they reached the far side of the village. Dale scanned the area with his flashlight until he found theROANOKE stone.

  He walked over to it and crouched down. He stuck his fingers around the edge and tried to move it. It barely budged.

  “Yeah, I’d say this thing has been here for a while,” Dale said. He stood up and gave the rock a good kick with the heel of his boot to loosen its hold in the ground.

  Wilson put a hand to his forehead. “You mind being a little more careful with the evidence, Agent Conley?”

  Dale knelt down again and began to pull back on the rock. “Give me a hand, would ya?”

  Wilson crouched beside Dale, and the two of them pulled their combined weight against it. The rock teetered in place for a moment then tumbled from its resting spot, rolling onto its side.

  The bottom of the rock was covered with an inch of moist earth. An earthworm struggled in the dirt. Dale plucked it out and put it in the hole where the rock had been.

  “There you go, fella,” he said.

  Wilson rolled his eyes.

  Dale began to brush the dirt from the bottom of the rock. Soon carved letters appeared. He grinned. “Yes, yes, I knew it.”

  Most of the dirt had been removed, and it was clear that there was quite a bit of writing on the rock. But the dirt filling the etchings made the words illegible.

  Beginning at the upper left-hand corner, Dale quickly flicked the dirt out of each letter with his finger. A message appeared.

  “Where the others were but not quite,” Dale read. “Another riddle.”

  Wilson nodded.

  After a gap of several inches, there was more writing below. Dale continued to clean out the markings. “A number,” he said and gave the dirt another brush. The number 386 appeared.

  “What the hell?” Dale muttered. “Three hundred eighty-six …” There was another line below, and he brushed it clean. “Something else here. A date. August 18, 1590 …”

  He looked at the date and paused. And then the hair on his arms began to stand up. “Wilson, what was yesterday’s date?” He knew the answer. He just wanted to hear Wilson confirm it.

  “It was the eighteenth,” Wilson said quietly. “August eighteenth.”

  “Yeah … thought so.” Dale said. He ran his tongue over his dry lips. “August of 1590 was when John White discovered that Roanoke had disappeared. I’ll assume for now that August eighteenth was the exact date. Yesterday, August eighteenth, someone discovered that the Marshallites were gone.”

  “Whoa …” Wilson said. It was the most dumbfounded Dale had ever seen the man. “But what does 386 mean?”

  Dale shook his head. What indeed? Another riddle. Like the one on the top of the stone. Numerology, perhaps. The creeps who left these riddles loved numerology—the 23 Enigma and all that. There had been 117 people in Roanoke and 147 people in the Marshall Village.

  So, 147 – 117 = 30. No.

  3 + 8 + 6 = 17. Nothing.

  3 x 8 x 6 = 144. Close to the number of Marshallites, but still a no.

  He tried to think if anything significant had happened in the year 386. His mind drew a blank. Then he looked at the date again.1590.

  It couldn’t be. He did the math.

  His eyes opened wide, and he could feel his face blanch. “Oh my god.”

  “What is it?” Wilson said. He stepped closer.

  “This stone hasn’t been moved for years, right?”

  “That’s right. Why?”

  Dale touched the date with his finger. “Then it all adds up.”

  “How?” Wilson snapped.

  “I take back what I said earlier, Wilson. This is a BEI case.”

  “Conley.” He put his hand on
Dale’s shoulder and shook him. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He pointed to the date. “August eighteenth, 1590. The date that the Roanoke’s disappearance was discovered.” He pointed to the number. “Three eighty-six. Yesterday, when the Marshallites’ disappearance was discovered, was three hundred eighty-six years since then. To the day.”

  “But … the soil expert said this rock has been buried for at least two years,” Wilson said.

  “Exactly. And the Marshall Village started just over two years ago.”

  “I … I don’t understand.”

  Dale put his hand on the rock. “Someone scratched Roanoke on the top of this rock within the last few days. But they wrote the message on the underside and planted it in the ground when the Marshall Village first began.” He looked Wilson square in the eye. “Someone’s been planning this abduction for years.”

  Chapter 13

  Dale jumped up in bed. The phone was ringing. He answered.

  “Hello …”

  “Conley?” It was Sheriff Brown.

  “Yes?”

  “Get your ass to the hospital. The girl’s awake.”

  Dale and Wilson walked into the hospital room. Dr. Susan Anderson, her brother the nurse, and Sheriff Brown stood over the girl’s bed. Brian Anderson was kneeling over, looking directly at the girl.

  She was sitting up, a couple of pillows propped behind her back. There were dark circles under her eyes. She looked past everyone with that same absent look that she had worn in the village.

  Seeing the look on her face again, Dale’s mind flashed back to other empty stares, dead eyes.

  “Conley?” Wilson said.

  Dale had stopped by the door. “Sorry,” he said and joined the others at the bed.