Stone Groove

by Erik Carter

  Spencer cocked his head to the side.

  “He’s a professor who partially financed the camp,” Dale continued, “and he’s the man who abducted my missing people. Does his name ring a bell?”

  Spencer shook his head. “I’m not remembering that name. Sorry.”

  “It was a long shot, I know. But worth asking,” Dale said. He chewed his lip. “I hope things have been going well for you these last four years. Are you seeing someone?”

  “You asking me out?” Spencer raised his eyebrows.

  Dale laughed. Now Spencer was making jokes. The guy was on a roll. Dale would have never guessed that Spencer would be doing this well. Hell, an average person would have been destroyed by what he went through, let alone someone with the physique and mental fortitude of a butterfly.

  “I mean, are you seeing a shrink?” Dale said.

  “From time to time. But less often each year.”

  Dale nodded. “Good, good.”

  Silence again. They looked at each other. There was an elephant in the room that neither of them wanted to talk about. An overgrown, restless elephant.

  With normal guys, a nod could express all that was needed. Get in a drunken argument with a buddy, punch him for defaming your mother—all that was needed was an exchange of nods the next morning when the fog cleared. But with a guy like Spencer, a nod wasn’t going to cut it. Dale was going to have to face this thing head-on. He had to do something he avoided like the plague. He needed to emote.

  “Spencer,” he began. He looked down to the floor and back up. “I never got a chance to say anything about the night I left the CAE. I tried to get you out of there with me. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to leave.”

  Spencer’s expression didn’t change. Dale didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “I know,” Spencer said.

  They looked at each other. Before another awkward silence could present itself, Dale said, “I’d better get rolling. We should get together some time. Grab a beer.”

  “I’d like that,” Spencer said. But Dale knew it would never happen. There are some experiences people share that keep them from ever having a normal relationship again.

  “You take care of yourself, Spence.”

  “You do the same. Dale.”

  Dale turned. When he reached the door, he looked back. Spencer was still leaning against the desk. Dale paused then gave him the man-nod after all. Spencer nodded back.

  Chapter 34

  Dale sat at a table in Rich’s Diner. Customers were squeezed in around him from all sides. The lunch-hour crowd. A piece of apple pie was on his table, but he’d only had a couple bites. His head was in his hands. He was tired as hell.

  The materials on Camden Marshall that he took from the WWR were spread out in front of him. He closed a magazine with an article about Marshall’s research into resource-based economies and dropped it on the table. He picked up the newspaper article with the photo of Marshall and Glenn.

  Star-crossed sociopaths. Identical sneers. Soulless eyes.

  In the background, cut off by the edge of the photograph, was Darnell Fowler, standing like a sentry, arms behind his back. Fowler hadn’t died on the boats like the others. He and his Blue Guard had stayed behind to fight off the feds in the woods surrounding the camp. He was never found, the presumption being that he had drifted somewhere and assumed a new identity. It was certainly within his abilities.

  Glenn couldn’t have picked a more suited lackey. Not only did Darnell obey every command he was given, but he also shared Glenn’s demented outlook.

  The image of the three men standing together—Camden Marshall, Glenn Downey, and Darnell Fowler—was as disconcerting as could be.

  A voice woke Dale from his daydream.

  “You look bushed, Mr. Private Eye.” It was Julia, the waitress he’d met on his last visit to Rich’s, the woman whom he’d planned on asking out before he was so rudely interrupted by SAC Taft.

  She’d styled her hair in the flipped, feathery look that girls had been doing for the last few years. The Farrah Fawcett look. Her perfume smelled nice. She was smiling, a playful smile, one that told Dale that she was ready to continue their little game of cat and mouse from his last visit.

  Dale, though, could only manage a small grin in return.

  Julia’s smile went away. “Everything fine?”

  “Wish I could say yes.”

  Julia looked at the magazines, newspapers, and documents spread around Dale. “That job of yours really has you digging into something, huh?” There was a twinkle in her eyes as she looked at the materials. “I think it’d be a stone groove to figure out mysteries.”

  Stone groove. There she went with that hippie crud again.

  Dale didn’t reply, just grumbled.

  She put his ticket on the table. “Well, you know what I always say? If there’s something that’s beating you, don’t give it a helping hand. You look like you’ve been beating yourself up over this, Dale Conley.”

  Dale suddenly liked Julia a whole lot more. He had a policy of not taking himself too seriously—even if, at times like these, he didn’t always adhere to that policy. If a guy couldn’t find a way to get his head on straight, his work was going to suffer. Dale liked that Julia recognized the value in this. He enjoyed a girl who could wax philosophical.

  Plus, she remembered his name.

  “You know, Julia,” Dale said, “I think you’re right.”

  “So, what is it you’re working on there?”

  Before Dale could answer, Julia’s eyes flicked up to someone approaching. It was Wilson.

  “Thought I might find you here,” he said as he walked up to Dale’s table.

  Dale waved his hand between the other two. “Wilson, Julia. Julia, Wilson.”

  “Hello,” Wilson said to Julia and bowed his head slightly.

  “Hi.” Julia smiled politely and looked back to Dale. “I’d better get to my tables. See ya, Dale.”

  Wilson watched Julia leave. He turned back to Dale and shook his head. “Never a dull moment for you, is there, Agent Conley? Not even in the middle of a major investigation.”

  “I don’t ask for all the attention,” Dale said. “It just happens.”

  “Yeah, right.” Wilson pointed to the papers on the table. “What’ve you found?”

  “We’ve got a problem. Look at this.” He handed Wilson an article. “Camden Marshall was on sabbatical at the same time the CAE was operational—in South America, studying primitive tribes without a monetary system. He was out of the country during the entire time the CAE was around.”

  “So he wouldn’t have been a part of the camp.”

  “Right. Which means any connection he had with Glenn happened before the circus o’ fun. Before the tents were even pitched. He was gone a month prior to Glenn even beginning construction on the camp. So Marshall was emulating him with his village, nothing more. My knowledge of the way things happened at the CAE isn’t worth crap in figuring out the Marshall Village. This trip has been a waste of time.”

  “Not necessarily. You know there’s a connection. That knowledge will be useful.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Wilson stuck his hands in his pockets. “You look like hell.”

  “Oh yeah? Tell that to Miss Julia.”

  “She must like men with big bags under their eyes. Come on. Gather your stuff. We need to head to Staunton. Let’s get back to the motel.”

  “Why, Agent Wilson … I had no idea.” Dale enjoyed being immature. Maturity wasn’t half what it was cracked up to be.

  “Don’t make me invoke the reciprocity clause. If I have to take over this case, I will. You need sleep. You won’t be doing anyone any favors falling asleep on the job.”

  Dale sighed. “Fine.” He gathered up the books and shoved a stack of them at Wilson, who took them with an oof. “Help me out, would ya?”

  Wilson scowled but still helped gather the books.

 
; In the parking lot, Dale opened Arancia’s rear trunk, and he and Wilson put the books on the carpet shroud that covered the ZF transaxle and the rear end of the massive V8, offering a bit of storage room.

  “I would suggest that you lead,” Wilson said, “but with Arancia you’ll leave me in the dust.”

  “You go ahead,” Dale said. “I’ll be a few minutes behind. There’s somewhere I need to stop.”

  Chapter 35

  Dale slowly drove down Main Street in Front Royal, Virginia. Arancia’s Cleveland engine grumbled, and its deep resonance bounced off the brick walls of the two-story businesses on either side of the road.

  Brad Walker spent the second half of his childhood in Front Royal before moving to Harrisonburg for college. Later, at the same time that Dale Conley joined the BEI, Brad Walker died in a hiking accident. Dale wanted Brad to die attempting to break the land speed record on the alkali flats, but SAC Taft shot that idea down. As a youth, Brad had kept to himself, so since his death, Front Royal had yet to notice when his ghost would return to visit his mother.

  Front Royal was a town of about nine thousand people, and its downtown area was quintessential Americana. It was, in fact, a perfect little place. It reminded Dale of all the small towns back in Hoosier-land. Like most decent men, Dale was born in the great state of Indiana. He was there through the age of ten, when his mother moved them to Virginia to live near family. She had been in and out of work for a couple years after Dale’s father left, and Virginia held the promise of a solid job at her uncle’s scrap metal yard.

  Dale didn’t have much time for a visit with Mom, but it was an investment that would reap benefits for the case. Namely, it would keep the need for phone calls to a minimum. This was an act of goodwill, yes, but in essence it was a political maneuver.

  When she answered the door, his mother was wearing one of her sweatshirts. Each one had some sort of picture on the front—an animal or some lettering or an image of a snowy scene. Today’s shirt was hunter green with a silhouette of a dog sewn upon it. The dog was made of red plaid cloth with white frill around the outer edge.

  She looked up at Dale and shook her head. Audrey Walker stood about five feet four inches. She had a mass of gray, curly hair and a little frame with a bit of extra padding. A stranger would take one look at her and assume she was a card-carrying member of the Sweet Grandma’s Club. But there was pure piss and vinegar surging through her veins.

  She didn’t smile, just stepped aside and allowed him in. In recent years her house was beginning to look like one befitting an old lady. The furniture in her living room was floral print. There was a dish of hard candy on one of the end tables. Her shelves were crowded with an ever-growing assortment of dust-collectors—deer figurines, decorative plates, a shell with googly eyes.

  Dale sank down into the couch. The cushion was squishy, and there was a musty smell. Mom sat in the chair across from him.

  “I was passing through. Thought I’d stop by,” Dale said.

  Mom remained stolid. “You freed up some time.”

  “Something like that. Sorry I had to miss our breakfast.”

  She waved it off. “I’m used to it.”

  “How have you been lo these eleven days since we last met?” He eased back into the chair, prepared himself.

  “You know that salesman I was telling you about? He came back today trying to sell me a stinkin’ set of knives. Know what I did? I tried to sell him some of my forks. Told him since he wasn’t buying I’d stop by tomorrow at his house and try again.”

  Her negativity was like a drop of ink in a cup of water. It started off small and concentrated but soon dispersed to everything around it, tainting it all. When she got to rambling like this, Dale zoned out. It was better for his mental state, and it didn’t make any difference to his mother. She was talking at him, not to him. Even if he were listening, she’d be upset if he opened his mouth.

  Instead, he thought about the case.

  Dale had learned to listen to his instincts, and his gut was talking to him right now. There was something to this connection between Camden Marshall and the Collective Agricultural Experiment. Marshall gained the knowledge of how to run his new utopian community from working with Glenn and the CAE, but there was still no motive for him to kidnap the people. He didn’t want money and didn’t want to negotiate. There had to be something else.

  And then it hit him. There was another connection between Marshall and Glenn Downey.

  Himself.

  Dale was the connection between the two. Brad Walker had been the only CAE survivor who had left without serious mental issues. He was the only one who escaped. And now he was the agent investigating the disappearance at the new utopian community. It was all way too coincidental.

  The abduction had been planned out for years, and now he understood why. The puzzles, the games. They were all riddles. Someone had planted the pseudo-Dare Stones years ago, planning the eventual abduction and knowing that BEI agent Dale Conley, who had been the famous riddle-writer Brad Walker, would investigate.

  Which begged the question he’d been left with after he flipped over the stone on Old Rag Mountain—how did they know his PI? The BEI had been meticulous about destroying his past. There were only a handful of connections to his former life remaining.

  Then his stomach dropped. One of those connections was sitting right in front of him. His mother.

  She was still going. “ … so the doctor told me I need to stay off my feet. I told him that—”

  “Mom, did anyone come here asking about me when I was at the CAE?”

  She put her hands on her knees. “My story not good enough for you? Got your mind on that secret mission of yours?”

  “You have to tell me, Mom. Did anyone come asking about me while I was there?”

  She huffed and crossed her arms. “No. No one came here asking about you. What an ego.”

  Damn. He was positive that he was on the right track. He scratched his chin. “You’re certain?”

  “I haven’t lost my memory just yet. The only people who’ve come here looking for you were all those damn reporters when you made it big with those books of yours. And the two men who did your background check for your secret agency.”

  An alarm went off in Dale’s head. “Two men?”

  “That’s right. Some grouchy fella …” That would be Taft. “ … and another guy, asked a lot of the same questions as the first one.”

  It hit him like a smack to the face. The second man who visited his mother was tied to his current assignment. To the Marshall Village. And now that he knew the assignment and his time with the CAE were connected, it all added up. The Marshall Village was established right when Dale joined the BEI. That was how they knew his PI. That was how they had stayed one step ahead of him the entire investigation. They’d been meticulously planning this thing for the last two and a half years. Following him, monitoring him.

  Then a strange notion crossed Dale’s mind. A wild notion. One that the conspiracy nuts he chased after would have sunk their teeth into. He couldn’t believe what he was thinking, whom he was suspecting. There was a man he hadn’t seen in four years who could very well have been the one to visit his mother. A man who disappeared when the CAE was destroyed and was never heard from again. Glenn Downey’s right-hand man.

  Darnell Fowler.

  “Do you remember what the second guy looked like?”

  She thought for a moment. “No.”

  “Mom, it’s important. What did he look like?” He needed to hear that he was wrong, to hear that the man she saw wasn’t the same sneering, evil man he had once known.

  “It was years ago. I’m a senile old lady, remember?”

  “Was he short? What color was his hair?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dale had to get back to Staunton. And fast. The whole thing was coming together, and he knew who was at the center of it all. Dale Conley.

  Or, rather, Brad Walker.

&n
bsp; He stood up and walked over to his mother. “Mom, I gotta go. Love you.” He kissed her on the cheek and left.

  “Yeah, nice seeing you too,” Mom yelled out behind him.

  Chapter 36

  “My holy hell, Conley,” Special Agent in Charge Taft spat. “What on God’s green earth were you thinking going back to your old newsroom?”

  The two of them stood in a janitor’s closet. It was the only private place Taft could find in the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, and Taft was a firm believer in Praise in public, admonish in private. Dale regularly found himself alone with Taft in his office or pulled aside into an empty conference room.

  Taft’s face was red and his neck purple. Dale called this Stage 6. There were seven stages altogether. Considering he was nowhere near solving the case yet, Dale was proud he’d gotten Taft this far. He fought back a small grin. Still, he had to be careful. Taft was pissed enough to yank him off the case. He’d done it before.

  “Do you have any idea how many BEI regulations you broke by going back there? You’re gonna get someone hurt with these tactics of yours. You’re impulsive, you’re reckless. You’re like a … like a …”

  “A loose cannon, sir?”

  “Exactly. I got the Attorney General breathing down my neck about this case, and my investigating agent is out taking a trip down his PI’s memory lane. Your carelessness is a blight on the whole Bureau. You’re off the case, Conley! In fact, I oughta take your badge and gun for this.”

  “Don’t you want to know what I found out, sir?” Officially he was off the case, yes. But if he played his cards right, he could bring Taft back around.

  Taft ran a hand over his shiny, mostly bald dome. He looked to the back wall, then to Dale. His lips curled in disgust, and he quickly looked away again. He crossed his arms. Turned his back, faced the mops and brooms. Paced a few steps. Looked at Dale. Narrowed his eyes. “Okay, Conley. Tell me what you found.”

  Again Dale suppressed a smile. “Two things. First, Camden Marshall was involved in the Collective Agricultural Experiment.”