“Drug dealers are known to tamper with the beacon, disable it for flights. The last thing they need is for authorities to be able to hone in on where they are.”
“But that doesn’t explain how his gooey body parts got belched up by Mother Earth,” Bar said. “Oh and here’s the really interesting part: The red stuff in the water with Little’s organs wasn’t blood, although it looked just like it. It was some sort of toxic discharge.”
“Odd.”
“The coroner down there said he’s never seen anything like it. He doesn’t know if it came from a human, animal, or plant.”
“Did Mr. Little have any ties to Green Cove Springs? Any previous drug dealings in this area? Based on the location where he ended up, he may have landed nearby for business, and things got ugly.”
“None that I can determine. He’s known to travel mostly into the northeastern United States: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey.”
Tolen paused. Tiffany’s information was only leading to more questions. “Anything else about the remains of interest?”
“Every one of Clarence Little’s organs was recovered, with the exception of his appendix, which had been removed 12 years ago.”
“What are local authorities saying?”
“Same thing you did. Clarence Little most likely came to Northeast Florida for a drug deal that went sour. Their best guess is that someone dumped Little’s body into the spring and the body got hung up in the craggy rocks somewhere near the bottom. Eventually, the force of the water caused it to disintegrate and chunks of flesh and organs were carried to the surface. The problem with this theory is when they sent a small diver into the spring to look for any pieces of a disarticulated skeleton, they found none. Not a single bone or bone fragment was recovered.”
With Dr. Lila Falls’ disappearance, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a correlation between what happened to Clarence Little and the missing archaeologist. Although the tragedy at the church seemed explainable as a quirk of nature, the timing to these other events was interesting. He had to keep all options open. “Tiffany, I need a favor. Please status Dr. Sheila Shaw. Let her know I’m diving the Fort Caroline coordinates she sent me yesterday to try and determine what Dr. Falls discovered that caused her to move upriver to the Green Cove Springs area. And keep looking for whatever Mr. Little was up to.”
“You really think the two are related?”
“I’m not discounting any possibilities at the moment. Oh, I also need you to follow up with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Lila Falls’ damaged rental boat was towed in by one of their officers, Melanie Canstar, for examination. I’d like the results.”
“Will do. Oh, and I checked on Dr. Curt Lohan. He seems legitimate. Lohan is an unemployed archaeologist. No criminal record beyond traffic citations. Although it was rumored that Dr. Lohan broke into a National Monument last fall, the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, no charges were brought against him. And in case you’re curious, he appears to be a distant relative to the actress—”
“I’m not, but can you please read me details of Dr. Lohan’s life and work for the past five years, including dates, and exact GPS coordinates of any archaeological endeavors?”
Bar chuckled. “You and your audible recall ability. This is going to take a few minutes.”
“I’ve got time.”
****
Tolen launched at the Lonnie Wurn Boat Ramp just after 6:00 a.m. He gunned the motor, steering the vessel into the main channel. Daylight had come quickly and the sun would soon overtake the horizon. The river was calm and boat traffic was nonexistent for the moment. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the coordinates Lila Falls and her assistant had explored the day before.
Tolen had lain awake last night contemplating what reason she could have possibly had for moving so far upriver. While the exact location of the 1564 French settlement of La Carolina is unknown, what was known from historical writings is that it was in this general vicinity of the St. Johns River. Whatever she discovered had so excited her that she had abandoned the search, reloaded the boat on the trailer, drove an hour south to Green Cove Springs, and relaunched at the Old Shands Bridge boat launch. With guarded eagerness, Tolen hoped he could follow in Dr. Falls’ footsteps. It had been nearly 24 hours since she had been heard from, and, with each passing hour, the probability of finding her alive was dwindling. This was his only avenue of pursuit.
Tolen dropped anchor and stripped down to the wet suit underneath his clothing. He grabbed his underwater camera and placed the strap around his neck. Then he secured the air tank to his back, adjusted all the straps, and checked his mask and mouthpiece. Before sliding back over the edge of the gunwale into the water, he tossed out a dive buoy to signal his presence. Moments later, he quietly slipped underneath the calm surface of the river and into a tranquil world of silence.
He was aware that Dr. Falls was searching the riverbed because of the hurricane that struck Northeast Florida last September. The storm had likely altered the topography of the bottom, which meant new archaeological evidence might have been exposed by subsurface wave activity.
Now, with a chance for answers, he anxiously swam to the river bottom 24 feet down. He was fortunate in that it was slack tide for the next hour. A running tide would have required substantial energy to hold in place.
As Tolen descended, an uneven landscape came into view below. The riverbed consisted of a sundry of rolling terrain speckled with pockets of grass and other underwater foliage. A raised, flat area, roughly three feet square, immediately caught his attention. He quickly swam toward it and was shocked by what he saw.
There were symbols etched on a slab of stone. They appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphs.
He stared in awe, marveling at the colors and ornate designs. The surface of the slab was granite. When his mind thawed, he began taking photographs of the hieroglyphs from every angle. While Tolen could read and write numerous languages, translating hieroglyphs was an art all to itself he had never quite mastered. While he understood some of the text, his knowledge was limited. After a dozen photographs he placed his hand on the surface. It was smoother than he expected, polished perhaps. He traced his hand over the side, then to an edge. He was surprised to find that the stone side dropped off at a ninety degree angle. What he had assumed was a slab of stone was actually an entire block. He ran his hand along a horizontal path to the top, then bottom, but couldn’t find the edge. The block was obviously large, still embedded in the riverbed on either side; however, it appeared that the relevant area had been uncovered. He suspected Dr. Falls had discovered a small section of symbols then cleared the rest of the block face to reveal the entire mosaic of lush designs and colors. He took a moment to log the location with his GPS device.
Swimming in place, Tolen looked around. Visibility was fair, and he noticed another flat stone some distance away. He swam to it, surprised to see a cleared area of sand revealing another magnificent set of hieroglyphic pictures just as impressive as those on the first block.
Two blocks of granite with hieroglyphic pictures at the bottom of the river in Northeast Florida. Incredible! Tolen’s mind sought a reasonable explanation. They had probably been transported here by a ship that sank some time in the past, yet no record of such a cargo loss in the St. Johns River was known to exist.
He studied the images, noticing they were different from the pictures on the first block. He located the side edges, but again was unable to find the top and bottom edges that were obscured in the sand. It was another large block, a rectangle like the first block. Tolen took a myriad of photographs of the second block and noted its exact location via GPS.
He looked around the riverbed again, wondering if there could be more.
He checked his gauges. He had another 30 minutes of air. Tolen began to canvass the bottom. He made a search, following a grid pattern that
he monitored by GPS.
Ten minutes later, he found a third block inscribed with a third set of hieroglyphic images. He used his hand to wipe away more of the block and, to his dismay, found a grouping of hieroglyphic symbols arranged within a border. Several of the images had succumbed to time and had faded. What he could translate, he did, and he found it remarkably telling.
No wonder Dr. Falls had been so excited about the discovery when she sent Dr. Shaw the text message.
Following protocol, Tolen documented the location and took another set of photographs. As with the first two blocks, he found the sides, but was unable to locate the top and bottom edges buried in the sand.
His air was getting low, but he spent the last few minutes continuing to search for more blocks. Content he had thoroughly covered the area, Samuel Tolen surfaced and climbed in his boat. His adrenaline was still racing as he removed his gear. The sun was much brighter and warmer now. A boat passed by in the distance, fishing rods perched high. Tolen took a moment to study the photographs he had taken. The pictures were incredible. Still, he mentally warned himself that the stone blocks could easily be replicas or forgeries.
He considered the GPS coordinates of each block. As he checked the locations, a curious thought struck him. He pulled out his smartphone and entered the three coordinates on a map of the river, then zoomed in. To his utter surprise, the three points were in perfect alignment, the first to the third point was 62 feet in distance. The second point was near midpoint of the other two at 30 feet.
Quickly, Tolen grabbed a second air tank, donned his scuba equipment and returned to the water. He had a theory that he had to confirm. Fifteen minutes later he returned to the boat with his answer.
To his dismay, Tolen now knew what had Dr. Falls so excited. She had not discovered three separate blocks, after all. What lay below his boat at the bottom of the St. Johns River was one long, solid piece of hewn granite that weighed hundreds, if not thousands, of tons.
He also understood why she had moved her boat to the Green Cove Springs area.
Tolen quickly emailed the photograph of the grouped images to Tiffany Bar for verification. If he was right about the meaning, it could lead to one of the most unprecedented archaeological finds of all time.
CHAPTER 20
Lila’s unknown fate weighed on Curt’s mind throughout the night. After a restless sleep at his apartment in the nearby city of St. Augustine, Curt arrived at Taylor Barton’s river house at seven o’clock Sunday morning. Scott had loaded the boat with two sets of hip waders, two flashlights, 50 feet of rope, a cooler with drinks, a map of the river, and binoculars.
Scott engaged the electric wench and lowered the boat onto the water. They climbed in and Scott started the engine. The motor sputtered and caught. He backed out of the mooring, aimed the boat toward Bayard Point, and gunned the engine. The bow rose and settled into a steady position as the craft skirted across the choppy water.
It was an overcast day; the sun consumed within a white blanket of clouds. The wind had picked up during the night, and this morning’s gusts had the river’s surface rolling in small swells. The morning air was flavored with the smell of the river and reminded Curt of the day before when he and Scott had been fishing, engaged in relaxed conversation and camaraderie. That is, before the frantic call from Lila.
Scott navigated the craft through the gauntlet of crab trap float markers that rose and fell on the surface of the river with each comber. Unlike the day before, the boat traffic was light.
Scott yelled over the sound of the motor, “It’s a distinct possibility that Lila’s boat was originally at Bayard Point, but something happened to it, and it drifted across the channel to Pacetti Point where FWC Officer Canstar found it. With the information about Ed Leedskalnin’s discovery of a strange cave in the side of a slope, and considering that plateau,” he pointed to the rise across the river on Bayard Point, “maybe she found the cave, went in, and couldn’t get out.”
“Ed Leedskalnin mentioned sealing the shaft opening with a large boulder,” Curt countered.
“If one man could move it in place, surely two women could roll it away.”
“That still doesn’t explain the stress we heard in her voice or the fact something was pursuing her. Remember she said, ‘My assistant left me. Oh god, Curt, it’s gaining on me. I’m at hey….south….....springs!’ ”
“Maybe she fell down the shaft trying to elude someone?” Scott offered. “That might be the reason she’s not answering her cell phone. Either it was lost above ground, or it didn’t survive the fall down the shaft.”
“That’s a lot of conjecture, Scott,” Curt said, knowing his friend was just trying to be helpful, “but we also have to consider two other possibilities: one, that someone got Lila. Remember those bizarre clicks we heard coming from her phone? Or two, she fell down the shaft and didn’t survive the fall. Keep in mind every possibility we’ve mentioned is based on two giant assumptions: that she was on Bayard Point and that she found the same cave as Ed Leedskalnin 88 years ago. I prefer to save further speculation until we see if we can find anything on the point.”
“Consider this, though,” Scott said, “when Lila said, ‘I’m at hey….south….....springs!’ there were distinct gaps in her speech, either from signal interruption or from talking while running. Given that, it’s possible ‘hey’ may have been ‘bay’, and she might have said, ‘I’m at Bayard Point south of Green Cove Springs.’ It would fit.”
“Maybe,” Curt considered the possibility. It was a conclusion that he had also arrived at while tossing and turning in bed last night. “Let’s get to the Point and have a look around.” Curt had wanted to get back on the water and search Bayard Point last night, but Scott had argued otherwise and eventually convinced Curt. It was dangerous terrain in broad daylight, consisting of swampy ground inhabited by alligators and water moccasins. Trudging through there at night in the dark would have been near suicide.
Scott guided the boat toward Bayard Point. The plateau within the swamp was an aberration, rising up and punctuating the landscape. A minute later, Scott brought the craft onto a thin lip of beach no more than four feet deep bordered by a wall of brush. Donning rubber hip-waders, they each tied a pair of tennis shoes to the straps, and exited the boat. Curt took the bow rope of the boat and tied it to an overhanging vine. Scott threw the anchor onto the beach to secure the boat’s position.
The air was thick and foul smelling; reeking of mud and decayed foliage. The breeze that had kicked up on the river was shielded at the point. The air here was dead still. Hordes of flying insects buzzed around them. After grabbing several bottles of water, rope, binoculars, and a flashlight, Curt took one last clear look at the elevated land to mark the location before they moved into the swamp where the vegetation grew even thicker. Curt reasoned that as long as they moved in the general direction, they couldn’t miss it.
They trudged forward, slopping through the muck, leaving the small beach and river behind. Fortunately, the sky was still overcast, and the temperature was bearable. In their gear, they would warm up quickly.
Their progress was slow. At times, the dense thicket was nearly impenetrable, and they had to labor to push through, always making an undo amount of noise to try to scare off any reptiles. Often, Curt’s foot got stuck in the mud and extra effort was required to break free.
It was exhausting. When they finally reached the first sign of incline, it was a relief. A few more steps upward and the ground began to harden and the brush thinned. They left the smell of stale mud for the pleasant aroma of summer growth. Small bushes became their support, which they used for climbing as they went. On and on they clumsily moved upward in the bulky hip-waders, searching the side of the slope for the opening Ed Leedskalnin had referenced. Curt felt the burn of the muscles in his legs.
Soon they reached the plateau where the land leveled. Similar to the sides
of the hill, the top had only sparse ground foliage. They made their way to the middle, where they paused to rest. Both men were perspiring from the trapped body heat inside their waders.
“I wonder if anyone has ever looked into this plateau from a geological standpoint,” Scott said, breathing deeply.
“C’mon,” Curt urged, glossing over Scott’s question. He was impatient to continue the search for the cave shaft.
The two men moved left to the edge of the plateau. Curt used the binoculars to look down at the surrounding landscape, although the swamp was so thick all they could see was a vast flat sea of green treetops and bushes. For the next twenty minutes, they walked the edges of the plateau on all sides searching the downward slope for the boulder Leedskalnin had mentioned, taking turns with the binoculars.
“We’ve scoured every side of this hill, and there’s no boulder,” Scott finally said.
“Or any sign of life,” Curt remarked glumly. Linking a supposed story by Leedskalnin in 1925 to the current day disappearance of his ex-wife had been a monumental reach. In fact, it was such a stretch, he now silently chastised himself for thinking the trip here could lead to answers. He couldn’t mask his discouragement.
Scott must have read Curt’s expression. “It was a fair assumption and worth our time. Since we’ve come this far, let’s be thorough. We’re going to search every inch of these slopes.” He untied his tennis shoes from the strap then plopped to the ground and removed the hip-waders. Scott tied on his tennis shoes and rose to his feet. He looked to Curt with unfaltering determination. Curt was about to argue the uselessness of continuing, but he relented without a word. A minute later, he stood, hip-waders to the side, wearing his shoes.
Evil in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 2) Page 12