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

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “Actually, why don’t you take 10 minutes to get yourself together and when you are ready, we’ll go down to the lobby for coffee and a talk,” she offered while uncrossing her arms and reclining in the armchair by the bureau.

  Anlon gave a mock gesture of hallelujah to the ceiling and disappeared into the bathroom, grabbing fresh clothes from his suitcase on the way. He showered and shaved quickly, brushed his teeth and hair and donned fresh jeans and a slightly wrinkled, untucked white button-down shirt. All the while his mind raced.

  Dobson dead? Anlon had thought Dobson was a little on the spooky side when he suggested that Devlin had died of unnatural causes. And the fingerprint scan for the safe in the library and the alarm system tutorial seemed a little over-protective to Anlon when Dobson first suggested the security measures. But now?

  He recalled back to Dobson’s comments the previous night about people with a thirst for power and wealth. At the time, Anlon was sure it was just hyperbole spoken by someone charged with keeping a valuable secret. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Anlon emerged from the bathroom feeling somewhat more human to find Stevens wedged against the side of the sofa in the room frantically tapping on her cell phone with legs crossed, one bobbing atop the other. Maintaining a staccato of fingers and thumbs upon her phone, she darted a look up at Anlon and blurted, “Good news. The SUV came up clean on first inspection.”

  “No surprise to me,” he responded with an I-told-you-so quality to his tone.

  Together they walked in silence back to the central staircase of the inn and descended to the cozy lobby, the aroma of burning wood and simmering apple cider filling the room. Whisking into the small lounge area near the front desk under the watchful, suspicious eyes of Mrs. Neally, Stevens chose a table away from the other early Sunday risers munching away on the breakfast buffet. Their first swigs of coffee seemed to relax them both.

  Stevens sat back in her chair and resumed her “one tough bitch” mode, though her voice was less coarse now that hot coffee had coated her throat. “As I was saying, the circumstances of Mr. Dobson’s death are dubious and when that happens, it’s imperative to follow leads quickly.”

  Anlon, feeling a bit more human from the combination of coffee, shower, fresh clothes and change in venue, said, “Look, I’m not trying to be uncooperative, it’s just hard to grasp the news and make sense of it.”

  “That’s why we want to talk with you, especially because it seems you were the last person to see him alive. Did you meet with him as planned last night?” Stevens asked as she sipped her steaming coffee, the imprint of her lip gloss coating the rim of the cup.

  “Yes, we did meet at my Uncle Devlin’s house,” he answered, watching her scribble in the small note pad she retrieved again from her inside jacket pocket.

  “Did you meet with Mr. Dobson alone or was your uncle there as well?” she followed up quickly.

  “Alone. My uncle passed away at the beginning of the week,” Anlon replied.

  “Oh, I see. What was your uncle’s full name and address?” she inquired without raising her eyes from the pad she wrote upon.

  Nice display of sympathy, Anlon drolly thought. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t the Massachusetts State Police’s ambassador for extending condolences to grieving family members. While providing his uncle’s information, he massaged his temples and closed his eyes. This was too much. First Devlin and now Dobson. In the span of a few days. What in heaven’s name was going on?

  “Your driver’s license shows your home address is in Nevada, Incline Village, right?” Stevens asked, consulting an earlier page in the notebook.

  “Yes, it’s on Lake Tahoe,” Anlon replied.

  “Forty-two years old, no prior arrests, but a few speeding tickets on your driving record. Graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, PhD from USC in biomechanics. You sound pretty respectable Mister, excuse me, I should say Doctor Cully,” the Detective finished, relishing the effect her recitation seemed to have on him. She’d assembled Anlon’s brief bio from a combination of a national law enforcement database and a quick Internet search while he was taking a shower.

  “I see you’ve been busy. What else have you found out about me?” Anlon retorted, feeling a little uneasy of the speed at which she’d been able to Google him.

  She ignored his jibe and continued on. “Why did you meet Mr. Dobson?”

  “Dobson worked for my Uncle Devlin for many years. After my uncle died, Dobson called to break the news and requested that I come for a visit. Question for you — what makes you think Dobson’s death is suspicious?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss details of the investigation but let’s just say some of the evidence at the scene didn’t add up. What did you talk about with Mr. Dobson?” the detective asked, casually brushing aside Anlon’s question.

  Stevens didn’t describe the crime scene to him mostly because she hadn’t been there yet. According to Det. Capt. Gambelli who was at the scene, a man was found in his driveway in a locked car by a passing neighbor, a Mrs. Doris Minden, walking her dog. He might have been asleep to the average passerby, but the neighbor thought it looked out of character for Dobson.

  She walked her Labrador every morning through the same Stockbridge neighborhood and not once had she seen Matthew Dobson’s car parked in the spot it now occupied in his driveway in the seven years she’d lived there. The well maintained black Mercedes E Class was always parked underneath the cover of his carport.

  But this morning it sat halfway up his driveway, the dawn dew coating the windows. As she approached the car, she noticed him sitting inside, hunched over the steering wheel. Knocking on the window, she received no response. No movement. She tried to open the car door, but it was locked. Concerned, she knocked more forcefully on the window and called out his name but still no response. Finally, she pulled out her cell phone and reluctantly called 911.

  When the fire truck and ambulance arrived, they carefully jimmied open the front passenger door and the EMT felt for a pulse. Her fingers had barely touched his flesh when she knew he was dead. Cold as ice, she realized immediately even through the latex gloves she’d donned. Then the police arrived, followed shortly by the coroner.

  By now, other neighbors had gathered beyond the yellow police tape. Tongues wagging, the frightened but curious neighbors gawked as the police questioned Mrs. Minden about her discovery.

  Shortly afterward, Gambelli arrived at the scene and immediately conferred with the coroner. No apparent wounds but the body showed signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, which was strange to the coroner because the tailpipe was not blocked in any way.

  Further, he’d said, his crime scene technicians had inspected the undercarriage of the car and the exhaust system appeared intact. So there was a dilemma. How did Mr. Dobson die from carbon monoxide poisoning given the visible facts?

  To Gambelli, stalking the car from every angle, there were only two possible solutions to this dilemma. Either Dobson died somewhere else and someone placed him in the car afterwards, or someone stopped up the tailpipe of his car long enough to kill him before removing whatever plugged the exhaust system. Regardless, it looked more like murder than suicide.

  After the iPad found on the front seat next to Dobson had been searched by the crime scene technicians and the appointment with Anlon discovered, Gambelli called Stevens and sent her to find Cully.

  Leaning forward, Anlon played with the residue floating at the bottom of his coffee cup as he answered Stevens’ last question. “Uh, I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you. Let’s just say he filled in some blanks about my uncle’s research. He was an archaeologist and Dobson was familiar with his work.”

  Stevens was not about to let Anlon off the hook. “Let’s try that again. What did you and Mr. Dobson discuss?”

  Though the caffeine had eased Anlon’s demeanor, Stevens’ snooping into his bona fides and her persistent questioning rankled him. He answered meekly, “Okay, okay. We discu
ssed some controversial research my uncle was conducting when he died. Dull and esoteric I assure you. I think my uncle was hoping I’d pick up the ball where he left off and Dobson was supposed to convince me.”

  He cringed inside at the little lie he just uttered. While the subject matter had been esoteric, it was far from dull, and the more he thought about it alongside Dobson’s mysterious death, the more intriguing it became. She hadn’t bought the lie though, her nose wrinkling with a corresponding look of disbelief. But for the moment, she let it go.

  “Did you both leave at the same time, and what time did you leave?” she queried.

  Thinking back, Anlon wasn’t sure when they parted outside Devlin’s house. He knew it was late, but didn’t recall the precise time. He replied, “Hmmm, I don’t remember the time but it must have been after midnight. We both said goodnight outside my uncle’s house, got in our cars and left. The wind was pretty wild last night and we both wanted to get out of the cold.”

  Tapping the table with her pen, she asked, “And you drove straight here? Anyone see you enter the hotel? Valet parking attendant perhaps?”

  “Yes, I drove straight here. And the inn doesn’t have valet parking, at least not at the time I arrived,” Anlon answered with a sarcastic smile.

  She recounted, “So you drove to your uncle’s house to meet with Mr. Dobson at 10:00 p.m. You met for two to three hours discussing esoteric and dull research. You left together sometime after midnight, and you drove straight back to the hotel?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” he nodded.

  “Did Mr. Dobson seem nervous or uptight when you met with him? Did he say anything that struck you as unusual or out of place?” Stevens probed.

  Hell yes, he seemed uptight, Anlon thought. And the whole conversation had been odd and out of place but he didn’t want to go there — not now and not with her. At the time, Anlon discounted Dobson’s tense appearance as being afraid to share Devlin’s controversial finds. The more Stevens dug, however, the more Anlon realized he’d misread Dobson. There was fear in his eyes and in his trembling hands while he talked about the two stones. Perhaps he was genuinely afraid of something or someone. He seemed pretty convinced Devlin’s death was not an accident.

  Anlon’s own eyes must have given him away as Stevens leaned forward waiting for his answer with pen poised. Damn, he said to himself, she doesn’t miss much. Anlon acknowledged, “He did seem tense, now that you mention it.”

  “Did he seem depressed in any way?”

  He gazed nonchalantly out the hotel’s glazed glass windows at the town’s quiet main street and exhaled a sigh of internal relief. Whew, she didn’t press the matter. “No, definitely not,” he replied.

  “So your uncle dies and Mr. Dobson calls you and asks you to fly across the country to meet with him. You arrange a meeting with him, in which he seems nervous or tense, but not depressed. Sometime around midnight you both leave your uncle’s home. You go back to your hotel and Mr. Dobson presumably goes home, only he doesn’t quite make it there, at least not alive,” the detective summarized, again tapping her pen on the edge of the pine table.

  Stevens was convinced Anlon wasn’t being totally upfront, but didn’t think any further thrust and parry at this moment would be productive…for now.

  Anlon remained quiet, sensing she spoke the summary aloud to cement what she’d heard so far. He lowered his head and thought of Dobson. A good guy, a loyal man. His uncle had trusted him with his most precious possessions and secrets and Dobson had guarded both as if they were his own.

  It was then that Anlon suddenly recalled that Dobson had never shared with him how the two stones worked. He also remembered now that Dobson had said these were only the first two discoveries Devlin had made and that he’d been on the trail of four new discoveries when he fell from the White Mountains cliff in New Hampshire.

  A sickening feeling came over Anlon as he realized that, with Dobson’s death, Devlin’s secrets might now remain hidden forever. And if he was right about Devlin’s death not being an accident, Dobson’s own suspicious death meant that Anlon unwittingly was caught in the middle of one, possibly two, murder investigations.

  IV

  REACHING OUT

  After Det. Lt. Stevens concluded her questioning, Anlon had been fingerprinted, provided hair samples and been swabbed for DNA. Released on his own recognizance with a warning not to leave town for at least the next few days, he went back to his hotel room and crashed for another couple hours’ fitful sleep, feeling violated on multiple levels.

  When he awoke, he laid on the hotel bed and tried again to make sense of it all. The stones, Devlin’s death, Dobson’s death and the ominously vague unfinished research. The longer he grappled with unanswered questions in his mind, the more determined he became to find the solutions. Yet, at the same time, he was certain he would not be able to unearth all the answers on his own. The range of possibilities was too vast for Anlon to comprehend alone. And so, as he’d done throughout his career, he realized he would need help to solve the labyrinth of riddles before him.

  His initial text to Pebbles read, “Holy crap! You can’t believe what I walked into. Need your help! When can you talk???”

  Pebbles reply followed a few hours later. She would claim the time zone difference was a factor, but in fact she had slept until noon. Her reply, “K, on it. Will call u in 1 hr.”

  When Anlon read her text, his tensed muscles relaxed. It was hard to explain, but Pebbles’ edgy can-do attitude always made him feel like he had an angel on his shoulder. It didn’t matter if it was something as mundane as her hustling to draw his IPA on a crowded night at Sydney’s, Anlon sensed her protective spirit coming to his rescue. Not that he needed rescue, he assured himself. Still, it was a comfort to know he was not alone.

  By the time Anlon returned to Devlin’s house for the phone call with Pebbles, it was approaching sunset. Motoring up the driveway, Anlon took in his first real look at the home in the fading daylight.

  Custom built by Devlin, the outer shell looked like a classic farmhouse; white wood siding, black shutters and a crimson painted front door. The main level of the five-bedroom, four-bathroom house sat one story up from the ground level garage and basement. A wide-covered porch wrapped around the entire main level and was adorned by a variety of comfy outdoor furniture nestled in its four corners. Extra-wide staircases extended from the front door and back porch along uniquely dedicated walkways abutting the macadam driveway. Inside, Devlin spared no expense in the home’s fittings and furnishings. Each room reflected the elegant and exotic tastes of the renaissance man.

  Anlon swayed in an oversized rocking chair on the porch when Pebbles’ call came through. Before they even exchanged pleasantries, she dove in, “What’s happened? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes,” Anlon shrugged, “I’m fine.”

  Pausing to consider his answer, Anlon dropped the faux bravado and revised his statement, “Well…I’m fine in the sense that I’m alive and uninjured. But some crazy things have happened and I need your help. Short summary…I met Dobson, he told me a nearly unbelievable story, a story I’m having trouble grasping, a story he left unfinished before we parted. We said goodnight and somewhere between then and now he was murdered! And the police suspect me!”

  On the other end of the phone, Pebbles sat on a battered, rickety Ikea sofa in the spartan confines of her studio apartment clad in daisy dukes, a lime green tank top and flip flops. On the equally unstable used coffee table before her rested evidence of the previous night’s meal…pizza box and empty beer bottles. As Anlon talked, Pebbles quietly nibbled on a rare leftover pizza slice while she cleared and wiped down the table. Bartender habit again.

  “Whoa,” uttered Pebbles, “slow down AC. Of course I’m happy to help, you know that. But let’s go back to the beginning and go step by step.”

  Anlon smiled and welcomed Pebbles’ methodical and rational approach. Taking a deep breath, he ran through his tale from the
start. He told her about the stones and Devlin’s research. He conveyed Dobson’s skepticism about Devlin’s death. He shared the little he knew from his conversation with Det. Lt. Stevens about Dobson’s death. The more he talked, the more questions Pebbles asked. The more she asked, the more intrigued she grew. Twenty minutes into the conversation she announced, “I’ll try to get a flight out tonight. If not, I’ll be there by this time tomorrow at the latest.”

  “That’s great! Look at flights and when you find one that’s good, email me the itinerary you want and I’ll book your flights. Don’t worry about how much it costs, just look for flights to get here as soon as possible. Oh, and can you do me a favor and stop by my house and pack some extra clothes for me? I think I’m going to be here more than a few days,” Anlon requested.

  “Okay, will do!” she replied forcefully, feeling energized. Finally, here was a chance to repay Anlon for his unconditional generosity and friendship.

  Pebbles and Anlon first met the prior June during her first week on the job at Sydney’s, the bistro in the village where she still occasionally filled in as bartender now and then. She’d rolled into Tahoe seeking a summer job that would provide her freedom to hike, water ski, rock climb and mountain bike during the day. A job that would allow her to be somewhat anonymous if she chose, but also one where she could meet people and make new friends when the mood suited her, knowing full well she intended to move on at summer’s end with no strings attached, romantic or otherwise.

  Though the bistro’s namesake owner, Sydney Armstrong, was reluctant to hire Pebbles given she possessed little experience tending bar, she’d used her considerable feistiness to overcome his objections. She’d come in early, stay late. She’d work the crappy shifts no one else wanted. She’d bus tables when the bar was slow. Still Sydney had wavered, that is until Pebbles offered to work for tips only. He gave her a week to prove herself. Nowadays he begged her to take extra shifts and paid her more than anyone else that worked for him.