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

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Thinking back, he recalled her withering taunts and cringed, “Ah yes. I remember you were upset with me. I should have kept my mouth shut, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “I wasn’t upset with you Anlon, I was shocked you saw right through me. Even though I never gave you the chance to actually tell me your theory before I ran in the house crying, I knew the moment you mentioned my lie about the order that you were too close for comfort. I felt exposed, not angry. I didn’t think you could look inside me like that,” Pebbles said, wiping away a small tear from her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Pebbles, you’re getting upset again. Let’s talk about something else,” Anlon answered, observing her weepy eyes.

  She shook her head and said, “No, it’s important. Tell me your theory Anlon, I want to hear it.”

  “Oh, no way, Pebbles. I should never have gone there. I don’t want to open up old wounds,” Anlon answered, mortified by his choice of finishing words as they spilled from his mouth.

  Pebbles squeezed his hand tightly and said, “Please Anlon, I want to talk about it. It’s time.”

  She nodded without further comment, encouraging him to begin. Anlon stared off into the mist forming over the grassy carpet surrounding the driveway and gathered his words carefully before softly speaking, “They tell a story. A love story…about devastating loss, despair, acceptance, new hope, renewed strength and fond remembrance. They serve as both reminders and sources of inspiration.”

  As he spoke, he touched each tattoo in order of the story. First, the huddled angel with folded wings and head bowed on her left wrist (despair/loss), the trinity knot on her right wrist (serenity/acceptance), the broken chain around her ankle (freedom/hope), the Chinese script symbol for strength on her shoulder (rebirth) and the hummingbird on her neck (loving reminder).

  Drops trickled down her face and she sniffled, “You’re incredible.”

  Anlon didn’t mention the scars beneath the tattoos on her wrists, understanding the ink was intended to obscure the wounds.

  He kept quiet about his observation that she always held her head a certain way when she looked at her hummingbird tattoo in a mirror and that when he positioned himself to look at her from the same angle, it appeared the hummingbird was kissing her ear lobe.

  He left silent the fact that all the tattoos were on the front of her body in places she would naturally see over the course of the day, or the fact that she rubbed her wrists when nervous or unsure. Even when she wore bangles, she pushed them out of the way to massage the wrists.

  Or when she teasingly flexed her bicep at him (which she did often when she playfully taunted him), it was always with her right arm. When she wore short sleeves, she always pulled it back to reveal the shoulder tattoo in conjunction with the mocking bicep curl.

  Conscious and unconscious cues, some subtle, others overt, revealing the lineage of emotions caused by the traumatic event that led her to shed Eleanor and become Pebbles. A map of sorts, Anlon concluded.

  Pebbles wiped away the tears, cleared her throat and asked, “Do you know the whole story? Did you look it up online?”

  “No,” Anlon said. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to pry.”

  “Well, you’re a damn good detective, Anlon, don’t ever believe anything different. You and I, our brains aren’t built the same way. You don’t always process things you see and hear as fast as I do, but you notice things I miss entirely and, man, can you string pieces together in a way that I can’t. It’s a gift I don’t have or haven’t developed yet.

  “Don’t you see, Anlon? You’re feeling lost because the clues have been coming in rapid fire and you haven’t had the space to sort them all out yet. But with the right amount of time to think, you will, I know it!” Pebbles stated, tussling his hair.

  Anlon was dumbfounded by her message and the way she delivered it. He smiled back and said, “You’re selling yourself short Pebbles. You are very perceptive. Between the two of us, we make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”

  The next day Anlon awoke energized and determined to get to the bottom of things. Over doughnuts again, he and Pebbles agreed to split up their days in different directions to accomplish twice as much as they might together as they had tried to do before they discovered the break-in.

  She would join Jennifer to go through Dobson’s house and together they would return to go over the barn again in search of the Port Stone and anything helpful to Jennifer’s investigation.

  Anlon’s plan for the day was centered on a lunchtime visit with Anabel Simpson, whom he’d spoken to in the morning to arrange a time to meet. First though, Anlon had another phone call to make. He needed to ramp up his education about Devlin’s whole scope of research.

  Unfortunately, Anlon didn’t have the time to read every book in Devlin’s study, every paper he published, every document in his files or every computer file on his still-missing laptop. So Anlon would need to be creative to accelerate his learning curve and he knew exactly where to start.

  “Anlon!” shouted the voice on the end of the line, “how are you, my man?”

  “Antonio, good to hear your voice, it’s been a while,” Anlon replied, “I know you are very busy. I appreciate you stepping out of your meeting to chat for a few minutes.”

  “Anything for you, what’s up?” asked Antonio Wallace, the lead investigator on the Whave fuel and engine patent project. He had recruited Anlon to the team originally and had been the one who personally designed the combustion engine adaptation to store excess bursts of energy from the fuel additive. He was beyond brilliant, and now ran his own multi-billion-dollar technology firm, having quadrupled his share of the patent proceeds in the process. He also recently purchased the controlling interest in the Bay Area’s professional basketball team.

  “I need a favor, and I kind of need it fast,” Anlon said.

  “Aim and fire! What do you need? Tickets for tonight’s Warriors game?”

  “Ha, I wish! They looked good in the first round of the playoffs. Everything you touch turns to gold! Anyway, you’re still well connected in academia, right? I need an introduction to an archaeologist I don’t know how to reach. And I need to meet him, like yesterday.”

  “Okay, what’s the dude’s name?”

  “His name is Cesar Perez. He was a research colleague of my uncle, Devlin Wilson,” Anlon responded.

  Cesar Perez, PhD, had co-authored two books with Devlin and collaborated with him on a number of published research articles. He also, according to the calendar on Devlin’s desk, had three phone appointments over the past few months with Anlon’s uncle. With Dobson dead and Pacal having vanished, Dr. Perez was Anlon’s best bet to get a deeper understanding of Devlin’s research in short order. At least, that’s what he hoped.

  “All right. I’ll get on it and see what I can find. Call you back in an hour. Is that fast enough?”

  “Better than I could have dreamed,” praised a thankful Anlon.

  “Everything okay buddy? You sound stressed,” Antonio asked in reply, concern in his voice.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just in a little over my head at the moment and I need some expert advice. It’s a time-sensitive issue,” elaborated Anlon.

  “Got it. Okay, I’ll get back to you like I said. Anything else?” Antonio inquired.

  Anlon paused, and then said, “Well, now that you mention it. Once you find him, any chance I can borrow your plane and pilot to go meet him? I’m not in Tahoe right now, I’m in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I think there’s an airfield in Pittsfield up the road. I’ll reimburse you, of course.”

  A roaring laugh echoed over the line. Antonio bellowed, “My plane is your plane. I don’t need your money, my man. Just bring the plane back in one piece with a full tank and rested pilot and we’re good. Oh, and I’ll want to know what this is all about when we both have more time. Deal?”

  “Deal! I can’t thank you enough Skipper!” Anlon answered, invoking the Whave team’s nickname f
or Antonio before ringing off.

  As she parked her car in the empty driveway, Jennifer could see the police tape still layered across the entrance door of Matthew Dobson’s split level home. While she waited for Pebbles to arrive, Jennifer killed time by flipping through the police report detailing the crime scene again, including transcribed interviews with Mrs. Minden, the woman who found Dobson, and other neighbors.

  Jennifer planned to visit Mrs. Minden after they wrapped up their search and she brought along pictures of Devlin and Pacal for the follow-up interview. She was curious whether either man had visited Dobson in the weeks leading up to his death. The initial police report only mentioned that none of the neighbors, including Mrs. Minden, noticed any visitors (or anything else unusual) on the day Dobson was killed.

  When Pebbles pulled up in Devlin’s Land Rover, Jennifer grabbed her gear and exited her car. Smiling, she waved to Pebbles. “Hey there! Ready to dig in?”

  “Ha ha,” Pebbles retorted, “I was born ready PoPo.”

  Jennifer extended a hand to greet Pebbles and then asked her to carry up a large, empty box for holding any evidence they removed from the home. Hanging around Jennifer’s neck was a digital camera and she lugged an oversized case that looked like a fishing tackle box, otherwise known as an evidence collection kit.

  When they arrived at the police tape, Jennifer placed down the evidence collection kit and opened it up. She removed latex gloves and foot covers for Pebbles and herself and handed them to Pebbles to hold until they entered. She retrieved a multi-tool from the kit and unfolded a knife to slice the police tape away at one end, asking Pebbles first to verify the tape was intact. Removing a notepad from her sweatshirt jacket pocket, Jennifer recorded the time and their names so that she could update the crime scene entry log when she returned to her headquarters later.

  Jennifer replaced the pad in her jacket and deposited the multi-tool back into the top tray of the kit. She donned gloves and Pebbles followed suit. She retrieved a house key from an evidence bag she signed out back at headquarters and unlocked the door, causing the entry alarm to beep at a low pitch. Before they stepped into the house, Jennifer slid on foot covers over her running shoes and asked Pebbles to do the same.

  “Okay, here we are. Let’s do a quick walk through of the whole house and then we’ll figure out how we want to attack it,” Jennifer instructed after she entered the security code set by her Captain on the day Dobson was discovered.

  On the main level was a living room, dining room, powder room, kitchen and laundry room. On the lower level was a family room, home office, a full bathroom and utility room. Upstairs, three bedrooms and two full bathrooms — one shared between two bedrooms — and the other within what appeared to be the master bedroom. Jennifer noted a framed panel in the ceiling above the main stairway, which she assumed was an attic entry. They returned back to the living room and Jennifer said, “Let’s start on the upper level and work our way down. I’m looking for anything that might be connected with Matthew Dobson’s death. Documents, pictures or other items that seem out of place or might even be remotely related to the crime.”

  “Got it,” Pebbles answered, “and if we stumble across his will or anything related to Devlin’s death?”

  “We’ll sort out what to do with anything like that when and if we find something,” she replied. Jennifer was walking a bit of a fine line. It was unusual to allow a “citizen” entry into a crime scene but not out of the question. Detectives occasionally requested interested persons visit crime scenes to see if they noticed anything out of place or to assist them in locating potential pieces of evidence.

  In this case, Pebbles wasn’t as much a classical person of interest as she was another pair of sharp eyes who had a complementary motive for the search, albeit from a different perspective (Devlin’s death versus Dobson’s).

  Jennifer started in the master bedroom while Pebbles checked the two guest bedrooms. They both observed that Matthew Dobson had been a man of simple but quality tastes. The rooms were uncluttered but tastefully appointed, though many of the furnishings were dated. Pebbles commented that Dobson must have preserved much of his wife’s touches after she passed away. Jennifer agreed.

  “Find anything?” Jennifer called.

  “There are some old family pictures on both dressers but no documents in any of the drawers or in the closets. No unusual items that I can see,” Pebbles answered.

  “Alright, same here. Let’s switch up. You go through the master bedroom and I’ll go through the other ones,” Jennifer suggested, knowing conducting completely split searches could lead to missing evidence.

  “Hey, look at the family pictures on the dressers. Don’t the kids in it look like the adults in the one on Dobson’s bedside table?” Pebbles called down the short hallway.

  Jennifer picked up one of the pictures delicately by its corners so as to preserve possible fingerprints and walked back to the master bedroom. Holding one picture up to the other, she remarked, “Yep, they do look similar.”

  “Didn’t Mr. Grant mention yesterday that Dobson had a niece and a nephew who didn’t come to the funeral yesterday?” Pebbles mentioned.

  “You’re right. He did, but I don’t remember him giving us the names. Just said he found them and talked to them and they balked at attending. I’ll follow up on that,” Jennifer said, pulling out her pad and scribbling a quick note.

  “Might be worth talking to them, you think?” Pebbles asked.

  “Possibly,” she replied. “Let’s bag and record the picture of them as adults and move on.”

  Soon they had searched two of the three levels and now came to the lower level. They searched the den together, finding nothing more of interest other than a few more framed snapshots of Dobson with the same adults depicted in the picture in the master bedroom.

  Their search heated up when they entered Dobson’s office. They found statements from two different banks. They also discovered a cell phone statement, a powered-off laptop and briefcase which contained three spiral-bound notebooks. The notebooks caught Pebbles’ attention in particular because they were labeled with Devlin Wilson’s name. Each of these items they placed in evidence bags and recorded evidence tags. Jennifer took snapshots of each item where they originally found them and laid out together on the dining room table upstairs. But they didn’t find a will, or any documents from an attorney.

  “That’s a bummer,” Pebbles exclaimed once it was clear no will was present.

  “Don’t give up yet. We still need to check the utility room and attic. Sometimes people file away old documents in the strangest places. If you ask me though, I’ll bet if he has a will it’s in a safe deposit box at one of the two banks we found statements from,” Jennifer replied.

  “Oh, I didn’t think of that. You’re probably right! What about a safe? Do you think Dobson had one here in the house? I wasn’t looking for one myself, but maybe he had a hidden one like Devlin?” Pebbles asked.

  “It’s a good thought. I’ve kept an eye out as we’ve gone through the rooms, but didn’t notice any obvious areas where a safe might be hidden. Before we go, we should spin back through the whole house, but let’s check the utility room and attic first,” Jennifer suggested.

  As they searched, Pebbles was conflicted. She really wanted Devlin’s spiral notebooks, but Jennifer had already bagged and recorded them as evidence. She wasn’t sure how to bring the subject up with Jennifer without causing friction.

  The attic had been empty and the utility room held no file boxes or other clues. They were about to leave and re-seal the house when Pebbles remembered, “Hey, weren’t we going to run through the house one more time looking for a safe?”

  Jennifer peered down at her watch and said, “Ugh, I don’t have much time, but you are right we should do it.”

  They retraced the rooms together but found nothing. Pebbles concluded, “I guess that’s that!”

  Jennifer nodded her head in agreement and they gathere
d up the box with evidence they’d bagged, as well as the collection kit. When they reached the front door, Jennifer halted and mumbled, “Rookie mistake!”

  Pebbles turned and said, “What? What do you mean?”

  “We never checked the kitchen! Or the laundry room,” she exhaled as she placed the collection kit down on the foyer.

  The laundry room held no surprises. Jennifer said, “Check everywhere in the kitchen. Cabinets, closets, refrigerator, canisters.”

  For the next 10 minutes the house reverberated with the sounds of banging drawers and cabinets mixed with the metallic shuffling of pots, pans and silverware. That is until Pebbles shouted, “Bingo!”

  Stuffed behind a coffee maker on the bottom shelf of a cabinet by the refrigerator was a shelf-sized safe with an electronic combination lock.

  Jennifer stared at the lock and said, “I’m so happy we didn’t leave before checking the kitchen! Let’s go back through his office and see if we can find the combination.”

  Another 30 minutes searching produced no combination. They powered up the laptop, but there was a password screen that would require the police IT guys to bypass. Frustrated, Jennifer said, “Damn! We’ll have to note it and get our safe crackers to come back and take it away to open.”

  Pebbles fidgeted with her wrists and said, “Can we at least try to guess a few times before we leave?”

  Jennifer shrugged and replied, “Can’t hurt. This safe lock isn’t sophisticated enough to cut off after a certain number of tries. It looks fairly old.”

  “Cool,” Pebbles said, pulling out her cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Jennifer inquired.