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

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “I think I know how Dobson acquired the gold, but I don’t know where it came from yet,” Anlon chimed in.

  “Hold up AC, let us finish our side of the story. Do either of you want any more pizza?” Pebbles sheepishly asked.

  “What do you think Anlon?” Jennifer quipped. “Should we make her suffer?”

  “Whoa, not me. I’ve seen her break up bar fights. I’m not picking one. I’m done eating, what’s left is all yours,” he chortled.

  “I’m done too. Happy now?” Jennifer asked.

  Pebbles gave a thumbs up, her mouth already full with the first chomps of her next slice, and shot a closed mouth grin at Jennifer.

  “Getting back on track, I waited for the evidence crew to show up to pick up the safe while Pebbles drove back to the barn to start the document search there without me. I planned to join her once I squared things away at Dobson’s house,” Jennifer added.

  Pebbles swallowed and jumped back into the conversation. “My turn again. I came back here and searched through everything. The desktops, drawers, the file cabinets and I even checked the counters and cabinets along the kitchen wall. Nothing. I brought over my laptop and tried some of the flash drives I found in Dobson’s desk but nothing again. I tried my safe-cracking skills on Dobson’s laptop password screen but struck out.”

  “So then, how did you find the Port Stone and where did you find it?” Anlon breathlessly asked.

  “I’m getting to that, chill out,” Pebbles retorted. “Men, so impatient!”

  After a dramatic head shake of shame directed at Anlon, she continued. “As I was saying before being rudely interrupted, I was trying to get into Dobson’s laptop when I heard the door to the barn open.

  “I turned and it was Klaus Navarro, all blacked-out again but without the two muscleheads who were at the funeral. I said, ‘WTF, ever hear of knocking,’ and the dude went off. He called me very nasty names and demanded to see you. I told him you weren’t there and asked him to leave.

  “He was very angry. Said you blew him off and now he had a plane to catch. He demanded to see the two statues he came to purchase. I told him that wasn’t possible. He ignored me and walked towards the racks. I scooted in front of him and told him to leave again. Do you know what the SOB did?”

  Anlon pointed to the swollen, bandaged red welt on her forehead without speaking. He was livid inside and almost didn’t want to hear Pebbles’ next words. Klaus Navarro would pay! Anlon would make sure of it.

  “He grabbed me by my hair and slammed my head into the rack! I was so shocked that I didn’t even feel pain at first. I wobbled a bit and had to steady myself on one of the examining tables. He turned his back on me and started rummaging the storage rack. I guess he thought I would tremble and let him just take what he wanted. Big F-ing mistake on his part!” Pebbles blurted, seething with anger as she relived the confrontation.

  “I was woozy and my eyes were blurry. The shock began to wear off and my head throbbed. I could feel a trickle down my face and wiped it away and saw blood on my hand. I snapped. One of the clamped lights was right next to me. I loosened it and rushed at Navarro. The cocky bastard never even turned around. I swung the lamp like a baseball bat right at his shiny ponytail. Booh yah!

  “He crumpled on the floor. I beat him over and over with the lamp until the lamp head snapped off. He was a bloody mess on the floor. Sorry about that. He kinda made a mess of some of the shelves too when he fell. I’ll clean that all up tomorrow.

  “Anyway, I ran over to the alarm and pressed every button I could. The claxon went off. Navarro was still on the floor trying to get his bearings. I ran back over and kicked him good a few times right in his manhood. I grabbed my cell phone and ran to the house and called Jennifer,” Pebbles concluded while breathing heavily, having stood to re-enact Navarro’s submission.

  Anlon and Jennifer sat with wide eyes and open mouths. Pebbles reached up for her forehead, it was throbbing again now, and delicately resumed her place on the sofa.

  “My God Pebbles, I’m so sorry. You were very brave,” Anlon said, reaching to soothe her shoulder.

  She smiled and laughed, “I was scared out of my mind! It wasn’t bravery, I just got super angry and stuff happened on its own.”

  “Don’t buy it Anlon. She was over-the-top brave. And lethal too. Even though Navarro escaped before anyone got here, the trail of blood is impressive. I don’t think he’ll be coming back anytime soon,” praised Jennifer as she returned from the kitchen with an ice bag for Pebbles.

  “He got away?” Anlon quizzed.

  “Yes, he did. He’s inflight on his way back to Argentina on his private plane. By the time we tracked down which airport he was flying out of, he was gone and out over the Atlantic Ocean. He went pretty far out of his flight plan’s way to get out of United States’ airspace as fast as possible from what Captain Gambelli told me after he talked with the air traffic control,” Jennifer said.

  “We’ll file charges against him for unlawful entry, and aggravated assault, so if he ever tries to enter the U.S. again, he’ll pop up on TSA’s radar. Captain also suggested we file a complaint with the State Department and Argentinian Embassy, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Navarro, it turns out, is a wealthy and influential man in Argentina.”

  Anlon piped in, “Oh I plan to make his life uncomfortable with some calls to some influential friends of mine and a few lawsuits to boot. I’m going to see George Grant tomorrow!”

  Pebbles teared up a bit. Between the two of them, they really did come to her rescue, even though they were late to the party.

  There was a moment of silence while they all decompressed from Pebbles’ tense recitation. Suddenly, Anlon said, “Hey, what about the Port Stone? How did that figure in? Where did you find it?”

  Pebbles adjusted the ice bag on her head and said, “When I came back to the house, I was bleeding pretty good, so I ran in the kitchen and got a dish towel to hold against the gash. I opened the freezer for some ice, and…”

  Anlon stood without warning and shouted, “It was in the freezer?”

  Jennifer raised her hands to the ceiling with palms outstretched, “Always gotta check the kitchen.”

  Anlon flopped back down on the sofa and laughed, “I bet good ole Devlin put it there. I bet neither Pacal or Dobson knew where he hid it. Was it out in the open?”

  Pebbles giggled and said, “Yes, it was! It was sitting on top of a pint of ice cream! Crazy, isn’t it? I thought it was a can of tuna at first and I was like, ‘who puts tuna in the freezer.’ And then I picked it up and I almost wet myself again!”

  Anlon and Jennifer roared with laughter.

  “Wow, that’s some story. You were not kidding, you had the bigger day! Both of you did! So how many stitches Pebbles?”

  “Five. It’s okay, I can hide it with my bangs. Anyway, I put the Port Stone back in the freezer so you could see where I found it,” she nonchalantly stated.

  Jennifer jumped in, “That’s it from our end. Now tell us about the visit with Anabel Simpson and tell us what’s in the case. I’ve been dying to ask.”

  Anlon held up a finger and said, “We need more wine.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen and extracted another Cabernet from Devlin’s wine rack. He returned, uncorked it and poured more all around. He took a long sip and let the oaky taste roll around his tongue. He hummed with satisfaction and said, “You know, it’s hard to know where to begin. I learned so much. In some ways it cleared up a lot, but in other ways it made things murkier.”

  “Okay, let me play copper then,” kidded Pebbles. “First question. Who is Anabel Simpson?”

  “Great question detective. Anabel Simpson was Devlin’s lover for 35 years,” Anlon said. He halted and let that soak in before adding, “She is in her late 50s now. She was a professor at Bennington College and actually was with Devlin the day before he died.”

  “Hold up,” Pebbles said, “Devlin was in his 80s when he died, right? So he was like
30 years older than Anabel?”

  “Yes, that’s about right. You’re off by a few years, but yes, Devlin was a 50-year-old professor and Anabel was a graduate student of his when they met. They fell in love and kept a private love affair alive for 35 years. She joined him on his excavations and other travels, and later in life they visited each other discreetly either here or in Bennington. She told me some fascinating stories about their adventures together,” Anlon explained.

  Jennifer said, “Now her bequest makes sense, but it seems meager by comparison to the others given what you just said. Was she mad about it?”

  “Another great question. I worried about the same thing when she told me. But Devlin was very generous to her over the years, she said. Bought her the home she lives in, supplemented her income and gave her gifts from his artifact collection. She seemed very content with the will,” Anlon answered.

  “What a class act, both of them,” Pebbles said.

  “Yes, they definitely are. The more I learned about Devlin from Anabel, my view of him softened. To me he was a storyteller, an explorer, a bombastic man who liked scotch, cigars and ancient treasures. Who knew he was a thoughtful romantic at heart?”

  “The case?” Jennifer impatiently inquired.

  Anlon thought, see the hill, take the hill. Jennifer was on the hunt. He said, “Hey, you made me wait about the Port Stone! Exhibit some patience of your own.”

  Jennifer motioned a zipper across her lips. Anlon continued, “As I mentioned, Devlin came to stay with Anabel the night before he went to Mt. Whiteface. Now this gets important, so ears wide open.

  “She said Devlin had a terrible fight with Dobson. He accused Dobson of stealing artifacts from Devlin’s collection without permission to line his own pockets. It turned out Devlin and Pacal set a trap for Dobson by hiding a GPS tracking beacon in a case Dobson used to remove one of the artifacts. Dobson, for a still unknown reason, took the case into the White Mountains. That’s why Devlin went hiking there, to find out where Dobson took the case,” Anlon said.

  “So, that’s why he had the tracking device with him!” Jennifer exclaimed, vaulting out of her seat, “I knew it was important. I’m going to call Meredith PD first thing in the morning. I want to see what’s on that tracker!”

  “Settle down Detective, it gets even more intriguing.” Anlon assured, “Anabel told me Devlin said he feared for his life and left what’s in this case with Anabel to give to me. I’m putting my own pieces together here, but I think Devlin was panicked. Something caused him to freak out, take the Master Stone to Mr. Grant, conceal the Port Stone in the freezer and hide the map with Anabel.”

  “Map?” Pebbles ears perked up. She removed the ice bag from her forehead and placed it on the floor. “What kind of map?”

  “You know,” Anlon observed, “I used nearly those exact words when I asked Anabel. She said Devlin told her to tell me that the map showed the locations of the Life Stones.”

  This time Pebbles vaulted up. “No way!”

  “Yes way!” Anlon kiddingly replied. “I’ve looked at the map, and there are definitely markings on it that I assume pinpoint the Life Stone locations, but the map is unlike anything I’ve ever seen and the color codes used in the markings are undecipherable to me without further examination.”

  “What makes the map so unusual?” Jennifer asked.

  “You ought to be a detective, do you know that?” Anlon teased. “Anabel thinks it’s a map that Devlin was obsessed with — her words — taken from a wall drawing in an ancient Egyptian pyramid. She said most scholars consider the map a fanciful depiction of the Egyptian underworld. Clearly, Devlin thought otherwise.”

  “Can we see it?” Pebbles asked.

  Anlon nodded and laid the case on the table, punched in the electronic combination and inserted the key into the physical lock. Jennifer and Pebbles made impressed faces to one another. Anlon flipped open the case, withdrew the heavy inner tube and again laid out the map, anchoring it the same way he had at Anabel’s.

  “Wow, I thought it was going to be some ancient parchment,” Pebbles exclaimed, almost disappointed.

  “So did I,” Anlon agreed, “but it looks like Devlin traced the map from the wall drawing.”

  “It has longitude and latitude lines,” Jennifer observed. “Can’t we overlay it on a map of today’s world and line it up?”

  Anlon blinked several times absorbing Jennifer’s suggestion. Of course, that’s exactly what they should do! He shook his head in respectful wonder and said, “I retract my earlier tease, you’re not only a Detective, you’re a first rate scientist. I’ll bet that’s what Devlin did! He marked the Life Stone locations on the map of the wall drawing knowing unless someone overlaid it on a current map, they’d never figure it out.”

  “What do you think made Devlin so afraid, so quickly, that he hid these pieces?” Pebbles wondered.

  “I’ve been thinking about that a lot actually,” Anlon answered. “I mentioned earlier that I thought I knew how Dobson acquired the gold coins. I’m just guessing, but I think he may have taken the map to do a test run to see if he could find something at one of the marked spots. If it did in fact happen that way, maybe it spooked Devlin. It’s even possible that Devlin challenged Dobson directly after discovering that he used the map. Whether he told the truth or not, my uncle might have felt compelled to take some kind of action. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure since no one else was present during their confrontation.”

  Pebbles scrunched up her nose as if deep in thought and then exhaled, “Maybe when we finally watch the Master Stone and Story Stone something will jump out.”

  Anlon said, “Good point. Gotta be honest with you both, I think we should wait until tomorrow to view the Stones. I’m wiped out and a little tipsy. I’d like to look at the Stones with fresh eyes.”

  “No argument here,” Jennifer responded, yawning and peering at her watch. She redirected the conversation to her prime focus. “Not to be a buzzkill but can we go back and talk about Dobson?”

  As she’d done before on a few previous occasions, she summarized what she pieced together from their joint discoveries. “Dobson was stealing from Devlin. Devlin set a trap for him. Dobson fell for it. Devlin tracked him. Devlin died. It sure looks like Dobson killed him to cover his tracks. With the unexplained gold in Dobson’s safe, it stands to reason that Dobson was afraid of being found out. But then who killed Dobson?”

  They all sat in silence before Anlon spoke. “I went through the same thought process. I wonder if the buyer is the missing link here. Dobson meets the buyer, passes the artifact in the case and tells him he needs to cool it because Devlin is onto him. The buyer is not happy, doesn’t want a good thing to end or doesn’t want scandal traced back to him. Buyer kills Devlin and then offs Dobson to keep him quiet,” Anlon proposed.

  Jennifer nodded her head, “That’s a good working theory. I like it.”

  “Oh my God! Is Navarro the buyer?” Pebbles cried out “Is that why he was so angry? Maybe he thought with Devlin and Dobson out of the way he’d convince you to sell him the collection to cherry pick the Stones.”

  Anlon replied, “It’s a damn strong possibility, don’t you think? Or maybe even Thatcher Reynolds? My money is aimed at Thatcher. Think about how he tried to get a plan B in place in case I balked at selling him Devlin’s collection. Oh, by the way, Thatcher also tried to rile up Anabel the same way he apparently riled up Richard. Anabel told him to F-off.”

  “Good for her!” affirmed Jennifer. “This is good. You guys are sharp. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the banks and look at Dobson’s bank records. Maybe there’s a paper trail here that will point at one of these guys or someone else. Hopefully, Dobson had a safe deposit box at one of them.”

  “I’m also going to call Meredith PD like I said earlier and push my forensic guys to process the items from Dobson’s house and Pacal’s handkerchief,” Jennifer said, disappearing suddenly into thought.


  Re-emerging, she said, “Pebbles, don’t clean up Navarro’s mess in the barn until I send over the forensic team. God, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier. He probably left prints everywhere.”

  Anlon cautioned, “Yeah, but…remember he had the two burly goons with him at the funeral. I’ll bet he doesn’t do the dirty work, like breaking and entering and murder. But it can’t hurt.”

  “Can’t argue that, it’s solid logic,” Jennifer allowed. “Still, even if it eliminates him as a suspect, I have to run it down.”

  “What about phone records?” Pebbles interjected suddenly, “Has anyone looked at Devlin’s or Dobson’s calls leading up to their deaths? Their texts too? I know we found a phone statement today at Dobson’s.”

  “Yes, that’s right!” Jennifer exclaimed. “It’s gonna be hard for me to get Capt. Gambelli to authorize a search warrant for anything related to Devlin’s death but Dobson I should have no problem. I’ll get on that too.”

  Anlon listened to the exchange and said, “I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere! Oh, I forgot to mention something else. I am tired of chasing these Stones without understanding why they are such a big deal. I get the historical implication, but that in and of itself isn’t a reason to murder people. Devlin, Dobson, Pacal and Thatcher all said pursuing the Stones was dangerous. I want to know why…explicitly. So I called in a favor to an old friend and tomorrow I’m meeting with an old associate of Devlin’s, Cesar Perez, who is an expert in the mythology of the catastrophe Devlin believed happened.”

  Pebbles said, “Great idea! But we should look at the Story Stone and Master Stone before you meet him. That way, if we see things on the stones that we don’t understand, we can ask him.”

  “Let’s reconvene tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. if that’s not too early for you two. I want to get in the office early to chase down these other leads.”