Evil in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 2)

by Gary Williams

  “So you’ve got nothing to go on?” Scott asked.

  “Not a damn thing other than what that CIA guy, Tolen, told us. I don’t even know where Lila was staying, so I can’t go to her hotel. I’ve been trying her cell phone every ten minutes.”

  “Are you sure her rented vehicle is still at the launch?”

  “Yes. I made one last pass before coming back here. I could see the SUV from the water. The trailer was gone. The rental company that Officer Canstar called to pick up the boat must have taken it.” Curt rubbed aloe on his forearms.

  “There’s been another interesting development in the area. A couple in a church on the outskirts of Green Cove Springs fell through the floor of the sanctuary and disappeared this morning. Their bodies have still not been recovered.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No.”

  “A sink hole?”

  “That’s what they’re calling it.”

  Curt’s mind was reeling. “Okay, now that is strange.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Tell me about this ex-business partner of your grandfather’s. What did he want with you, anyway?”

  Scott explained the bizarre story of how the spring had discolored when Sawyer was a boy in 1925 and how a man who had come to live with the Sawyers seemed to have some knowledge of this event. The man gave Lawton a warning that if the spring should ever discolor again, there could be immense danger.

  “What kind of danger?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “And Lawton Sawyer felt compelled to share this information with the grandson of his hated ex-partner? To warn you? It makes no sense.”

  “I think it’s his way of trying to make amends with my grandfather. And get this: the boarder, the man who gave the warning, was Ed Leedskalnin,” Scott said, leaning back knowingly.

  “The Ed Leedskalnin? Coral Castle Ed?” Curt asked.

  “The one and only,” Scott replied.

  “Lawton Sawyer knew Ed Leedskalnin? Are you sure he’s telling the truth?”

  “Oh yeah,” Scott responded.

  Kay had stopped what she was doing and gave both men a puzzled smile. “And who is Ed Leedskalnin? A football player or something?”

  Scott responded, “Ed Leedskalnin was a Latvian immigrant who built an enigmatic structure called Coral Castle downstate in Homestead, Florida between the mid-1920s and 1940s. It’s sometimes referred to as the ‘American Stonehenge,’ although the title doesn’t do it justice, since Coral Castle is a closed-in complex that was also Ed’s residence. It’s still there today and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Curt and I toured it several years ago when we were in Miami for the Orange Bowl.”

  “I remember you mentioning it. What’s so special about it?”

  “The structure was cut from huge boulders to form 1,100 tons of carved coral. Ed Leedskalnin, a man who weighed little more than 100 pounds, built it by himself at Florida City without the use of modern machinery.”

  “I thought you said it was in Homestead?”

  “Therein lies another one of the great mysteries surrounding the place,” Curt chimed in. “After he constructed it in Florida City, for some unknown reason, Ed moved the entire complex ten miles to the south to Homestead where it now stands, open for tourists. Ed built the complex without ever letting anyone see how he did it. Even on his deathbed in a Miami hospital, he refused to divulge how he had erected the structure, stating only that he ‘knew the secret of the pyramids.’ ”

  Scott added, “Coral Castle has baffled engineers for decades. How did a man so small in stature build such a place? Here, I’ll show you.” Scott left the room and returned momentarily carrying his laptop, which he sat on the island counter and turned toward Kay. He brought up an Internet browser, and typed in the URL for the Coral Castle site. Then he clicked on a tab that brought up a page full of images.

  “The entire open-air complex is constructed of huge coral blocks aligned to form a courtyard surrounded by an eight-foot-high wall. Each block used to assemble the structure weighs between four to eight tons,” Scott said, pointing to one picture then another. “The main entryway is a gate carved from a single coral block weighing in excess of nine tons. About 21 inches thick, it is balanced so precisely on its center of gravity that it can be pushed open with one finger.”

  “Present day engineers are amazed at the exactness by which the coral block door was fitted,” Curt chimed.

  Scott clicked on another picture, and it expanded to full size. “Inside one corner of the courtyard is a square tower built from 243 tons of coral. Steps climb to a second-story doorway. The first floor was used as a workshop; the second floor was Ed’s living quarters. While he was alive, no one was ever permitted inside.”

  “Wow,” Kay said.

  It was Curt’s turn to explain, “The courtyard is an eclectic mix of large, carved coral objects as you can see.” Scott brought up another picture as Curt pointed. “There are numerous oversized chairs made from coral, and most are balanced so that they actually rock.” He paused a moment as they looked at the pictures. “Throughout the interior of Coral Castle are many celestial references, such as those carved sculptures of Mars and Saturn near the north wall.” He pointed as Scott brought up yet another picture. “Outside the wall is a telescopic structure 25 feet tall. Inside its lensless opening, cross-hairs are aligned with the North Star. Nearby, a large sundial is calibrated to the winter and summer solstice. A fountain depicts the full moon in its first and last quarters.

  “Also on the north wall is the castle’s single heaviest block at 30 tons and an enormous 40-foot obelisk embedded in a six-foot-deep hole. There is also a two-and-one-half-ton table surrounded by half-ton rocking chairs.

  “A variety of other astronomical representations resonate throughout the stone fortress. The ‘bird bath’ is made up of three concentric circles: 124 inches, 62 inches, and 18 inches in diameter, respectively. The rings correlate to the measurements of the solar system’s three major divisions of planets. Mercury, Venus, and Earth comprise the innermost group. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus the middle group, and Neptune and Pluto form the outermost circle.”

  Kay leaned back in awe. “He built all this? One man? Why didn’t he let anyone see how he did it?”

  “No one knows,” Scott said looking at his wife. “Ed worked only when the sun went down when he was certain no one could watch. His primitive handmade saws, chisels, hoists and hammers were all that anyone ever saw on the property.”

  Curt spoke. “It was rumored that some teenagers once spied on Ed and said they saw him ‘float coral blocks through the air like hydrogen balloons.’ Although most did not believe their story, it is intriguing to this day considering the mystery surrounding the structure.”

  “And he moved it from Florida City to Homestead by himself?” Kay asked.

  “Well, he did have transportation,” Curt replied. “Ed dismantled the castle and moved it block by block. Each piece was loaded onto a truck chassis and transported to Homestead 10 miles away. This was the lone instance where Ed utilized outside help. The tractor driver was instructed to arrive every morning and to return late in the afternoon to transport the coral-block-filled chassis to the new location. Ed insisted the driver not be present when the monoliths were loaded onto the truck.”

  “How did he lift them onto the truck?” Kay asked shaking her head.

  “Again, no one knows,” Curt replied.

  “All in all,” Scott continued, “it took Ed less than a month to reassemble his creation in the new location. Once the castle was completed, Ed began charging 25 cents for tours, even though he preferred to reside privately among the seclusion of its walls.

  “As we said, Ed never did share the secret of how he erected Coral Castle or how he so expeditiously moved the entire complex. The only clue he would
give was that he had rediscovered the laws of weight, measurement, and leverage used by the ancient Egyptians. Ed is quoted as saying, ‘I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids. I have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucutan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons.’ ”

  “The man knew something,” Curt said. “The blocks in Coral Castle averaged twice the weight of the three-ton stones in the Great Pyramid on the Giza plateau in Egypt.”

  “Okay,” Kay began, “no one knows how, but does anyone know why? Why build such a structure?”

  “Leedskalnin claimed that it was a monument to his ‘Sweet Sixteen’ love: a woman he had asked to marry in Latvia but who had rejected him for another man. Most believe this was a ruse, since he never tried to contact the woman, who remained in Ed’s home country of Latvia after he arrived in America. The answer appeared to be Ed’s way of deflecting the truth from curiosity seekers. The real motivation is unknown, as he took all his secrets to the grave when he passed away in 1951 in a Miami hospital. His death was the result of a long battle with tuberculosis.”

  “Wait, so not only did the man weigh 100 lbs, he was sick while he built the complex?”

  “Yes,” Curt said, “and it’s a structure that has withstood all that Mother Nature could throw at it. Even after Hurricane Andrew, known as one of the worst storms in U.S. history, practically destroyed South Florida in 1992, Coral Castle remained intact.”

  Kay looked at her husband. “I understand Curt knowing the details of Coral Castle since he’s an archaeologist, but how do you know so much?”

  Scott laughed. “Remember my second cousin in Orange Park?”

  “Yeah, Lilibeth Bell, the forty-something-year-old Flower Child? Who could forget her?”

  “She’s an Ed Leedskalnin freak. She knows everything there is to know about Ed and Coral Castle, and she’ll occasionally pass me e-mails with facts and revelations.”

  “Oh, I’ve got to meet your cousin,” Curt said.

  “You don’t need to meet any more women,” Kay said. “You have, or should I say had, the perfect girl. And I really like Sherri, too.”

  Curt bowed his head slightly. It still hurt how their relationship seemed fine one minute and in flux the next. “It’s not a lost cause. We’re working on it, Kay.”

  “I have a theory about you, Curt,” she continued. “Since your divorce from Lila, I don’t believe you want to be settled. Sherri is the right girl for you, yet you avoid the relationship like the plague.”

  “I agree with Kay on this one,” Scott said. “I’m struggling with your reasoning. It’s as if you want the simple life, yet like making things complex at the same time. Simple and complex: you’re simplex.”

  “Please, no herpes jokes,” Curt responded. “Can we please get back to what Lawton Sawyer told you about Ed? Was there anything that might explain his subsequent construction of Coral Castle?”

  “No, but Sawyer’s mother kept a series of journals during most of her life, and Sawyer gave me this one,” Scott said, lifting the worn bound book from the counter, “that captures the short time period when Ed stayed with them. Lawton said that he wanted me to have it because of what happened yesterday at the spring.”

  “I’m going to leave you two to your Ed,” Kay said. She called to her son in the bedroom. “Cody, you ready to take a walk on the dock?”

  Cody came bounding in and met his mother at the back door. “We going to feed the fish?” he asked excitedly.

  Kay waved the bread bag. “I’m ready to go.” She unbolted the back door, and moments later, the two were walking the long yard toward the dock stretching several hundred feet over the water. The afternoon sunlight flickered off the watery landscape as a slow breeze swayed the moss high up in the oak trees.

  “Did Mrs. Sawyer write about Ed Leedskalnin?” Curt asked.

  Scott smiled. “It’s amazing, Curt. Ed Leedskalnin dictated a story to Mrs. Sawyer who scribed it. Notice the poor grammar. Ed was not well educated and probably still struggling to learn the English language at the time. His story occurs in 1925, just before he lived with the Sawyers, and then continued south to settle in Homestead.”

  Scott opened the journal and began reading aloud:

  It was a cold day in early February when I found myself in the northern part of Florida on my way south. Doctor Shenlin tells me the weather down there is better for my condition so I’m going to Miami area to work and live. I had been able to save enough money to buy a rail car ticket all the way to Palatka, Florida but that was it. I’ll be walking or hitchin the rest of the way. I need to save the little I got left to eat. After leaving Palatka, I got the idea to try and find work in a town just north where I heard they were hiring at the wood mill. I made myself a camp outside the city in the swampy woods on a large raised mound very close to this river. I set off one morning in my coat wearing a lamb skin hat and gloves I found on the rail car that no one else claimed, and looked around the wooded area on the side of the mound.

  Well, that’s when things began to happen. I fell through a hole in the ground and slid a long ways into a dirty cave. I was seeing strange things in this cave. I was a little scared so I climbed back out and came back later with an old lantern I found during my travels. Lighting the wick, I dropped back in the cave with the lantern.

  My oh my! This place was most strange. There was a box in the middle of the cave and I knew not to mess with it. I walked farther back in the cave a good distance. I found a picture but it was like no picture I’d ever seen. It seemed wrong and I wondered why someone would draw it that way. In a slanted tunnel at the back was an opening with red and green light shining from it and putting my lantern through I saw another cave with a lower ceiling. There was a sound in the other cave that I come to find was running water because I built up nerve and went through the small opening. Inside, I must have imagined the lights as they were gone. A stream was in the middle of the floor and I all the sudden saw a long stick with a red stone and a green stone at one end. Just then I must have run out of fuel as my lantern died. Suddenly I realize the room is all red and green.

  Well, I have to say that I was frightened and almost left right then. But something told me to move closer to the stick. I don’t know why but I did. I picked the stick and hold it in my hand. I saw the red and green lights was coming from two beautiful stones. Now I’m excited. They looked rich. I could sell the stones and probably get more than enough for rail car fare to take me down to South Florida I thought to myself.

  Then something most unusual happened. The stick seemed to warm. I was very scared as it got hot even with my gloves on. I quickly put it in the stream to cool it off. To my surprise, the running water behind the stick turned dark as if the stick was leaking something. I wanted to get out of this place! I reached into the water removed the stick and using my pocket knife quickly pried off the green stone. Then it stopped glowing but the other one was still lighting. I threw the stick on the other side of the stream next to a pile of large broken stones. Suddenly, I saw something underneath one of the big rocks ahead of me. In the dim red light from the stone still in the stick I move closer. To my shock I now see that it’s the bones of an arm. A human arm! It was all brown and bent but I knew it was an arm. Then to the side I see a woman’s drawn up face on the ground staring at me! Holding onto the one stone I fell backward tripping in the stream and then cut my knee on the ground getting up and getting out through the hole back to the tunnel. I ran through the first cave and got out of there. It took me a while to climb out of the long tunnel, but when I got back to the top, I rolled a large boulder that was sitting very close, and sealed the hole. This was a place that no man should ever go again!

  Even thinking about it now I shiver. I will never forget that narrow brown hideous face staring at me from the ground. But the trade of my nightmares just mi
ght be worth it. I never did go back to that cave for the other stone as I have to admit that I was just too scared of those bones. I never did tell anybody what happened. Except now that I’m telling Mrs. Sawyer who is writing this all down.

  Scott looked up. “Mr. Sawyer believes the spring bled yesterday, just as it did in 1925 when he and his mother were picnicking near it.”

  Curt chuckled. “Hard to argue against him if what you saw yesterday were actually human remains. So Sawyer’s suggesting that this stick, the one that Ed accidentally dropped in the cave stream in 1925 is what caused it?” Curt asked.

  Scott closed the journal. “Lawton Sawyer never came out and said it, but it’s obviously his conclusion. That’s why he gave me his mother’s journal. Ed Leedskalnin had warned him about the spring. Ed told Sawyer that if this ever happened to take heed.”

  “What does Sawyer fear? Look, common sense suggests the stick had simply come in contact with some fluid. Then it leaked when Ed dropped it into the cave stream,” Curt said. “The stream must be connected via an aquifer and flows out through the spring.”

  “I don’t think even he knows, but after all these years, he’s taking Ed’s warning to heart.”

  “How did he explain the fleshy parts that you saw floating yesterday?”

  “He didn’t, but consider what has happened in the last 24 hours: Your ex-wife has vanished, her boat was found partially charred, I watched the spring bubbling up human remains yesterday, a couple disappeared through the floor of a church today, and an old man conveyed an 88-year-old warning from Ed Leedskalnin, one of the most enigmatic figures to ever walk the earth. I can’t help but think back to the message left to us last fall by that Bolivian Monk, Noah…or whoever the heck he was.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Curt said, rubbing more aloe on his blistered nose. He noticed that Scott suddenly turned to look through the bay windows at Kay and Cody at the far end of the dock.