The Secret of the Stones (29 page)

Chapter
44

Blue
Ridge Mountains

Detective
Morris stood next to his car, dumbfounded.
 
Wyatt had disappeared a little over twenty-four hours ago,
which only made him seem more like the prime suspect.
 
Yet, here the man was, actually calling him.
 

“Sean,”
Trent started off with an overly friendly tone while inside, his mind
raced.
 
“You’re a tough man to get
a hold of.
 
I had some more
questions I needed to ask you.”

The
voice on the other end seemed unimpressed.
 
“Well, sorry about that.
 
Someone made it rather difficult to stay around.”

“And
who would that someone be?”
 

Will
had closed his door when Trent motioned for him to come closer.
 
He’d walked around the car quickly to
see what was going on.
 
Morris
mouthed to him, “It’s Wyatt.”
 

Scribbling
down the number of the cell phone that had appeared, he then handed it to the
younger cop.
 
Will knew exactly
what to do and stepped away to a safe distance so Wyatt couldn’t hear him
speaking to the department on his own phone.
 

Sean
replied coolly, “Check the bottom of the mountain near Brasstown.
 
They should still be there.”
 

“Oh?”
 

“Don’t
play coy with me, Morris.
 
I’m sure
you heard about that accident by now.”

He
decided to at least play along.
 
“So, who were they?”

“How
should I know?
 
They didn’t introduce
themselves when they started shooting at us.”

“Why
don’t you meet me, Sean?
 
Then we
can sort all this out.
 
I’ll come
to you.
 
Where are you right now?”

There
was a pause on the other line.
 
“Look, Detective.
 
We just
got shot at twice this morning.
 
That makes three attacks since I talked to you the other day.
 
No offense, but I am not sure exactly
who I can trust at this point.”
 
His voice was emphatic.

“Yeah.
 
I know.
 
I don’t blame you.
 
But if you will meet up with me, maybe I can help you.
 
We can figure it out…”
 
Hesitation lingered in the phone’s
receiver.
 
“What did they look
like, the guys who were after you?”

There
was something muffled on the other line, like Sean was giving directions to
someone.
 

“What?”
 
He clearly didn’t hear the detective’s
question.

“I
asked what the men who attacked you looked like.”

“I
gotta be honest, Trent.
 
I didn’t
really stop to take a good look at the guys in the ravine.
 
Probably woulda taken me a few hours
and a lot of rope to do that.”
 
Obviously, killing the two passengers in the other car was something
Sean felt was justified.
 
“But the
other guys later on…yeah, I got a real good look at them.
 
Two of them looked like they were twins
except that one was taller than the other.
 
Both of ‘em had flat top hair-cuts and wore matching suits
like they were some pop star’s bodyguards.”

On
a pad of paper he’d removed from his car, Trent was busily taking down a few
notes about the men who had supposedly attacked his main suspect.
 
“Anyone else?”

“The
guy who was holding Tommy was tall, probably several inches over six feet.
 
He had blonde hair.
 
Dressed like he was going to a trendy
nightclub or something.
 
Very
European.”

This
last bit of information came as a bit of a shock.
 
“Did you say a tall, blonde European guy?”

“I
don’t know if he was European.
 
Just said he dressed like it.
 
You know, like a German or something.
 
I couldn’t get close enough to ask him where he was from or
how he came to America.”

Again
with the sarcasm, Morris thought.
 
“We had reports of a guy named Jurgenson that was posing as one of our
own running around town.”

“Yeah,
Mrs. Borringer said that he came by.”

Another
shock.
 
“You went to Borringer’s
house?”
 

“Yep.”
 
Sean decided not to share the drama
that had unfolded the night before when they had been hidden in the bathroom
while the detective was downstairs.

“When
was that?”

Ignoring
the question, Sean began again, “Look, Detective, all I know is this guy is bad
news.
 
I’m not sure if he is the
one who is pulling all the strings, but it sure seems probable.
 
If I had to put my money on it, I’d say
he was the one that killed Frank.”

“What
happened during the firefight with those men?”
 
Morris continued to string the conversation out.

“I
put a couple of rounds directly into the flat top twins, right in their
chests.”

“They
dead?”

“No,”
Sean sounded irritated.
 
“Pretty
sure they had vests on.
 
Makes me
wonder how available those things are to the general public.”

It
was a well known rumor that some less than ethical police were selling some of
their equipment on the black market to drug dealers and gangsters, something
that seemed to happen in nearly every major city.
 
Trent ignored the implication.
 
“I’ll look into it.
 
But there are a lot of places to get those things now days.
 
What about the blonde, Jurgenson?”

“Don’t
know.
 
Didn’t hit him.
 
He was using Tommy as a human shield.”

“How
did they get away?”
 
Morris felt
like he was asking a lot of questions, but the longer he kept Wyatt on the
line, the easier it would be to triangulate his cell phone signal.
 
He hoped that whoever Will was talking
with was working quickly.

“They
drove.”

“Of
course.”
 
Trent set himself up on
that one.
 
“But you don’t know
where they were going?”

“Hard
to say.
 
We’re trying to figure
that out at the moment.”
 
It was a
half-lie.

Trent
paused a moment, trying to think of what to say next.
 
He looked over at Will who was mouthing that they had not
gotten a location on the signal yet.
 

“Listen,
Sean.
 
Why don’t you meet up with
me and we can try to figure this out together.
 
I’ll meet you wherever,” his voice sounded uncertain and he
was starting to repeat himself.

There
was no reaction from the other end of the phone line for a few contemplative
seconds.
 
Then, “No can do,
detective.
 
We’re too far away from
the city at this point and we can’t afford to lose any more time.
 
For all we know, they may have killed
Tommy and left him in a ditch.
 
I
don’t think those people will kill him until they have what it is they are
looking for.
 
But I can’t risk it.”

“And
what is it that they are looking for?”

“Sorry
detective.
 
My phone is…what did
you…”
 
The connection started
cutting out.

“Sean.
 
Can you hear me?
 
Sean?”

“We…mountains…”
 
Then the line went dead.

Trent
pounded the phone in his fist.
 
“Did you get the signal?” he looked pleadingly at his partner.

Will
shook his head.
 
“No.”

“Why
not?
 
It shouldn’t have taken that
long.”
 
Morris was boiling at this
point.
 

“I
dunno man.
 
Maybe he has some kind
of signal isolator on his phone.
 
But HQ said they were having problems locking onto it.”
 
He stood next to his car with arms
open, as if begging for forgiveness.

“It’s
not your fault,” Morris sighed.
 

Sunlight
poured down on the two of them as they stood next to their cars, wondering what
the next move should be.
 
Suddenly,
his phone rang again.
 
“Sean?” he
answered the phone without looking at the caller ID.

“Is
this Detective Morris?”
 
It was a
woman’s voice.

“Yes,”
he said dejectedly as his shook his head at his partner to indicate it wasn’t
who they’d hoped.

“My
name is Marla Tinsley.
 
I work at
the public library in Dahlonega.”

Trent
looked over at Will with an eyebrow raised, wondering what this call was about.

“Yes,
ma’am,” he responded politely.
 
“What can I do for you?”

“Well,”
she began, “About an hour ago, an odd little group of people came into the
library here wantin’ to use the computer.
 
We are a public library, ya know.
 
So, I pointed them to the computers that we have available so they could
get what they needed.
 
I figured
they wanted to use the internet.
 
Hardly ever get people in here doin’ research with books anymore.”

Her
nostalgic demeanor was wasting his time.

Morris
tried to be patient with her, not quite sure where this was going.
 
“Ma’am, you said there was a group that
came into your library?
 
What did
they look like?”

The
woman sounded irritated at his disinterest in the walk down memory lane.
 
“Well, there was a girl and two
men.
 
She was kinda tall with
brown, curly hair.
 
One of the guys
was probably in his upper twenties or lower thirties.
 
The other man seemed to probably be in his forties.
 
Hard to say about him.”

Trent’s
interest was piqued.
 
There was no
way his luck could be this good.
 
“What did these people want?”

“Said
all they needed was to use one of the computers.
 
I told them to go ahead.
 
Seemed harmless enough.
 
But something seemed mighty suspicious about ‘em.”

“What
did they need a computer for?”

“Didn’t
tell me.
 
But they did have a
digital camera that they hooked up to it. Overheard them talking about stones
and ancient Indian symbols.”

He’d
been staring at the ground, concentrating on listening to what the woman was
saying, but when he heard this last little fragment, his eyes shot up to his
partner.
 
“We got something,” he
mouthed silently.

“Can
you tell me what they found?”
 
He
went back to the lady on the phone.

A
moment of quiet came over the line before she answered.
 
“Yeah, the older guy started looking at
this Indian painting that we have hanging up.
 
He was gazin’ at it for a couple of minutes before something
musta struck him about it.
 
They
talked for a few minutes about what it meant.
 
The picture must be real old, been here as long as I
have.
 
Anyway, something about that
painting made them real excited.
 
They went back over to the computer for another minute or two and then
started talking about the old Cherokee Capital.”

“Cherokee
Capital?”

“Yeah.
 
They said something about going to a
place called Red Clay.
 
Sounded
like that, anyway.
 
Never heard of
it myself.
 
As soon as they walked
out the door, though, I called Sheriff Jenkins’ office.
 
For all I know they coulda just been
travelers passin’ through, but like I said, something struck me funny about
‘em.
 
A few minutes later the
Sheriff put me through to Atlanta, and that’s how I came to talking with you.”

Morris
had been busily writing down notations of what the old lady had been
saying.
 
He had to really focus on
what she was saying in her thick, Southern drawl to make sure that he got all
the details right.
 
“Was the man in
his thirties, tall, dirty blonde hair, blue or gray eyes?”