The Secret of the Stones (7 page)

Chapter
12

Atlanta,
Georgia

The
campus at Kennesaw State University sits about twenty minutes north of downtown
Atlanta, Georgia, just outside of the I-285 perimeter. Some of the more
socially concerned citizens of the city look down on those who lived outside of
the encompassing highway.
 
Silly,
Morris thought, that people would think in such terms.
 
It was the modern day version of living
on the wrong side of the tracks, though, in many ways, this particular wrong
side of the tracks seemed much more enviable.
 
Even with the encroaching urban sprawl, the area to the
north of Atlanta had remained a nice place.
 
Just one exit down from the university, a shopping center
had grown from what was once just a mall, to a town unto itself.
 

Even
more impressive was the university.
 
Quite young, as colleges go, Kennesaw State had only been established in
1963.
 
However, in just forty
years, the campus had grown to become the third largest school in the state,
boasting an enrollment of over 16,000 students.
 
The newest addition was the remarkable student village that
had been constructed over the last three years.
 
A school that only a decade ago had no student housing, now
possessed one of the nicest dorm facilities in the country.
 
It made him wish he were a freshman in
college again.
 
The brick and
stucco combinations were topped by neo-Dutch roofing.
 
The promenades and brick walkways that led from one housing
hall to another were designed like that of a European town, complete with
fountains in the middle of small plazas, Euro-style cafes, and a village
convenience store.

The
school was renowned as one of the top baseball programs in the country.
 
KSU had also won NCAA Division II
National Titles in Women’s Soccer and Men’s Basketball, all remarkable
achievements and all in such a short time.
 

Social
status was overrated, Trent thought, as he walked along the concrete toward the
library.
 
He lived fairly close to
the university, depending on the time of day.
 
If it was from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. or 3:00 in the
afternoon until 8:00 at night, it would take him more than an hour or so to get
from one point to the other.
 
Otherwise, it would only take him fifteen minutes.
 

He
hated the traffic.
 
The city had
done all it could to create as many lanes as possible to keep the traffic problem
to a minimum, but to no avail.
 
Atlanta had recently been deemed the city with the worst traffic in
America.

He
rounded the corner of one of the older buildings on campus and entered the
parking lot of the library.
 
Directly in front of the structure, a flag flew at half mast.
 
He’d noticed a few others on campus
paying the same tribute.
 
The crime
scene had been removed, replaced by flowers and candles in the spot where the
killing had taken place. The library was back in business, though at this time
of day, was not bustling with the rush of students desperate to finish papers
and projects.
 
Of course, with the
arrival of the information super highway that was the internet, libraries had
become less of a valuable commodity.
 
Those who needed to research a topic nowadays simply had to do a search
on Google or Yahoo.
 
Seemingly
endless amounts of knowledge pouring down from the ages were available at the
click of a button.
 
The antiquated
libraries full of musty old books had been replaced by laptops at a Barnes and
Noble or any number of coffee shops that offered free Wi-Fi.
 

Thinking
about things like that made Trent feel like he was getting older.
 
He was only thirty-eight, but a time
when the internet and email didn’t exist or when people didn’t have cell phones
seemed like ancient history.

All
of these things ran through his mind and made him smile, just slightly, as he
swung open the door to the main entrance.
 
The library itself was not very large.
 
It was one of the first buildings constructed during the
initial building phase in the 1960s—when the college was
established.
 
Apparently, expansion
had only occurred as necessary.
 
He
made his way over to the librarian desk to where a short, red-haired woman was
busily stamping books.
 
She looked
to be in her mid-forties.
 
As he
stepped up to the counter, her attention went from the books to the tall, black
man in a trench-coat at her desk.

“Can
I help you?”
 
She asked politely,
setting aside what she was doing.

He
returned a polite smile.
 
“Yes, Ma’am,”
he pulled his wallet from inside the jacket to show his identification.
 
“My name is Detective Trent
Morris.
 
I was wondering if someone
here could answer a few questions for me.”

The
red-head looked at him, quizzically.
 
“Well, I’m the one you would need to speak with.
 
I am the head librarian here,” she
paused, “but I thought the police had already finished up their investigation.”

“They
have.”
 
And since he wasn’t
assigned to this case, he needed to cover his tracks a little.
 
“I was just stopping by to do a little
follow up.
 
You know, make sure
that everything has gone back to normal as much as possible.
 
It’s kind of a new customer service
thing we’re doing at the department.
 
Give a better image of the police and all that.”

Apparently,
she bought it and smiled.
 
“Well, I
appreciate you checking on us.
 
Things are starting to get going again, but it will be a long time
before things are back to normal.”
 
Her eyes seemed to focus on a random spot on the carpet ten feet
away.
 
“Dr. Borringer was a well
liked man here.
 
Lots of people
knew him.
 
It truly is a great loss
for the university family and the community.”
 

“You
didn’t happen to see him the night he died, did you?”

She
looked down at the desk, a tear forming in the corner of her eye.
 
“Yes.
 
I saw him just before I closed up.”

“I’m
sorry to put you through this again.
 
Please forgive…”

“It’s
okay,” she cut him off, “really.
 
Dr. Borringer had a key I had given him.
 
It was a common thing for him to stay here later than the
staff, so I just let him lock up when he was done with whatever project he was
working on.
 
Other than the person
that killed him, I think I was the last person to see Frank before he died.”

Trent
gave her a moment to have that thought.
 
Then pressed on, “Do you happen to know what he was working on that
night?”

She
wiped her eyes with a tissue from a nearby box and gave a slight sniffle.
 
“I don’t really know.
 
Dr. Borringer was in here all the time.
 
It’s anybody’s guess what he may have
been doing.”
 

Somewhere
upstairs, a vacuum was running.
 
The clock on the wall read 7:08.
 
On the way to the library, he had called Will to find out if he knew
anything about the murder.
 
From
what he’d heard, they had no suspects and no leads, only Wyatt.
 

Looking
down at her nametag, he revived the conversation, “Darcy, is it?”

“Yes.”

“I
appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
 
I just wanted to stop by and make sure things were getting
along as best as could be expected.”
 
He handed her his business card.
 
“Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you, or if you
come across anything unusual you think we should know about.”
 

The
smile returned to her face.
 
“Thanks.
 
I will.”

“Pleasure
to meet you.”
 
He finished the talk
and walked out through the metal detectors and out the glass front doors.
 
It was a shot in the dark, hoping to
connect anything with this murder.
 
Still, something nagged at him as he walked down the concrete ramp leading
back to the parking lot.
 

“Detective!” 
The voice came from the entrance of the library.
 
A young woman in a denim skirt and white blouse stood
holding the door open.
 
“Wait a
sec.”
 
The brunette trotted over to
him as he turned around, unsure of what this girl wanted.
 
“My name is Emily Meyers.
 
I helped Dr. Borringer every once in a
while on some of his projects.”

Trent
looked at her questioningly.
 
“Did
you talk to any of the other police that came around here?”
 

“No,
sir,” she put her head down.
 
“I
was scared to talk to them.
 
I
didn’t really have any information that I thought would help them.”
 
A guilty look came over her face.
 
“That is, until I heard you talking to
Ms. Darcy a minute ago.”

“Do
you know what Dr. Borringer was working on?”  Trent quizzed her.

“I
can’t be sure.
 
I was just an
assistant for him.
 
But I had been
working with him the day before he died.
 
He had me doing a lot of hieratic comparisons, very confusing
stuff.
 
Dr. B never showed me where
he got some of these writings but I know this, whatever he was working on
contained a lot of ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Old Hebrew.”

“So
you weren’t working here for him the night that he died?”

A
sad look shadowed her face.
 
“No.
 
Dr. B had told me he
was nearly finished and wouldn’t need me that night.
 
I met up with some friends at a coffee shop for a little study
session, then went home.”
 

Morris
was a little annoyed.
 
“You felt
like you didn’t need to tell the police any of this?”
 

She
raised her eyes from the ground.
 
“I wasn’t here when the cops arrived the first time.
 
But I was working here in the library
when that tall, blonde cop came around.”

“Tall,
blonde cop?”
 
Recognition of a
detective of that description did not immediately come to his mind.

“Yeah,
I overheard him asking a lot of the same questions you were asking.
 
I think he said his name was Jurgenson
or something like that.
 
He talked
kind of funny, real deliberate.
 
I
couldn’t tell for certain, but I thought I heard a foreign accent a few times.”

Jurgenson?
 
He’d never heard of that name before
and there were certainly not any cops that he knew of with accents, other than
southern, working for the department.
 

“What
exactly did this blonde cop ask about?”

“He
kept bugging the head librarian about where Dr. Borringer did most of his
research, which computer he was using, any mail that he might have sent out
that day.
 
Stuff like that.”

“What
did she tell him?”

“Not
too sure, but it didn’t sound like she really knew too much about what the
professor was working on.
 
Jurgenson didn’t seem very happy about her lack of information.
 
He stormed out of the library, slamming
a stack of books to the floor as he left.”
 
The girl looked down in thought.
 
“I don’t guess he found anything he was looking for.”

“Do
you know what he was looking for?”
 
Something about the girl’s demeanor led him to think she knew more than
she was letting on.

She
looked up from the sidewalk.
 
“No,
not really.”

“What
do you know?”

“Only
that I think Dr. B was doing this project as a favor to someone over at the
IAA.
 
Pretty sure it wasn’t for
himself.”

Bingo.
 
“You don’t happen to remember the name
of the person at the IAA he was helping, do you?”

She
looked around a moment, trying to recall the name.
 
“Seems like it was Thomas…something”.