“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?”
“Yep. That was him.” There was no hesitation from the other end. “They in some sort of trouble?”
“We just want to ask them some questions, ma’am,” he said politely without giving away what was going on. The last thing he wanted was a rumor going around Dahlonega that there were fugitives on the loose. If that news spread too quickly, they might never find Wyatt.
“Did you happen to catch any names of the people in this group?” He was merely looking for absolute confirmation at this point.
“Yeah. They were calling the older one “Mac”. I think the younger guy’s name was Sean.” She thought for a moment. “Didn’t catch the girl’s name.”
“Thank you ma’am for the information. You’ve been a big help.”
He hung up the phone in the middle of her saying, “You’re welcome.”
Sliding the phone back into his pocket, he said, “We’re going to a place called Red Clay.”
“What’s that?” Will was lost as to what had just transpired.
“We got a witness up in Dahlonega that says Wyatt and McElroy are headed there. I don’t know where it is, but apparently it used to be the site of the old Capital of the Cherokee Nation.”
“How far is it?” Will asked, again opening his door.
“Don’t know. But we’re about to find out.”
Trent hopped into the Charger and searched for Red Clay on the car’s navigational system. A minute later he said, “We can be there in an hour.”
The car tore out of the parking lot, spinning bullet casings in its wake.
Chapter 45
“Very good. You may hang up the phone now.”
Marla Tinsley stood behind her desk, staring at the two strangers, a man and a woman. The librarian hung up the receiver carefully. “What is this all about?” She asked terrified. “We don’t have any money in here? What is it you want?”
“Nothing.” The brunette’s cold reply was punctuated by a puff of smoke from the barrel of a silencer.