In the car, as we rode along beneath clouds as thick and nasty-looking as curdled milk, my emotions raw and throbbing more painfully than my sore ribs and knotted head, Ronnie said, “I don’t know about you, but on one hand, I look at those three and think they’re about as tough as my dead aunt, and on the other, they give me the chills. I think we need to go to the FBI.”
“Good idea, and I have some perfect evidence in the trunk of my car for them. And I know where there might be more. The country club. We need all we can get, because like they were saying, they can explain it away with money and position. But then again, they don’t know what I’ve got so far and what I could add to it.”
“I think they plan to get rid of you, Danny. Me as well.”
“Seems as if they might. And in their own special way, they might even profit financially from our deaths.”
“You sure there’s more in the country club?”
“No. But I think I’d like to find out.”
I explained about the insurance then, my fear for her parents as well as us. Told her how we could all be future targets of their insurance scam, sacrifices to Creosote Johnny.
“Do you think they believe that statue is some kind of god or demon, that Creepy Johnny—”
“Creosote Johnny.”
“You believe they think it has powers, gives them powers?”
“I believe it’s their totem. That to them it represents all they ever wanted to be. I doubt they believe it’s supernatural. It’s like an old pocket watch from a cherished relative. A lucky rabbit’s foot. It’s ritualistic, like Shirley said. And it’s eerie. When I picked it up, I felt like it did have some kind of dark power. Reading about it in Bert Chandler’s notes set me up for that, even if I knew it was bullshit. I got to thinking about this story I read once, about how what a person feels is part of what he creates, and on one level it becomes real. They created Creosote Johnny out of their own beliefs and designs. That thing is them in a way. If they ever had souls, that damn thing has absorbed them. Metaphorically, of course. I hope.”
“Now you’re creeping me out,” Ronnie said.
“I’m going to take what I have in my car, soon as I get it back from Buck, and leave town, go to my house. I’ll give you an address. Here’s the key. Tell your folks to go there. Beg them to go there. No matter how wild it sounds to them, convince them.”
“I suppose telling Chief Dudley isn’t a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t. I don’t know he’s bent like they are, but they couldn’t be as powerful as they are without influence. My understanding is the law doesn’t even apply to the country club. And I don’t know about the sheriff’s department, but my guess is they have their own infiltrators. Might not be that they’re out to help the city council directly, but they are willing to do it indirectly.”
“By staying out of their affairs,” Ronnie said.
“Giving them free rein to make things float smooth.”
“Well, I wouldn’t trust the sheriff’s department as far as I could launch them out of a catapult. We’ll meet at your house later? Then we’ll plan on getting those files you talked about, see what’s in them.”
When we stopped in front of the Chandler house, I wrote down on her pad the address of my home and told her where I would place the key in case she got there before me.
Ronnie leaned into me and I held her, and this time the kiss was not quick. I hated to let her go.