The hike into town took more than an hour, and then he had to chance being seen, come out into the open for at least a little while. There was a pay phone at the gas station, one of the last pay phones in town, and he called and told Danny where to meet him. The whole time he felt a prickle in the middle of his back, expecting a police car to come swerving around the corner at any minute, cops boiling out of it, guns drawn. Nothing happened, though. Nobody so much as blinked at him.
As soon as he hung up, he went back into the woods and climbed out of sight. Sat on an overturned log and waited. Fifteen minutes later, Danny’s Oldsmobile appeared, driving slow, Danny craning his head and looking for him. Shit, way to avoid attention.
Josiah hustled down the hill and came out of the woods and lifted a hand. He jerked open the passenger door when the car pulled up, and said, “Drive, damn it.”
Danny took them up the hill, the transmission double-clutching and shivering.
“What in the hell is going on, Josiah?”
“I got powerful problems is what’s going on. You willing to help a friend out?”
“Well, of course, but I’d like to know what I’m getting into.”
“It ain’t good,” Josiah said, and then, softer, “and I’ll try to keep you out of it much as possible. I will.”
It was that remark, the show of concern for someone other than himself, that seemed to tell Danny the gravity of the situation. He turned, frowning, and waited.
“I got into a scrape last night,” Josiah said. “Man pulled a gun on me. I had a rock in my hand, and I used it on him. Hit him once more than I needed to.”
“Oh, shit,” Danny said. “I ain’t helping you bury no body, Josiah. I ain’t doing it.”
“Don’t need to bury a body.”
“So you didn’t kill him?”
Josiah was quiet.
“You did kill him?” Danny almost missed a curve. “You murdered somebody?”
“It was self-defense,” Josiah said. “But he’s dead, yeah. And you know what the police around here will do to somebody like me in a case like that. Self-defense ain’t going to mean shit. The prosecutor will pull out all my old charges and tell the jury I’m nothing but trash, dangerous trash, and I’ll be up in Terre Haute or Pendleton.”
Danny’s fat tongue slid out, moistened his lips. “It wasn’t that guy in the van?”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Whole town knows about it, Josiah! Grandpa dragged my ass up to church today, was all anybody was talking about. Oh, hell, it was you?”
“He pulled a gun on me, damn it! I told you that.”
They’d reached the logging road, and Josiah instructed him to turn in. He explained everything except the odd dreams of the black train and the man in the bowler hat.
“I don’t understand what everybody’s interested in Campbell for,” Danny said.
“I don’t either. But somebody named Lucas Bradford sent this guy down from Chicago to watch me, and old Lucas has himself some dollars. I found a bill in that dead guy’s papers, Danny-he’d been paid fifteen thousand as a retainer. And there’s a note in there says he was authorized to spend up to a hundred to resolve the situation. That’s what it said-resolve the situation. A hundred thousand dollars.”
Danny reached up and scratched the back of his neck. He was still in his church clothes, had on a starched white shirt that was showing sweat stains under the arms.
“Something going on, that’s for sure,” he said. “But the way you’re handling it ain’t right. You’re just making things worse. You said he pulled a gun on you? Shit, call the police and tell them that. Get yourself a lawyer-”
“Danny,” Josiah said, “I set the man on fire. You understand that? Think about that, and about the reputation I got in this town, and you tell me what’s going to happen.”
Danny was frozen for a moment, but eventually he gave a small nod. Then, in a whisper, he said, “What in the hell did you set him on fire for?”
“I don’t know,” Josiah said. “I don’t even know why I hit him the second time. Didn’t feel like myself. But I did it, and now I got to figure something out fast.”
“What are you thinking?”
“This fella Lucas Bradford has money to spare. And I’m in need of it. But first I got to understand some things-who he is, and why he’s asking about me. I’m going to need your help to do that. I’m asking you, please, to help.”
Danny sighed, reached out and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, squeezed it tight.
“Danny?”
He nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Good. Thank you. First thing I want you to do is find that son of a bitch who came down to Edgar’s and told us that bullshit about making a movie. He’ll be staying at one of the hotels. You find him, and you follow him.”
34
ALYSSA BRADFORD DIDN’T answer her phone. Eric called without even leaving the table, speaking into the cell phone in a hushed but hostile voice as he left yet another message, and demanded that she call him back, and this time he would be talking to her husband, thanks. Someone was dead, damn it, and he needed to know what the hell was going on.
The phone didn’t ring. He sat there for a while, waiting and thinking of Gavin Murray with his sunglasses and cigarettes and smug voice. Blown up in a van.
The waitress came by and said, “Is there a problem with the food?” as she eyed his practically untouched plate.
“No,” he said. “No problem. Just… thinking.”
He ate the meal without tasting it, paid, and went back up to the room. He hadn’t gotten the door open before the phone began to ring. Alyssa, he thought, it damn well better be you.
It wasn’t her. Rather, the manager of the hotel, wishing to inform him that the police were looking for him.
“Tell them I’ll be down in five minutes,” he said, and then he hung up and called Claire.
“Are you home?” he said when she answered.
“Yes. Why?”
“I’d like you to leave.”
“Excuse me?”
“I need you to bear with me for a minute, and I need you to believe that I’m not crazy. You still believe that?”
“Eric, what’s going on?”
“Somebody followed me down here from Chicago,” he said. “A man named Gavin Murray. Write that name down, or at least remember it, would you? Gavin Murray. This guy was a PI from Chicago, with a group called Corporate Crisis Solutions.”
“All right.”
He heard a sheet of paper tear loose, then a rattling sound as she looked for a pen.
“He showed up at the hotel yesterday,” Eric said, “and he knew all about me. He mentioned you by name. He knew that we were separated and that the divorce hadn’t gone through yet.”
“What?”
“Yeah-pretty detailed, right? He’d done his research, but that’s the sort of thing those guys can do quickly and easily. So I wasn’t too concerned. Now I’m starting to be.”
“You think I should be afraid of him?”
“Oh, not of him. He’s dead.”
“He’s what?”
“Somebody killed him last night,” Eric said. “Murdered him, blew up his van. I don’t know the details yet. I’m on my way to meet with the police. What I do know is that the guy followed me down here, offered me seventy-five grand to stop asking about Campbell Bradford, and then he was killed. I don’t have any idea what that means, but I do need to tell you that he essentially threatened me last night. He said other sorts of leverage could be used if I ignored the money.”