I didn’t want to leave, and I knew Ida Belle wasn’t about to abandon her SUV until she absolutely had to. Even as tired as Gertie was, I doubted she’d vote for going home. It wasn’t as if we’d be able to sleep anyway. We’d be wondering what was going on here.
“We’re good for a few more hours,” I said. “We just have to get back before anyone notices we’re gone.”
Big nodded. “Then let’s start on the doors. Mannie, remove the trim panel from the driver’s door.”
Mannie went to work on the door and a minute later, laid the black panel that contained everything you see on the inside of the door on the ground next to the SUV. Without the trim panel, the metal interior of the door was exposed and I was surprised to see a bunch more nooks and crannies. Slowly and deliberately, Mannie poked his fingers into every opening on the door, making sure nothing was occupying the space but air. When he slipped his fingers in the bottom of the door shell, he froze.
“I feel something here,” he said. “It’s hard and plastic.”
Big shook his head. “There shouldn’t be anything contained in that spot. Can you pull it out?”
Mannie jammed his entire hand inside the shell and pulled out a small black plastic box with magnets on one side.
“It’s a key hider,” Ida Belle said. “You stick a spare key in it and attach it under a wheel well in case you lock yourself out of your vehicle.”
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t do the driver any good to hide it inside the SUV behind a panel that has to be removed to gain access,” Gertie said.
Big gestured to Mannie, and he handed over the box. Big shook it, but it didn’t make any sound. I was about to grab the box from him and open it myself when he pushed the top off and pulled out a square of folded paper towel. We all crowded around as he unwrapped the paper towel and exposed a solid black key.
“He wrapped it to keep it from making noise,” Big said.
“That’s not a vehicle key,” Gertie said, going straight for the obvious.
To be honest, it looked like something out of an old movie, where the interior doors on homes were all opened and closed by iron keys. This one wasn’t as large as in the movies but it looked like a scaled-down version.
“What does it open?” Mannie asked.
Big stared down at the key, frowning. “I don’t know,” Big said. “It’s definitely not something new.”
“It looks like a skeleton key,” Mannie said.
“Maybe someone put a curse on the owner of the SUV,” Gertie said.
“I think he meant it was an antique,” Big said. “A skeleton key, by definition, is a master key or passkey, regardless of its manufactured date, but around here, a key that looks like this is called many things.”
“So I could be right,” Gertie said.
Big smiled. “This is Louisiana, home of the mysterious, so anything is possible. But I doubt anyone would have gone to such trouble to hide a cursed key. It would have been simpler to slip it under the carpet in his floorboard.”
“I can do some research,” I said.
“Given the situation,” Big said, “I doubt it would be safe to show this around.”
“I meant on the Internet,” I said.
“You aren’t afraid of being monitored?” Little asked.
“I know how to reroute things. I can search all I want and it would never be tracked back to me.”
Little nodded. “When this situation is resolved, I’d love to speak to you about that if you wouldn’t mind taking the time.”
Big sighed. “Damned computers are going to ruin the world. Always something new.”
“Speaking of computers,” I said, “I think we need to know who owned this SUV before Hot Rod acquired it. That might tell us everything we need.”
Little nodded. “We know a guy…I’ll get that information.”
“Great,” I said. That was the beauty about Big and Little. They always knew a guy.
Big handed me the key. “I’m entrusting this to you because you have a vested interest in finding answers. I also have an interest in those answers, just not as personal as yours. I’m allowing you to take the lead on this because of your personal interest and your skill set, but I want you to promise me four things.”
“Okay,” I said, a bit hesitantly. It was four chances that I wouldn’t want to agree to something, but at this point, what option did I have?
“First,” Big said, “you’ll secure the key somewhere that it can’t be found.”
“I can do that,” I said
“And two,” Big continued, “if you figure out what it unlocks, you allow me to provide you protection when you go there.”
“I would appreciate any backup you are willing to provide,” I said. Why would I turn down hired guns? They might save me a whole lot of trouble.
“Three,” Big said. “You leave the police out of this for now. I know that’s difficult given your involvement with the deputy, but I won’t help if I’m on law enforcement radar.”
“I don’t have any desire to tell Carter about any of this,” I said. That definitely wasn’t a lie. The last thing I wanted to cough up was my involvement with known Mafia. “What’s the fourth thing?”
Big leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. “If you figure out who did this, you let me handle it.”
It wasn’t the right thing to do. If I figured out who the car thieves were, the right thing to do would be to turn that information over to Carter. But then, turning over information to Carter would mean explaining how I got the information in the first place, which got me right back around to things I didn’t want to explain to Carter.
“I will tell you what I find out,” I said, “but I can’t control what the cops discover themselves. So if they get there first…”
“Then the problem is eliminated either way,” Big said. He stuck out his hand and I shook it.
I’d just made my deal with the devil.
It was 3:30 a.m. by the time we pulled into my garage. We’d dropped Gertie off at her house just before, and I could practically hear a cold shower and crisp clean sheets calling to me as I walked into the kitchen through the garage door. When we made it to the living room, all dreams of shower and sleep disappeared in an instant.
Carter was sitting in my living room, staring directly at Ida Belle and me.
“Glad you could make it,” he said. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
I have to give Ida Belle credit. No matter the situation, she always manages to keep a straight face. I was good, but Ida Belle had me beat hands down. But then, she’d been at it for far longer and she wasn’t in a relationship with Carter, so that might have a little bit to do with it.
“We were at Gertie’s,” Ida Belle said, without any hesitation.
I nodded. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. We had just been at Gertie’s.
“I’m sure that was true a couple minutes ago,” Carter said, “but what about the rest of the night?”