Waltz across Texas with a Shoe and a Fart (WALTZ ACROSS series book #1)

Chapter 11: Unexpected Allies

Unknown to our hapless heroes, Annabel listened habitually to her police scanner to keep up with the whereabouts of a DPS officer who was her only romantic interest. This is what she had been doing around the time the boys were making their haphazard escape from the Shiner metropolitan area. They had kept up a relationship for many years with little commitment expected on one another's part, which was fine with her and a little disappointing to him. She did, however, worry about him from time to time even though the county's biggest criminal issues involved chasing down cows that escaped from pastures or the occasional breaking and entering report. DPS didn't handle those cases, anyway, and his work was mostly handing out speeding tickets on I-10 and working accidents. There was the time a local yokel pulled his entire rear bumper off his truck after he attached to an ATM downtown and tried to pull it out of the building. He had fled the scene but was arrested that night because he had also left his license plate at the scene of the crime.

Soon after the agents had left her front porch, Annabel poured a shot of bourbon and finished off her cigarillo listening to the police scanner. Having heard Barnard's account the night before of the adventure with Donnie and Sid, her ears were attenuated to the chatter that rose regarding a large black pickup pinned against an alley wall by a garbage truck. She stuffed out her smoke when she heard an officer say that the truck was allegedly pursuing "one of them little Smart Car jobbies," though there was no such car at the scene. She downed the remaining drops of her drink, grabbed her wallet and keys, and headed to the downtown strip.

Arriving at the scene, she stayed in her Town Car to look down the alleyway that she'd heard referenced on the scanner. All she could see was the garbage truck and no other vehicles. The alley wall of the newspaper office had a truck-sized indentation in the brick, but no pickup. There was quite a crowd of onlookers at both ends of the alley, so she got out of her car to approach the officer standing at the police tape stretched across the nearest end of the alley.

"Don."

"Annabel," he said with a tip of the brim of his Smokey the Bear hat. She loved seeing him in his uniform and had to focus on the matter at hand. It managed to snug all the right places. What she wanted to have at hand was inside the uniform, but she could force herself to stick to priorities.

"What's going on here?"

He pulled his shades to the tip of his nose, folded his arms, and cocked his head forward to look at her over the lenses. "You know damn well. Been listening to that scanner again, haven't you?"

"Guilty as charged, officer. You'll probably have to arrest me."

"I could, judging from the distillery on your breath. Let's save that for later. You're looking pretty healthy, though, for someone who needs arrangements made for her care." She looked him up and down, heaved a very heavy sigh, and then looked back down the alley.

"No idea what you're talking about. Scanner said there were other vehicles around here."

"That's what Eddie says. Fits the description of the scene, too. Back end of his truck is kind of messed up and there's glass on the scene. No broken glass on his truck and the wall of the Gazette has a larger area of damage than the corner of his bumper could do. Don't know about the little car, though. Thought maybe you might."

"Huh." She would ignore him as long as possible on that note. "So two drivers ran from a hit and run?"

"Not really. If Eddie nailed a truck and held it, that's the only thing that ran. Personally, I would think the yahoos he hit were making up the deal about the little car, except that witnesses over at the brewery saw one trying to get away from a pickup matching the same description from Eddie and I saw one last night. You sure you don't know something about it?"

She continued to play ignorant. "Weird, isn't it? Whoever would've thought action like this would happen in this town? Kind of like a scene out of one of those action movies you like to watch."

"Heh. You like 'em, too, don't kid me. You've never been much of a chick-flick kind of gal." He was smiling that large, perfectly toothed smile that spread his perfectly clean shaven face into those perfectly creased dimples. If he hadn't been wearing the standard-issue reflective sunglasses, she was certain his eyes would have perfectly matching crinkles at the outside edges as well. She had to push him to get her mind off other thoughts.

"So how did such professional officers manage to lose an entire pickup within just a few minutes?"

"Oh, we didn't lose it. It was gone when we got here, but we're gonna find it. Got an APB out for it right now. Not too many trucks riding the road with that kind of damage."

"What about the driver of the little car? Got one out for him, too?"

"Mmm hmm, she expresses a little concern for someone she apparently knows about. Well, other than driving through part of the brewery area, which is a minor trespassing charge, we got nothin' to charge him with. Those guys in the pickup, however, that's a different story."

"How so?"

"They took out nearly half the bollards the other side of the sixth street bridge and did a lot of damage to a city garbage truck and the Gazette, as well as the front of the brewery visitor center. Not to mention tons of eyewitnesses attesting to their reckless driving and endangerment. We wanna talk to those boys real bad."

"You didn't answer my question, though, Don. How'd they get away when they were pinned by Eddie's truck?"

"Oh, well now, see that's the part where we want 'em for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon."

"What?"

"Yep. Eddie said he jumped out of his truck in time to see a little car pull out of this end of the alley. He was just looking at the damage and was going to get back into his truck to radio it in when one of the other guys crawled out the back window of the pickup, jumped over the cab, and ran over and grabbed him by the collar, real rough-like. Eddie said the feller yanked out a knife and held it at his throat, threatening him that if he didn't move that blankety-blank piece of blankety-blank, he was gonna have a short time to think about the error of his ways. Said that the truck was gonna move one way or t'other, but it'd be a lot less messy to get it done quick. Eddie said he didn't have to think twiced about it, got his truck out the way, and the black truck high-tailed it out."

Annabel's attention was now sufficiently off the idea of anything romantic. She was intently worried about the well-being of two young men that she now knew to be innocently bound in errors they didn't deserve. With her arms crossed, she stared down the alley with one hand over her mouth, her index finger running along the outline of her lips. She was clueless that this was driving Don nuts.

"No idea about the little car?"

"Nope. I'm pretty sure you might, though."

"Haven't heard anything yet about the pickup?"

"Nope. Why're you so concerned about this, Annabel? You know I'm not in any danger here."

"Mmm." She seemed very distracted and unlike her usual manner.

"Annabel?"

"Would you let me know, Don, if you hear anything about either of them? I've got something I've got to do." She turned toward her car and Don caught her by the elbow.

"Wait a minute, now. You don't normally get involved in anything that's not part of your regular business. The description of that little car matches the one I saw last night and you've given away several indications that you know something about it already. Driven by two young men who were at the time headed to your place and that also match descriptions from this morning. I remember it well because I gave a ride to two young ladies, one of which said she was your niece, who had been riding in that two-seater with those men. She also said her daddy was some pretty important guy that I happen to know you're related to. I can keep all that under my hat until I know how it ties in here, just out of respect for you, but you mind cluing me in here, my dear?"

Annabel squinted her eyesand twisted her mouth to the side. "Later. Come by tonight. I might needsome arrestin' real bad, officer. In the meantime, I have to make a call to mybrother." Don dropped her elbow, crossed his arms, and watched her getinto her car and drive off. Experience had taught him that when she was thisfocused on something other than him or her business, it was best to steer clearand let her run her course.