Pushing Up Bluebonnets

by Leann Sweeney

  ''Abby? Where are you exactly?'' He was using his best cop voice now. Jeff has the best cop voice in the world.

  ''Next to my car, you best cop ever. You are the best cop ever, you know that? Anyway, my new alarm is sure loud when you're sitting on the ground right next to it. I tested it tonight and—''

  ''I mean what parking garage? What level?''

  I pulled the phone away for a second and looked at it, confused, then said, ''You sound upset. You're not mad at me, are you?'' Suddenly I felt like crying. What in God's name was wrong with me?

  ''I am not mad. I want to come and get you, okay? So tell me where to find you, Abby.''

  I squinted at the number on a beam several feet away. ''Level ten.''

  ''Which garage, hon?''

  ''You're asking me? I'm a waltzing pissant. Did I tell you that?''

  ''You probably have a ticket in your car. It will tell me which garage. Can you get to that?''

  ''Sure, Best Cop Ever.'' I fumbled again for the car remote and this time I could see well enough to hit the little lock symbol for the doors. I heard them click open and I slid on my bottom, then opened the passenger side. There was the ticket. I took it and held it close, using the light from the open door. I read him the garage number and he said he was on his way.

  Jeff's trusty Nissan with the hundred million miles on the odometer pulled up behind my Camry what seemed like many, many minutes later. I'd stayed in the same, smelly spot even though I now recognized I'd parked close to a discarded bag of fast-food leftovers. Jeff had told me several times to stay put as he talked to me on the phone on his way to get me. He sounded all worried, probably because I still sounded drunk enough that he thought he might need to take me straight to rehab.

  Jeff was out of his car quick as a rabbit on a skateboard and Doris hurried right behind him.

  ''She's here, Jeffy!'' Doris stopped near the Camry's trunk.

  Jeff knelt next to me, lifted my chin and looked in my eyes. ''You look sleepy. Does anything hurt?'' His cheek was fat with probably a Guinness World Record wad of gum.

  ''No. I just feel . . . drugged. Was I drugged?''

  ''I've never seen you like this, so my guess is yes. I'm gonna pick you up and put you in my car, okay?''

  ''I think my legs will work now.'' I used Jeff's shoulder to brace myself as I started to stand.

  ''I could carry you, Abby—like I carry Diva.'' Doris was imitating Jeff's studious examination of me.

  ''No one needs to carry me,'' I said. ''I'm fine. I want to go home.''

  ''Why don't I take you to one of the half-dozen hospitals within two blocks of here?'' Jeff said.

  Doris stood and started backing up toward Jeff's car. Then she screamed, ''Nooooo!'' her shriek louder than any car alarm. We hadn't heard her make that much noise in about six months and up here it echoed and echoed and gave my burgeoning headache wings.

  ''It's the hospital thing,'' I whispered to Jeff. He was in over his head with two needy women.

  Jeff was torn between Doris, who was now crouched down by Jeff's car, and moi, who probably couldn't stand up without help. ''Doris, it's okay,'' I said. ''We're going to my house, not to the hospital.''

  ''I don't believe you!'' she cried. And then she took off toward the elevator.

  Jeff whispered, ''Shit,'' but seemed frozen next to me. I grabbed hold of the Camry's back passenger handle and said, ''Go. Hurry.''

  Jeff corralled Doris near the elevator bank. He held her face with both his hands and talked to her. Then he took her hand and led her back to the Nissan. She was crying when he opened the back door and she climbed in.

  Then Jeff said to me, ''I need to call this in before we leave. Get a uniform and print unit over here so you can tell them what you know.''

  ''You mean so I can tell them what I don't remember? I want to go home, Jeff. I have a headache.''

  Doris's window was rolled down and she was pouting, her eyes still wet with tears. ''Abby wants to sit in the lie-down chair so she can feel better.''

  I pointed at her and smiled. ''Elegantly put.''

  Jeff said, ''Then at least let me ask you a few questions before we leave.''

  I sighed. ''Go ahead.''

  He took out a fresh pack of Big Red and as he opened the gum, he said, ''You walked toward your car from the elevator, right?''

  ''I'm sure I didn't walk up a mile of stairs, so yes.''

  ''Let me check out the path you were taking. There's probably no collectible evidence, but I can't leave without looking.'' He helped me over to the Nissan and eased me down into the front seat. Then he took a flashlight from the Nissan's glove box.

  I watched him through the windshield and he called, ''Your trunk's open.'' Using the edge of the flashlight, he lifted the trunk door higher.

  I stuck my head out the open car door. ''I probably opened it when I was trying to find the damn alarm button on my remote.''

  He nodded, but that didn't stop him from shining the light inside the trunk. As the pounding in my head increased exponentially with each passing minute, Jeff examined the concrete, every support beam and the elevator. Doris, meanwhile, asked me what he was doing and why and if she could stay with me tonight, since she was already wearing her pajamas. That's when I checked my phone and realized it was almost eleven o'clock. I'd been lights-out for more than two hours.

  Jeff finally finished, saying he'd found nothing, not even a thread or any marks indicating I'd been dragged to the side of my car. ''Turd must have carried you,'' he mumbled so Doris wouldn't hear him. She picked up words like crazy and cop talk wasn't something she needed to add to her vocabulary.

  We finally left and when we reached the attendant, Jeff flashed his badge and quizzed the kid about security and tapes. He said he knew nothing about it, but gave Jeff a card with a number to call in the morning. Then we drove to my house in a record ten minutes.

  But Jeff wasn't about to wait until morning. He got on the phone immediately to see if he could get a look at those tapes, saying he'd seen a camera near where I was jumped and another by the elevator.

  Meanwhile, I headed straight for the aspirin bottle and the shower. When I came downstairs a little while later, Doris was asleep on the living room couch. Jeff had been sitting in the recliner drinking a Shiner Bock, but stood when I entered the room.

  I whispered, ''Why didn't she go upstairs?''

  He put a finger to his lips and gestured toward the kitchen. I followed him, took a Dr Pepper from the fridge, and then we both sat at the table.

  ''Doris said she wanted to make sure I didn't sneak you out to a hospital,'' Jeff said. ''I hope I haven't gone ten giant steps backward with her.''

  ''You did a great job calming her down. She'll be fine. But I sure hope she never needs to visit an emergency room or have surgery. Maybe we should come up with a code word for hospital.''

  ''Good idea.'' Jeff rested his palm on my cheek. ''I am so glad you're okay. Whoever did this will be damn sorry when I catch up to him. No tapes until tomorrow, but at least I got the garage manager's attention.''

  I pulled up the sleeve of my T-shirt. ''Look what I found when I was in the shower. I believe this little mark in my arm muscle says I was injected with some drug I definitely never want to take again.''

  ''Damn. I should take you for a tox screen at—'' He glanced toward the living room. ''Or maybe not.''

  ''I don't need a tox screen,'' I said. ''Whatever he gave me has pretty much cleared out—or I feel like it has. Answer me this, Sergeant Kline. How many bad guys aside from serial killers bring drugs to their assaults?''

  ''None that I know about. A gun or a knife does the job most times. But this turd didn't sexually assault you or rob you or do what serial killers—never mind.'' He took out his gum pack. Only one stick left after tonight's gum fest. After starting up his newest stick, he said, ''Do you remember crawling to your car?''

  ''If I'd crawled to my car, my knees would have been filthy and maybe even raw. Not so.''
>
  ''This guy—you're sure it was a male?''

  ''Yup.''

  ''This guy drugs you and then puts you next to your car. How did he know which one was yours? Had you gotten that close already?''

  My stomach sank. ''No. He'd probably been following me and then waited until I came back from Kate's office. Damnation, Jeff. I need serious remedial work in picking up a tail. Why is that the one thing I cannot seem to do?''

  ''Knowing you, you probably spend a lot of time

  thinking about your case, working things through, and meanwhile you're driving on autopilot. It takes a conscious effort to catch on to a tail. In the future, don't focus on the car makes and models. Look for decals or license plates or rosary beads hanging in windows— anything distinctive—and if you see that little something again, you might want to circle a block, see if they come after you.''

  I sighed. ''Thanks. I will now shelve the bruised detective ego and refocus. I thought Dugan might be the guy who jumped me, but now I'm not so sure. Dugan's shorter than average. This man had to be more like your height, because my head ended up under his chin when he grabbed me. And the voice was different.''

  ''The voice? He talked to you?''

  I blinked. ''Yeah. Jeez, I remember a little more now.''

  Jeff nodded, trying to keep his expression impassive. ''Good. What else?''

  I squinted, trying to recapture that pretty darn scary moment. ''Gloved hand—like a winter glove. Whoa. It's been hot enough to toast marshmallows on the dashboard, so that's pretty weird.''

  ''Protection. In case you bit him.''

  ''But the glove smelled . . . no, it tasted sweet. But if someone injected me with another drug, that means the stuff on the glove wasn't strong enough to knock me out.''

  Jeff said, ''The sweet taste makes me think chloroform. We had a serial rapist once who tried using the stuff. It worked for the first two women, but he ended up killing a girl because he didn't really know how much to use. Sad to say the stuff's readily available these days as an industrial solvent.''

  ''Yeah. Chloroform. I researched poisons after that awful cyanide murder when I lived in River Oaks. Chloroform doesn't put you out in a few seconds like you see on TV. But it can make you kinda stupid.''

  Jeff grinned. ''Remember, I never described you that way tonight.''

  I punched his arm. ''Will I hear about this for the next decade?''

  ''Only if you keep me around that long. But back to business. I know you say Dugan wasn't tall enough, but why would he go after you anyway—especially since he knows you're very cop-connected?''

  ''He and I had a little . . . discussion this morning. I kind of pissed him off. And he might be in a whole lot of trouble thanks to me—or actually thanks to him and what I discovered at his house.''

  ''Tell me. 'Cause I didn't like that SOB from the minute I met him.'' He started chewing his gum like crazy.

  I told him about this morning's visit to Dugan's house, about the laminator and the copy machine and about Georgeanne.

  ''Dugan's a busy man. You said Boyd planned to call Financial Crimes Division?''

  ''Is that what it's called?''

  ''Yeah, but maybe I can speed up that process, get him investigated faster. Then he and I will have a very long talk about how he behaved this morning when you two talked.''

  ''Thanks, but you don't need to—hell, yes, you do, because I like the whole idea. Now, can we call it a night?''

  And so we did. Lying in Jeff's arms turned out to be the best therapy for any posttraumatic stress I might have suffered after my visit to the Little Shop of Garage Horrors. It felt good to be absolutely safe, even for a gun-toting tom girl like me.

  21

  Doris and Jeff left my house early the following morning. Jeff wanted to get to Travis Center early and start harassing the parking garage management again—but only after I'd reassured him a dozen times that I felt fine. I went back to sleep until eight, then got up and took another shower. I still felt grimy from lying around on that concrete petri dish last night. I planned on calling Cooper and Mr. Richter to fill them in on what had happened last night, but Cooper called me before I could pick up the phone.

  After we exchanged hellos, he said, ''JoLynn is being brought out of her coma, so today and on the weekend I'm working her case and nothing else. I'll be staying in Houston and wondered if you know a decent hotel near the hospital.''

  ''The best place to stay is my house, in my guest room,'' I said.

  ''Abby, I couldn't—''

  ''Yeah, you could. End of story. When will you be in town?''

  ''I'm on the north side of Houston right now,'' he said.

  I gave him directions, deciding not to tell him over the phone what I'd learned about JoLynn's foster care and last night's nasty little incident. Besides, if I had another chance to talk with someone about what happened, maybe I'd remember more details.

  Cooper arrived forty-five minutes later and by the look on his face, I guessed he'd been a victim of Houston morning rush hour.

  ''Fun ride?'' I asked.

  ''Folks are about as friendly as fire ants on those freeways this morning,'' he said. ''Reminds me of when I worked in DC. Now, there's an ugly commute.''

  I had him drop his overnight bag by the stairs and then we went to the kitchen. I remembered how he'd chosen healthy food for lunch the first day we met at the hospital. I said, ''I raided my sister's stash of green tea if you'd like some. She loves the stuff, so I keep it on hand.''

  ''That would be great,'' he said.

  ''She does hers with this special little teapot.'' I held up the heavy cast-iron number she'd bought for me. I loved the way it looked, so I kept it on the stove, but had never actually used the thing.

  ''Just stick a cup of water in the microwave and I'll do the rest,'' he answered with a smile.

  ''Now, that I can handle.''

  I opted for coffee—my third cup, but who was counting? Then we sat across from each other at the kitchen table and I filled him in on everything that had happened yesterday.

  When I'd finished, Cooper leaned back in his chair and shook his head. ''I'm sorry you went through that. Maybe you shouldn't be involved in this.''

  I pointed at him, saying, ''Don't you say that, Cooper Boyd. I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I have to adjust my strategy, maybe keep the Lady Smith with me—well, maybe not when I go into the hospital, but you know what I'm saying.''

  He looked surprised. ''You carry?''

  ''Don't look so shocked. There's plenty of girls in the FBI who can shoot, right?''

  ''Yes, but—''

  ''Jeff and I were at the range about three weeks ago. I'm in practice and hit plenty of targets smack in the middle.''

  ''I'll bet you did.'' He smiled. ''Does Jeff plan to call you about those security tapes? I'd sure like a look myself.''

  ''I don't know. He was first team today and will probably draw a case. We might not see or hear from him until later in the day.''

  ''This man who attacked you, did he—''

  ''He did not attack me. He grabbed me, that's all.''

  ''And drugged you. I'd call that an attack. Anyway, why go to all that trouble to warn you off? The chloroform, the injection? That's work.''

  ''I never thought of it that way. But you know what? This little incident only makes me more determined than ever to help a client I've never really met.''

  ''I never doubted your commitment, Abby. Talk me through last night one more time.''

  ''Give me a second to picture everything.'' I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes. ''Okay, I leave the elevator. My bag is over my left shoulder, like always. I take about ten paces, maybe. . . . Then . . . I hear something. Or just know someone is there. Okay . . . here's where it gets hazy. Did I look back?'' I opened my eyes. ''That's what I'd do, right? I'd look back.''

  ''Seems logical.''

  I felt my heart speed up a little, just like when I realized I wasn't alone last night. '
'I did look back and I caught a glimpse. Hooded sweatshirt . . . bandanna over his mouth and nose. It's coming back. . . . I can see him.'' I squeezed my eyes shut again. ''Oh my God. It was him.''

  Cooper sat straighter. ''Him? Who is him?''

  ''The stringy-haired guy from the grocery store, the man with the frosty eyes.'' I banged my fist on the table. ''I knew that creep was following us around in the store.''

  Cooper shook his head. ''You've totally lost me.''

  ''That's because I didn't tell you about parading through Kroger with newly diagnosed diabetic Aunt Caroline—an event that was rather like getting a root canal from a plumber, by the way. I'm sure the guy who jumped me was hanging around us in the store.''