Pushing Up Bluebonnets

20

My alarm was going off, and I thought, I sure as hell need a new mattress. This one is as hard as bricks. But then I realized I wasn't in bed and the muffled alarm was my ringing phone.

I managed to sit and press my back against something as equally hard as the floor. Either I was as drunk as a waltzing pissant or something bad had happened. My vision was so blurred I couldn't see much but blended gray and black. I blinked several times, trying to focus.

The smell of mildew, car fumes and garbage surrounded me. The parking garage. That's it. Kate and I had dinner, I walked here and then . . . what?

Since the world remained fuzzy and dim, I felt around to my right like the blind woman I'd become, and touched a car bumper.

That's when the real alarm started up—the extra-fancy and very loud car alarm I just had to have. You're a little late in the help department, dear Camry, I thought. I reached in the direction of where my phone had been ringing . . . wasn't ringing now, thank goodness, because I couldn't handle any more noise. I found my bag and pulled my remote and car keys out. I jabbed at what I thought was the alarm silencer. Nothing. Bad aim.

Damn it, I was about to become deaf as well as blind if I didn't shut that stupid thing off. Another button poke and this time I got it. Blessed silence.

I sat there, and thank God, my sight slowly returned. I realized through the haze of my thoughts that I was near the passenger side of my car up against the parking garage wall. How in hell had I ended up here?

I didn't remember being hit on the head—but then, would I remember? I reached up and felt around for bumps or cuts. Nothing hurt . . . no swelling or blood. Same head you've had for years, Abby, I thought. Yup. Same old head. Then I laughed—the sound echoing around me like I was in a carnival fun house. I felt groggy as all get-out, but laughing felt good.

"Maybe you should get your little old self out of here, Abby Rose," I said out loud. But the words didn't come out right. They slid together and I laughed again. You need a nice long nap, I thought. Then everything will be fine.

But when I tried to stand, I discovered that even if you haven't been bashed senseless, your brain can be as screwed up as if someone had removed it and put it in backward. My legs reacted like I'd tried to stand on teddy bear legs. Well, hell's bells, I sure can't drive, at least not yet. My phone rang again. "Why can't I have some peace and quiet?" I said as I dug around in my bag. Again, the words came out like one big slurred word.

"Hi there," I said after I opened it and put it to my ear. Yup. I even sounded as drunk as that pissant. What is a pissant anyway?

"Where are you, hon?" he said. "I've called, like, six times."

I smiled. Jeff. God, how I love Jeff. I took a deep breath and tried to pronounce each word carefully. "I am sitting on the very nasty parking garage floor in the Medical Center and I have no clue how I got here. But you're a fabulous investigator, so I'm sure if I—"

"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.