Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery

by Maria Schneider

  Wanda’s presence bumped my nerves up another two notches. I was even more thankful that we had decided the cops would pull us over with a reason rather than us just turn in the contraband. We’d look all the more innocent this way.

  Of course, I wasn’t counting on the gun.

  Chapter 24

  Conversation was nil. Wanda didn’t offer even a lame attempt at polite social niceties, and I was too tense to bother. The route we had mapped out was as short as possible from Barb’s to the charity, but the charity was on the outskirts of town because rental space was cheaper there.

  Mark’s mother turned around and began rearranging the boxes in the backseat, almost as planned. She shoved one box off the seat onto the floor, opening it in the process.

  “We can make room for your box,” she said as she grunted and toiled away. Barb had done a nice job of packing the pillowcases, forcing LeAnn to take some out of the box on the seat and put them on top of the box on the floor. It wasn’t actually creating any additional space, but maybe Wanda wouldn’t notice the shuffling was somewhat pointless other than to expose the contents of the boxes.

  “There, I think you can set your box inside this other box, kind of on top,” LeAnn offered. The words squeezed out of her lungs rather painfully because her seatbelt had locked tight across her chest.

  Wanda mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

  “Well, you could slide it across the top,” LeAnn suggested.

  There was no response from the backseat. LeAnn finally faced forward with a heavy sigh.

  A couple of teenagers in a Silverado pulled up next to us at the red light. We had at least another two miles before the cops were supposed to ticket us for speeding.

  The young gal in the Silverado slid her window down. She wore a black and red biker jacket, and her wide bulging eyes made her look remarkably like a cockroach with a bandana. She pointed a 9mm at me through the window. I hadn’t seen much of her face at the truck stop restaurant, but I recognized the leather coat. She was a biker. Wanda drove a Harley. It was possible the two of them knew each other.

  “Nice car,” the biker chick shouted at me. Her window was open; mine was not. She hollered, “We’re takin’ it for a ride.” She kept the gun steady while opening her truck door.

  For all I knew she and her boyfriend were really interested in stealing Huntington’s Porsche. It was a super cool car. The light was still red.

  “You’re clear on both sides, go!” LeAnn yelled.

  I hit the pedal without bothering to take my eyes off the gun pointing at me, testing the zero to sixty. The car was rated at somewhere around 5 seconds, but I believe I set a new record at three. Maybe they could tell from the tire marks. There was definitely some extra black left on the road.

  The dash and front panel of the car was state-of-the art with more whistles and bells than my phone. Somewhere amongst the display that included camera monitors, a GPS system, and the latest in anti-theft protections, there was a dial that told me how fast we were moving, whether we were using gasoline or electric, and whether or not the oil was low. All I noticed was that the assholes behind us started shooting. “All these cool features and this thing can’t emit a lethal plume of gas that might kill them?” I complained.

  LeAnn shook her head. “The idea behind these hybrid electrics is that they don’t emit enough fumes to kill a grasshopper.”

  “Damn shame.”

  “Yes, yes, it is.”

  “You can’t just take off!” Wanda screeched from the backseat. “OhLordHeavenHelpUs, they’ll kill us for sure. You have to stop!”

  There went the very slight possibility that the occupants in the Silverado were randomly after the car. Well, they’d probably take the car too, along with the pillowcases, but Wanda was obviously expecting them and afraid of them.

  I hit highway twenty-four doing ninety.

  “Hey! This isn’t the way to the donation center!” Wanda protested.

  “I’m not driving this thing to the donation center with someone shooting up the town behind us,” I snapped. “Don’t worry. We’ll outrun them.” I caught her eye in the mirror. Hers were dark pinpoints behind her glasses. It was not hot inside or outside the car, but beads of sweat dotted her forehead.

  “You can’t outrun them!”

  It didn’t matter what she thought. If I had any say, the Silverado wouldn’t catch us, and I’d never see the guy or his girlfriend again. Of course, if the cops didn’t get their ass in gear, they might not catch us either. And we were now nowhere near where we’d planned on being pulled over.

  Apparently, Wanda wasn’t about to give up either, because as I pressed down on the accelerator, she smacked me with her purse.

  “Hey!”

  “Stop! They’ll kill us. You always give them what they want. They mean business!” She undid her seatbelt, the better to reach me. The Porsche started beeping a warning.

  “Ow! Hey!” I used my right arm to grab at the purse while steering with the left, but I had to let up on the accelerator or risk running off the road. Another audible warning from the front panel began complaining, but I was too busy trying to keep the car in my own lane to investigate.

  LeAnn was no lightweight; Mark and Steve would have been proud. She twisted in her seat, grabbed the purse, Wanda’s arm and Wanda’s hair. She stuffed everything backwards.

  The Porsche emitted another shrill warning, but there was no time to figure it out. The Chevy’s grill was bearing down on us like giant grizzly teeth. The driver was about to rear-end Huntington’s hundred-thousand-dollar stealth car.

  The road was clear for at least five hundred yards. I floored that gas pedal hard enough to channel shades of Fred Flintstone when he was late for work.

  Hundred-thousand-dollar cars have good stability. We shot away like a rocket booster was strapped to the trunk. I had no problem holding her steady until we caught up to the chicken farmer in front of us.

  “What did Huntington say about that noise?” I yelled over the numerous shrill beeps.

  “I think it’s her seatbelt,” LeAnn shouted, still fighting off Wanda’s slaps.

  The car shrieked again, a different, longer wail.

  “Shit.” I had to switch lanes to dodge around the pokey farm truck. Now that we were closer, the crates in the back of his truck didn’t seem all that well tied down. There were three large mesh boxes stacked across a broad bed. Each crate held six or so shelves of chickens. The truck took up more than one lane, but with the Silverado determined to mash us into the chicken truck, I had no choice.

  I swerved into the left lane and punched the accelerator again. Huntington’s car complained the entire time. This car was made for that man. All he ever did was complain at me.

  “I think it warns you when you drift across lanes or drive too close to another car,” was LeAnn’s opinion.

  “Hang on! That chicken truck is too wide.” The truck itself wasn’t oversized, but the crates were a foot or two over the sides, hanging into my lane. One wrong move on my part or that of the chicken driver and we were all going to be tenderloins. The chickens knew it too. They flapped and squawked, sending a steady snowfall of feathers across the window. Even with the windows closed, there was a distinct smell of chicken poop.

  “Where the hell are the wipers?” My eyes weren’t leaving the view of the road to search for the switch. With a death grip on the steering wheel there was no leeway to start pushing buttons hoping to discover where the genius design engineers had hidden the wipers. At this speed most of the feathers and stray bird shit didn’t stick anyway.

  My cell phone, nestled in my jacket pocket, rang. “As if.”

  The cameras on the Porsche flashed a picture of chicken wings as we sped by. With the windows closed and warning beeps at full orchestra, the squawking was akin to one elongated peacock hoot trying to make itself heard above the din.

  The Chevy didn’t wait for me to clear the front of the chickens. With a swerve worthy of a mo
nster truck show, it slammed off the road on the right, churning dust.

  The chicken crates swayed dangerously, caught between two vehicles, feathers, dust and a driver who had just panicked enough to slam on the brakes.

  “They aren’t stopping!” Wanda split her attention between us and the back window.

  “Neither are we,” I muttered. The wheels barely held the edge of the road when we returned to our lane because I oversteered.

  Wanda shrieked, deliberately careening forward, grabbing at me, at buttons and LeAnn. The radio stared blaring.

  Mark’s mom slapped her. Hard.

  I finally found the windshield wipers, but not before somehow accidentally turning on the GPS. It started talking too. Did it give directions to hell in a handbasket? Because I’m pretty sure that is where we were headed.

  I overcorrected again. We wobbled back into the right lane, the swinging finally slamming Wanda into the side of the car.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” I yelled at her.

  The problem with highway twenty-four was that it didn’t have much for side roads. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, which was fine for speeding, but we were on a one-way ticket with no way to lose the guys behind us.

  The Silverado was no slouch in the speeding department, but the Porsche, electric or not, wasn’t having any problems keeping distance between us, not until a motorcycle passed the Silverado. “Uh-oh.” Mark had a motorcycle.

  A black car, one that looked suspiciously like the Viper Huntington had driven during the first case at Strandfrost, tried to pass the Silverado next. The Chevy nearly sideswiped him.

  Wanda grabbed me around the throat, but LeAnn smacked her with her own purse. I slowed down. No way did I want Mark driving a hundred...I looked down and took my foot completely off the accelerator.

  Mark gained on us. Huntington kept the Silverado busy, dancing close, pretending to pass, causing the Silverado to lurch from side to side in an effort to keep him from passing.

  Where were the cops? If the Huntington brothers were smart enough to follow us, why couldn’t Sean’s friends be that smart?

  The box of pillowcases in the backseat, the one that Wanda had insisted on keeping with her, slammed into the side of the car. Wanda tried to grab the box, but it started ringing. It was one phone at first, but then the voice assistant kicked in on at least two other phones. “Borgot at your service.”

  “What?!?” No one heard my shout. The seatbelt audible never stopped screaming at us, the GPS was still giving directions and LeAnn had managed to turn the fan speed to full rather than turn the radio off.

  Finally, ahead of us, flashing red and blue lights decorated the highway. Luckily they didn’t have their sirens on or maybe they did, but we couldn’t hear them.

  Wanda punched the box as if that would stop the phones from talking.

  I didn’t care how the cops managed to get the jump on us as long as they kept Silverado and pals from shooting Mark. Or us. “Should I go faster?” I asked LeAnn.

  She couldn’t hear me with the continuous din inside the car.

  Eight-five was still well above the limit. I took my foot off the gas again. I let the car slow at its own pace before pulling over. As soon as the wheels drifted over the white line, the audible for the lane warning started in.

  “Huntington can keep this car,” I griped.

  Wanda let out a screech from the back. “What are you doing?”

  “Stopping. Cops ahead.”

  “You can’t stop now!”

  This was the same lady who had insisted we stop just moments ago.

  As soon as the Porsche rolled to a stop, two of the audibles went silent. Now I could hear the sirens even with the phones still babbling like a bar full of drunk idiots. “Would you shut those pillowcases off?” I yelled at Wanda. “They’re making a hell of a lot of noise.”

  Mark glided next to us. He wasn’t driving his bike with the lightning streak. This was a sleek yellow model with panels that shone in the sun. The side said Ducati 1199.

  I rolled the window down.

  “Everyone okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. “In one piece, no blood.”

  “Stay in the car.”

  He took cover behind the front of the car and hopped off the bike.

  Good idea. A state cop car screeched to a stop nearby. Two policemen bounced out, their hands on their holsters, but none of us were threatening.

  All eyes turned to track the Silverado. Without hesitation, it spun off the road and turned around, disappearing momentarily behind a billowing dust cloud. Two cop cars closed in from our direction and at least one other was coming at it from Denton.

  The chicken truck driver ambled to a slow stop not fifty yards behind us. None of the crates had fallen, but at least one cage door had burst open. Chickens were running and half flying at full squawk. There were white ones and brown ones and at least two roosters. The roosters might have been trying to herd the chickens, but they stopped to yodel every time the farmer flapped his hat at them.

  The phones were still babbling in the back seat of the Panamera.

  An unmarked car pulled up next. To my intense dismay, Detective Saunders stepped out. Of course he’d show up. He was in charge of the case.

  I opened the door and climbed out.

  He eyed me up and down a little too gleefully.

  Chickens were still pouring off the back of the flatbed truck. One of the crates was tilted, having slid partway off. Two others must have opened as well because there were chickens all over the road.

  Wanda climbed out and pointed at me. “I’m just delivering pillowcases! To a charity! She’s the driver, and she was the one speeding!”

  Mark sidled next to me, but not in time to distract me from the chicken that hopped on the roof of the Porsche.

  “Oh, crap.” And that is exactly what that chicken and two more proceeded to do on the top of Huntington’s dusty, but expensive vehicle. I grabbed the white chicken, gently tucking its wings. I handed her to LeAnn.

  “Got her,” she said, holding the chicken a bit tighter than necessary and keeping her carefully away from her clothing.

  “Just hang on, she’ll settle down.”

  I closed the driver side door of the Porsche, but a brown chicken burbled a hearty cry and defied my attempt to capture it. The other white one flew off and landed on Mark’s Ducati.

  “Hold still, bird!” The chicken ignored my orders. The passenger side of the car was still open wide. Two more birds approached, one landing on the top of the car, the other flapping at Detective Saunders.

  “Sedona...” Mark rolled his eyes, but he went around the front of the car.

  “If any of these birds poop in the front seat, Huntington will kill me!” I flew faster than the chicken. My little brown friend hopped from the roof of the car to the top of the car door, balancing easily.

  Mark shooed it away before it could enter the Porsche, but with me coming at it from the other side, it flew in my face. “Hey!” One claw caught my arm. It beat me half to death with its wings as I attempted to subdue the beast. Good thing Dad used to have chickens or I’d never have caught it.

  “Okay,” Detective Saunders bellowed. “That’s enough. Hands up on the car and spread’em.”

  “What?” I was still fighting feathers. None of us were the least bit threatening if you didn’t count Wanda, who was still busy shouting about her innocence and convicting herself all at the same time.

  “I’d never have been involved if not for Joe,” she sobbed. “It was all him. I had to deliver the phones or they would have killed me. And I can’t get any more untraceable phones because Joe is dead. I’ve told them he’s dead, but they won’t listen.”

  I stared at her and then at the box that still rang and talked, but not as often. Her back door was still wide open. “Untraceable phones...”

  “Hands up and turn around,” Detective Saunders demanded again, coming around the car at me. He was worse than the ch
ickens. I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. This guy was not patting me down.

  I stared at him over the top of the squawking chicken I held.

  “You heard me.” He would have been in my face, but kept his distance because of the flapping wings of my feathered friend.

  “What do I do with the chicken?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The chicken. I can’t release it. It might get run over. Or escape.” I had her feet secured, but her wings flapped and then randomly tucked or stayed out. “Here, you better hold her.” I offered the bird up.

  He took a step back.

  Mark was suddenly next to me again, his arms at his sides. He was wearing his black leather jacket. On the best of days, he could look threatening. Today, he’d had more than enough playing around. His eyes were flat and cold.

  “You’ll probably want to start with me,” he growled. “No telling what I might be hiding under my coat.” He lifted the edges, clearly showing nothing but a t-shirt. He made sure the two state guys could see that he wasn’t carrying.

  “Do you want the chicken?” I asked Saunders. More birds approached, two more flying onto Huntington’s car, competing with the ones already there.

  “Put that damn thing down,” he bellowed.

  The chickens on the roof took umbrage with his tone. Two of them launched off the side of Huntington’s car and headed for the road. The other one came at me, but I stepped away, using the chicken I already had to push the new one into Saunders. “Grab it before it gets away,” I yelled at the detective.

  Saunders gave a good imitation of a chicken squawk as he batted at the flapping bird. Feathers flew. Poop dropped. “Get that thing away from me!” The more he danced, the worse it went for him. The first chicken landed, but went right up again, catching his arm. Several others flapped, landed, pecked and ran rampant.

  Mark coughed away what might have been a stifled laugh. The chickens now had us surrounded. It was the farmer’s fault really. He was chasing them our way, grabbing them one at a time and stuffing them in a cage. When the cage was full, he went back for another cage, but in the meantime, our bunch of cars and humans looked like the nearest roost.