Chapter 2
Eight miles east of the TexSafe Armored truck, Parker County Sheriff’s investigator D Wayne Cutter glanced up from his window booth at the Wayside Truckstop.
It was early and the café smelled of fresh coffee and Windex.
The waitress approached at a hustling run—like she’d just remembered anyone was sitting there.
Her white nursing shoes squeaked against the waxed tile floor.
The tag on her brown polyester uniform said her name was Karlene.
Coffeepot in hand, Karlene stifled a hacking cough in the crook of her elbow and then smiled down at Cutter and the DPS trooper sitting across from him.
The tall, drum-chested state trooper stopped his story about a fatality accident he’d worked the day before and gave a sleepy smile to the waitress.
A creased red patch on the shoulder of his olivegreen short-sleeved shirt indicated he was Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol—never to be confused with Weights and Measures or Driver’s License troopers.
His Stetson hat—straw for summer wear and dyed a muddy gray-green to match his uniform—rested on the seat beside him, brim up.
Cutter was shorter than the highway patrolman by a good six inches, with a weathered, rawboned face and calloused hands that looked just a bit too large for his forearms. His white, pearl-snap dress shirt was freshly starched and ironed, and just tight enough to suggest strong shoulders.
A five-pointed Parker County Deputy Sheriff’s star hung over his left breast pocket.
He, too, had a hat on the seat beside him, though his was plain straw, blond like his short-cropped hair and slightly stained with sweat around the band from constant wear in the brutal Texas heat.
Both men had spent time in Vietnam. Where Teague had seen significant action with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Cutter spent the bulk of his career officially stationed in Bad Tolz, Germany, with 10th Special Forces.
He’d rotated into Southeast Asia periodically to augment other SF groups, but the bulk of his time was spent in Berlin.
The highway patrolman dished out a considerable amount of good-natured ribbing about how he was tromping through rice paddies during Cutter’s cushy European vacation.
If he’d only known.
Karlene batted naturally long lashes and moved in with the coffeepot. “Teague,” she said. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
The trooper put his hand over the empty coffee cup. “A Dr Pepper when you get a chance.” He glanced across the table. “This here is Wayne Cutter. He’s an investigator with the SO.”
Cutter gave her a polite nod, eyeing the door like he might need to escape. Even in the heat of the day, he preferred outside to being cooped up indoors. The refrigerated air reminded him too much of a morgue.
“Gonna be a hot one,” Karlene said, as if she were reading his mind while she filled his coffee cup. “You a new hire?”
“No, ma’am.”
She stood there holding the coffeepot like a pistol, waiting for more.
Cutter took a sip of coffee, black, but said nothing. He wasn’t naturally blabby to begin with, and even less so this early in the morning.
“I do believe we are ready to order,” Teague said.
Karlene set the pot on the table and then snatched a pencil from the same apron pocket that held her cigarettes. Pencil to notepad, she raised a brow. “Shoot.” She grinned at her own joke. “I mean, not really.”
“You’re a real hoot,” Teague said, deadpan. “Three eggs over medium, hash browns, and a couple of those fresh biscuits.”
Karlene turned toward the deputy, but Teague touched her elbow. “Better add a side of gravy.”
She smiled. “You bet.” Back to Cutter. “And you, darlin’?”
“Toast,” Cutter said.
“Just coffee and toast,” she said, scribbling on her pad. “And maybe a good woman to put a smile on that grumpy face of yours …”
Teague opened his mouth to speak, but Cutter shook his head. The bell at the front entry chimed. Cutter, in the seat facing the door, groaned within himself.
Teague craned his neck around to have a look. He chuckled. “The ego has landed …”
At twenty-one years old, Deputy Lafayette Johnson—LJ to those who knew him—was barely old enough to buy his own bullets.
Tall and fit, he was fresh off half a year of a regional law enforcement academy, followed by five months with a field training officer.
On his own now, he was eager as a new puppy. He was also the sheriff’s nephew.
“I heard y’all check out for breakfast.” He took off his hat to reveal a curl of jet-black hair in the center of his forehead like a comic book Superman. His light brown uniform shirt was new enough that it still had the original creases. “Mind if I join you?”
Deputy Cutter scooted out of the booth and stood, offering Johnson the inside seat.
Karlene took the kid’s order—chicken fried steak and a Dr Pepper—and then squeaked away on her white shoes.
Teague folded his hands on the table and leaned forward to finish his story about the fatality accident.
LJ started talking before the trooper could even open his mouth.
“Y’all hear about my foot pursuit this side of Poolville Friday evening? I stopped a guy who was 10-99 on an assault warrant outta Jack County. Almost got into a hellacious fight over—”
Teague snorted. “You either fight or you don’t. No almost about it.”
“I hear that,” the kid said, missing the point. “But this guy was something else. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was gonna run on me—”
“Hang on,” Teague said. “Fight or run? My experience, someone who runs isn’t fighting. They might hurt you, or even shoot you, but that’s just because you’re standing in their way. A fight … that’s a whole ’nother animal.”
Johnson sat back in his seat and chewed on that a second, then said, “Well, he hoofed it, so I guess that’s what he had planned.
Ran right through old man Fulton’s barn.
My backup was half an hour away, so I had to go in myself.
I remembered something one of my instructors taught us in the academy: Be a weasel. ”
Cutter raised a brow. That was a new one.
“A weasel?” Teague said.
“Yeah,” the kid said. “Don’t go barging through the door or window but poke your head in and get a lay of the land first.”
“Sounds like a good way to get your head blown off,” Teague said.
The kid gave a sheepish grin. “Not if you do it right. You gotta be a weasel.”
“Sounds like something you’d be damn good at,” Teague muttered.
“Thanks,” Johnson said. If he understood the jibe, he didn’t let on. He started in on his foot pursuit story again, but the trooper raised a hand.
“I’m gonna stop you there,” he said. “Wayne, wouldn’t you say as DPS troopers go, I’m one of the more agreeable ones?”
“Yep,” Cutter said. “You are indeed.”
Point proven, Teague nodded at the youngster.
“There you go. Now, Cutter won’t say anything because you’re related to his boss, but you’d be wise to keep something in mind.
Nobody gives a pinch of coon shit about your daring exploits unless you’ve whacked a shooter in the UT Austin clock tower or some such.
” The highway patrolman jammed his index finger on the tabletop in time with his words.
“You are not entitled to war stories until you been on the job at least five years.” He leaned forward, locked in on the young deputy’s eyes.
“Until then, do yourself a favor and keep your ears open and your piehole shut. That’s all there is to it. ”
Johnson shot a nervous glance at Cutter, who shrugged.
“He’s not wrong.” Cutter slid out of the booth. “I need to wash my hands.”
Teague and the crestfallen young deputy sat and nursed their Dr Peppers while they waited for breakfast. “I know I was hard on you, LJ,” the highway patrolman said. “Better I give you a little tune-up than someone who doesn’t have your best interest at heart.”
“Yeah,” Johnson said, like he almost believed it.
“Be a weasel …” Teague mused. “You know, there might be some wisdom in that. …”
“It’s actually pretty smart if you think about it,” Johnson said. “My academy instructor told us—”
Trooper Teague’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Piehole …”
“Right,” Johnson said. “I’m—”
A sudden thump against the window caused the young deputy to jump in his seat, nearly upending the Dr Pepper.
Cutter held his radio in one hand while he beckoned the lawmen outside with the other.
A battered pickup that was more rust than red paint idled in the parking lot alongside him.
The driver leaned out his window and pointed west, waving his arm wildly above his head as if to illustrate a crash or explosion.
Teague fished a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and threw it on the table.
Karlene, who’d just come back with their food, stood and stared out the window. “What’s going on?”
“No idea.” The highway patrolman snugged down his hat and nodded at the window. “But if Wayne Cutter gets excited, it can’t be good.”