“Hand me that bag of chips,” Danny said.
Arn passed Danny the Fritos. He laid a handkerchief over his lap to protect his holey sweatpants and began crunching on the chips.
“Chew any louder and everyone will hear us.” Arn picked up his binoculars and looked at Ana Maria’s VW Bug parked in the dark lot behind the television station. He checked his watch: the evening broadcast with Johnny would be wrapping up any minute, and Ana Maria would soon leave to meet her caller. Providing he’d phoned again tonight.
“You got another Orange Crush?”
Arn half-turned in his seat. “I got half a notion to let you off here. Whatever possessed me to bring you along?”
“Something about not leaving me at the house where I could freeze? If you haven’t noticed, it’s colder than a well digger’s butt out here.”
“Well, as soon as we’re done, we’re going to AutoZone and grab some new points and plugs for the generator.”
Danny grabbed the bottle opener from the dash and popped the cap on his soda. “That’s all I wanted. A warm place to sit until we could get to the parts store. Not my fault you have something else going on.”
“Shush.”
Arn scooted down in the seat, and Danny took his lead. “That her?”
“It is.” Arn handed Danny the binos. “Looks like she’s backing out.”
Arn waited until Ana Maria had left the station lot and turned west on Lincolnway before falling in several blocks behind her.
“You’d have thought she’d want you to come along.” Danny closed the chip bag and set it on the floorboard. “After all, she’s not big enough to take care of herself.”
“She’s big enough to take care of herself, all right. Trust me. But I’m afraid she might be getting in over her head with this story. Especially if it connects to the Five Point murders.”
“That was something back then.” Danny finished his soda and stuffed the empty bottle in a Walmart bag on the floor. “I drifted into Cheyenne the year before all that. First time I ever felt the need to hang with anyone was when those killings were happening.” He shuddered and drew his collar up. “I fell in with a couple guys from Montana that came here every year during Frontier Days. Best panhandling they ever had, they said, with the rodeo-goers flocking to town. Concerts just begging to have some professional work the crowd. But the two victims were … different, as I recall.”
“Random.”
“Yeah. Random. No one that I hung with felt safe.”
Arn pulled to the curb when Ana Maria caught a red light. “So you and these two guys you just met and split a place?”
“Split a place?” Danny chuckled. “If you call setting up housekeeping in an abandoned home splitting a place.”
“Like you squatted in my house?”
Danny straightened in his seat. “I resent that label.”
The light turned green and Ana Maria turned north toward the Capitol, Arn and Danny hanging back. “As much as I detest the police—no offense—wouldn’t it be smart for her to get them involved?”
“In what, meeting a man who has information he wants to give her? Johnny and Oblanski already made it clear they’ll assign an officer for protection if she demonstrates a need.”
“In other words, if she’s attacked?”
“And only then. Being shorthanded, I’m afraid they’re reactive.”
“I really detest the police.”
Ana Maria drove across 8th and started into Frontier Park. Arn had spent many summers in the park as a kid competing on the high school rodeo team. He’d been a fair saddle bronc competitor, but when the rodeo coach suggested he try bull riding, he started to shine. Until a bull gored him and broke his arm. That sidelined him from the rodeo team and the football team, and in his ambitions to make Georgia the one to break his cherry.
Ana Maria parked across from the entrance to Frontier Park while Arn pulled along 8th and doused his headlights. Danny put the binos to his eyes, straining like he was born to surveillance. “Her dome light just came on for a second.”
Arn grabbed the binoculars. “She’s out of her car. Where the hell’s she going?” Ana Maria had parked in the one spot not illuminated by any street light, her white blouse the only thing bobbing in the darkness. “She’s walking into the park. There.” He pointed and handed Danny the binos.
“But there’s nothing there.”
“Someone’s there,” Arn said, zipping up his coat. “I’m certain.” He handed Danny his cell phone. “Keep watching. If anything happens to me, call 911.”
“Sure,” Danny said. “But how do I use one of these things?”
Arn gave him the quick and dirty class in using the cell to call 911. “Hold your hand over my dome light.”
He opened the door and silently closed it after he slid out. Squatting beside his car, he waited for a pickup to drive by on the street before he cut across the snow-covered grass. He entered the park, using the street for cover, anticipating where Ana Maria was heading.
A half-moon peeked between storm clouds and vaguely illuminated the park. Arn stopped behind a tree and squinted in the darkness. A hundred yards away, something white flickered between trees and bushes: Ana Maria’s white blouse.