MaryAnne

A dark blue would have been cool, I think maroon would have looked nice too. =)

MaryAnne watched silently from the table near the juke box. Daney's speech, Brian's declaration... all of it. The deputy said nothing. She simply stood up, picked up her hat and left the Boar's Nest....

MaryAnne walked up to Brian and Chet and stood directly behind them. She put her arms around a shoulder of each man. "Well ain't you two just pair! Lemme buy the next round for ya..." MaryAnne looked over at Daney with a nod, who delivered two beers. "Gentlemen," the deputy said, "I know the two of you have had a rocky past, thus I give you this friendly reminder from the Hazzard County Sheriff's department. Fistfightin' is a misdemeanor....assualt and battery, ain't. There will be no brawlin' while I'm on duty. Unless of course, you'd rather keep me, Rosco, Enos and Cletus all company at the jail house? We certainly have the room...." She slapped them both on the back and smiled. "Enjoy yer beers, boys." MaryAnne stepped back and walked over to the table near the jukebox, taking a seat. She took her hat off and placed it on the table, it clear that she wasn't going to be heading back to town just yet.

Vicki, You take care of yourself and remember that you can always come back to Hazzard, whenever you want. I apologize if you've ever felt "left out" here. MaryAnne

"You'll want to put 'em in the night drop at the bank. I'm heading back to town now, I can take some of it."

Having been effectivly sideswiped by Hilery, MaryAnne smiled and left the Davenports and Chet to themselves. She turned and walked back to the courthouse. ************** (PS...Riddick...neat post. It reminds me of an old Mike and the Mechanics song "Silent Running." The video for that, which probably nobody remembers, has this story line where a father is off somewhere and the way he got there was with this glowing cube up in a spare room of the house. His young son, goes into the room, sees daddy's image in the cube. Daddy says hello, apologizes for leaving and says, "I need your help" and the cube glows brighter, the son disappearing to join his father....) Can ya hear me? Can ya hear me running? Can ya hear me running, can ya hear me callin' you....... Anyway, neat stuff. Tell Diamond D, nice job. =)

Woah...woah, easy there Hilery. For god's sake, all he did was wink. Jeezum crow... *takes Brian by the arm and grabs up the two towels off the bar. Leads him towards the kitchen to help him get the ice cream and junk out of his hair* God forbid he said a friendly hello to her you'da probably shot him! Cool yer jets, girl.

*looks at Brian* "Yeah, he's pretty scary awright..."

"Oh we've been having a typical Hazzard day, kidnappin's, blown up patrol cars, frame ups, bad dreams and too many chili dogs." *raises empty root beer mug to Daney, looking for another round* "It could be suggested that there's some paranoia runnin' rampant 'round here. I'll tell ya, if life were anymore crazier in Hazzard, I'd have to declare myself sane. " *smiles*

With everyone crowded into Rosco's office, Cooter jerked his thumb at the Dukes. "It was actually their idea," he said. "Their idea?!" Brian, MaryAnne, Cully, Mac and Rosco all exclaimed in unison. Luke smirked. "Yeah, Rosco, our idea..." "Yeah, Rosco, our idea..." "Rosco.....Rosco......Rosco...." ....... *** "Rosco?" Cully sighed and finally pushed the sleeping Sheriff enough to nearly knock him out of his chair. "WOOJIT!!" Rosco exclaimed, becoming fully awake and grabbing on to the chair and the desk. He looked up at Cully. "Oh, Cully...it's you. Lord 'o mercy I just had the craziest dream." "That's what you get for eatin' them chilidogs and then fallin' asleep. MaryAnne warned you at lunch." "Yeah, well I think next time I'll listen." He paused. "What are you doing here?" "MaryAnne wanted me to fetch ya. She and Brian are waitin' outside. The lil' tour of Hazzard y'all were gonna give me?" "Oh yeah. You know, you were in my dream. You got yerself one heck of a tour of Hazzard." Cully grinned. "C'mon, Sheriff, you can tell us all about it...." ~The End!~ =)

Although two days had passed since Riddick had left Hazzard, MaryAnne still looked at the note he had left with Hilery. Thankfully, no one had been hurt, and in all honesty MaryAnne figured Riddick wouldn't have hurt anyone in Hazzard anyway. By the words of his note, the people of the town had struck a chord of some sort with the mysterious loner and whatever road he was traveling on and what ever destination he was heading to, he had a piece of Hazzard in his heart. Silently, she wished him luck and good fortune. She placed the note back down on the booking desk with the other notes that had been left that night, and she strolled over to the window. Across the street at Cooter's garage she saw the primer grey 1970 Charger. She chuckled to herself. Haven't seen another Charger similar to the Dukes car since.... She saw Cooter come out of the garage with a tall, dark haired young man in black jeans and a grey t-shirt. The mechanic was smiling, talking and had his arm over the young man's shoulders as they walked towards the grey Dodge. The young man popped the hood and they both looked into the engine. "Can't be..." MaryAnne said. "Or can it??" She left the window and walked out of the booking room, leaving the courthouse. She walked across the street, staring at the young man. "Chet?"

Brian looked at Daney, incredulous. "Sweet cheeks?" he said. "Ha!" His dark eyes scanned over at Alex and Gillian. "I'm more apt to wanna play cowboys and outlaws..." He strolled over to the two assassins. "...and swing these two from a rope..." "How many freakin' lives do these people have?" Cully blurted out, staring at the two. "Awright, I'm gonna git to the bottom of this," Rosco said and marched over the two gun mauls. "WHO HIRED YOU?"

MaryAnne nodded. "Hmmm...." "What are you thinkin'?" Rosco asked. "I'm thinkin' that them two knew what they were doin' at every step. Try this on..." She walked up to the booking area and looked at the group that was gathered in the booking room. "Them two get their orders to come to Hazzard, not necessarily hired by Val here." MaryAnne looked at the Game Warden, sitting in the holding cell, looking back at her sadly. "'cause I don't believe that." "But that tape recording...?" Bo said. "Tape recordings can be altered..." MaryAnne looked at Mac, "And somebody could have dressed up to look like Val, to nab you. If your evil twin had the know how to look like you convincingly, his lady partner could've pulled the same trick." MaryAnne paused. "I'm thinkin' these two did their homework before they got here." "But why make it look like Val hired 'em?" Daisy asked. "Well, I said they did their homework, I didn't say they finished it. Their orders were not to kill Brian, but to employ scare tactics. Somebody hired these two and these two not only took that information with them when they jumped off Kissin' Cliff, they left a wild goose chase for us here." "Then they're protectin' their boss," Brian said. "At a very high price." "Extremely high." "So when they saw MacGyver postin' to the board a challenge to Brian, they took the opportunity to make Mac here look like the one after Brian," Luke said. "Thus covering their own tracks. And implicating Val, covered their tracks more if everything were to blow up on 'em, which is did." "Leavin' us with a fine mess," MaryAnne said.

Khee! Thank ya! *Brian picks up root beer mug and takes a sip* Tasty! *looks at Hilery* What ya mean a late Easter present? What were you gonna give me instead? Lilies?

Brian came up beside MaryAnne and looked at the letter and envlope over her shoulder. He refrained from comment for the moment, letting Rosco and MaryAnne handle the questions of the investigation. But he certainly had questions of his own that would be asked in due time. "Hmm..." MaryAnne walked over to the telephone on the desk near Boss's office and made a phone call to her old friend, Min. A few minutes later she hung up the phone. "Awright yer story checks there. Looks like you an' Cully there had bad timin' comin' to Hazzard. This isn't the usual reception we give for visitors...." She walked back to the group gathered in the middle of the booking room. "Lessee....so you came to Hazzard and saw our lil' postin' game on the bulletin board. You joined in. You offered a challenge to Brian and our two gun mauls, allegedly hired by Val, see an opportunity. Val, allegedly, grabs you, one of the two gun mauls assumes yer identity and kidnaps Brian and his partner grabs Daney. We have some Hazzard chasin' and stuff, loose a patrol car off Kissin' Cliff and end up loosin' the two gun mauls off Kissin' Cliff. But they leave a note, implicating Valerie Strate. Incriminating evidence is left in Daney's car, cash and a tape recording of Val, allegedly making a deal with the two gun mauls." MaryAnne paused and sighed. "And I can't make heads or tails of it." Rosco looked at Mac. "Did anybody know you were comin' to Hazzard?" "More to the point," Brian said. "Did them two gun mauls know you were comin' to Hazzard?"

MaryAnne was half contemplating slapping the cuffs on the blonde haired stranger but Bo spoke up. "We did find 'em tied up, MaryAnne. Luke and I, Daisy. Rosco was there too." MaryAnne nodded. "Awright." She looked at Mac. "Just keep yer fingers clean if I decide to print 'em. Now...second question. What are you doing here in Hazzard?"

*Brian looked at the root beer floats that MaryAnne and Daney had. He then looked down at his beer and back at the root beer floats. He put the mug down on the bar top with a thunk* To hell with the beer, I want one of those! *MaryAnne sipped at her root beer* "Mmmm...much better than the peanuts. Khee! Thanks Hilery."

That brunette woman was none other than MaryAnne Coltrane who walked into the booking room with Cully and Brian behind her. She stared at Mac. "I thought he was dead??" "It's a long story, MaryAnne," Rosco said with a sigh. "A very long and complicated story..." "Well ain't nothin' simple in Hazzard anyway," MaryAnne said. "Awright, what do we have here?" Rosco did a quick run through of what they knew, the tape recording and money found in Hunter and finding the real MacGyver tied up in Val's boarding house room. MaryAnne blinked. "This is all a joke right? I mean... Val?! And them two gun mauls threw themselves off a cliff because they didn't want to get jail time for scare tactics?" MaryAnne was thouroughly confused. Something wasn't clicking. The pieces didn't all quite fit. She looked at Mac. "First question. Who ARE you??"

A string walks into a bar and the bartender says "sorry we don't serves strings." So the string goes out side and jumps and rolls around until it's all tied up with itself and goes back inside the bar. The bartender says "hey, ain't you the string that was just in here?" And the string says, "No I'm a frayed knot." *looks at Daney and Brian for reaction and promptly plops two peanuts into her root beer* We oughta git Rosco in here. What'd one casket say to the other? Heh!

Rosco and MaryAnne both heard Daney's call on the radio and MaryAnne tried several times to get the Duke back on the airwaves with no success. "Scout, come back!" she called into the CB mike, but it was no use. Daney wasn't answering. "Dang it," she said, putting the mike down. Rosco came up beside her. "You reckon the note she found looks like this one?" Rosco asked, holding up the note that was now in a plastic bag. MaryAnne sighed. "I'm reckonin'. Whoever nabbed Cooter and Hilery is probably the same that nabbed Enos. And if Daney goes into those woods they're gonna nab her too." "And all of Hazzard County's gonna go 'blip!' and disappear!" "We gotta git to the bottom of this thing, and we're gonna need some help. C'mon..." Rosco grabbed his hat and followed MaryAnne out of the booking room and courthouse.

Really??? Man, I've been tryin' to find a way to do that for awhile now! Just a lil' ol' peanut, I'll be darned. *looks at Brian's beer mug and then at Brian* Who woulda thunk? Khee!

"You think they jumped out?" MaryAnne asked. "They might have. I'll be honest, some of the marks in that dirt look like they coulda jumped out." MaryAnne slowed the Firebird down and pulled over to the side of the road. She turned in her seat to look at her kin. "Maybe we should turn around," Brian said. Rosco agreed. "If they're still back there..." MaryAnne nodded. She was about to turn Maverick around in the road when she saw Cooter's tow truck coming down the road. "Hey, there's Cooter..." she said. "Looks like Hilery's with him."

Around 11:30, MaryAnne returned from patrol and parked her patrol car on the side of the courthouse that faced Cooter's garage. Cooter and Hilery were still working when MaryAnne had left around 9pm and she noticed now the garage was completely black. The outside light that Cooter usually left on near the office door was out too and the garage doors were still open. MaryAnne got out of her patrol car and stood for a moment looking over at the garage. Something was wrong. Cooter always closed the garage doors when he closed up for the day. She walked across the street. "Cooter?" she called, her voice echoing inside the garage bay. "Hilery?" MaryAnne pulled her flashlight off her gunbelt and clicked it on. She found the light switch and flipped it a couple of times but the lights in the garage wouldn't come on. "Weird..." she said softly to herself. "Wonder why the lights ain't workin'..." She flashed the light over Cooter's work bench and saw the blood stained note. "Oh my Lord...."

"HOLY--" MaryAnne brought Maverick to a quick stop and everyone spilled out of the car. The black smoke rose up above the canyon and the three Coltranes, along with Cully looked down to see. Both Cully and Rosco removed their hats. "Good Lord..." Rosco said softly. "They couldn't stop." MaryAnne looked at the smoke and slowly shook her head. "No. I don't think they wanted to stop. They knew exactly where they were driving. "

*looks at peanut floating in glass of root beer* You're right, we have to be read for anything. And yer right about our kinship. *grins* That's how we get away with doin' stuff like this *flicks a peanut into Brian's beer*