Betsy¶
Betsy is the elderly, putt-putting squad car that Roosevelt's police department lends the task force after their rental van is destroyed, and which becomes the team's vehicle for the rest of the Ballard case. (Walkers 04)
| Type | Item (vehicle) |
| Aliases | loaner squad car; the PCs' old car |
| Holder | The task force (on loan from the Roosevelt Police Department) |
| First appearance | Walkers 04 |
Description¶
Betsy is an old, classic-looking car done up as a police car. The officer who brings it says "She's been with the department a long time" and that it does not matter if she gets dirty. It makes cartoon putt-putt noises, seats about five and has a trunk. No make or model is given. (Walkers 04, Walkers 08) In Walkers 08 the table decides that Betsy is an old retired vehicle that the town uses for school plays. (Walkers 08)
The trunk holds musical-theater costumes, which Roosevelt's officers identify as costumes from a school production of Cats, and a pair of stilts. (Walkers 04) The car smells of the costumes and, in Rita's phrase, "reeks of high school sadness." (Walkers 05) In Walkers 08 Zack asks to make it canon that Betsy has a novelty horn. (Walkers 08)
History¶
Loan. After the team's Plymouth Voyager is found crushed on the road, Officer Hernandez of the Roosevelt Police Department accepts Andrew Howard's FBI identification, waives the tickets and offers Betsy ("We can give you Betsy"). After about an hour he delivers it, while five officers strain to lever the wreck off the road. The team drives back to Ballard in Betsy. (Walkers 04)
Stilts. Kurt Larson claims the stilts in the trunk as replacements for his Vietnam-era pair, which were lost with the Voyager. Back at the ranch he uses them to open the door and to pry the goose Nancy off Howard's head. (Walkers 04)
Chained down. In Walkers 05 the party drives Betsy to Roosevelt, where an officer runs up and asks if they are the ones assigned to Betsy. That night Dante's Kurt proposes chaining Betsy to the ground. The team pounds four posts and chains the car to them, which takes a couple of hours in the cold, so that the ranch cameras will have something to record. By morning the house has shifted a few inches and is noticeably warm, but Betsy is fine and not warm, which Kurt reads as meaning it was probably not targeted. (Walkers 05) This is tied to the vanishing car incident.
Cemetery trip. In Walkers 06 the ground-penetrating radar is loaded into Betsy for the trip to the cemetery. Later, when a rattling noise comes from outside, Rita's Andrew worries that someone is stealing Betsy; it is the goose. (Walkers 06)
Gym night. In Walkers 07 Huell drives Andrew to the high school in Betsy, and afterward Huell carries a dead coyote back and puts it in the trunk. (Walkers 07)
Ballard breakout. In Walkers 08, with the rental gone, the team piles into Betsy to find a man whose Suburban lies on its side across the road into Ballard. Because Betsy seats only about five, the team splits between Betsy and a police cruiser when it needs to carry bodies. Rita objects to putting a body in the car: "Betsy's already been embarrassed enough being stuffed full of Cats costumes." Betsy is the vehicle that approaches strangers, so as not to show them the bodies. In the firefight at the ambush, Rita's Andrew rolls a 3, panics and shatters one of Betsy's windows. Kurt then rams two fleeing men from behind with Betsy at about 20 miles an hour, knocking them into a wrought-iron gate. (Walkers 08)
Convoy. In Walkers 09 Betsy is among the vehicles of the National Guard convoy, which includes Humvees, APCs, an armored bulldozer, a police car and "one elderly vehicle, Betsy," that the major takes off-road around the arcing substation. (Walkers 09)
Trivia¶
- In Walkers 07 Zack's Huell, who cannot remember the goose's name, insists on calling her "Betsy," a joke Zack calls "dumb"; the goose is Nancy. (Walkers 07)
- Kurt's submachine gun is also called "Bessie" (Kurt's P90).
- Ezra's Biz remarks in Walkers 04 that every car he has driven in Utah has been turned into a pancake. (Walkers 04)