Follow That Car: Deputies Hail Cab to Trail Suspects : Crime: After mother and son drug suspects take off in their unmarked police car, officers give chase via taxi.

Who says a taxi never happens by when you most need one?

Just ask the two deputy sheriffs in Palmdale whose car was stolen Sunday night at the corner of Avenue Q-12 and 5th Street East by a woman they were questioning as part of a drug investigation.

According to the police report, the undercover deputies spotted the woman and her 12-year-old son at about 11:30 p.m. The boy threw away a bandanna as the deputies approached, said Lt. Terry Lewis of the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station. That bandanna, Lewis said, contained small pieces of rock cocaine.

“The juvenile was handcuffed and put in the back of the car,” Lewis said.

The deputies turned their attention to the woman, but got distracted.

“While they are talking to the woman to see what her involvement was, [a man] came out puffing on a marijuana cigarette,” Lewis said. “While they were talking to him, the mother jumped in the car.”

Once inside, Shaughna McGlockman, 30, found the keys to the unmarked car on top of an equipment bag, Lewis said. She started the car and drove northbound on 5th Street East with her son in the back seat, he said.

The deputies, suddenly seeming more like Laurel and Hardy than Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, could only watch the lights of their unmarked car move off into the distance.

About two minutes later, they spotted a taxicab traveling toward the intersection. One deputy flagged it down and they hopped in, directing the driver to head up 5th Street East.

About a mile up the street, the car was found abandoned. More deputies were summoned to the scene to help in a search. McGlockman and son were eventually found hiding under a boat in a back yard, Lewis said.

The woman was booked at the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station on suspicion of grand theft auto and possession of narcotics for sale, according to station officials. Her son was released to the custody of the county Department of Children’s Services.

No word on whether anyone paid the cab fare.