Bubba heard people moving around outside when McGeorge paused for breath. Phone in hand, he considered his options. Finally, he punched 9-1-1 because there still needed to be a police presence and it was better that he called them.
McGeorge had just paused for the second time when two of the film crew burst in behind her. Precious continued barking as the two men determined that McGeorge wasn’t in need of immediate saving and peered over her shoulders at the corpse.
One patted McGeorge’s shoulder and her scream cut off immediately.
“What the hell happened?” one demanded.
“Shut that dog up!” the other one said.
“Precious!” Bubba snapped. Precious whined then sat beside Bubba.
“HE DID IT!” McGeorge shrieked suddenly, shoving the index finger toward an unsuspecting target. Bubba looked to see where she was pointing. It was in his direction. He looked over his shoulder to see who she was indicating and then abruptly realized it was he that her finger was directed toward. He glanced down at himself. He was wearing the same worn clothing with nary a blood stain or splash to be found. There certainly wasn’t a neon sign blinking “Murderer HERE!” with accompanying arrows.
“9-1-1 operator,” a voice said on the other end of the line, “what’s your emergency?”
Bubba thought it was Arlette Formica speaking. “Arlette, is that you?”
“Bubba,” Arlette said amicably, “how’re you?”
“Will ya’ll send the po-lice over to the house?”
“Your house or the mansion?”
“Mine.”
“Okay. What for?”
“Dead body.”
“What? Again?”
“Again.”
“Hedidit! Hedidit! Hedidit!” McGeorge squealed.
“Shore someone is dead?” Arlette asked. “Sounds pretty perky to me.”
“She’s a little hysterical,” Bubba said, “but she ain’t dead. The other one is dead.”
“Hmm. I reckon you could slap her,” Arlette suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Bubba said and backed into the wall. Hit a woman? Oh, hell no. Besides even at McGeorge’s short stature and diminutive size, she looked as though she could take Bubba.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” one of the crew asked.
“Could be a fake knife,” the other one said. “Kristoph? Pretty funny, dude. Get on up before the real police arrive.”
They all stared at Kristoph’s body for a long moment. He didn’t move. He didn’t giggle. He didn’t breath.
Of course he dint move. He’s dead, Bubba thought. “Better hurry,” he said to Arlette.
“I’ve already dispatched the sheriff,” Arlette said. “So I heard that you and Willodean broke up.”
“I-uh? What?” Bubba said.
“I would have liked to be invited to the wedding,” Arlette said. “Did you hear that Billybob got his bachelor’s degree? Liberal arts. First in the family to do it. I don’t know what he’s goin’ to do with it, but he’s got it.”
“That’s…good,” Bubba said. “I’ll talk to you later, Arlette, okay?”
“Okay,” Arlette said companionably.
“Who told you about Willodean and me?” Bubba couldn’t help but asking.
“Ah-ha,” Arlette said triumphantly. “So it is true!”
“It ain’t true!” Bubba protested. “There’s a dead fella in my living room! That’s the part that’s true!” He hung up before anything else could be said.
Then he carefully went past McGeorge, collecting his RC cola along the way, and trudged around the two film crew members before anything else could be said.
“Where you going?” asked one of the men.
“To sit on my porch,” Bubba said. “Precious,” he added, “come on.”
* * *
The law arrived with a flurry of flashing dome lights and the crunch of tires on gravel. Bubba immediately noticed Sheriff John and Deputy Steve Simms but Willodean was conspicuously absent. His shoulders slumped. That wasn’t a good sign. If a lady knows that her boyfriend is in need, wouldn’t she show up? Yes, unless the lady is ticked off with her boyfriend.
Various film crew gathered outside Bubba’s house and he could hear their mutterings as word got out about Kristoph. Cumbersome whispers spread like wildfire as people asked the inevitable questions that follow such an event. Bubba sat in his chair, on his little porch, and listened to the chatter. It wasn’t so much that most of them were upset that Kristoph had died, but that Kristoph had died. It was a whole job security issue. There were a lot of “What will happen to the film?”s repeated.
McGeorge sat in the front of one of the vans crying her little guts out even while the redhead awkwardly patted her shoulder through the open door. Basically everyone milled. It was the idea that something so dreadful had occurred. He heard the words, “murdered,” “knife,” and “killed.” Several of the gathered crew cast baleful looks upon Bubba as if he had already been tried and found guilty.
It was an unpleasant spot of déjà vu.
Sheriff John climbed out of a Bronco. Simms came out of the passenger side.
“What, again?” Sheriff John asked as the crew parted before him. His unerring gaze settled upon Bubba.
Bubba winced. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Sheriff John stopped and appeared to be pondering the situation. “Have we had a dead guy in Bubba’s house before, Simms?”
“In his house?” Simms repeated. His gut swelled over the Sam Browne belt. He was definitely eating too many donuts lately. Bubba had heard that Simms was seeing Penny Sillen, which said volumes about her taste. However, she was alleged to be a very good cook, as evidenced by Simms’ growing abdomen. “In the yard. Not in the house. At least not before this time.”
Sheriff John and Simms stepped inside to see for themselves. After a few minutes the pair came back outside. Sheriff John studied Bubba thoughtfully and then launched into a series of instructions for Simms. “Cordon off the drive way. Make a list of everyone here. Better grab that camera from the back of the vehicle and start taking pictures of the crowd before someone slips away.”
“All righty, then,” Simms boomed. “No one is leaving!” This had the opposite effect in that several people tried to leave, which had the effect of Simms going after them.
Sheriff John turned to Bubba. He then eyed Precious who sat under Bubba’s chair. “Is that your knife in the man’s back, Bubba?”
Bubba thought about the answer. Honesty might not be the best policy, but it was the policy he had always been taught to apply to a given situation. “Yes, it’s my knife,” Bubba said. “Pa brought it back from the war.”
“Bayonet, right?” Sheriff John didn’t wait for an answer. “Prolly for an M-16. What about the necktie?”
“What necktie?”
Sheriff John tilted his head as he regarded Bubba with avid curiosity.
“Hedidit! Hedidit! Hedidit!” McGeorge shrieked from the van. The redhead shushed her.
“I did not,” Bubba said solemnly. “I came in and found him just like that.”
“Fella was a peckerwood,” Sheriff John remarked. “Everyone and their cousin saw what he did to you today.”
“I reckon.”
“BUBBA!” someone else screamed. It was his mother. Miz Demetrice had been alerted to the problem. Bubba sank down in the chair and Precious whined like someone was trying to saw off her tail. “DID HE READ YOU YOUR RIGHTS?”
“Now hold on, Miz Demetrice,” Sheriff John said reasonably. “I’m just gathering facts. Ain’t no reason to get your panties in a twist.”
Bubba’s mother burst out of the crowd and grasped Bubba’s hand across the porch railing. “Don’t say a word, darling! I’ll call Lawyer Petrie! You’re being railroaded! Fight the good fight! Zip it, don’t lip it!” She dug in the deep pocket of her pink flowered dress and produced her cell phone. It was evident that Miz Demetrice thrived on such situations; she was always try
ing to cause trouble in some way.
“Can you tell me what happened before you found the fella, Bubba?” Sheriff John asked politely.
“I got fired,” Bubba said and instantly wished he hadn’t. “Let’s see. Fired, home to watch the Stars play the Blackhawks. Pretty sure a fella lost two front teeth in the third period but it’s a little hard to tell on account of the fact that I got such a small TV. Helped the handyman with the scraping. Got the pool out for the kids.” He pointed at the wading pool. The sun was starting to go down and they could barely see across the yard.
“Hold on, Bubba,” Sheriff John said. “Simms! Let’s get some lights out here!” He turned back to Bubba. “Go ahead.”
“The film crew showed up. A couple of them talked to me about finishing my little bit. Said Kristoph would feel sorry about what he did. I got tired of that malarkey and went inside.” Bubba pointed toward his front door. “There he was. Dead.”
“How’d did you know he was dead?” Sheriff John asked. “Take his pulse? Touch him?”
“He looked dead.” Bubba had seen a few dead people so it was nearly conclusive.
“So did Lloyd Goshorn,” Sheriff John said, referring to a time where Bubba had mistaken Lloyd for a real live, er, dead corpse.
“So did Justin Thyme,” Bubba snapped, referring to another dead body that had vanished and no one had believed that Bubba had actually seen it.
Miz Demetrice finished her call. “Stop talking, Bubba,” she said. “They twist your words.”
“It’s John, Ma,” Bubba said motioning at the sheriff.
“HEDIDIT!” McGeorge shrieked.
“Why does she keep saying that?” Sheriff John asked.
“I was about to call the po-lice when she came in and saw Kristoph all dead-like,” Bubba explained. “It wasn’t like I had my hand on the knife.”
“What knife?” Miz Demetrice asked.
“Pa’s bayonet,” Bubba said.
“Oh, crap,” Miz Demetrice said. “I mean, oh snap, I mean, snort. I mean, not again. Oh I don’t know what I mean.”
Sheriff John heaved a profound sigh. “So that gal who’s screaming, ‘Hedidit!’ thinks you did it?”
“I reckon so,” Bubba said. “But I ain’t got any blood on me. You can turn on the porch light to see.”
Sheriff John took his flashlight out of his belt and clicked it. He slowly examined Bubba’s shirt and then examined his hands. Bubba had a few scratches from scraping the paint and his hands were still dirty, but there wasn’t blood dripping from his fingers. See. Completely innocent.
“Okay,” Sheriff John said. “Let me go talk to that gal. You stay here.”
“You’re not going to handcuff him?” a crew member yelled. “He killed Kristoph! Probably!”
“Oh, calm down,” Sheriff John told the man. “I ain’t got all the facts yet. Bubba ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He approached the van where McGeorge sat and the redhead stood beside.
Bubba was going nowhere. Miz Demetrice anxiously chattered about keeping his mouth shut and paying for a lawyer and possibly escaping to Argentina until Bubba patted her hand.
“We’ll get it all straightened out,” Bubba said to his mother.
After a little while Sheriff John returned, put Bubba into handcuffs, and stuck him in the back of the Bronco.
Of course.
That was when Marquita Thaddeus rushed over and threw herself across the hood of the Bronco while cameras flashed in complete synchronicity. She wailed like a banshee while Bubba wondered who had really murdered her eccentric husband, the film director.
Chapter 9
Bubba and the Jurisprudential Jail
Sunday, March 10th
“Hey, Tee,” Bubba said to the Pegram County Jailor. His name was Tee Gearheart and he was a genial, big fellow with a good reputation. If an individual had to be arrested in Pegram County then Tee’s jail was the one to go to. Furthermore, Tee was so well acquainted with Bubba and Miz Demetrice that Miz Demetrice was one of Tee’s son’s honorary godmothers. (The youngest Gearheart had four because his parents believed in covering their bases.) “How’s Little Tee?” Bubba asked.
Sheriff John held Bubba’s right arm while Tee got the paperwork straightened out. Tee was a big, big, big man weighing in excess of 350 pounds and it took him a little time to get things just the way he wanted them to be. One had to be patient when Tee was doing the work. It was simply going to take him a while to get it settled.
“Hey, Bubba,” Tee said. “Little Tee’s fine. Poppiann’s potty training him now. We put a target on the bottom of the toilet. The little guy hasn’t gotten dead center yet, but he’s working on it.”
“A target in the toilet,” Bubba guffawed.
“Empty your pockets, Bubba,” Tee said, “you know you have to.”
Bubba pulled out a pocketknife, his truck keys, a package of Bubblicious Gum (Strawberry Splash), three lead sinkers, a rusty bolt with an equally rusty nut, and a lotto ticket. He dug a little farther in his left pocket and found a wadded up twenty dollar bill. “Hey, I was looking for that,” he said mildly.
He added it to his wallet which had been extracted from the back pocket.
“You wearing boots today, Bubba?” Tee asked.
“My Tony Lama’s,” Bubba answered. “No laces today.”
Tee chuckled. “You could prolly do my job.”
Sheriff John sighed pointedly.
“Okay, okay,” Tee said. He wrote a description of the items and looked over it. “You print him and all, yet?”
“Picture, prints, processed,” Sheriff John said. “I got a crime scene to get back to.”
“That girl dint see me stab that fella,” Bubba declared. “And can you ask Ma to feed Precious?”
“Uh-huh,” Sheriff John said.
“On account that I dint stab Kristoph,” Bubba had to add.
“The movie director got stabbed?” Tee asked. “Well, poop on a stick, Poppiann’s goin’ to be a mite put out. She had her heart set on Little Tee bein’ in the film.” He grinned broadly. “He’s goin’ to be a zombie baby. What’s goin’ to happen to the movie?”
“Don’t know what’s goin’ to happen with the movie,” Sheriff John said. It was evident that he was getting tired of that particular question. In the time that he had brought Bubba to the sheriff’s department and booked him, the sheriff had been asked about the outcome of the movie no less than twelve times. Various town members were concerned about the impact of yet another murder in their town and furthermore, they were concerned about the loss of revenue from the film company, seeing as the film’s director had been the victim.
“Is he dead?” Tee asked, pushing a paper across to Bubba. “Here, sign this, Bubba.”
Bubba signed the form.
“Of course he’s dead,” Sheriff John snapped. “He had a big knife sticking in his heart amongst other things. I kin say it was likely a fatal case of steel poisoning.”
“Your new house?” Tee asked Bubba. “Dang. Guess someone had to die in it first. Hope that fella don’t haunt it.”
“Should have bin of natural causes,” Bubba said aggrievedly.
“Well, his heart did stop beating naturally,” Tee acknowledged. “Ifin you dint kill the fella, Bubba, then who did?”
“I don’t know, but I aim to find out,” Bubba avowed. “Ma said she’d be by to picket the jail later, so you might want to blockade the doors. She was breaking out the signs when we drove out of the estate.”
Tee brightened. “I love talking to Miz Demetrice. You think she’ll bring some of that coffee that Miz Adelia makes specially?”
“Prolly.”
“Bubba,” Sheriff John said. “The judge will be in tomorrow and go over all of this. You know I had to bring you in. It was more for your protection than anything else. A couple of them movie folks looked like they were apt to find the nearest tree from which to string you up.” He absently rubbed at the scars on his throat. Sheriff John had personal ex
perience with being hanged, although it hadn’t been at the hands of an angry mob.
Bubba nodded. “I know. That girl either stabbed Kristoph herself, which she seemed awfully put out so that don’t seem likely, or she was just hysterical from seeing him like that, because she dint see me stab the fella.” Mebe I should have hit her. Naw. A thought occurred to Bubba, “Can I make my phone call now?”
“Why? Your ma already called your lawyer,” Sheriff John said and pursed his lips.
Tee pushed the phone over to Bubba. Bubba picked up the receiver and dialed the number from memory. “Willodean?” he asked when it rolled over to voice mail. “I wanted to tell you that I do want kids. Two would be nice. Three would be good, too. Hell, I’ll take quadruplets. Did I mention I know how to change diapers?”
* * *
Later Tee brought a sandwich to Bubba. “One of them deputies brought it from Subway for you. There’s chips and a brownie, too,” Tee said as he handed the items through the bars. He also passed him a bottle of water.
It turned out Bubba had the whole jail to himself on this particular Sunday evening. So all he could do was stare at a wall, eat his dinner, and think about Kristoph’s murder. Either the screaming McGeorge was trying to frame Bubba and she just didn’t seem like she was consciously planning it, or she was mistaken, as folks could get when something traumatic happened. McGeorge seemed to be wound tighter than an eight day clock.
The film crew had been on the Snoddy Estate for two hours before Bubba had gotten off the ladder for the second time that day. Bubba hadn’t seen Kristoph arrive, but Sheriff John would be on top of that. So while Risley Risto, Schuler, Tandy North, and Marquita Thaddeus came to pester Bubba for what he saw as an inconsequential line in a B-movie, Kristoph had gone to Bubba’s house and gotten himself murdered. (And hadn’t the redhead said something to Bubba, too? Why, yes she had.)
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 9