2 Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas

by C. L. Bevill

  Finally and most importantly came the part that was really going to chap his gluteus maximus. Bubba Snoddy doesn’t have an alibi for the time that the deceased victim was brutally murdered. Again, Bubba had been sleeping, and deeply thanks to pain medication, in his back bedroom, pretty much ignorant of the outside world. A plane filled with scarlet-tressed strippers could have crashed in the front yard and Bubba wouldn’t have stirred.

  “Bubba,” came a gentle voice.

  Bubba looked at Willodean. Her lovely face stared at him in a concerned fashion. If he hadn’t known better he would have sworn she really was fretful. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Big Joe said loudly from the front door, “That’s my suspect, deputy. I’ll thank you not to interfere.”

  Sheriff John bristled. He wasn’t a man to back down from a confrontation, and he’d heard about what Big Joe had said to one of his deputies the day before. “This is Pegram County, Big Joe. It ain’t Pegramville until you cut across right down there at the crossroads. So I’ll thank you not to interfere with my investigation.”

  “Miz Beatrice is dead inside,” Bubba said solemnly to Willodean. “My mama found her a bit ago and called me down because she was so upset.”

  Willodean glanced at Miz Demetrice. The deputy knew her well because Willodean often played in her illegal gambling ring on Thursday nights. The Pegramville Women’s Club was still alive and kicking like a set of hyperactive chorus girls on a Broadway stage. “Ma’am,” she said to Miz Demetrice. “Are you all right?”

  Miz Demetrice shrugged. “I’ll be all right once Big Joe climbs off my son’s back. The big dumb cracker ought to know that Bubba was completely cleared of his ex-fiancee’s death, as well as Neal Ledbetter’s death. Just because he’s been finding dead bodies doesn’t mean that he’s a murderer.”

  “It does in some cases,” Big Joe snarled. “Murderers often come back and ‘find’ their victims. Statistical records show that in 29% of homicides that…”

  “You can shove your statistics up your lily-livered, rednecked, uptight tuckus,” Miz Demetrice proclaimed deafeningly. “I was here first. The door was open, and Miz Beatrice was dead in her living room. And anyone who’s ever skinned a deer can tell she’s been there for hours.”

  Bubba closed his mouth. Abruptly it was so quiet that one could hear a coon peeing on a piece of cotton. If he had cared to look at Big Joe then, he would have seen the cogs turning behind his eyes. He was taking two plus two and making a case for the grand jury and the city prosecutor’s office.

  “So where were you last night, Bubba Snoddy?” Big Joe asked ominously.

  “Shouldn’t you go see to Miz Beatrice?” Miz Demetrice asked impertinently. “Maybe you should determine what happened to her before you arrest my son for something.” She moved to Bubba’s side and said, “Don’t answer nothing, Bubba. We need to call Lawyer Petrie before something gets twisted up. And no damned lie detector tests this time. And just keep your mouth shut. You talk too much, boy.” She paused to take in a breath. “Don’t you have something to say, boy?”

  Several law enforcement officials stood in relative silence while they all pondered what to do next.

  Sheriff John finally said, “We need to secure the premises. Deputy Gray, get Bubba and Miz Demetrice into the back of two separate patrol cars. Big Joe, can I trust you not to stomp on Bubba’s head again? It don’t take much before it pops when you keep doing that. And oh, Lord, the mess that will make.”

  After that Bubba was placed in the back of a patrol car, sans handcuffs, for which he was grateful. He watched as the officers tromped inside Miz Beatrice’s house. Then he watched as Willodean came back out a few minutes later and barfed into a Texas sage bush at the side of the gable. He frowned because there wasn’t anything he could do about her misery.

  An errant thought occurred to him. Willodean had helped him when he had thrown up after discovering Neal Ledbetter’s decomposing corpse. He wished he could help her. Another thought came to him. Miz Beatrice was active with the Police Officer’s Auxiliary Support Group. It was likely that Willodean knew Miz Beatrice well enough. No wonder the woman was as green as spinach leaves.

  Willodean finally wiped her mouth and looked up to catch Bubba’s sympathetic expression. She didn’t say anything or change her expression, but Bubba grimaced with pity. Then when Officer Haynes came charging out and aimed for the same bush, she stepped aside and keyed her shoulder microphone. She was calling for the coroner and an ambulance.

  Bubba glanced at Miz Demetrice in the back of the other patrol car and found that she was smoking another cigarette. He’d never seen her so disconcerted but then two of her close associates, perhaps not the closest of friends, had just been murdered. And most importantly, his mother knew more than she was letting on. Bubba couldn’t twist her arm about what she knew because only God knew in what context Big Joe and Sheriff John would take whatever information she had.

  It would probably be the worst context possible for Bubba. That was how things were apt to be running of late.

  Sheriff John came back outside and took a deep breath, slowly shaking his head. His face was grim. It was bad enough that Steve Killebrew had been savagely killed the day before and that his body had desecrated the Christmas/Nativity scene. But this was even worse. Bubba understood because it seemed like Miz Beatrice’s death had been purely heavy-handedness. The sheriff went to Miz Demetrice, scowled at the smoke coming out of the back of the patrol car, and spoke to her for a while.

  Bubba knew what they were talking about. Miz Beatrice had called Miz Demetrice the day before and left a message on his mother’s cell phone. Miz Demetrice had returned the call and spoken to her for a little while. Then she had agreed to come over and speak to Miz B. about what was bothering her.

  The words that Sheriff John formed with his mouth were apparent even though Bubba couldn’t hear them. “Why did she want to see you?”

  And there went the little gerbils running around their exercise wheels in Miz Demetrice’s head. Bubba waited for it, and after about ten seconds, out popped the lie. His mother told a lie. A big fat whopper of a lie. He could tell because she was rubbing the side of her nose with one finger. One of her biggest tells and one that she probably had to fight to repress while playing poker. “I don’t know what Miz Beatrice was upset about,” she told Sheriff John. Her eyes jerked down and to the left.

  Even Bubba knew that Sheriff John knew that Miz Demetrice was lying. The only question was why she was lying.

  Everyone knew Miz Demetrice was lying. Even Willodean’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

  And the day pretty much went downhill from there.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Seven - Bubba Finds a Clue and it Don’t Look Good for Miz D.

  On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, nine ladies shrieking bloody murder…

  Monday, December 26th -

  Big Joe wanted to arrest and incarcerate both Bubba Snoddy and Miz Demetrice Snoddy, not necessarily in that order. He also wanted to question them at length, preferably with a rubber hose and bright lights pointed in their faces. Then he wanted to get really serious. He had been known to blast Jim Nabors music in the interrogation room while he waited safely outside. Also he served bad coffee to detainees; typically it was a generic blend that tasted like a cat had peed in it hours before allowing it to burn on an open fire made with dehydrated cow patties. Additionally, he often threatened to bring their mothers in to speak to them. Surprisingly the latter worked in a significant amount of cases.

  Sheriff John wanted to question Miz Demetrice because he knew that she had told a lie. She knew why Miz Beatrice Smothermon had wanted her to come to the house, and she didn’t want to tell Sheriff John, much less Big Joe. Big Joe wasn’t aware of the supposed lie because Sheriff John wasn’t about to share such information.

  Hell and damnation, Miz Demetrice wasn’t inclined to tell her one and only beloved son, Bubba. Bubba glanced pitilessly at his mo
ther, and she swiftly pretended to have a case of the vapors. Southernified moans were emitted from her mouth, and weakly wafting fingers fluttered over her features while she peeped under half-closed eyelids. An ambulance was called, and the paramedics checked her vitals before allowing her to be released on her way as long as she wasn’t driving.

  “No one’s driving anywhere,” Big Joe growled loudly. The unsaid part was, “Not unless it’s in the back of one of my patrol cars, with my handcuffs on them, and going to my jail.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” Sheriff John protested rapidly.

  The various and sundry police officials held a brief powwow and allowed that they didn’t have diddley squat on Bubba or Miz Demetrice. Big Joe growled and grumbled loudly, looking often at Bubba and Miz Demetrice as if the pair were about to abscond to Rio De Janeiro on the nearest Lear jet. Sheriff John waved his hands in a manner that resembled a mime that had just come down with an extreme case of Parkinson’s disease. Willodean periodically looked at Bubba with a carefully neutral expression on her lovely face. But ultimately the decision came down to Pegram County. Sheriff John wanted them in his office the very next day for an official statement. “Nine a.m. or I’m coming out to Snoddy Mansion with pepper gas and belly chains,” he warned them.

  Miz Demetrice muttered under her breath, “Promises. Promises.” Bubba heard it and said, “Christ on a sidecar, Mama, do you have to say things like that?” He then decided that it would be best to withdraw from the scene before Big Joe felt disposed to take matters into his own large hands. So Bubba took his mother home in the Chevy truck once the police cars and Bronco were moved to let them pass. Miz Demetrice had laid her head weakly on the door jamb and pretended to be deathly upset and slightly hysterical. She fanned herself with her clutch purse and mopped her forehead with the back of her hand.

  Bubba didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He kept looking in the sideview mirror to see if any of the police cars were following them. Finally he glanced at his mother and saw that she had given up the act and was disgustedly studying the floor of the truck. “Don’t you ever clean this vehicle?” she demanded hoarsely, staring at the remnants of Tupperware containers and Christmas dinner. “Is that my good Tupperware?”

  “Why did you lie to Sheriff John?” Bubba demanded.

  “Oh, I’m seeing black spots on the sides of my eyes,” Miz Demetrice wailed abruptly. “Even when I murdered your father with a pickaxe I didn’t feel so…woozy.”

  Bubba snorted with disbelief. “Pa died of a heart attack, Ma, and the day you get woozy is the day I’ll put on a pink tutu and dance in Swan Lake.”

  Her fingers fluttered in front of her face for another thirty seconds before they settled in her lap. “You’d look good in pink, Bubba dear.”

  “Are you going to answer my question, Mama?” Bubba persisted.

  Miz Demetrice was quiet so long that Bubba glanced at her again. She was sitting up straight in the seat. Her hands were carefully folded across her lap. Her expression was drawn and set. For such a force of nature, she looked pasty and frail.

  Bubba was so shocked that he nearly slammed on the brakes. Instead he sighed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, isn’t that right?”

  “You’d have to shave your legs, however,” Miz Demetrice added.

  “I have to shave my legs to talk to you?”

  “To dance in Swan Lake, dear,” Miz Demetrice said.

  “Two people that you know and associate with closely have been murdered,” Bubba roared. “I don’t have to tell you that. You saw Miz Beatrice and don’t think I won’t have a nightmare about that as will you. You’ve got a sharp brain, Ma. What did Miz Beatrice get that you also got? What, you don’t think that Sheriff John will find what you’re talking about? He will, ifin it’s in her house. He’s gonna search it from top to bottom and look in each and every nook and cranny to boot. There’s going to be things he’ll know about that house and Miz Beatrice that her proctologist doesn’t know.”

  “Perhaps if you waxed,” Miz Demetrice suggested.

  “God dammit!” Bubba yelled.

  “I know it would hurt dreadfully,” she went on blithely. “That salon I go to does this one thing called a Brazilian wax. This one young lady I know has it done there, and she waddles out the door like someone took a blow torch to her private areas. Screams too. Like someone is pulling out one of her teeth with pliers and no local.” She paused. “Not that you would need that, Bubba, but it certainly is informative. You should have heard Miz Adelia laugh about it when I told her. And there’s another one called a Hollywood wax.” She looked around as if to see if someone was listening. Auspiciously no one else was in the truck. “That one doesn’t leave any hair. Not even a landing strip.”

  Bubba turned into the lane into the Snoddy Estate and tried not to rip the steering wheel off the steering column. Then, as he pulled into position just behind Fudge’s truck, he hesitated. A delinquent thought had occurred to him. “What young lady?”

  Miz Demetrice tittered. “Cain’t tell you that, Bubba dear. That would really be letting the monkey out of the bottle, wouldn’t it?”

  Thoughts of folks being murdered instantly left Bubba’s head. Was Ma inferring that Willodean Gray was the “young lady” in question? Holy carp. He was going to have to stare at the clouds the next time he saw her because if his eyes dropped to below her waist things were going to happen that people were going to notice. As a matter of fact, he was only able to eat chocolate pudding again without having to sit down with a pillow on his lap.

  Fudge and Virtna came out of the mansion as soon as Bubba and Miz Demetrice got out of the truck. Fudge looked a little bleary eyed, and his nose was strangely similar in color to a certain reindeer’s infamous proboscis. Virtna was sharp as a tack, taking in the situation with an adroitness that left Bubba in the dust. He could see the mental calculator in her head swiftly making additions and subtractions while they paused.

  “What the hell happened now?” Fudge demanded.

  “Miz Adelia said some other poor soul was murdered,” Virtna said coolly. “And that the po-lice were pointing a finger at Bubba…again.”

  “I don’t know if I reckon I care to stay in a house with a suspected murderer,” Fudge said slowly. Then Virtna elbowed him with a pointy appendage, and his face became neutral. “Not that Bubba cain’t be trusted, of course. Innocent until proven guilty, I always say.”

  “I found the unfortunate Miz Beatrice Smothermon,” Miz Demetrice announced. “She’s a…she was a friend who often helped with social and political committees. Bubba came after I called him, and I’ll thank you to not spread unseemly rumors and wretched innuendo.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Fudge said solemnly.

  Precious scrambled out of the house, headed for Bubba in a beeline. Brownie followed with an eggbeater held over his head like he was going to strike down his mortal enemy. When he saw the furious look on Bubba’s face, he came to a rapid stop and hid the eggbeater behind his back. Likewise Precious hid behind Bubba’s legs and chuffed softly.

  “Boy, I’m gonna slap you and not tell you why,” Fudge said to Brownie. Then he looked at Bubba and added, “Boy’s more slippery than a parcel of wet snot on a glass doorknob.” Brownie vanished into the interior of the mansion as if he had been jerked inside by invisible wires. “Hi-Ho-Flibbertigibbet!” he bellowed as he roused into full retreat.

  “Another person dead,” Virtna said. She looked around her carefully as if a gang of diseased serial killers were slowly narrowing their circle about them. “Pegramville don’t seem rightly safe to me.” She said to Fudge, “Maybe we best to head back to Monroe, Fudge.”

  Fudge set his broad shoulders. Bubba could tell by the gleam in his eyes that his cousin was determined to milk his aunt for everything he could get. “Perhaps the Snoddy Mansion should be in the hands of a real Snoddy and situations like this ain’t be happening.”

  Bubba didn’t have to look at Miz Demetrice t
o know that a line had just been crossed. She opened her mouth, when Virtna said rapidly, “Of course, you don’t mean that, Fudge.” Her eyes locked on Miz Demetrice. “Of course he doesn’t mean that. It’s just that being here in the family home has stimulated his ancestral juices. This is the Snoddy Estate, after all. Snoddys have lived here for nigh on two hundred years. Why most folks could see how a fella might have a hankering for the familial domicile.”

  “Ma,” Bubba said as he put his hand on his mother’s shoulder, “you should go in and have Miz Adelia get you a cup of that special tea. Do you a right bit of good.”

  It was hard for Miz Demetrice to back down, but she knew when she’d had enough. Finding the ill-fated Miz Beatrice had beaten her down to a worn nubbin. Bubba knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of his mother without whipping her with a wet noodle. He’d make sure she got some rest today one way or another. It was anticlimactic that she went inside the mansion without saying a word. As a matter of fact, it was downright worrisome.

  “Snoddys still live in this mansion, Virtna,” Bubba said emotionlessly after his mother had gone inside. His voice was the epitome of cold; it was as cold as a well digger’s tushy in January in Minnesota. Bubba was anxious to get on and do things other than talk to his greedy and capricious cousin and his scheming and computing spouse. “Pa left it to my mother just as he intended to do. Pa was the oldest child of Lionel Snoddy, as you damned well know. The house was about to fall into the ground when Pa died. If it’s standing, then you should get on your knees and thank Ma, because she’s the one who kept it from being a hole in the ground.” He took a breath and looked Fudge squarely in the eye. Then when he was done with Fudge he looked Virtna in the face. Both wisely dropped their gazes before Bubba was finished. “You don’t like those facts, then find a lawyer who will sue the estate. But you might be reminded that the two witnesses to Elgin Snoddy’s will were a state senator and a federal judge. Furthermore, it’s been a mess of years since the will was settled officially, and there’s a statute of limitations in the state of Texas about such things. So what you’re apt to do is waste a whole mess of your time and a lot more of your money.”