2 Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas

by C. L. Bevill

  “And there’s an avid audience at the mansion,” she laughed. “I can see them staring fervently at us the entire time.”

  “Ifin you would like to sit at the big dining room table with…let’s see, my cousin, his wife, their ten-year-old son, Miz Adelia, Aunt Caressa, and oh yes, Precious, all staring at you like you were a fancy kind of bug underneath a microscope, then, well, hell yes.”

  “My place,” Willodean said. “I’ll cook. I’m not bad at cooking. My father taught me how to grill steaks.”

  “I’ll bring the steaks,” Bubba agreed amicably. “I know a good butcher. He’ll hook us up.”

  And that was the end of their conversation. They sat in pleasant silence as Willodean consulted her GPS about Forrest Roquemore’s address. She hadn’t really needed to check it because Nardle was a one-horse hitching-post town. There was a post office and a 7-Eleven store. There was even a hand carved sign that said, “Nardle. Population 67.” But 67 had been crossed out and handpainted underneath was 66.

  Even without the GPS’s mechanized voice Bubba saw the third house on the left had a mailbox with the word, “Roquemore” painted across it. It was a small shotgun house. The front hall ran the entire length of the house right up to the backdoor. It was covered with brown shingles that had a certain newer look to them. Bubba suspected that the shingles had been added since Katrina had exploded through. Definitely the roof was new, too, with asphalt shingles that matched the wooden ones on the sides. The yard was dirt, and the few shrubs that were present were yellowed with winter’s icy touch.

  “Did you call him first?” Bubba asked.

  “Nope,” Willodean said. “Steve Simms said the old man is retired and doesn’t go places much. He likes to spy on his neighbors and call the sheriff’s department on a regular basis about funny goings on over to their homes.”

  As Willodean parked in front of the shotgun house, he looked at the neighbors. One side was a dilapidated ranch house with brick veneer. It had a new roof as well but nothing else. Around the back he could see about five parked vehicles in varying stages of decay. One was a rust-consumed 1964 ? Mustang. Big chunks of the metal had fallen to the ground. On the other side of Forrest Roquemore’s house was another shotgun house, followed by a third one. Some developer had built a little row of shotgun houses and sold them cheaply to folks in the 1920s or thereabouts. Bubba was aware that once Nardle had been a high producer in cotton and that the original residents of these homes had probably been poor sharecroppers.

  “I guess you missed out on those calls,” Bubba stated.

  “Well, we couldn’t ask Steve Simms to come out,” Willodean said. “Forrest Roquemore tried to shoot him with a non-operational shotgun the last time he was out here and said he would string Steve’s tallywag up with dental floss if he came back. I think the only reason Steve didn’t cart him in was because AARP would have called in the ACLU and protested on his behalf. He’s ninety years old.”

  Bubba sighed. “I hope he’s got all his faculties.” He was thinking of Lou Lou Vandygriff. Her dementia made him feel sad.

  As it turned out, there wasn’t anything wrong with Forrest Roquemore’s mental faculties. He was a spry old man who once had been taller but was a little bent with time. His spine curved, but it hadn’t dulled the sparkle of mischief in his eyes. Forrest lit up brightly when he opened his front door after Willodean knocked. He looked her over as she stood there in her tidy uniform, and Bubba bristled when the older man’s eyes lingered inappropriately. “I ain’t seen you before, missy,” he said cheerfully. “Right nice of the po-lice to send over a new gal. Come on in, I got a list of what that fool, Mason Marblestone, has been up to.”

  Forrest finally finished with Willodean and cast his clouded blue eyes upon Bubba. “Boy, you dint miss a meal, did ya? I ain’t seen a fella as big as you since Sheriff John came over a few months ago.”

  He motioned them inside. Bubba looked down the long shotgun hallway. True to the name at the end was the backdoor. Forrest gestured them into the front room which was a microscopic living room. A large-screen television dominated one wall. Placed squarely in front of it was an old and well-rooted La-Z-Boy. A small couch was crammed to one side.

  The elderly man got them settled on the couch and then broke out a notepad from the pocket of his button-down shirt. He reached for the pair of glasses that was sitting on the coffee table and perched them on his nose as he flipped through pages. “Here we go. Mason went out three nights ago…at midnight. That was the night that one of my hydrangeas went missing.”

  “I didn’t see any plants,” Bubba said.

  “I said they’re missing,” Forrest said sarcastically. “Because Mason done took them. Then he planted them in his backyard. See if I ain’t right come springtime and he’s got flowers blooming in the backyard.”

  Bubba revised his opinion of Forrest Roquemore’s mental faculties as he went down his list. The neighbors were stealing from Forrest. Or they were spitting on his lawn, which Bubba thought was actually dirt. Or they had kicked his fence so that it was listing to one side. The neighbor across the road had cats that he had trained to defecate in Forrest’s yard.

  Bubba was impressed by Willodean’s eternal patience. She listened. She took a few notes on the pad she’d pulled out from one of her pockets. When Forrest had finally wound down, she said, “I’ll talk to the neighbors.”

  “Good,” Forrest said, happy that he’d made his mark upon the world at ninety years old. His faded blue eyes scrutinized Bubba again. “Boy, you look familiar. Have we met?”

  “Maybe you know my daddy,” Bubba said carefully. Forrest was a half tick away from blowing away in a strong breeze. Bubba knew that the older man hadn’t sliced Steve Killebrew’s throat and dragged him across city hall’s lawn to dress him up as Santa Claus. This man also hadn’t gone to Miz Beatrice Smothermon’s house and done her a vicious turn with a knife that had a Santa Claus handle. And finally, he hadn’t hoisted Sheriff John up on a branch and tried to slowly strangle the lawman to death. But Forrest was related to Matthew Roquemore, and Miz Demetrice was the one primarily responsible for getting Matthew thrown into prison.

  “Your daddy?”

  “Elgin Snoddy,” Bubba answered slowly.

  “Elgin,” Forrest repeated. “Well, sweet and sour crap on a popsicle stick. You’re Demetrice Snoddy’s boy.” He digested that information with a sour expression. “Glad I dint offer you all coffee. Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said to Willodean. “But I’d offer you coffee with cream.”

  “Have you heard about the murders in Pegramville, Mr. Roquemore?” Willodean asked politely.

  “Yes, ma’am, I have,” Forrest said and sat heavily in the La-Z-Boy chair. “It’s a sorry affair to be sure, and ifin I could figure out a time line, I might be able to place Mason Marblestone on the scene.”

  “It seems to have something to do with the imprisonment and death of your nephew, Matthew,” Willodean stated firmly.

  “Well, I didn’t really think Mason had it in him to be a killer,” Forrest sighed. “Pity. Like to see his ass rolled on out of here.” Then he squared his curved shoulders. “And how can Matthew have a damn thing to do with their deaths? He’s been dead a dozen years or more.” His expressive face examined both of theirs. “I thought you was smarter than the other deputies.”

  “Do you know of anyone who would want to get back at all the folks who put Matthew into prison?” Willodean asked neutrally. Bubba was impressed by her ability to stay focused.

  “Matthew put Matthew into prison,” Forrest said sincerely. “No one made the fool take the money out of the charity’s coffers. Pure D. dumb ass.”

  It sounded genuine. Bubba would have thought that Forrest was completely righteous. It was all right to spy on the neighbor, but it was definitely crossing a line to steal from homeless, penniless orphans. But then as Forrest repeated, “Pure D. dumb ass,” Bubba saw him glance at the big-screen television. And something crossed his eyes. It w
asn’t hard to identify the something in the older man’s eyes; it was a feeling of distressed worry. It was there for the briefest moment and then vanished.

  Bubba frowned. He glanced at Willodean but couldn’t tell if she had seen it as well.

  “Certainly, Matthew Roquemore was blameworthy,” Willodean said carefully. “But you know as well as I do, that other folks don’t always see it the same way.”

  Forrest carefully crossed his legs. One creaked audibly, and Bubba winced. He realized that the older man was stalling.

  “While Matthew was in Huntsville,” Forrest said slowly, “he told me that Lynnbeth and the kids died in a car wreck. Ain’t nobody left to get angry, I reckon.”

  Willodean was silent for a moment, and Bubba was stuck on the careful manner in which Forrest Roquemore was speaking. Bubba said, “Your brother was Matthew’s father.”

  “Dead of a heart attack,” Forrest replied. “His mother died a few years after that. Lung cancer. They’re buried next to Matthew.”

  Bubba and Willodean had seen their graves. And they couldn’t get blood out of a stone.

  “How about your family?” Bubba went on.

  “Never married, boy.” He smiled slyly. “Was never one for keeping to a single woman.” Then he winked at Willodean. “Got lots of lady friends though. They call that something nowadays. Friends with benefits.” And the older man was making it clear that if Willodean Gray was receptive then she could be one of his “friends with benefits.”

  Is that vomit in my mouth? Bubba asked himself silently.

  Willodean smiled grimly. She’d heard it before and much worse.

  “Are you really going to speak to my neighbors, young lady?” Forrest asked, and Bubba didn’t know how, but he made it seem lecherous while he spoke the words.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Willodean said. “I stand by my words.”

  Forrest nodded and the lasciviousness went right out of him. He looked at the big-screen television again, and his lips flattened into a grim line. That brief expression of troubled worry appeared for an instant again. It was combined with a bit of questioning doubt that made Bubba’s inner detective sit up and bark for attention.

  Bubba looked at the television. It looked new. So did the specialized stand to which it was mounted. The wallpaper on the wall behind the television showed that something else had protected it from the light for many years. The form of something squat and square remained on the wallpaper as a brighter pattern than the sun-faded bits around it.

  How does a man on social security and probably some chintzy pension afford a 45-inch plasma television? Bubba asked himself. On the stand underneath were a DVR and a cable box. All of which appeared as if they didn’t have even a speck of dust on them. “Nice set. Could watch the Cowboys get their hats handed to them on a weekly basis without missing out on a comfy chair.”

  Forrest turned his head to look at Bubba. “Boy, you ain’t a po-liceman. So don’t be thinking you can question me like one. Her,” he gestured at Willodean, “she’s a sheriff’s deputy, and she’s got a loaded gun at her side. You. You’re a giant beer-swilling ridge runner, and a son of the biggest boozehound in Pegram County. Weren’t too many women that your pa didn’t nail, neither.”

  Bubba made a noise and then realized it sounded like he was growling. Well, he was growling. However, it was hard to argue with a man who was as feeble appearing as Forrest Roquemore and who happened to be repeating nothing but the truth.

  Willodean patted his arm, and Bubba stopped making the noise. The noise wasn’t bothering the older man anyway; on the contrary, it was amusing Forrest.

  “Bubba is observing for today,” Willodean said smoothly. “A special contractor for the sheriff’s department.”

  “You need to take a traveling mechanic with you?” Forrest shot smartly back. “Yes, I know about Bubba Snoddy. I done heard about him. Also about that business in Pegramville a few months ago. All that gold and the little lady who was willing to do a dirty business to get it.”

  “You never know when something’s going to break down,” Willodean said just as promptly.

  “Your nephew told you that his ex-wife and kids died in a car wreck,” Bubba said just as a light bulb went off in his head. “Beloved Father” popped into his brain.

  “Yes,” Forrest said warily.

  “You didn’t go to their funerals,” Bubba asked.

  Forrest glanced quickly at Willodean. One of her finely shaped eyebrows arched at him. If he wasn’t going to answer Bubba’s question, then she would ask him the same question.

  “No,” the older man said shortly.

  “Why not?”

  “Wasn’t invited,” Forrest said, clamping his lips shut.

  “Lynnbeth, wasn’t it? That was Matthew’s ex-wife’s name?” Willodean said and didn’t wait for an answer. “Didn’t think much of the Roquemore side of the family.”

  There was only an article in the paper about the remaining Roquemores’ death via car accident. Bubba frowned again. Someone sent Roy and Maude Chance or maybe Ernie Chance a little something about the Roquemores’ deaths. It hadn’t really needed to be verified. It was a small paper. “Lynnbeth didn’t want the notoriety,” Bubba stated.

  “Matthew told me that Lynnbeth got custody after the divorce,” Forrest said, and it was bitter. “She changed their names legally.”

  “To what?”

  “I was never told by Matthew,” Forrest answered cagily, and Bubba grasped that he was deftly avoiding responding to the enquiries.

  But Willodean had to walk a fine line. The older man could kick them out at a moment’s notice. Forrest Roquemore didn’t have to answer any of their queries.

  “Did you leave flowers on your nephew’s grave?” she asked calmly.

  Forrest hesitated. “Ain’t been to Matt’s grave since before Katrina hit. A tree fell on my truck, and well, buying another one has been difficult in my situation.”

  The words fell into the air into an uncomfortable emptiness.

  “Steve Killebrew was the first one murdered,” Bubba said baldly. His tone was matter-of-fact, but he wasn’t enjoying repeating the fact. “Someone sliced his throat open. He left two sons and their families without grandparents. Someone dragged his body over the city hall lawn and put him in a Santa sleigh dressed as the big man himself.”

  Forrest winced.

  “And Sheriff John, you’ve said you’ve met him, was strung up by the neck while he was drugged. He might have died by slow strangulation, but…someone got to him in time.” Bubba stared at the older man with deadly intent. Forrest’s mouth tightened. He hadn’t heard about the sheriff. The news wasn’t widespread yet about what had happened to John Headrick.

  “But the second victim was worse,” Bubba went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “Miz Beatrice Smothermon was just an old lady. Done charitable works all her life. Never asked for anything special.” Bubba lifted his head and caught Forrest’s direct gaze. “She was stabbed a lot of times. Just an old lady who never did anyone wrong. There was so much blood you couldn’t tell what color her dress had been.”

  The older man got pale, and his lips compressed so firmly together that they went pearly white.

  “And I’ve got to go sit at her funeral today,” Bubba said. “And watch her nephews cry because they dearly loved that old woman.”

  “Get out,” Forrest Roquemore whispered. Then he said it louder. “Get out.” Then he yelled it. “GET OUT!”

  So they got out. Willodean and Bubba stood by the county vehicle for a moment. “Remind me not to piss you off, Bubba,” she said.

  “He knows something,” Bubba said.

  “He never said that the kids and the ex-wife were actually dead,” Willodean pondered. “He said Matthew told him. He kept it third person.”

  “Maybe he thinks lying is a sin,” Bubba theorized. “Some people do. But it ain’t a sin ifin he doesn’t actually lie.”

  Willodean sighed. “I’ve got to talk to the n
eighbors.”

  Bubba smiled faintly at her. “Maybe I should just wait in the car. Maybe check on Mr. Roquemore, too. He might go and have a heart attack or something.”

  “Bubba,” she said warningly.

  “And if you ain’t thought of it,” Bubba added, “you might ask the neighbors who’s been hanging out with Forrest Roquemore of late. Maybe who done gave him the big-screen television.”

  Shaking her head, Willodean went first to the decrepit ranch house. The words drifted back to him. “Why in hell did they name you Bubba?”

  Bubba watched Willodean as she stood on the front stoop of the ranch house and spoke to the middle-aged man who lived there. She remained calm, and so did the man who lived there. However, Bubba could tell from his body language that living next to Forrest Roquemore was sorely testing the man’s sense of neighborliness. He was probably counting down the days until the older man met his maker.

  Willodean moved onto the neighbor in the shotgun house on the opposite side and spoke to the woman there for about ten minutes. It was pretty much the same. When she was finished, she turned and took a deep breath that even Bubba could see from where he was sitting.

  The third neighbor wasn’t home. Bubba looked back to see the curtains on Forrest Roquemore’s windows moving. He had been watching Willodean as well. But Bubba saw something else. There was something sitting on the tiny porch in plain view. It hadn’t been there when they had walked up to the house.

  While Bubba had been watching Willodean, Forrest had left something white and fluttering on the porch. A rock had been placed on top of it.

  Bubba shrugged and got out of the vehicle. Willodean walked up to him, and he gestured to the small front porch. He said, “Looks like he wanted you to have something.”

  “Better not be his phone number,” Willodean said as she retrieved the item. She knocked on the door but Forrest wouldn’t open the door and wouldn’t speak to her anymore.

  When she returned to the car she showed it to Bubba. It was an old picture of a family in a Christmas scene. There was a father, a mother, and two children. Bubba had never seen Matthew Roquemore, but he guessed it was him and his family. The children were both platinum blondes. Attached to every unopened present were tiny garlands of fresh Christmas flowers wrapped with shiny green ribbons.