by C. L. Bevill
“Hmm,” Mia said. “Morgan’s there, right?”
“I-uh-um,” Bubba said.
“That’s a yes,” Mia said heavily. “Just as well that we couldn’t come to your wedding, right?”
“Prolly,” Bubba agreed.
“Am I going to get a call later?” Mia asked.
“I reckon so,” Bubba said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Is there anything else, Bubba?”
“No, I’m pert shore I done all I kin do to ruin your day,” Bubba said.
“They made their choices,” Mia said. “No one made them do the things they did. You shouldn’t take responsibility for someone else’s actions.”
“I keep thinking ifin I’d made different choices myself,” Bubba said, “then all this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Maybe, but Nancy and Morgan made up their own minds,” Mia said. “Them. They. He and she. Not you. If you remember that, you’ll sleep at night. Or at least, with a .45 under the pillow, you’ll sleep at night until all the cell doors have slammed shut.”
Bubba didn’t really care for it. Mia wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t going to have a good day either. He apologized again, and they ended the call.
David Beathard reappeared, covered with dirt and oleander leaves. He held the brass doggy goggles in one hand and the dog-sized leather corset in the other. “I don’t know how that animal managed to get that off,” he said with mild awe as he stared at the corset.
Bubba held out Tee’s Samsung. “You should call Mia. She’s not having a good day.”
David frowned. “Did you tell her about the body?”
“No, but she ain’t slow,” Bubba said. “Have you seen the FBI agents?”
“They’re in the back parlor playing pool with the DEA and Sheriff John. They found the brandy.” David turned away, presumably to call Mia back.
As Bubba walked away he heard David say, “Hey, darling. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”
Bubba wondered what Mia’s steampunk name was.
A few minutes later, Bubba located all the law enforcement in the house. Celestine Gray was there as was Anora and her husband. Warley Smith was ahead by two games. FBI Agents Billbee, Hornbuckle, and Monday were there, too, rooting for the current champion. Sheriff John was directing who was going to play Smith. “DEA cain’t win,” he said. “They just cain’t. Come on, Celestine. Show ‘em what Texas is made of.”
Sheriff John brightened when he saw Bubba. “Hey, boy,” he said to Bubba, “did you find that body again?”
The remainder of the people in the room cackled with laughter.
Bubba did not have a good feeling about his rate of success. “So, ya’ll here because of that escaped guy?” he asked the room in general.
Hornbuckle looked up from the pool table. Short, blonde, and wearing a black suit appropriate for a funeral, she had a walking cast on one of her legs. Months before, she had broken the limb by falling into one of the many holes around the Snoddy estate that had been dug by treasure hunters and idiots. Much of the reason she had fallen into the hole was because she had caught treasure-hunting fever after reading the People Magazine article about crazy Colonel Snoddy’s claims to have brought Union gold back to the property and burying it. “We can neither confirm nor deny that statement,” she said.
Agents Billbee and Monday laughed.
“Ain’t you bin in that cast a longish time?” Bubba asked pointedly.
“I’ve had three surgeries on it,” Hornbuckle mumbled. Her face turned beet red.
Billbee made a noise. He was the youngest of the agents, and in Bubba’s opinion, the one with the most brains. He smirked at Bubba and gestured at Celestine to hurry up and make her shot.
“Does your mama know you’re playing FBI agent?” Bubba asked him.
Billbee shrugged. Plainly, he’d heard it before.
Monday straightened up. He was a tall man with a trim mustache, and a deathly allergy to poison ivy. The last time Bubba had seen him he was trying to scratch himself in places that Bubba hadn’t known existed. “I thought they were keeping that a secret from you, Bubba,” Monday said.
“Ain’t many secrets around here,” Bubba said. “I ain’t lying about the body.”
“But you don’t know where it is. At least that was what the sheriff told us,” Monday said. He sighed gustily. “They said being situated in the Dallas area would be boring. I never get tired of coming to Pegram County. I even saw that kid who was supposed to have been kidnapped.” He squinted at Bubba’s chest, eying Cookie. “I don’t remember the baby.”
“You remember Brownie’s mother,” Bubba said, “the one who was about seven months pregnant when Brownie was kidnapped.”
“Allegedly kidnapped,” Billbee supplied. “I think Monday had gone to the hospital by then.”
“No, I rode to the hospital with her.” Monday rubbed the back of his right buttock. “The old doctor shot me with something, but I remembered her screaming at the EMTs, even though the rest of it is a blur.” He scratched the side of his face like a dog would go after a flea. “That’s the baby.”
“Cookie,” Bubba said.
Cookie snorted once and woke up. She said, “Boom ba!” and everyone winced.
“I don’t expect I could convince ya’ll that there’s a dead body and a murderer about,” Bubba said.
“I thought you weren’t shore about the murdering part,” Sheriff John said. “Or was that Miz Demetrice who said that? Oh, hell, I need another mimosa. Do you suppose that Miz Adelia made more of those creamy, sausage stuffed mushrooms?”
“People called you about a dead body in my living room,” Bubba said to Sheriff John. “They called it in and it wasn’t me who done the calling. If there ain’t a dead body, who would do that?”
“David Beathard?” Sheriff John suggested.
“He would have screamed it out the door,” Bubba said.
Billbee nodded like he knew what he was talking about.
Celestine made her shot and sank two solids. “Let’s get this straight, Bubba,” she said, and he’d almost forgotten she was there, and worse, who she was. “You found a dead body in your house.”
“Twice,” Sheriff John said. “And he’s got moisture in his crawlspace.”
“Oh, you’ve got to take care of that,” Monday said. “You don’t want mold. Ten millimeter, high density, cross-laminated virgin polyethylene. It doesn’t have all the pinholes and imperfections of six millimeter clear or black plastic. It will also resist the alkaline soil that you get in these parts.”
Sheriff John pointed at Monday. “That’s a fella who knows what he’s talking about.”
“And it vanished, and then it came back, and then it vanished again,” Bubba said, and a multitude of giggles resulted.
“I thought you were joking,” Celestine said to Sheriff John.
“I would never joke about dead bodies.” Then Sheriff John laughed. “How do you get a hundred dead bodies into a Volkswagen Beetle?”
“Is this your way of trying to get out of marrying my daughter?” Celestine asked Bubba. Bubba felt an instant of panic trying to remember if his future mother-in-law carried a service weapon on her at all times. He thought she probably did. He didn’t know where it was hidden under her flowered shirt and long blue skirt, but it was probably very handy.
“I’m marrying your daughter come hell or high water,” Bubba said. What he should have said was that he was marrying Willodean come hell or dead bodies, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words because even thinking them sounded like he was challenging fate. ONE dead body. Not bodies. Only one.
“A blender!” Sheriff John said loudly and bleated laughter like a demented sheep. Monday and Billbee bleated laughter, too. Anora and her husband, whose name Bubba could not recollect, stared suspiciously at Bubba. They weren’t bleating at all which did not bode well for him.
“It’s that Newbrough guy,” Bubba said. “I don’t know how he made it here, but he�
��s here somewhere. Dead. He was dressed as a mailman, then he changed to regular clothes to blend in, and I’ve got an unconscious mailman, a real one, to prove it.”
“Why would Newbrough come here?” Celestine asked.
“Revenge, anger, spite, or likely a thousand reasons I cain’t possibly understand,” Bubba said. “But since Nancy is still locked up tight—” he glanced at Monday for verification, and Monday nodded in response— “it’s got to be someone else who did it.”
Hornbuckle cleared her throat. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the gold, does it?”
“Ain’t no gold,” Bubba said slowly. “Never was gold. Never will be gold here. Colonel Nathanial Snoddy was a syphilitic loon who left a wagon full of rusting iron ore. Lord Above, do any of you people ever listen?”
Celestine leaned on the pool cue. Her eyes narrowed at him, and he stifled the urge to tug at his shirt collar. “Did you tell Willodean?”
“I called her a bit ago,” Bubba admitted. “We’re gitting married one way or another, when it’s…safe…for…everyone, and especially her.” He set his broad shoulders into a line and steeled himself for fallout.
Celestine looked like she believed him. Her shoulders relaxed, and she said to Monday, “What do the U.S. Federal Marshals have to say about Newbrough, Monday?”
“Gone to Mexico,” Monday said. “Crossed in New Mexico at a small border town not far from El Paso. No one was looking there. They were thinking Brownsville, Laredo, or McAllen. Prisoners usually go for the closest crossing, if they get there at all. That boy’s got APBs out all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico.” He frowned. “There were a few reports close by in the last few days, but they weren’t certain of the identification.” He made a face and said in a high voice indicating he was mimicking the reports, “‘Looked like that fella who he’ped that there Christmas Killer, bless their little twisted hearts. The one who stuttered, you know? But he dint look like the fella. I thought ya’ll should know, in case something happens at Walmart.’”
Celestine continued to look at Bubba.
“You know most of the call-ins are hooey,” Warley Smith said. “99 out of a 100 are a waste of manpower and resources.”
“And the 100th isn’t,” Anora said. “Bubba, you know you sound like you’ve been drinking, and you’ve got a baby strapped to your chest.”
“I ain’t bin drinking,” Bubba said tiredly, getting sick of people looking at him funny. If he could have pulled the dead body out of his back pocket, he would have done exactly that. He patted Cookie, and she said, “Blah!”
“Let’s say you’re correct,” Celestine said, “and someone is trying to, what, frame you with Morgan’s body in your house. That kind of implies that it would have to be someone who knew the Newbrough guy very well in order to get him here.”
“Like Nancy Musgrave,” Bubba said.
“Who is, as it’s been said, still in jail,” Hornbuckle said.
“I need to know who’s bin visitin’ Morgan and mebe who’s bin visitin’ Nancy, too,” Bubba said.
“They keep a log,” Monday said reasonably. “You have to provide government issued, pictured identification. Also the person has to be on the prisoner’s list.”
“I’m on Nancy’s list,” Bubba said. Seven law enforcement officials’ heads swiveled to look at him with the penetrative examination that only law enforcement officials can give. “She thought that Morgan would kidnap Ma instead of Willodean, so I would come see her. Nancy was surprised that Ma was fine because Nancy dint have access to news. Morgan, for all intents and purposes, couldn’t do anything without Nancy’s guidance.”
“So Nancy is masterminding this whole beefy burrito,” Sheriff John said.
“She isn’t that stupid, is she?” Monday asked. “She has to know people will look into who visited her once her brother escaped. The Marshals would have asked everyone questions.”
“Nancy planned ahead,” Bubba said. “She met the original Robert Daughtry two years before she set everything into motion. That’s not like, ‘Hey, ya’ll, let’s kill some folks and git revenge tomorrow.’”
“And remember where Robert Daughtry worked first,” Sheriff John said. “Ifin he could change the photographs on two drivers licenses so that he was on Morgan Newbrough’s and Morgan was on his, then he could have done someone else’s driver’s license so that they could visit Nancy in prison.”
“That’s assuming that Nancy Musgrave knew in advance that she and Morgan would be caught,” Warley said. “Most criminals don’t assume they’re going to be caught. I don’t think Nancy Musgrave was the kind to assume she was going to be caught.”
“Mebe they were planning for their escape instead of visiting folks in prison,” Bubba said. “Weren’t no big secret who was doing the killing when Nancy was planning her gig. She had to know they would be found out. She isn’t the kind to finish the deed and then quietly go to jail with a stomach full of satisfying revenge. She would have wanted to get away with it. What do you need to get away?”
“Another ID,” Hornbuckle said. “One for Nancy, one for her brother. Mebe, er, maybe, he was using it in his getaway. It had to be hidden somewhere so they could have access to it.” She brightened suddenly. “Maybe it was buried in one of these holes somewhere. We should start digging them up.”
“No digging,” Bubba said.
“Tupoo,” Cookie said.
“And another ID for someone else who was helping them, too,” Bubba said.
“The ex-wife,” Billbee said. “She doth protest too much.”
“I don’t think Mia Newbrough had nothing to do with it,” Bubba said.
Celestine considered the pool table and then Bubba. “Do you have the worst luck imaginable, Bubba, or is it just that this has been a set of circumstances that has happened?”
“First it was greed,” Bubba said. “Then it was revenge. Revenge again. Then it was greed again. Then mistaken cause of death. Then revenge again. And I reckon it’s revenge this time. There’s a lot of revenge goin’ on.”
“I’m trying to decide if my daughter is completely hosed,” Celestine said.
Anora shrugged. “Wills wanted to move to Bumpkinville.” The statement strongly implied that Willodean deserved whatever she got because she had made that decision.
“Kin one of you law enforcement official types please find out who was in to see Nancy?” Bubba pleaded.
Monday shrugged. “If a fake ID is being used then the name might not mean anything to anyone, least of all you, Bubba.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Bubba all but snarled. He spun on his heel and snapped over his shoulder, “Now I’ve got to change this baby and find her parents before they have a chance to flee to Outer Mongolia.”
Of course, once Bubba had changed the diaper, hunted down Virtna, he handed over the baby. (Cookie complained mightily and Bubba nearly relented. Virtna looked as if she wanted to bolt, as well.) He then went outside to get really serious about throwing people off the property. (At least the ones who were sober who could logically take the ones who weren’t sober with them.)
It was right about then that someone tried to kill Bubba.
Chapter 19
Bubba and the Killer*
*Who was Bound to Show Up
Sometime in This Novel Because
Technically This is a Murder Mystery.
Saturday, April 27th around 12:15 PM
Bubba stepped out of the oversized front doors, and he heard a zinging sound which was immediately followed by the pop of what he thought was a firecracker. He thought, Brownie found them fireworks I was saving. Dang kid. Then his cheek began to sting like a red wasp had gotten him good. Distantly he perceived that people all around him had frozen into place. Doris Cambliss was holding a flute of mimosa and her eyes were very large in her suddenly frightened face. Roy and Maude Chance, the owners and operators of The Pegram Herald, had been chatting with Roscoe Stinedurf, one of the Snoddy’s neighbors,
and a fervent believer in polygamy. The three were now staring at Bubba with abject horror. Leelah Waggonner, an employee at Bufford’s Gas and Grocery, and her husband Mike, had been discussing some topic with Rodney Fosdick, a parole officer, and Stella Lackey, an older local woman with a tendency to lose her dentures at inopportune times. (Was there an opportune time to loose one’s dentures?) The four of them seemed to move their heads in slow motion as they swiveled from the direction of the forest over to Bubba. All four seemed to be staring with mouths open and sure as rain was going to fall in the Amazon rainforest, Stella’s false teeth fell out.
The group who still sat in lawn chairs all craned their necks to see what was happening with the exception of the one man who was still asleep, or were there two people passed out in their seats? Mayor John Leroy Jr. dove into the bed of his truck and threw himself in front of the Kegzilla.
Bubba’s hand touched his cheek, and he pulled it back to see a few drops of blood on his fingers. There were a number of things that Bubba had learned from being in the military. One of them had been how to make a bed so that someone could bounce a quarter on it. (The trick was to get under the bed and pull the sheets from under the springs at the bottom. It was time consuming and one could never actually sleep on the bed again, but it passed muster every time.) Another thing had been to drop when one heard a sound that was very much like a gunshot. Bubba did the only thing that his body was screaming at him to do. He dropped to the floor, cracking his elbow on the door jamb as he did so. Then he scrambled into the doorway as he heard a dozen other people scrabbling to take cover. Their frightened cries began to filter into his beleaguered head.
The dead body scheme wasn’t working, Bubba realized, so he’s upping his game. Another shot hit the door and splinters exploded. Must be getting frantic, and he ain’t a good shot. When had Bubba decided that the murderer was a he? He didn’t know, but it seemed like it was unlikely it would be another she. (Nancy Musgrave and Constance Posey had to be the only female killers in the history of Pegram County. Oh, wait there was Lurlene Grady AKA Donna Hyatt, too, so that was a poor assumption. So he abruptly changed his mind. Could be a he or a she. A fella could change his mind about the ratio of female killers to male killers in the county. It might be something in the water.)