by C. L. Bevill
Bubba saw Thelda surreptitiously tuck a white ribbon attached to a small group of flowers under her corset.
Mayor Leroy began to bawl. He crawled to the keg and draped an arm over the remnants. “I’ll bury you in a good spot,” he lamented. “There’ll be a marker. We’ll never forget you.”
“Oh, my god, you have to give back my camera,” John Johnson wailed as he stared at Mayor Leroy’s obvious newsworthy distress.
Miz Demetrice dialed. She waited a moment before she began to speak. “Yes, it’s me again.” Pause. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s just an awful situation here. You should be glad you had to work today. Ifin you ask me the governor don’t pay you enough.” Pause. “Yes, I know the perks are great, but it’s Saturday. You know we’re grateful and all that.” Pause. “Oh, you heard the call. That was quick. I hope the warden isn’t upset.” Pause. “He would like…what? Well, I suppose a little horse trading could take care of that. There is one other little ol’ thing.” There was a long pause. Then she said, “Yes, yes, I know, this here teeter-totter is getting a mite heavy on your side of the totter. I’m shore we kin make that up in some way.” Pause. “Of course.” Pause. “Yes. I do.” Pause. “I think that kin be done. Here’s Bubba.”
Bubba took the phone from his mother. “Hello,” he said. “I need to know who’s on Nancy Musgrave’s list of approved visitors.”
The woman on the other end said, “One moment.” Bubba heard tapping and a contented chirp noise. “There you go,” she said. “You’re on it, too.”
“There I go?” Bubba asked. “I know I’m on it.”
“It’s all there,” the woman said. “It wasn’t like it’s rocket surgery.”
“Okay, but I’m plumb confused.”
“Wait until you say I do later today, if this gets cleared up that is,” the woman said. “I’m Suzanna Wambles, by the way. I’m the governor’s head personal assistant. I’ve known your mother for about two decades now. I also know the warden’s personal assistant, and we’re simpatico, so your mother owes me bigtime.”
“I appreciate it,” Bubba said. “This ain’t normal.”
Suzanna laughed. “There’s nothing normal about Pegram County. The governor gets more giggles out of your neck of the woods than anywhere else. As a matter of fact, he asks about it first thing, even before he gets his cappuccino. I think he expects there to be some kind of epic mass destruction event there one day.”
“The list?”
“I emailed it to your mother,” Suzanna explained. “Just pull up her email app on the smartphone and take a looksee.”
“Thank you,” Bubba said and ended the call. He pulled the phone back and it took him a minute to find the email icon on the screen. He tapped it and the app opened. The top message was from SWambles, and he had an idea that it was the correct one. He tapped that and an email opened. The top was marked with “DO NOT SHARE!” and a little skull and crossbones next to it.
Miz Demetrice tugged Bubba around so that she could see what was on the screen. She pointed with a finger. “That one is her lawyer. I know him. He works out of Dallas. He would take her case,” she said, implying that the attorney was more than a little sleazy. “She’s probably promised him a cut of the movie rights.”
“Morgan’s on there,” Bubba said.
“She prolly put him on before he got caught,” Miz Demetrice said. “That would make sense.”
“Who’s that one?”
“That’s her psychiatrist,” his mother said. “He’s arguing that she had an abusive childhood and an abusive marriage, and that she might have bin eating Twinkies at the time of the murders. Don’t you read anything about that case?”
“Did I need to read anything about it?” Bubba asked. “That one is who?”
“Sheriff John,” Miz Demetrice called. “Who’s Bobby-Sue Ray?”
Sheriff John looked away from where he was processing Mark Evans. Mark protested loudly that he’d been in the bathroom and that was all. “Bobby-Sue Ray?” Sheriff John asked with one hand on Mark’s wrist so that he couldn’t slip away.
“She’s on Nancy Musgrave’s list,” Miz Demetrice said.
“Writer,” Sheriff John said. “Specializes in true crime. She tried to interview me, too.”
Bubba used his index finger to move down the email. “That’s a paralegal there,” he muttered. “It says so. As is that one and that one. That lawyer fella has a lot of paralegals.”
“Look,” Miz Demetrice said. “There you are. Bubba Snoddy. She put ‘Family friend’ next to your name. That Nancy, she’s got a great sense of humor for a psychopath.”
“There’s Maude and Roy Chance on there,” Bubba said. “They probably wanted to interview her and she thought she might get good press so as to taint the juror pool in Pegram County.”
The list went on for about twenty names. There were a few relatives who were cousins. There was a friend from the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being. A Methodist preacher and a Catholic Priest were included. Bubba thought Nancy was likely hedging her bets as she was in a position where the death penalty was going to be actively considered. (Putting a man with a slit throat into a Santa Claus outfit into a town display with a sprig of Christmas holly only smacked a little of premeditation. And that was before Nancy started working her way down her list. One might say she checked it twice.) There were three that didn’t have a description following the name but Bubba’s eyes skimmed past the first two to the last name on the list. It was only two words, and two words were more than enough to flame the internal fuel of Bubba’s wrath.
Lloyd Goshorn.
Lloyd was a general handyman and man about town. There wasn’t a single reason that Bubba could think of that would justify his name being on that particular list.
Bubba growled, and his mother stepped back from him. A circle of people who ceased to speak began to form around him. Then the size of the circle began to grow outward in direct correlation with the increasingly vicious expression on his face.
The hapless cellphone began to make a crunching noise as Bubba’s hand constricted in place. Pieces of plastic fell away. His mother said, “Epp,” and nothing else. Bubba speedily glanced at her, and she said, “I dint like that one anyway,” just as quickly.
Bubba’s head swiveled around, actively seeking the target of his fury. He scanned the police officers, state police, and various wedding guests in short order. At last, he found the tall, gangly man at the edge of the woods smoking a Marlboro cigarette while speaking quietly to Daniel Gollihugh.
Dropping what was left of the phone, Bubba took a step in their direction, and then another. Lloyd glanced at Bubba, looked at Dan, and then glanced back at Bubba. Bubba took another step, telling himself to get a grip on his temper. There was no need for murder on the front lawn, but his inner voice announced, “But there are so many holes already dug for the body in the back forty.” Then his other inner voice said, “There are twenty-five po-lice officers in various representations here, so this may not be the right time.” His first inner voice suggested, “But it would feel so good to wrap your hands around his skinny throat.” The second inner voice argued, “There are people here with cameras, dumbass.” The first inner voice finally capitulated with, “Well, just crap. I mean, carp.”
Bubba decided that while he could not throttle Lloyd to death on the spot, he could pick him up and shake him violently until he blabbed what his involvement was in the whole affair. Furthermore, he could tell the police where the dead body was presently located. Lloyd could be dis-invited to the wedding, but not before he cleared everything up, and the wedding could proceed. It might not be the most normal of weddings, but it would take place and everyone would be happy, except possibly Lloyd and Nancy Musgrave.
The crowd parted before him not unlike the fish in a school before a great predator surging toward them.
Sheriff John yelled, “Bubba!”
“LLOYD!” Bubba bellowed. “WHAT HAVE YOU BIN DOIN’?”
Lloyd pointed toward himself in a who-me? gesture. “I ain’t done nothing!”
Bubba continued his charge, speeding up as he went along.
“OH LORDY!” Lloyd wailed, frantically looking left and right. “He’p me! He’s goin’ to run me down like when he almost did in Stinedurf’s car! Exceptin’ he ain’t got a car and I think he’s goin’ to hurt me bad!”
Bubba had almost reached Lloyd when Dan Gollihugh stepped in front of the handyman. One of Dan’s large hands planted itself in the middle of Bubba’s chest and Bubba came to an abrupt stop. Dan only moved marginally in response to the solid hit from the other man. Both of Bubba’s arms came around Dan as Bubba reached for Lloyd despite the obstacle.
“‘When you find peace within yourself,’” Dan quoted prosaically, “‘you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.’”
“That’s not what you said when Trixiebelle had someone else’s name tattooed on her butt,” Bubba snarled. He pushed harder at Dan in order to reach Lloyd.
“I had to work at that,” Dan said. “Folks always got to be working at improving themselves.”
“Po-LICE!” Lloyd yelled. “He’p ME! Bubba’s done gone insane! He’s nuttier than a squirrel’s cheeks in autumn! He’s as crazy as an outhouse rat! He makes as much sense as a screen door in a submarine! HE’P!”
Big Joe appeared on one side of Bubba. The police chief of Pegramville didn’t have any authority on the Snoddy Estate being as it was out of city limits, but that didn’t stop Big Joe from trying to stick his nose into everyone’s business. “Bubba,” Big Joe said, and he was big, too. He was about six foot two inches and packed with two hundred and fifty pounds of donut-fed redneck meat and muscles. He clamped a hand on Bubba’s shoulder while Sheriff John yanked on the other side.
“What did you do with him?” Bubba demanded, pulling on two large men while pushing on a third one in a blind effort to get to the fourth man. Lloyd backed into a tree and was frozen in place as his eyes stared dumbfounded at Bubba. He was a deer caught in the headlights.
“Do with who?” Lloyd asked. He finally dropped the Marlboro cigarette in his hand and nervously stamped it out. “I dint do nothing with no one, no how, no way!”
Bubba said a line of venomous swearwords that he had once learned from a Korean sailor in Seoul. He didn’t know exactly what it meant but involved cursing Lloyd’s general lineage and also any children he might have produced as well as any pets he may now or ever would own.
“What’d he say?” Lloyd asked fearfully.
“He ain’t worth goin’ to jail today,” Sheriff John said in Bubba’s ear.
“I don’t know about that,” Bubba barked.
“Come on, boy,” Big Joe said. “You don’t want to do this. That perty deputy will be upset all to no end. What you want to do is come to town and then hit Lloyd there, so I kin put you in my jail.”
“Shut up, Joe,” Miz Demetrice said. “We all know you don’t mean that.”
“I might,” Big Joe said.
“‘The greatest worth is self-mastery,’” Dan interjected. “Calm yourself, Bubba. Sometimes it’s good to fight. Today not so much.”
Bubba shoved himself once more against Dan and Dan actually moved backward a foot. At the same time, Bubba managed to drag both Sheriff John and Big Joe a whole foot. The very edge of his fingers almost reached Lloyd’s neck. Lloyd tried to become one with the tree.
“What’d Lloyd do?” Sheriff John asked.
“His name is on Nancy’s list,” Bubba snarled.
“Nancy’s visitor list,” Sheriff John said. “Hmm.” He turned his steel eyed gaze to Lloyd Goshorn, who visibly withered under its weight.
“Who’s Nancy?” Lloyd asked tentatively.
“NANCY FRIGGING MUSGRAVE!” Bubba roared. Sheriff John, Big Joe, and Dan all winced in response to the overloud noise.
“The Christmas Killer?” Lloyd asked. “I don’t know her. I know of her. I don’t think I’ve said more than two words to that woman. Good and morning, as I recollect.”
Bubba stared at Lloyd through Dan’s arm and body. “You’re on her visitor’s list,” he snapped. “Your name is on her visitor’s list.”
“I ain’t never visited her, neither,” Lloyd said. “Hell, Bubba, you know I don’t drive.”
All of the anger disengaged from Bubba’s body. He didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to bear witness to Lloyd’s genuine confusion. The handyman didn’t have a clue to what Bubba was talking about. His hands and his head slumped a little.
“The prison has surveillance on all its visitors,” Sheriff John said, and he was saying it to Lloyd Goshorn. “They record it every day.”
Bubba’s head came back up. His eyes locked on Lloyd for a last final shot at it.
Lloyd shrugged. “Git to it. I ain’t never visited her. I ain’t goin’ to be on no tapes neither. Ain’t got nothing to hide.”
Bubba immediately thought about Nancy’s connection to the DMV. She’d had one man switch photos on driver’s licenses. Why not someone else’s? “You got a driver’s license, Lloyd?” he asked.
“I done just said I don’t drive, Bubba,” Lloyd said. His trembling fingers took a pack of Marlboros from a breast pocket. He extracted a single cigarette and put it to his lips. The pack went back into the pocket at the same time he took out a Bic lighter. He lit the cigarette, inhaled with what appeared to be heartfelt relief, and put the lighter back in the pocket with the pack of cigarettes. “I ain’t had a driver’s license since the last century.”
Bubba said a few more words that he’d learned from the Korean sailor.
“In fact, I ain’t bin to the DMV for about two years, not since I lost my identification,” Lloyd said around the end of the cigarette.
Bubba froze again. He kept thinking that Nancy did things on the spur of the moment. If she had Robert Daughtry fix Morgan’s driver’s license at the same time she planned for eventual capture, then she was more than a super evil genius.
“You kin wait in the DMV for hours,” Lloyd complained, “and they don’t want you to smoke none in there. If they call your number and you ain’t there, then you have to get a new number, and there was hell to pay when I went out for a smoke, or mebe it was two smokes. Well, half a pack anyway. I dint need no driver’s license. Just an identification on account that they still card me at the BuyMeQuik for cigs and beer, too. Kin you believe that? They don’t take no birth certificate even though they done seen me on a weekly basis for the last six years. Them gals at Bufford’s Gas and Grocery are just as bad. Something about having to go by what the gov’ment says. I ain’t had dark hair for a decade and more, so everyone knows I’m old enough to buy such things for myself.”
Lloyd’s words faded away as Bubba thought. Nancy was smart. She had backup plans. She had the Morgan/Robert plan. She had the backup where he was supposed to kidnap Miz Demetrice. Morgan wasn’t like his sister. He was not as clever. He had messed up. Nancy had likely orchestrated his escape. She had probably told him how to plead in order to get the transfer. She had wanted him to come to the Snoddy Estate and do something with her other helper. She must have known that someone might look at the visitors she had in prison. After all, once a person went to prison all semblance of falling under constitutional rules went away. There were no rights in prison, like privacy. Only the lawyer/client privilege remained.
Nancy had needed another patsy. So she had found one in the locality and she had milked him. The patsy needed an identity.
“How did you lose your identification?” Bubba asked Lloyd who was still talking about people who waited in the DMV so long they turned into skeletons.
“I, uh, what? I don’t exactly know, now do I?” Lloyd asked petulantly. “You ain’t still mad at me, are you, Bubba?”
“You said you lost it two years ago,” Bubba said.
“Thereabouts,” Lloyd agreed. “Believe it was after you dint kill your ex-fiancée. I ain’t for shore.”
Someone would need an identification that would resemble himself. It had to be a man. It had to be someone in his forties or fifties. It had to be someone who peripherally resembled Lloyd Goshorn, a resemblance that wouldn’t be too different from the original. And there was Lloyd, a man who could be persuaded to have a beer or three, or perhaps do some yard work while he put his coat on the porch next to the lemonade the person brought out.
“What kind of work were you doing then?” Bubba asked. Both Sheriff John and Big Joe’s hands had dropped away. Dan stepped back.
“The same as usual, I reckon,” Lloyd said. “I don’t keep no regular schedules. I do some people’s yards. Do the leaves in the fall. Spring cleanup, too. Some light handyman stuff. I put up three ceiling fans for Mrs. Lackey. Almost stepped on her dentures. That woman drops them just about everywhere.”
“Think,” Bubba said.
Then Willodean Gray arrived on the scene.
Chapter 22
Bubba and the Bride
Saturday, April 27th around 1 PM
Typically when Bubba first saw Willodean on any given day it was as if the universe had been born anew. It never got old. She was the epitome of beauty in his eyes from the deep dark depths of her black hair to her wondrous green eyes down to her slight but curvaceous figure. Her hair was an atrous, melanic nigrine. These were Bubba’s best descriptive and historic words. (In a more attributable manner, the black of her hair was akin to gazing into a pool of oil from the bottommost of an engine; it was a deep pool with electrifying glitters of light reflecting back at him.) Her eyes were chlorochrous, porraceous chips of the most exotic stone in creation. (A green the brilliant electrolyte color of lemon-lime Gatorade as fluorescent lights poured upon it.) Those lovely lips were cardinal bits of cinnabar claret. (That particular hue was like the shining label of a Coca-Cola bottle in the brightest sunlight.) Bubba never forgot to thank God for the creation that was Willodean.