Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies

by C. L. Bevill

  “Willodean, darlin’, looking at you is like when I open a toolbox first thing in the morning,” Bubba said and sat up straight. “A feeling of exhilaration just runs right through me when I see your beautiful face.” He fluttered his hand over his chest. He wasn’t lying. He didn’t have to lie.

  Willodean’s glower faded just a teensy bit before she clearly remembered what it was that had brought her here to where she had tracked Bubba down.

  “A toolbox?” Peyton said. “I wouldn’t have thought that line would have worked.”

  Willodean shot Peyton a glance, and he took another bite of his sandwich.

  “Bubba, when I went to pick up Jim Biggerstaff at the five and dime an hour ago, he told me that he couldn’t resist me,” Willodean said.

  “You are a lovely woman,” Bubba said. “No man could resist you. Ain’t that right, Peyton?”

  Peyton nodded, still with a full mouth.

  “Jim didn’t mean it that way,” Willodean said. “Is that okra?”

  Bubba pushed the dish of deep fried-okra toward Willodean. She motioned for him to move over and slid in, adjusting her tool belt as she did so. She removed her police baton and put it in the center of the table.

  “You want some sweet tea, Willodean?” Bubba asked and slid the baton away from him.

  Willodean stuffed three pieces of okra in her mouth and nodded. When she swallowed thirty seconds later, she said, “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

  “Who’s Jim Biggerstaff?” Peyton asked, taking a break from the Vito Corleone special.

  “He’s a fella that works in Tyler but lives in Pegramville,” Bubba said. “I think he’s a boat mechanic.”

  “He’s delinquent on his child support, is what he is,” Willodean said, reaching for the remainder of Bubba’s chicken. “And I followed him from his house, which is not in Pegramville but in Pegram County, which is why I have the papers for him. When he stopped to go in the five and dime, he told me he could not…my gosh, that chicken almost melts in your mouth. Don’t tell Miz Adelia that this recipe is almost as good as hers.”

  The two men waited while Willodean chewed. Bubba motioned at Mamie, who appeared afraid to come much closer than five feet away. “Sweet tea, and mebe a combo plate for the lady,” he ordered. “We’ll talk dessert later.”

  “Some mood stabilizer, mebe?” Mamie asked.

  Willodean showed her teeth to the waitress. Mamie retreated for the kitchen. “It’s not like I pulled out my service revolver,” Willodean said nastily. “My fingers didn’t even get close to the mace.”

  “God forbid,” Peyton said.

  “How do you get those wings above your eyes?” Willodean asked. “I would have thought you’d poke your eyes out with the wand.”

  Peyton smiled. “You wouldn’t believe the bridezillas I have dealt with. They make you look like a cranky little five-year-old princess singing a song from Frozen. Something about making a snowman, perhaps.”

  Bubba pushed his plate at Willodean before she developed a notion to pull out her leather sap and use it on the wedding planner. “Here. Go ahead while we’re waiting on yours.”

  “I’m going to get fat,” Willodean complained.

  “Never. You haven’t gained a pound. It’s all going to the baby. You’re like a svelte goddess with a gorgeous teensie-weensie baby bump.”

  Willodean’s hand briefly wavered over a piece of sausage before plucking it up. “This won’t work, you know.”

  “Of course not,” Bubba said. “I could never fool you.”

  “That’s right,” she said, waving the sausage at him. “Jim Biggerstaff said that he wasn’t allowed to resist me. In an official capacity.”

  “Wasn’t allowed?” Peyton asked. “Whatever do you mean?”

  The sausage came around to point at Peyton. “That’s right. I asked him the very same thing, and Jim clamped his mouth shut tight.” The sausage came around like a gun turret and settled its business end on Bubba. “Like he’d been warned not to try anything around me. Do they have the corn casserole today?”

  “No, but they have a broccoli one,” Bubba said. One hand waved at the owner of The Hogfather’s. “Add a broccoli casserole on to that order, Jethro!”

  “Sure, Bubba,” Jethro called back. “Got some cornbread muffins on the way out, too.”

  “Cornbread muffins,” Willodean sighed. “I don’t know where it all goes.” She patted her stomach. She was about three months along, and nothing but the slightest curve was showing. However, she could eat and eat and eat. She probably wasn’t gaining weight because she could also puke and puke and puke. Bubba would have been concerned, but the obstetrician said she was doing fine except for that little bit of blood pressure that was completely being controlled by medication.

  Peyton steepled his fingers together in a thoughtful fashion. “So what you’re saying is that you think that Bubba warned all of the local populace off messing with you while you’re on duty.”

  Willodean mumbled something in agreement.

  Bubba glowered at Peyton. Bubba had a plan. If he could distract Willodean enough, then he wouldn’t have to lie to her about doing that very thing that she wasn’t exactly accusing him of. The truth was that Willodean’s boss, Sheriff John Headrick, otherwise known as Sheriff John, was doing something similar. Sheriff John thought of Willodean as the daughter he didn’t have, and to Southern males, there was something profoundly uncomfortable about Willodean doing her patrols while she was pregnant.

  Bubba knew that Willodean could take care of herself in 99% of the cases, but there was always that pesky 1% that haunted him.

  “Eat some more, baby,” Bubba urged.

  Peyton slammed down a book of fabric swatches. “Then we can choose some fabric, right?”

  “Bubba, where was he hiding the book?” Willodean asked with her hand full of a cornbread muffin.

  “I don’t want to know.”

  Chapter 4

  Bubba and the Helpless Urge

  to Be a Stand-Up Joe

  Saturday, April 6th

  It was proved true for a second, or perhaps a third time, that Willodean was easily distracted once she was served her food. Peyton the wedding planner became dreadfully insistent on interjecting his needs into the communication arena. Five kinds of flowers were discussed along with twenty-three swatches of fabric, fifteen potential appetizers, and several types of almonds. Thoughts about whether Bubba would have gone behind Willodean’s back in order to keep her safe went bye-bye for the moment.

  Bubba focused on what Peyton was discussing, or rather was broadcasting. Types of almonds. “Blanched, nonblanched, nonpareil, Mission, California, and Carmel. Carmels are good because they can be both blanched and roasted.”

  “What if someone has a nut allergy?” Bubba asked. He hadn’t known there were so many different types of almonds. (He could think of only two. There were the kind that you ate out of a bag and the kind that went into a candy bar.) “Ain’t there some kind of allergy whereby a fella just touches the dust made from nuts and swells up into a watermelon? Hate like hell to have to call an ambulance to the reception. But maybe we should just have one on call. Then again, mebe we should just invite them, too. Ifin there’s going to be liquor and spirits on hand, it would be the safest call.”

  Willodean snickered.

  “Then they shall eat cake,” Peyton proclaimed, with the wings above his eyes going as far up as they could. Bubba interpreted that as “How dare some plebian soul have a nut allergy at a wedding reception that I have arranged? The arrogance of those simple-minded heathens.”

  Willodean put a half-eaten cornbread muffin on her plate, clearly having reached her gastrointestinal limit, and sighed. She sat up a little and said, “That feels pretty good. I don’t think I’m going to ralph. These days any time I don’t feel like I’m going to blow chunks is good.”

  Bubba put his hand on her abdomen and smiled at her. “Ain’t nothing like The Hogfather’s to
make it right.”

  Peyton eyed the remnants of his Vito Corleone special. “I’ll have to come back to Texas just for this place. Ginger would just die.”

  “Say, Willodean,” Bubba said, “you know anything about the Dogley place? Anything unusual going on?”

  Willodean adjusted herself. “We’re still inviting the loonies, right?”

  “Loonies?” Peyton repeated.

  “They ain’t that loony,” Jethro said as he picked up an empty plate from the table. “Just folks with some problems.”

  “That gal who does the Shakespearean insults is a loony,” Ruby Mercer said from two tables away. She sat next to her sister, Alice. The Mercer sisters owned a mutt named Bill Clinton who had previously been very friendly with Precious. Too friendly if one asked Bubba, but one hadn’t asked Bubba.

  That train of thought led Bubba to Precious who’d been left at the Snoddy Estate with his mother. Precious didn’t really get along with tailors or new Dodge Chargers that wedding planners insisted on being driven instead of a perfectly good 1954 Chevy truck.

  “That’s her way of communicating,” Alice said. “Ain’t so bad. She bluffs like a…I mean, she helps out with the Pegramville Women’s Club something fierce.”

  Jethro snorted. Everyone knew what Alice meant. One of Miz Demetrice’s hobbies was the Pegramville Women’s Club, which was a euphemism for an illegal gambling ring that she and Miz Adelia ran. It usually went on Thursday nights, but the previous evening Willodean had barfed on one of the round felt tables, and it had been postponed until the smell could be removed or a new table could be obtained or when Willodean agreed not to attend anymore until the pregnancy culminated in a happy event. (Uninviting a pregnant law enforcement officer to an illegal event was precipitous at best. In fact, it might be the beginning of WWIII. It simply wasn’t done.)

  “So do you,” Ruby said. “Four tens. That’s like asking if a frog’s tushy is watertight.”

  One day Bubba would like to go to a place to eat and have a “private” conversation. His mother would probably say then he should eat at home by himself in a dark room with the curtains pulled and the telephone turned off.

  “What are you saying?” Alice demanded. “That I cheat? I spit on you. May the fleas of a thousand camels lay eggs in your armpit.”

  “Cheat,” Ruby repeated. “That’s one way of putting it. And you’ve got to stop reading 1,001 Arabian Nights.”

  “That makes me madder than a legless Ethiopian watchin’ a donut roll down a hill,” Alice declared, obviously leaving 1,001 Arabian Nights behind in favor of a more ethnic insult.

  “Oh, my,” Peyton said, clearly having forgotten about almonds in any form. “Will they fight?”

  “Sheriff John took away their grandpa’s shotgun last week,” Willodean said. “They’ll just say nasty things until they start to cry.”

  On cue Ruby began to cry. “My only sister,” she sobbed. “She hates me because I don’t know a full house from a straight flush.” She ran for the door, and Alice rolled her eyes before following.

  “So Dogley,” Bubba said to Willodean.

  Willodean patted Bubba’s hand. “Not much going on there. They’ve got a few famous people going through thirty-day programs. One suicide last week. Then there was a lady who had a heart attack the week before. There’s always been a higher incidence of deaths when it comes to that population.”

  Bubba didn’t really like the way Willodean sounded when she said it like that. He knew she didn’t really mean it. Police officers tended to be jaded. Willodean had a touch of it herself.

  “A suicide and a heart attack,” Bubba repeated. He thought of David Beathard. The phrase wandered through his mind, “It’s murder, Watson. Dastardly, despicable murder.” It made for a bad taste in Bubba’s mouth. In fact, his stomach did a little rebellious roll. “Did Doc Goodjoint look at them dead people?”

  Willodean covered her mouth and burped the most delicate burp possible. She slowly cast her lovely green-eyed gaze upon Bubba, then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

  “David Beathard came to the lake this morning,” Bubba said. “So did my mother, your mother, and Peyton.”

  “Also that guy who was trimming the yard,” Peyton added helpfully. “I don’t think he’ll really get married, do you?”

  “Ifin he does, he probably won’t use fifty dollars of your services,” Bubba said. “That’s Jasper Dukeminer,” he added, “which means I have to strike Jasper off the list.”

  “What list?” Willodean asked. “You know he got caught adding an X to the men’s room sign in the BuyMeQuik. Then he added a little Wolverine head to the man figure and drew on claws with a silver Sharpie.”

  “The name list,” Bubba answered, ignoring the part about Jasper and his penchant for creating sign vandalism.

  “You’re thinking of baby names,” she breathed, as if she was completely bemused by the fact.

  See. Easily distracted.

  “I’m in the J’s now,” Bubba said. “Judd, Julian, Julius. I don’t reckon naming a child after an orange juice place or a Roman leader would be a good thing. Of course, it could be a Julia, Justine, or Junella, too. I’ve eliminated Jasper on account that Jasper Dukeminer ratted me out to Peyton this morning.”

  Willodean sighed. “No, Doc Goodjoint didn’t look at them, you goober. The doctor at the hospital did. Doc Goodjoint looked over the medical reports and said it was pretty open and shut. Steve Simms looked over the suicide, and it was a done deal.”

  Steve Simms was another sheriff’s deputy. He wasn’t Bubba’s favorite because he liked to target tourists for speeding tickets. It gave Pegram County a bad name. However, Steve wasn’t all bad, if one disregarded the corn cob that was placed in a strategic part of his anatomy. He had taken to dating Penny Sillen after her common-law husband had been murdered, and by all accounts even her kids liked him. Also he was sporting a basketball-sized gut thanks to Penny’s cooking.

  Bubba shook his head. “He’s got a new him now.”

  “Who? Doc Goodjoint?”

  “No, David Beathard,” Bubba said. “Now he’s Sherlock Holmes.”

  Willodean blinked at Bubba. “No shizz, Sherlock.” She laughed at her own joke. “Wait. Does that make you Dr. Watson?” She giggled and then snorted. Then she laughed when she snorted.

  Bubba glowered but only momentarily because Willodean was so danged cute when she snorted.

  “It does make you Dr. Watson,” Willodean said. “Ma always wanted me to marry a doctor. Now I can finally retire and be a lady of leisure. Bring on the bon bons.”

  “It’s temporary.”

  “So you’re suggesting that these people were murdered and that David is onto it before anyone else,” Willodean concluded.

  “He said it was murder,” Bubba said quietly. “Dint say who, what, when, or why.”

  “Oh, my God,” Peyton said, “I didn’t connect it before. This is that place! That place! There were the murders by the people looking for Civil War gold. Then the Christmas Killer business. The missing sheriff’s deputy.” Willodean cast Peyton a pained glance. “The murder mystery festival with the real murders. Then the zombie movie thing. I loved that movie. But hey, the director wasn’t really murdered, was he? That was all here? O.M.F.G. I might tinkle.” His fingers fluttered excitedly in the air.

  Bubba glowered some more.

  “Wait until I tell Ginger,” Peyton said with a little giggle that made Bubba distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m going outside to make a call. Excuse me.”

  Willodean brought her gaze around to rest on Bubba. He almost removed his hand from her belly upon the change in mood. “You’re just asking about the Dogley Institute because of a certain affection for the loonies, right, Bubba?”

  “David looked…scared,” Bubba said. His stomach said some bad words.

  Willodean’s expression changed. “I love you, Bubba. I love you like the earth loves the rain. Nothing will change tha
t. But you know David’s not right in the head.”

  “Lots of folks around here are like that,” Bubba said. “He’s helped me, and he ain’t all bad. In fact, he ain’t bad at all.” His stomach said some more bad words and then twisted abruptly in a way that could never be considered good.

  “I know that,” Willodean said. She lifted her wrist and glanced at her watch. “I’ll ask Doc Goodjoint again, and I’ll make a few calls, okay?”

  Bubba nodded. “That’s just fine.” He liked that. That meant she would stay in the office and not patrol the streets. Sheriff John had mentioned that he was about to restrict her to desk duty anyway, but he told Bubba he wasn’t ready to tell her yet.

  Willodean abruptly swallowed, and her normally creamy flesh started to change into a light green. “You know what, ulp?” She tried to swallow again. Then she looked around frantically. “I— ulp. Ulp. Ulp.”

  Bubba’s eyes went wide. “Bathroom’s back there,” he pointed. Bubba watched as Willodean rushed away. People scrambled to get out of her way. Then his stomach started feeling even more odd. He stood up as it rumbled dangerously and muttered to Jethro, “Be right back,” and rushed to the men’s room himself.

  * * *

  Doc patted Bubba’s head and said, “They call it Couvade Syndrome.” Doc Goodjoint was a tall man of an undeterminable age. He was old. His hair was white, and he had degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. He was a general practitioner in the area and a lifelong family friend of the Snoddy’s. He often dined with Miz Demetrice at the Snoddy Mansion.