by C. L. Bevill
“Ma showed it to you?”
“Typical breakfast conversation,” David said. “Look, there’s the cellphone tower!”
Bubba pulled to a stop, turned the ignition off, and all of them got out. Precious scampered down the side of the Chevy in a controlled fall as she scrambled for purchase. She wasn’t going to miss anything if she could help it. Food might be involved.
Bubba walked off the road and toward the base of the tower. It had fallen from a high point on the top of the cliffs. He looked at the tangled mess of metal and scorch marks. He almost wished his mother was present. She had an unofficial degree and a very special interest in munitions, and would have much to say on the matter. He glanced up the hill.
It was only a guess that the cellphone tower hadn’t been meant to fall on the road. It could have easily fallen in the other direction. But there was no doubt in Bubba’s mind that it had been meant to be destroyed, or at the very least disabled. Of course, blowing it up would likely do that. Someone had deliberately weakened the supports so that it would tumble in a certain direction when whatever had been done to it had been done.
Bubba clambered his way back to the road, and Peyton had made his way around the downed tower. The wedding planner was extracting a case from the trunk of the rented Charger. “I’ve got to fix this mess,” he said as he propped it on the car and unclipped the fasteners. Inside was a makeup kit with a lighted mirror. Even David was seemingly impressed.
“Can you do disguises?” David asked.
“I can do Tammy Faye Bakker,” Peyton said. “I can do Snooki. Even Lady Gaga isn’t beyond my reach.”
David nodded with apparent admiration.
“Let’s go see what the smoke is from,” Bubba said, working his way across the wreckage. He had a very good idea of what it was, and it made his stomach clench up. On one hand he was glad that he was on this side of the Sturgis River, but on the other hand, if he was correct, then it was going to be a long night. Likely Miz Demetrice and Willodean would be sending in the Army in the morning once they figured out where he was.
Bubba frowned. He hadn’t told anyone, had he? No, on the way out the Snoddy Mansion’s door he had said he was on his way to the insane asylum and to et some pickles. Given the way that he had tossed the statement over his shoulder, it was likely that both Miz Demetrice and Celestine would have thought he was joking.
The biggest problem wasn’t that no one knew where he was at, but that someone had blown up both a cellphone tower, and a…
“The explosion caused an avalanche,” David said from behind him. They stopped in the road as they stared at the narrow bridge and the ravine’s cliffs that had disintegrated into a mass of rocks and debris. It had missed most of the bridge, but it blocked everything else. The roiling heap covered the road and most of the sides of the road. The other side was the Sturgis River, and the river was washing the muck away.
“No one’s driving back that way,” Peyton said. He held his cellphone in his hand. “I don’t have a signal. I suppose it’s because of the tower that I almost ran over. What was this? An earthquake that caused a gas line to explode? That’s the reason I don’t live in California, you know.”
“It wasn’t an earthquake,” Bubba said. Some of the trees on top of the ridge were still smoking. “Ain’t no gas mains come out this way.”
Peyton crossed his arms over his chest. “Well great googly woogly, then what? I cannot imagine what would cause this.”
“I reckon someone doesn’t want anyone to leave,” Bubba said. It was said matter-of-factly as if Bubba was discussing the mild weather they were having. He frowned and thought about something insidious. “Peyton, how did you know where I was?”
“You said you were going to the insane asylum, and that Lloyd Goshorn told me this was the only one about. Then I used my GPS. Voila, I’m here, and here is all atwitter.”
David’s mouth opened and then shut.
“Surely there’s another road,” Peyton said.
“There’s not another road,” Bubba said, “and don’t call me Shirley.” There was one road into the hospital’s property. It was at the top of a mesa, and the only way someone might get back out at that point was a dirt bike and a lot of luck. The river cut off one side. The deep canyon cut off the other side. There were cliffs on the northern side. The southern side had just been taken out. Bubba supposed there were a few trails, but he didn’t feel like looking for them on the verge of the sun going down.
Peyton looked at the great lump of dirt and trees and then glanced back toward where his car was parked. “I just missed being in that,” he said. “And there’s no cell phone coverage or any way out?”
“The hospital’s got landlines,” Bubba said. “But ifin I was someone who went to the trouble of blowing up such, I would have thought of that, too. Bet there’s a big junction box about.” He glanced up at the telephone poles. His eyes followed them as they followed the road, down to the edge of the river and crossed it to one side of the narrow bridge, where they then encountered the same tremendous pile of debris. “I reckon that probably took care of it, too.”
“What about people with 3G or 4G?” David asked.
“They need a cellphone tower,” Peyton answered.
“This explains the searches about explosive devices,” Bubba said. Those were the searches that had really bothered David.
“I daresay it does,” David agreed, but his voice was dull. “Perhaps we should look at my Xoom again and get an idea of what else is planned for this fun-filled weekend.”
“What searches?” Peyton asked.
Bubba sighed and looked at Peyton. “I suspect that some murderous soul is trying to kill folks out here and then blame it on David here. Part of that evidence is a history of searches on his Motorola Xoom. But you done forgot we don’t have the Internet, and I ain’t sure if you can see the history without being able to log on.”
Peyton considered David with careful eyes. “How do you know he didn’t do this?” Peyton clearly meant David.
“I’ve known David for a bit of time, and besides, he was with me during both the blasts.”
“He could have had a…timer or a device in his pocket with a button,” Peyton said. His hands fluttered in the air. “Goodness, we could be in the company of a murderer.”
“Pegram County seems to attract them lately,” Bubba said with no little amount of bitter irony.
Chapter 9
Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies
Plus a Wedding Planner
Saturday, April 6th
There wasn’t much to be done, so Bubba, Peyton, David, and Precious got back in the truck and drove back to the hospital. While he was parking the truck between the same Mercedes and Rabbit, Bubba noticed that the orange Pinto was in residence. Blake had, in fact, stumbled past them.
Great. They had a social worker, too. Bubba would have preferred a law enforcement official with a gun and possibly a shovel, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Who’s in charge now, David?” Bubba asked.
“Dr. Adair,” David said. “He’s the head psychiatrist. I would have said the hospital administrator, but he’s in South Padre right now sitting on a beach drinking a tequila sunrise.”
“I wish I was in South Padre,” Peyton said. “I could use a tan. You don’t have a tanning bed around, do you? I would think psychiatric patients would benefit from a good tanning bed, even if they get skin cancer later on.”
“It’s called the sun,” Bubba said. “It’ll be out tomorrow.” He turned off the engine, and everyone climbed out. Oddly all the lights in the hospital were still on. “There’s a generator here,” he said to himself more than anyone else.
“Five,” David said. “This is Texas, Bubba. One never knows when a tornado will strike. Occasionally a hurricane wanders up this way, or the remnants of one. It is a hospital, after all.”
“All right,” Bubba said in his best authoritative voice. “We need to talk to Dr. A
dair. We need to find out if the phones work. Barring that, we need to find out if anyone is getting a signal by any random act of God.”
“We should probably do a head count,” David said. “Just to ensure who’s about.”
They should probably lock everyone in the dayroom simply because it would be more difficult to do anything to anyone else if they were all together at the same time. But then what would they do if people had to go to the bathroom? What if one person got paired with a killer, and only one person came back? Then they would have to pee in groups of three or more. Just in case.
Bubba grimaced. It was starting to sound like an Agatha Christie screenplay.
“Buuuubba!” someone called, and Bubba turned to see a man in a sheet walking toward them. He was in his early forties and balding. He smiled beatifically at them. “It is gooood that you’re heeeere.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bubba said.
“There’s no need to swear at the man,” Peyton said. “This is a place with people with mental problems, you know.”
“No, this is Jesus,” Bubba said to Peyton. David and Jesus bumped fists, tapped the top with one, repeated with the other, and did a finger wiggle as the hands flew away. There was an apparently secret, mentally ill handshake. Bubba wasn’t sure if he should be glad or jealous he didn’t know it.
“Jesus, this is Peyton. He plans weddings. He’s planning our wedding. I mean, mine and Willodean’s wedding. You do know, you and I aren’t getting married, Jesus, don’t you?” Bubba glanced around. They went in the side door as the patients obviously knew that they could bypass Cybil the Chipper when they so desired.
“Praise yoooou,” Jesus said to Peyton. “Weeee encourage all on our Eeeearthly plane.” He smiled again. “Nice eyeliner.”
“Jesus Christ,” Peyton said with a perfectly straight face, or as straight as he could manage to get it. “Sherlock Holmes. Nikola Tesla. Is anyone else famous here?”
“There’s a movie star here,” David said. “I think she’s in her room right now. She likes to eat food that’s shipped in. Lots of beta-carotene and protein stuff.” He looked over his shoulder, evidently to ensure no one was listening. “She’s got a little weed problem.”
“So whaaaat was the smooooke from?” Jesus asked. “The movie staaaar was iiiin her roooom so iiiit wasn’t heeeer stoking up a doooobie.”
“Since you’re Jesus Christ, shouldn’t you already know?” Peyton asked.
“Suuuurely I knoooow, but do yoooou know?”
“Big boom,” Bubba said because he didn’t want to listen to the meandering direction of the conversation. “How many people are here?”
David thought about it. “There’s Jesus, Thelda, Abel, Dr. Adair, Nurse Rachet-er-I mean, Nurse Ratchley. Let’s see. Cybil’s about. Blake, also. There’s Tandy and Leeza, too.”
“Then there’s you, David.”
“Dooon’t forget Siiiinclair,” Jesus said helpfully.
“No, Sinclair left to spend the weekend with his kids,” David corrected. “That’s ten, plus Bubba and Peyton.”
Bubba blinked. Ten. Then he added himself and Peyton, who weren’t supposed to be there. Then he took them away. Ten. That couldn’t be correct. He’d wandered in and Peyton had followed him, presumably to ask about some wedding detail but more likely to get away from Miz Demetrice who had both a gun and alcohol. Who knew what Celestine had? A bazooka sprang to mind except he didn’t know where his future mother-in-law might be hiding a weapon of that caliber.
He shook his head.
They ended up in the dayroom, and Bubba was surprised to see how empty it was. People had drifted away while he was busy thinking about other things. They must have gotten out before the cellphone tower had come down. There had been an earlier mad rush (no pun intended) that Bubba had noticed peripherally.
Mebe.
Bubba scanned the room. There was Jesus Christ who stopped to chat with Thelda, who had added a fifth sweater. David hovered in the background studying everything diligently. Cybil was helping the lady in the silk robe with a crossword puzzle. The lady in the robe was probably Leeza or Tandy. Blake Landry the social worker was sitting with the man in the t-shirt and jeans. That was probably Abel. A man in a long white jacket wandered in and looked at everyone. The nurse Bubba had seen earlier was at his side. Those were probably Dr. Adair and Nurse Ratchley. Finally in walked a woman in jeans and a t-shirt that said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Below that in smaller letters was “And spiders, giant, radioactive, alien spiders.”
Bubba looked closely at her. He had seen her before and finally it dawned on him that it was Tandy North, the star of The Deadly Dead, a pot-smoking fiend if ever he’d seen one. She nodded at him and lit up a Marlboro, clearly a pot substitute for the moment. So the lady in the robe was Leeza.
Dr. Adair said, “No smoking in here, Ms. North.”
Tandy rolled her eyes and went for the door.
Peyton made a squealing sound. Startled, Bubba looked around. He would have sworn the wedding planner had been poked in the tush with an electrified cattle prod. “That’s Tandy North!” Peyton said in a high singsong voice. “She was in Bubble People. Squee. I might tinkle.”
Tandy glanced back and saw Bubba. “Dude,” she said. Her eyes lowered to Precious. “And dude’s dog.”
“Tandy,” Bubba said, almost expecting her to tell him to mind his mark. “You still got all those cellphones?”
Tandy shrugged. From her front jeans pockets she pulled out a Blackberry, an iPhone, and an Android. Then she dug in a back pocket and found a Samsung Galaxy. She carefully managed them while looking expectantly at Bubba.
“You getting a signal on any of those?”
Tandy puffed while she checked each phone. The cigarette moved expertly to one side of her mouth and she said, “Nope. Nada. Zilcharino.” She replaced all the phones in their proper locations while she smoked.
“What’s all this?” Dr. Adair asked as he walked up. A tall man with gray hair, he was in his sixties and well-preserved with an orangish tan. He eyed Bubba like Bubba was a particularly noxious bug. “You’re not a patient here. You need to leave. Visiting hours are over.”
“He can’t leave,” David said.
“Of course he can leave. He simply goes the same way he came,” Dr. Adair pronounced.
“No, he cannot,” Peyton interjected. “There’s a cellphone tower across the road and also someone blew up the cliff by the bridge.”
“And you’re not a patient either,” Dr. Adair said to Peyton. “Although you probably should be.”
“And what kind of attitude is that from a psychiatrist?” Peyton complained. “I’m metrosexual. Does no one in Texas understand the meaning of that?”
“Do you often enjoy wearing women’s clothing?” Dr. Adair asked meaningfully.
“Sometimes I wear my girlfriend’s thongs,” Peyton said. “She gets them from Victoria’s Secret. It’s fun. It tickles a little. I highly recommend it.”
Dr. Adair winced. Bubba winced after he thought about where the string part of the thong went. Then he wondered if Willodean ever had bought a thong from Victoria’s Secret. Of course, if she did, then…
Bubba shook his head violently. “I suspect someone’s up to no good. Do the phone lines work?”
Nurse Ratchley shook her head. She was in her thirties and had blonde hair with blue eyes. “When we saw the smoke, I tried to call,” she said. “There was just dead air. No buzzing for the line or anything.”
“Have you tried emailing the police?” Tandy asked. “Or maybe the fire department?”
“The Internet is connected to the phone lines here,” Dr. Adair said. A worried expression began to form on his face. “What makes you say someone’s up to something?”
“My name’s Bubba, Bubba Snoddy,” Bubba said.
“Bubba Snoddy,” Dr. Adair repeated. A certain look of understanding came over his face. “Oh. Yes, I’ve heard of you. Maybe we’ll have an in
teresting conversation about that later. Do you often have feelings of persecution?”
“There’s only the one road in to the hospital,” Bubba said. “And it ain’t feelings ifin someone’s actually persecuting you.”
Dr. Adair glanced over his shoulder. “That’s right. We had a problem a few years ago when the Sturgis River went above the flood stage. No one could drive across the bridge, but it subsided within two days, and the engineers checked out the structure of the bridge before we used it again. You say there’s a cellphone tower down?”
“Someone blew it up,” Bubba said. The doctor didn’t look convinced so Bubba added, “Ka-boom.”
“That’s correct, Dr. Watson,” David said. “And based on the smell of explosives in the air, someone also blew up the cliffs beside the road causing a massive rockslide. The road is blocked, and no one will be driving in or out for some time. It’s probable we won’t be missed for a few days.” He waited for a long moment and said, “Dah-dah-daaaah.”
“David?” Jesus said.
David’s shoulders straightened. He yanked the fake scar from his cheek and then removed the fake nose. Bubba winced as some of David’s actual skin went along with it. “I am truly Sherlock Holmes, master investigator. I shall determine the outcome of this mysterious scenario.”
“Note to self,” Dr. Adair said, “check Mr. Beathard’s medications.”
Precious bumped against Bubba’s leg.
Dr. Adair said, “Is that a therapy dog? Because it shouldn’t be in here otherwise.”
“Where do you expect us to go?” Bubba asked. “Ain’t like there’s a hotel next door. Trapped here with some fella or gal who decided to blow stuff up.” He thought about it. “Although that’s something else that happens a lot in Pegram County for some reason.” He sighed. “It dint used to be like this. It was a rightly peaceful county.”
Tandy took the Marlboro out of her mouth and blew a smoke ring. Then she blew a smaller one through the larger one. “Are you saying someone trapped us here on purpose?” she asked with more aplomb than Bubba would have thought a movie star would have at the moment.