Bubba and the Missing Woman

by Bevill, C. L.

  “Do they know what happened?” Miz Demetrice asked.

  Willodean Gray was an enthusiastic partaker in her weekly poker games. She was a vivacious young woman with bright eyes, and Bubba had been pursuing her with a single-minded slowness that his mother thought might hurt him. The last week had proven that Willodean was more than interested in her only child, but the last week had also been an ordeal.

  Miz Demetrice had been threatened by the Christmas Killer, and Bubba had taken that as a challenge to his manliness. Certainly, he had saved Sheriff John from slowly strangling to death, but he hadn’t saved Steve Killebrew or Beatrice Smothermon. The deaths were the fault of the Christmas Killer and no one else’s, but Bubba had a way of taking on blame.

  And Willodean missing? Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, and all the angels above, Bubba would be tied into a hundred Gordian knots. Bless his heart.

  “There was a car wreck,” Ted said as Miz Demetrice cogitated. “That cute little deputy is missing. Folks seem to think she hit her head and wandered off in a daze.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Willodean,” Miz Demetrice offered. The Willodean Gray I know would have kicked the car’s ass into oblivion. “And was it a one-car accident?”

  “Don’t rightly know,” Ted said. “Sheriff John’s got all kinds of people out there. City po-lice. County po-lice. State po-lice. Might even be Fish and Game folks there, too.” He frowned. “You don’t reckon it could be worse than just this gal missing, do you? They caught that killer at ya’ll’s place but…”

  Miz Demetrice bit her lip. Could the Christmas Killer have killed Willodean before going out to the Snoddy Mansion?

  “No, I ‘spect not,” Ted said after a moment, answering the silent question in Miz Demetrice’s head. “Bubba went and rescued the two gals at the house fire. Me and the boys put that out, and the deputy was still on the wire when Bubba hightailed it out to your place. That little boy, what’s he, your great-nephew, came on a few minutes later and said Bubba had tole him to call in that the killer was out there. So the killer cain't have gotten to that perty little gal.” He sighed. “Folks falling over dead left and right around here. Makes me think we’re living in a cemetery.” He checked his mirrors as if corpses would suddenly appear in order to back up his conjecture.

  Willodean went missing after Bubba went out to the Snoddy Mansion?

  Miz Demetrice was perplexed. She was also worried. If she knew her son, and she thought that she did rather well, then he would have stayed up all night looking for Willodean. There were only so many places a young woman could go, and Willodean was a fine, upstanding member of law enforcement. Certainly, she joined in the weekly Pokerama, but everyone knew that was less than truly criminal. The fact that she had illegally allowed Bubba and Miz Demetrice to paw through some of Sheriff John’s papers, was purely for the sake of swiftly identifying a killer and the killer’s potential victims. After all, some wrongs do add up to make a right.

  “They haven’t found anything yet,” she mused.

  “Not as though I’ve heard,” Ted said. He patted his police radio mounted on the dashboard. “And there’s plenty of stuff being said on the radio. Just a little blood in her vehicle.” He glanced at Miz Demetrice. He’d heard about Bubba’s fascination with the deputy. He’d even heard that they were married with thirty-six bridesmaids and groomsmen in attendance, but he also knew about Pegramville’s rumor mill. There couldn’t have been thirty-six. Maybe ten. And everyone knew the Goodyear Blimp didn’t do weddings. Did it?

  “Not enough blood to make her anything but injured of course.”

  “Of course,” Miz Demetrice murmured. Oh, Willodean. Where are you, dear? Oh, poor Bubba. He must be devastated.

  “Lew Robson came out with his hounds,” Ted continued unthinkingly. “Last I heard they was headed for the freeway.” He turned on his windshield wipers. “Crap, er, I mean, carp. It’s starting to rain. I know we’re having a drought, but this is the last thing the sheriff needs right now.”

  Miz Demetrice peered out the front glass. The dribbles progressively got heavier. The temperature was dropping rapidly along with the onslaught of the poor weather. A young woman was out there somewhere, with some kind of injury, in this miserable weather.

  The older woman frowned grimly. “You’ve got some rain gear, Ted?” she asked politely.

  They pulled up to a conflagration of vehicles, people scrambling for shelter, and diehard reporters determined to get a story through rain or shine.

  “Sure, I got rain gear,” Ted said. “Don’t use it much. Fires don’t do much in a heavy rain.”

  After putting on the Fire Chief’s rain poncho, Miz Demetrice disregarded the vinyl pants because they would have dragged by about a foot and a half. Miz Demetrice proceeded to cajole and bully a harried Neal Holmgreen into giving her ride to find Bubba and the others.

  The eighteen-year-old Neal, would-be arsonist and viral-media artist, gave in rancorously. “Granny says you cheat at poker,” Neal said accusingly to Miz Demetrice as if that might cow the older woman. They piled into a beat-up Ford Mustang with another boy driving.

  Miz Demetrice dimly recognized the young man as the one who had been lately a process server. “Had another surgery, Mr. Evans?” she asked politely. She still remembered the bad things that the inimitable Mark Evans had said about her to Bubba, despite the fact that he’d never met her previously.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mark said nervously. “Almost done with them. Plus, that fella who stomped on my hand went to jail for six months. And the fella I worked for, Mr. Minnieweather, well, his insurance paid for all the medical costs plus living for the next year. I’m going to all the college classes I want. I write with the good hand anyway.” He’d heard things about Miz Demetrice, too. Cheating at poker was the least objectionable of the things he’d heard.

  Miz Demetrice looked down her nose at Mark. “I’m sure that’s admirable,” she said and didn’t mean it at all.

  “The po-lice ain’t going to get upset with us?” Neal asked from the cramped back seat.

  “Not overly,” Miz Demetrice said. It wasn’t meant to be reassuring. “And did you know your Granny likes to crumble Cheetos over ice cream and pour cheap wine over the top of it? It’s quite gruesome to watch.”

  Neal stared at the back of Miz Demetrice’s head from the rear seat. Grannies weren’t supposed to do things like that. And older ladies weren’t supposed to fight back so viciously either. “What else goes on at those poker games?” he asked uneasily.

  Miz Demetrice turned and glared icily at Neal. “Things,” she said, “that are best not discussed in public places.” She smiled evilly. “Terrible, awful, horrendous things.”

  “Let’s just go get you where the po-lice are,” Mark said fearfully.

  •

  Miz Demetrice found Bubba sitting in a puddle of mud with his head held in his hands and his eyes firmly closed. She looked around. Sheriff John argued with the taciturn Lew Robson. Other officers milled about. A news van parked a hundred yards back. A cameraman was filming but it was half-heartedly. Another car sat nearby. The three women sitting in it watched apprehensively. Everyone was soaking wet with the exception of Lew, who had his bright yellow slicker on.

  Lew’s hounds were lying in the thick grass on the shoulder. He’d obviously rewarded them because all three hounds had toys clamped in their jaws. The Black and Tan had a floppy, pink, man-shaped doll in her mouth and happily chewed on it. The Bluetick had a rawhide chew and gleefully gnawed it to more manageable pieces. The Treeing Walker coonhound had a well-masticated Garfield doll and growled at it as he tossed it about. Apparently, the plush cat was meant to be taught a lesson.

  The three women watching from the car keenly observed Miz Demetrice as she got out of the antique Mustang. They also watched as Mark Evans and Neal Holmgreen correctly interpreted an especially nasty glare from Sheriff John. Mark put the Mustang in gear with a grinding noise and abruptly reversed until he could safely turn
around.

  Miz Demetrice stood by the side of the road and studied Bubba. Her first urge was to throw herself at her only child and comfort him in the way that only a mother could do. But Bubba didn’t need that at the moment. He needed something more and something she was unsure that she could give to him.

  While Miz Demetrice thought about it, she saw Neal pointing his cell phone at the group while Mark reversed down the road. Mark’s Mustang hydroplaned on the wet road, and the car went into the ditch. A moment later the wheels roared as he tried to pull back on the asphalt, but he was high-centered. One of the police officers groaned audibly and slogged back to help them.

  Miz Demetrice’s gaze next went to the car with the three women inside it. The driver was in her fifties and stared at Miz Demetrice as if she could see inside her brain. She was also wearing a police officer’s uniform. If she’s a police officer, then what is she doing in the civilian car?

  A thought occurred to Miz Demetrice. She stared at the women in the car. Willodean had talked about her family. There was a history of law enforcement in the clan. That is Willodean’s mother. A police sergeant from Dallas. Those other two are her sisters. They’ve been called because…Sheriff John thought they needed to know.

  The two women stared at each other for a long moment. Miz Demetrice, in the oversized rain gear, and Celestine Gray, from the inside of her car. Two mothers caught up in the scheme of something much bigger than the two of them. Two titans were about to fight the good fight. They judged each other minutely and then grudgingly approved each other.

  Finally, Miz Demetrice turned to Bubba and set her shoulders in a fashion that WWE wrestlers would have approved. This might be very ugly. It might very well need to get ugly.

  “Boy,” she said imperiously, “what in the name of Jehoshaphat’s jumper cables are you doing sitting in the mud on the side of the road?”

  Bubba slowly lifted his head. His weary face and bloodshot eyes gazed at his mother. There was still a bump on his head from being stomped on by the Pegramville City Police the previous week. Somehow he’d managed to remove the remnants of the Sharpie markers that Brownie had used to draw on his face. Not that it mattered to his overall appearance at that particular moment. He appeared ten years older than he actually was.

  “Ma,” he said flatly, “I don’t reckon you shot your way out of jail with a gun carved out of soap.”

  “Big Joe finally came to his senses,” Miz Demetrice said, staring down at her son. On the inside she wanted to hug him and yank on his ear for this flagrant hopelessness he was displaying. “Of course, that isn’t to imply he owns the sense God gave a turnip.”

  Bubba looked at the mud he was sitting in. He looked at Lew Robson who was shaking his head at Sheriff John.

  “Hounds tracked Willodean here,” Bubba said gruffly. “Then it started to pour. Lew tried but the scent is gone.”

  “Nancy Musgrave couldn’t have done this,” Miz Demetrice said peremptorily. “She set the fire at Lou Lou Vandygriff’s with the loonies in tow. Then she went to the Snoddy Mansion to catch us. She didn’t know you were with…Willodean. She didn’t know I was incarcerated.”

  Bubba’s head turned downward again. “Ifin Nancy had done it, at least we would know something.”

  Miz Demetrice wanted to wail. Many times over the years she had wanted to wail, but it wasn’t done. She hadn’t been born a Snoddy, but she was a Snoddy now all the same. And Snoddys don’t wail when the going gets tough. Her shoulders straightened and she said deliberately, “Boy, just because the hounds don’t have a scent doesn’t mean you just up and give up.”

  His head shot back up, and he glared at his mother. Blatantly, Bubba wanted to argue. He was sick and desolately tired, and hope had taken a bus, followed by a train, and then an airplane to parts unknown. There didn’t seem to be a return ticket. Slowly, he came to his feet and towered over his mother. She looked like a child with the oversized, rain poncho draped over her. Cornflower blue eyes stared meaningfully at him.

  “Willodean wouldn’t want you to give up.” Miz Demetrice blasted her remaining salvo at him.

  Bubba’s large chest heaved once. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He took another one. He nodded shortly and slowly looked around. If Muhammad couldn’t go to the mountain, then the mountain would go to Muhammad. There was another way, and he had to figure out what it was.

  Chapter Six

  Bubba Wants to Take Something Apart With His Bare Fists

  Friday, December 30th – Saturday, December 31st

  Bubba had been shoved into his bathroom with two instructions from Miz Demetrice, “Get clean, and get some shuteye.” Despite the fact that he thought he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep, he set his alarm for three hours later. After showering, he lay down on his bed and was snoring within sixty seconds.

  In due course, Precious nudged open the bedroom door with her prodigious nose and examined the situation from a dogly perspective. She sniffed Bubba’s size-12 shoes and immediately interpreted the scents of smoke, dirt, and other dogs. She curled her canine lip and snorted. Her human had been consorting with other animals while she had been locked in a bedroom. Additionally, the human known as Miz Adelia had only given Precious three doggy treats instead of her minimum requirement of five. And the little human known as Brownie, had come in to play with her for only a few minutes before hastily disappearing. Someone else had been bellowing the boy’s name in a manner that connoted trouble in store for the young man. Then Brownie had promptly vanished.

  Everyone else was stiff legged and irritable. The entire mansion smelt of strangers. Stinky, weird strangers. It was similar to the twice-yearly opening of the mansion for visitors who liked to make odd cooing noises and touch walls. And horrendously, Precious was not permitted to mark over the new scents with her own unmistakable scent, which denoted that this was her territory.

  Bad things were happening. Typically, her human didn’t sleep during the daytime. When he was home, his primary duties were playing with Precious and scratching behind her long, long, long ears. Unfortunately, these important details were interspersed with dressing, bathing, sleeping, and doing chores for the human known alternatively as Ma or Miz Demetrice or even sometimes Why, me, Lord?

  Precious scratched at the offensive shoes and dogmatically kicked them under the bed where they would offend her less. Later she would carry them down to the kitchen and prod open the back door and bury them by the oleanders near the decorative reindeer horns she had recently been forced to wear.

  Bubba snorted. Precious lifted her head and approached slowly. Mostly, her human smelled of soap and water. But one of his large hands hung off the bed, nearly touching the floor. She sniffed cautiously. There was still a hint of strange dogs. Consequently, she licked it off. Then she licked the hand some more to ensure complete compliance with her doggish standards.

  Bubba murmured and said, “What in the name of Ozymandias’s legs?” Then he shifted again, and the hanging hand absently scratched at Precious’s jaw.

  The dog pulled away for a moment. I’m not that easy. You smell like other dogs. I don’t forgive you. Where were you? I was locked in a room. There were bad people here I needed to bite. You suck.

  Precious looked around for something to chew to show her severe displeasure. She could rend it into minute, soggy pieces to exhibit her discontent. Bubba’s hand searched for a moment and found her. One clever finger discovered the place just behind her ear that made one of her legs bounce with joy.

  “Who’s a good widdle-wubby-dubby dog?” Bubba slurred.

  Not me. I’m not a good widdle anything. Precious told her vigorous leg to stand down, but Bubba kept at the spot behind her ear, and unexpectedly, the other leg began to twitch in time with the scratching. She tried to turn her head away but couldn’t quite contain herself. You’re not my human anymore. I hate your guts. OH, scratch there, HARDER! She abruptly gave up. Oh, I love you desperately!

  •

  M
iz Demetrice peeped in and saw that Precious had managed to clamber onto the bed and was resting her distinctive nose and ears across Bubba’s back. The Basset hound briefly opened her brown eyes and stared at the woman with sleepy regard.

  Miz Demetrice took a moment to pull a blanket over both man and dog. She turned off his alarm clock, went back to the door, and cracked the door to Bubba’s bedroom so that Precious could scratch it open if she so desired. She went downstairs for a little stimulation. If she wasn’t mistaken it was caffeine o’clock. Although she had gotten a decent night’s rest in the jail despite Gigi’s enthusiastic description of what an “Around the World” entailed, she still needed to stay alert and active for the sake of her son.

  All was not well in the Snoddy Mansion. There had been a murderer inside, and she had aggressively threatened all the inhabitants. Fudge and Virtna were on the verge of fleeing, although that wouldn’t have bothered Miz Demetrice overly, but both were making noises as if they were owed compensation for their suffering. Truly, the pair of Snoddys had their good points, but they were few and far between.

  Brownie was animated to the point of rushing up and down the stairs in boundless spurts of energy. He had buzzed around the mansion so much, that Miz Adelia had checked his chocolate milk for coffee. As it turned out, it was merely the excitement of actually apprehending an infamous murderer.

  Big Joe had called about Brownie’s stun gun and said that it had disappeared from one of the squad cars. The officers recollected that Brownie had been lurking around all the official vehicles for hours. Brownie had also complained bitterly that the stun gun had been a science project made for Boy Scouts and entirely his possession. He had even borrowed his mother’s Droid to check on the legal status of owning stun guns in the state of Texas.

  Despite the question of legality, Fudge had bellowed so loudly that the huge, foyer chandelier had rattled. But Brownie had vanished into the ether. Sort of like Willodean, but she was well aware that the boy would reappear once the dinner bell was rung.