Bubba and the Missing Woman

by Bevill, C. L.

  The little throwaway cell phone made a distinct cracking sound as Bubba’s hand flexed. He recalled the state trooper’s ruined phone and forced himself to relax his hand.

  “Is there an address for Howell Le Beau?”

  “Let me look,” Kiki said. After a minute she said, “No Howell Le Beau, but there’s only four Lebeaus in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. That’s without the space in between Le and Beau. I bet you can call all of them and ask if Howell is available. You could pretend to be an old high school buddy.”

  “Give me the names and numbers,” Bubba said.

  Kiki did that and added, “Be easier if you just get a smart phone. You can hook up with the Internet from there. It’s also got tons of apps that you can use. I bet Willy’s connected.”

  Bubba didn’t know how to reply to that. He didn’t know anything about Willodean’s preference on cellular phones. He wouldn’t mind learning, but first he had to find her and find her alive.

  An ice-cold uncertainty trickled through his veins.

  “Thank you,” he said to Kiki.

  Kiki didn’t immediately respond. “I wish I could tell you something better,” she said finally. “You should go see the police investigator and get the 4-1-1 on the Howell Le Beau thing. Maybe they’re already looking for this dude.”

  Not fast enough to suit me.

  “Anyway, call me back if you need the information ninja again,” Kiki said. “I’ll keep my phone with me, even when we’re out searching today.”

  Bubba would have told Kiki that cell phone towers were few and far between in the Sturgis Woods, but she’d already disconnected.

  Folding the piece of paper up to tuck into a pocket, Bubba paused to scratch behind Precious’s ear. He deliberated about what he should do next. He found a moldering phone book in a nightstand drawer to look for the official address of Dallas investigator.

  But a knock at his door interrupted him.

  Chapter Nine

  Bubba is On the Hunt Again

  Sunday, January 1st

  Bam Bam Jones stood there with a cheerful grin on his face. He wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey and white leather pants with purple calf-high boots. One of his hands was at chest level with two fingers pointed to his immediate left. The other hand was just below the first hand with two fingers pointed to his immediate right. The convoluted hand positions emphasized the twinkling diamond and gold rings he wore.

  “The doorman didn’t announce you,” Bubba said.

  What’s with all the hand gestures? Maybe he’s got some kind of weird muscle disease.

  The other man looked confused for a moment. “There ain’t be a doorman on this place, brotha.”

  Precious sniffed Bam Bam from between Bubba’s legs.

  “There’s that cute little girl,” Bam Bam said as he extended fingers downward for Precious to smell. Precious took a step forward and sniffed cautiously. She allowed the other man to scratch her head and behind her ears. She knew when a human was present to adore a canine goddess.

  “I’m a little busy,” Bubba said. He patted his pocket. He had his list. He patted another pocket. There was the little disposable cell phone. He would have brought a charger with him except the old, green Chevy truck didn’t have a place to plug it in anyway.

  “As we all are,” Bam Bam replied cheerfully. “I was thinking about your sitch and I got a lady you gots to meet.”

  “What I’ve gots to do is to go find a police investigator,” Bubba said.

  “Jump back!” Bam Bam said forcefully. “The 5-0 ain’t going to he’p you. You gots to go to the right peoples. This lady is a psychic.” He put his index fingers to his temples as if he was the psychic and was having a vision. “She sees things. Knows things.”

  “A psychic,” Bubba said thoughtfully. “I don’t hold truck with such.”

  “Think about it,” Bam Bam said, pointing rapidly at Bubba and then back at himself. He made a fist, hit his chest three times, and pointed at Bubba. “You got my card?”

  Bubba nodded.

  “Bring a picture of yo homegirl and my homegirl will hook it up phat.” Bam Bam grinned. He had a surplus of white teeth that might make a shark jealous. He rambled down the hall singing a song about a girl’s excessively large backside. His hands were jerking and contracting in time with the song.

  Precious peered dubiously around the corner at the man.

  Bubba went back into his room and took out the entire phone book again. He needed the reference material. He’d put it back. Eventually.

  It turned out that the central division of the Dallas Police Department was only six blocks from his hotel. Parking the truck in a massive lot next to the Dallas Police Department, he got out. He left Precious in the truck with the windows open and instructions to eat anyone who came near the vehicle. Precious appeared doubtful.

  Going inside the main entrance Bubba found the front desk. He had to compete with several people for the sergeant’s time.

  When Bubba managed to get a question in, the sergeant only paused to take a note. “Yeah, it’s the first of January. Ain’t many investigators in. But I’ll check.”

  Bubba sat next to a man who held a handkerchief over a cut on his forehead. A drip of blood meandered down the side of his nose. On the other side, a woman who looked asleep leaned on Bubba as soon as he sat down. She turned to him and put her head on his shoulder and let her hands wander freely. Bubba kept busy trying to extricate himself.

  The octopus-handed woman on Bubba’s left still strove to snuggle up to him when the police investigator finally appeared an eternity later. He was an Asian-American in his early thirties. His hair was black, his eyes a weary brown, and he was leanly proportioned. Bubba watched as he looked around, and the desk sergeant pointed at Bubba.

  Bubba extracted himself from the woman. She murmured, “Oh, but you’re so cuddly,” and turned to her other side to molest the man there.

  “You’re Bubba Snoddy?” the investigator asked. He wore a long sleeved white dress shirt with a ratty black tie and business-casual khaki pants. His gold shield hung around his neck from a chain. Part of the identification tag that was under the shield said, “ark,” so Bubba went with the conclusion this was Charles Park.

  Bubba nodded and stuck his hand out. The investigator stared at Bubba for a long moment and then at his large hand. Finally, he reached out and shook it like it was a bomb about to explode. “I’m Charles Park,” he said.

  “I reckon you’re a busy man, working on a Sunday and a holiday,” Bubba said as amicably as he could. He surely didn’t want to piss a man off right in the first minute of meeting him. Of course, that would hardly be the first time to do so for Bubba.

  “Crime never stops,” Park said wryly. “Follow me. We’ll talk in back.”

  Park led Bubba into a labyrinth of offices and cubicles. Both uniformed and plain-clothed officers seemingly meandered about on their various businesses. Their ultimate destination was a cubicle in a sea of other cubicles.

  Entering the cubicle, Park pointed at a chair. “I called Sergeant Gray,” Park said bluntly as he watched Bubba sit down.

  “Okay,” Bubba said. He assumed Sergeant Gray was likely Celestine, Willodean’s mother. He wasn’t sure what Celestine would have to say to another police officer about him, but it probably wasn’t anything positive. Nevertheless, Bubba didn’t have a lot to lose in the situation. His mind went blank for a moment.

  Do so have something to lose, kaka brains. Don’t forget that.

  “You know about Willodean.” Bubba plowed right ahead. He didn’t care to waste time anyway.

  “I also spoke to Sheriff Headrick. Deputy Gray’s disappearance is all over the news,” Park said neutrally. “As a former member of the Dallas Police Department, we are naturally concerned about her wellbeing.”

  “That’s good,” Bubba said. He disliked the company line being toted out to placate the intruding family/friend/someone unidentifiable who wanted to know about their progress
even though the deputy hadn’t vanished in their precinct. “Then you’re looking into this fella, Le Beau, am I right?”

  Park frowned down at Bubba. His thin face glowered for a moment as he attempted to put on a poker face. The investigator didn’t know that Bubba had a lifetime of experience with poker faces, especially that of his own mother’s, who was undoubtedly a distinguished expert in the field of poker faces. “Pegram County Sheriff’s Department hasn’t asked for our assistance yet. They’ve got enough to worry about,” he said slowly. “How did you know Le Beau’s name?”

  “You don’t know where this guy is,” Bubba said just as slowly. It wasn’t a question. He watched a muscle in the other man’s cheek twitch in response. “But you have checked on Le Beau, right.” The last wasn’t a question either.

  Park finally sat down at his desk chair. “You’re a friend of Deputy Gray’s? Did she talk about Le Beau?”

  The former was an interesting question. Bubba wanted to be more than Willodean’s friend, but there was more at stake here. He didn’t want to squander precious minutes explaining to another law enforcement official how critical events had become.

  “We were supposed to go on our first date last Thursday,” Bubba said carefully.

  Park finally managed to contort his face into neutrality. Despite that, Bubba could tell Park was surprised. “Sergeant Gray didn’t say anything about that,” he said.

  “Not sure ifin Willodean told her. Don’t reckon I told her.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Grays are in a lot of pain right now,” Bubba said gently. “Didn’t see the need to put more on them.”

  “Why would that give them more pain?”

  “I didn’t know why before, but Willodean hadn’t been dating anyone for a long time. It wasn’t my place to tell them otherwise.” Bubba warily organized the words in his head. “Besides, at the time I spoke with the Grays, I was in a hurry.”

  Park rattled his fingers on the desk. “Why were you in a hurry?”

  “I went to her home to collect a piece of clothing for the hounds to scent,” Bubba said, a little less carefully.

  Bubba knew that Park was looking at him suspiciously, and he wasn’t happy about it. If Bubba had given it more thought, he should have realized that would be the result. In the world of police officers, everyone was a potential wrongdoer. Even Willodean displayed that attitude upon occasion. As a person who was inordinately interested in Willodean, Bubba was a person of interest to the police.

  “I wanted to get it back to the site as soon as I could. There was blood on the steering wheel of her vehicle, and she could have been out there injured. That’s why I was in a hurry.”

  “Christ,” Park said. He glanced at a framed photograph on his desk. Bubba saw that it was a very small baby who was unhappy to have been photographed. Her little wrinkled face screamed rawly into the camera.

  Park studied the picture for a moment before continuing, “I hate to think of what those people are going through right now. I’ve got a baby daughter. She doesn’t sleep through the night yet, and I expect I’m going to lose a lot of sleep through the years to come over her. And worse, I guess since you’ve come knocking on this door, the hounds didn’t produce any results.”

  “Nope,” Bubba said. “Have you checked out this man, Le Beau?”

  “I’ve got calls into his parole officer,” Park said. “Man hasn’t called me back yet.”

  “Perhaps a personal visit,” Bubba suggested, tamping down angry impatience.

  “You don’t sound as much of a redneck as I was led to believe,” Park remarked.

  “There’s rednecks and there’s rednecks,” Bubba explained without rancor. “This parole officer work on Sundays?”

  “Don’t give up, do you?”

  “You said you have a daughter,” Bubba said brusquely. “What if she was missing? What if you had to wait on someone to ‘call’ you back? What if you could do something and do it, now? Would you take time to ask me questions about my motives?”

  “They’re still searching for Deputy Gray. I caught Sheriff Headrick out at the site. He said you’re an interested party and don’t have any reason to harm the woman. But get this straight. There’s no proof of a crime being committed other than a hit-and-run. No one knows what happened to Deputy Gray, and you don’t need to be jumping to conclusions.

  “I don’t have any authority to do anything to Howell Le Beau except ask him questions.” Park sighed. “I need to call my wife, and then we’ll take a trip down to south Dallas. I don’t suppose you’d go and wait in your hotel room.”

  Bubba stared at Charles Park.

  “I didn’t think so,” Park said sullenly. “You’ll come with me, and you’ll wait in the car. You’ll do what I say or you’ll go to county lockup.”

  “Sheriff John ask you to take me along?” Bubba asked perceptively.

  Park drummed his fingers on the desk again. “He said you wouldn’t- how did he put it? Roll over like a mangy cur in the mud. Yeah, that was it. Then he suggested that it would be better to keep an eye on you.”

  •

  First, they went to the regional office of the Dallas Parole Office to find out where Le Beau’s parole officer was located. Precious rode in the back of the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria. Park muttered bad things about the dog. That was followed by sneezing, and he abruptly lowered all of the windows. “I’m allergic to pet dander,” he announced snidely.

  “Now that’s a damn shame,” Bubba said insincerely. “Hey, I don’t think I ever rode in the front of one of these. It ain’t bad.”

  Park sneezed again and actively dug through his pockets. He extracted a pill from one of his pockets. “Allegra,” he explained. He washed it down with a cup of cold coffee that he’d brought with him. He paused to glare over his shoulder at the Basset hound.

  Once they found the DPO regional office, they had to dig up an assistant regional director and explain why Park wanted Le Beau’s parole officer’s home address and phone number. The assistant director was less than thrilled but gave up the information.

  Park dry swallowed another Allegra pill while he entered the address into his GPS. He pulled out a cell phone and called the parole officer’s home number.

  Even Bubba heard the abrupt answer on the other end.

  “Joe’s Mortuary! You stab ‘em and we slab ‘em!” someone answered, nearly shouting, and hysterical giggles broke out in the background.

  “Guillermo Sanchez, please,” Park said politely. Bubba controlled an urge to yank the cell phone out of the investigator’s hand and bellow for the parole officer’s immediate attendance.

  There was a loud bang that clearly came through the cell’s speaker. Someone said, “Shit! Don’t drop it! Hey, Gui! It’s for-”

  Silence ensued. Park checked the phone’s screen. “They either hung up or the call dropped.”

  “Call again,” Bubba said flatly.

  Park rolled his eyes. Then he hit the appropriate keys. Bubba could hear that the connection went through, and the phone rang once. There was, “Roadkill Café! You kill it, we grill it!” followed by more manic giggles.

  “Can I speak with Guillermo Sanchez- and shit, they hung up again!” Park said and hit the end button on his cell phone.

  “Let’s go to his house,” Bubba suggested insistently.

  The investigator looked at the GPS and began to drive to the parole officer’s house. After ten minutes, Park stopped sneezing, and Precious stopped baying. Bubba stopped scowling at his watch. Five minutes after that, they pulled up in front of the ranch house that was the Sanchez’s domicile.

  There were cars parked in every conceivable spot nearest to the house. A Dodge truck was parked crookedly on the lawn. A low-rider Chevy quietly competed with a sparkling BMW. A Harley-Davidson Sportster sat next to a Ducati. Children charged across the front yard in an unmitigated mass of squealing youthfulness. Three adults lounged on the front porch drinking bottles of beer while obser
ving the chaos.

  “Ah, a party,” Park said understandingly.

  Bubba shrugged. When he climbed out of the car after Park, the investigator shot him a dirty look. He said sardonically, “You won’t say anything, am I right? I don’t care if you’re the Jolly Green Giant. I’ve got cuffs that will fit you and the means to get you into them.”

  “Ho, ho, ho,” Bubba said darkly.

  “As long as we’re on the same sheet of music,” Park smiled with pure ice. “The dog stays in the car.”

  Precious woofed in protest.

  They found Guillermo Sanchez in the backyard gleefully downing Jell-O shooters with four other men. The five men were loosely supervising a smoking grill. The men, all dark haired and brown eyed with similar familial appearances, paused to critically examine the new arrivals.

  The largest one, six feet tall and three hundred pounds, waved his small paper cup at them and said, “Cheezit, the cops.” He wore an apron that said “Who you calling bitch, BITCH?” on it. “Were we too loud? What neighbor didn’t I invite?”

  Another man waved a spatula at Bubba. “He doesn’t look like a cop. He looks like…he blocked out the sun.” The remainder of the men collapsed into frenzied giggles.

  The man with the apron abruptly stopped giggling and put down the cup of Jell-O as he stared at Park. “Crap, I know you, don’t I?”

  Park nodded. “Charles Park, DPD Assaults Unit.”

  “Gui,” another man drunkenly grabbed the large man’s arm. “Did you assault someone? How come you didn’t tell us? That’s got to go in the family newsletter. Maybe he smeared a Democrat,” he said hopefully to one of the others.

  “Shut up, Enrique,” Guillermo snapped. “It’s work.”

  There was a portable phone sitting on the table next to the grill. It rang, and one of Guillermo’s brothers snatched it up and punched the button while yelling, “Oriental Massage! We rub you right!” The others broke out in braying whinnies.

  “Sorry,” Guillermo said to Park and Bubba. He said to one of the men, “Hey, Tino, watch the steaks, man. I’ll be back.”