His destination looked like a regular hospital. Whitewashed walls set the backdrop for a manicured lawn that spread far and away. There weren’t any fences and especially not any with concertina wire mounted on top. The parking lot was close to the front entrance, and inside a nearby gazebo, a pair of nurses smoked cigarettes and chatted affably.
There was even a handy formal sign on one side that announced the name of the facility. Bubba slowed his truck to a crawl as he looked at the sign. Satisfied he was in the right place, he parked in-between a Mercedes Benz and a Volkswagen Rabbit.
Precious scratched at the door when they stopped. Bubba let the animal out for a few minutes and then herded her back inside the truck. She whined at him but relented good-naturedly. After all, she’d had three hours of nearly nonstop Bubba attention and she was moderately content. Furthermore, the building they’d stopped at smelled odd, and she wasn’t enthused enough to follow the odors inside.
There was a smaller sign at the front door, next to a bell. The visiting hours were plainly denoted. Bubba rang the bell, and the door chirped itself open a moment later without anyone asking what his business was there.
Inside was a nice-sized foyer with marble floors and seats that had been bolted to the walls. An oversized desk sat to one side with a woman sitting at it. She looked at Bubba expectantly.
“Well, great!” she enthused. “A visitor!”
“Okay,” Bubba said. “I need to see someone.” The direct approach was always a good way to start.
The woman was young, red haired, and seemed perpetually cheerful. She smiled up at him as he approached. Her nametag read Cybil. Next to the name she had drawn a very large happy face to specify her level of perkiness.
Cybil pushed a logbook toward him and said, “You’ll need to sign in. And no nom de plumes. That’s a joke,” she added when Bubba didn’t obediently smile in response.
Bubba reached for a pen and signed where she indicated. She started in on what was obviously a well-rehearsed spiel.
“There’s no guns, knives, box cutters, tweezers, scissors, clippers, cuticle trimmers, darts, butchery equipment, sharp-edged objects, or any object that can be used as a lethal device allowed within the confines of the facility.”
Pausing at the middle of writing Snoddy, Bubba said, “I got a buck knife.”
The young woman tilted her head to one side, reminding him of Precious in one of her more harmonious moments.
“Well, of course you do. Most folks don’t think about what they’ve got in their pockets. I like to carry around a Swiss Army knife, myself. The classic one. It’s got a nail file on it. And did you know that credit cards can be filed down to make a knife? Why, the stories I can tell about the weapons that have been made here!”
Bubba finished his name in the log book and pushed it back. He wasn’t certain if he was supposed to respond to her or not.
“They make knives out of spoons and old nails,” Cybil went on as if he had answered her. “Plexiglas, plastic, Frito-Lay chips, and once even a crucifix. Well, we don’t get too many of the hard cases anymore; they do get a little harebrained in here. There’s one fella who made a radio out of ramen noodles. He says he has a daily discussion with the Angel Gabriel.” Cybil tilted her head the other way. “And they make tattoo machines out of batteries and sewing needles. They use the ink out of disposable pens. I suppose they get bored since they don’t get the Internet.”
Bubba was unsure what he was supposed to do next. Finally he interrupted her. “So can I just-”
Cybil pointed at the double door behind her. “Straight back there. Most of them are in the dayroom. If you can’t find someone then they’re probably in their rooms. Oh, and you’ll have to leave the buck knife. I’ll give it to you when you come back out.”
Pulling out the buck knife, Bubba said, “You just let people come and go?”
“Well sure, silly,” Cybil chided him as she took the knife and put it into a drawer. “It’s not a prison.”
She took out a large sticker that said “Visitor”, handed it to him, and motioned for him to stick it on his shirt.
Cybil pressed a button on the desk, and the doors burped open. Bubba pushed through the double doors and walked down a hallway. A few people walked past who didn’t pay any attention to him at all. A woman passed by doing the tango with a partner that was a large, plush teddy bear. The bear did not appear pleased.
The dayroom was at the back of the building. Double doors opened into a spacious expanse with dozens of couches and chairs. The six-foot-tall windows allowed the setting sun’s light to pour in. An array of noises from talking, music, and someone bouncing a super ball off the walls, overpowered Bubba’s thoughts.
People spread out doing numerous things. A few obvious nurses and attendants in scrubs patrolled. A television blared an old episode of Murder, She Wrote. Two patients were loudly arguing about who did it.
“It was the gas station guy,” one said.
“It was the gardener,” the other one protested.
“There wasn’t a gardener,” the first one said.
“It was the invisible gardener,” the other one replied reasonably.
“There was an invisible gardener?” asked the first one.
Other patients played chess and Chutes and Ladders. One man played a particularly vivacious game of Operation. Whenever the buzzer went off while he tried to retrieve a piece, he jumped and yelled, “Bananafanna monkey turds!”
Three patients were involved in something that appeared to be a re-creation of a famous historical event. One patient had found a hat that was similar to the one in Leutze’s painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. He was posed with his hand on a bent knee as he stood in the “boat” that had been constructed with chairs. Another man held a flag and was seemingly battered by a nonexistent breeze. The remainder of the patients in the group had paddles made from cardboard and were steadily paddling against an imaginary icy current in order to defeat the Hessians. “Stroke, men!” General Washington boomed. “We must defeat the British and their little dogs, too!”
A nurse paused by Bubba, looking at his sticker badge, and said, “Visitor?”
“Yes,” Bubba said, overwhelmed by what he saw. His mouth remained open after he replied.
The nurse chuckled. “It’s always thought-provoking around here.”
A voice said next to Bubba, “Thou unmuzzled, dizzy-eyed canker sore.”
Bubba turned to see Thelda. Thelda had been one of Nancy Musgrave’s patients. She was in undeterminable middle age, with gray hair and gray eyes, and had a keen propensity for sweaters. She wore four of them at the moment. Two were blue, one was red, and one was gray. A drip of sweat rolled down her forehead. She stood next to him and stared at the floor.
“Thelda,” he said.
The nurse said, “Okay, great. I’ll leave you two alone.”
“But I’m not-” Bubba started to say to the nurse, but she had vanished into the group of patients intent on crossing the Delaware with General Washington.
“Harder, men! We must save America from three-eyed, three-legged purple snarflulots!”
Certainly, the Dogley Institute for Mental Well-Being wasn’t exactly what Bubba had thought it would be. Considering that he had lived in Pegram County his entire life, he was amazed that he hadn’t been here before.
Probably because they haven’t gotten tired of me at the jail yet.
“So, Miz Thelda,” he said conversationally, “how are you?”
“Thou art rightly a fawning, tardy-gated younker,” she enunciated.
“Sorry about Nancy Musgrave,” Bubba said.
Thelda twitched. “Thee was sincerely a hideous, shrill-gorged codpiece.”
“Yeah, I reckon I didn’t like her much neither,” Bubba admitted. “Especially after she killed two folks that I liked quite a bit. Then she tried to kill another three, or was it four? I plain forget. And then she was going to kill me, followed by Ma. Well, I didn’t
think much of all of that. Of course, Brownie put a right clever end to it.”
Thelda stared at the floor.
“I don’t mean no disrespect, Miz Thelda,” he said politely. “But I got a problem with someone I think isn’t right in the head. That deputy I like is missing, and I believe this fella has something to do with it. But I don’t understand why that’s so. I need to speak with an expert.”
Bubba rubbed his chin and looked around to see if anyone listened. Once he had gotten to the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being where Nancy Musgrave, the Christmas Killer, had worked, his plan for illumination didn’t seem as shrewd. The three patients that she had dragged around with her and who had half-heartedly aided in her campaign for revenge, were from here. If ever an expert on mental disabilities was to be found, then the Dogley Institute was the place to find one.
Across the room, a short, balding man in his thirties caught sight of Bubba and said loudly, “Bubba! Have you come for further heeeeaaaaling?”
The sheet that the balding man wore lofted in the air as he played a game of Twister with three other patients.
Bubba waved at the man. He had been a second patient of Nancy’s who fancied himself Jesus Christ. Bubba didn’t know Jesus’ real name, but he did know that he liked to pontificate and steal hemorrhoid cream from the five and dime. He also didn’t care for underwear, in much a similar manner as Kiki of the dreadlocks.
“Right hand, green,” another patient called.
Jesus said, “The greeeen shall come unto meeee.” The green circle did not come unto him, and he cursed vehemently. Twister wasn’t really a good pick for a man who preferred to go commando.
“Miz Thelda,” Bubba said, turning back to the mousy woman wearing four sweaters. “I’m sorry your routines got all messed up, and I’m sorry Nancy Musgrave got you all wrapped up in this mess, but I really need David Beathard.”
David Beathard was Nancy Musgrave’s third patient. He had several alternate personas. The one Bubba wanted was that of a psychotherapist. David might be a mental patient, but he had tons of legitimate knowledge in his head about psychology. Bubba confidently believed David Beathard could give him some valuable insight into what was going on in Howell Le Beau’s brain.
“Verily,” Thelda agreed. “Thee art in the corner.” She pointed.
Bubba looked, but he didn’t see the man who was in his thirties, dressed up like Mr. Rogers. He favored a button-down cardigan and taupe slacks to accompany his thick rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. Sometimes he puffed on a pipe that was always empty. It was all part of his therapist personality.
“Thou are truly a shag-eared mold wart,” Thelda articulated fervently and turned away. Bubba stared after her for a moment, wondering what message she was undertaking to get across this time. Thelda preferred to speak in Shakespearian insults and was often frustrated that her communications weren’t crystal clear.
Turning back to the dayroom, Bubba searched for David Beathard but couldn’t immediately find him. A man dressed entirely in purple leaped in front of him and bellowed, “Da da DAH!”
Bubba spared the purple man a brief glance. His shirt was purple with the logo, “Nexium®”, on it. His pants were purple, albeit they were jeans that had been dyed purple. His shoes had been white tennis shoes but had been painstakingly colored purple with a marker. A purple bandana was tied around the man’s head and upper face, with two holes cut out for eyes. Two earnest eyes stared out at Bubba.
“Hey,” Bubba said while he scanned the rest of the room for David.
“I AM the superhero, THE PURPLE SINGAPORE SLING,” the man announced enthusiastically. He planted his hands on his hips and thrust out his chest in a heroic pose.
“You’re purple all right,” Bubba agreed. “Don’t suppose you know David, do you?”
The Purple Singapore Sling waited in front of him. He took a breath and then pushed his chest out again.
Bubba sighed. “I don’t need saving right now,” he said politely. “Maybe later.”
“Psst,” The Purple Singapore Sling whispered while he maintained his gallant posture. “It’s me, Bubba.” He arched his back just a little and thrust out his chest more. “I AM the superhero, THE PURPLE SINGAPORE SLING!”
With no little amount of dismay, Bubba realized that The Purple Singapore Sling was none other than David Beathard with an all new plum-like disguise.
The Purple Singapore Sling grinned brightly at Bubba before he swung away and leaped over a couch, singing out, “I have come to SAVE the day!”
Chapter Fourteen
Bubba and Inevitability
Tuesday, January 3rd
It had been weeks but the Snoddy Mansion was finally devoid of people.
Only hints of the masses of people who had recently wandered there remained. There were remnants from the onslaught that had been Hurricane Brownie, and the police had raided the kitchen of the last cinnamon roll, leaving only sugary crumbs to mourn their passing. The hardwood floors were dirty and chairs askew. The Christmas tree was turning brown, and the needles were falling like snowflakes in a Northern blizzard.
The Louisianan Snoddys had absconded days before, headed for the bright lights of a distant media torrent. Miz Demetrice’s sister, Caressa, had made tracks for Dallas, certain the air there was safer in general. Miz Adelia had thrown her hands up in despair and fled for the sanctity of her home, promising to return the following day with two of her nieces for a major overhauling of the state of cleanliness. She had stomped out to her car, saying over her shoulder with no little amount of vehemence, “We’re gonna lick this calf all over again!”
Alone at last. Miz Demetrice sat on the front veranda eyeing some wood rot on one of the columns and wondering if it was too late to donate the entire mansion to some historical society that had access to lots of cash. She had returned from Dallas without her son but with a feeling of dread permeating every inch of her bones.
It was the unspoken that bothered her. Bubba was tilting out of control. He grasped at straws, no matter how remote. Even through her anger, she could see her son’s façade was like a piece of fragile glass. If anything pulled just a tad more, he might break into a thousand fractured pieces.
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Bubba back together again…
There had been several searches for Deputy Willodean Gray in the days since she had vanished into seeming nothingness. Lewis Robson had searched twice with his hounds. The second time was even less productive than the first because of successive rain storms since she went missing. Locals and people from as far away as Houston had come to volunteer for grid searches. They had crawled, walked, and lurched through hundreds of acres of bottomlands, swamps, and fields, all to no avail.
Examining other angles, Sheriff John pulled the GPS records for both Willodean’s phone and the county car she’d been driving. Both had revealed nothing out of the ordinary.
Willodean’s family presented themselves for an uncomfortable press conference in front of a dozen news affiliates and begged the public for information. Her parents were gray-faced and as brittle as Bubba appeared to be. Donations had come in from many organizations, offering a significant reward for any information about Willodean Gray’s whereabouts.
Bubba stampeded up to Dallas to find the man who might be responsible and ultimately found nothing but an overnight stay in jail.
And now, what is the boy doing? Talking to someone else mysteriously. Won’t share anything with his mother. That boy’s gone around the bend.
Miz Demetrice grimaced.
Bubba’s like a five-story building with a three-story elevator.
The ominousness of the circumstances was disparaging. Miz Demetrice knew of folks who disappeared. Most came back or were later found safe and sound. She’d never known someone like Willodean, who had just gone, leaving only a little bit of blood and a mystery that was hurting all involved.
The chilling horror of never knowin
g what happened to Willodean wasn’t any better than the finality of locating her remains. Neither outcome was particularly welcoming.
Miz Demetrice watched the daylight fade into purple streaks across a pinkish sky. She worried about Willodean but also worried about her son. Bubba had lost more than merely Willodean, and it didn’t look like the missing piece was going to come back.
The distant hum of a vehicle starting down the Snoddy Estate’s extended drive made her sigh. Initially, she hoped it was Bubba returning but quickly acknowledged that it didn’t sound like the capitulated rumble of the old, green truck.
When the car pulled up behind her Cadillac, she knew she had seen it before. There was enough light still to recognize her visitors. Miz Demetrice brushed off the skirt of her lemon yellow dress and stood.
The occupants wearily got out of the car and stared at her for a long moment. Finally, Willodean’s mother, Celestine Gray, said, “Mrs. Snoddy.”
“Come on in,” Miz Demetrice said politely. “I’ll make coffee.”
•
There were five of them. Celestine Gray loomed over Miz Demetrice before she had condescended to sit down at the oversized table in the formal dining room. Evan Gray was close to his wife’s height but relatively benign in appearance. The two young women were clearly their parents’ daughters and resembled Willodean as well. The fifth was an eight-year-old girl named Janie with an expansive sneer discoloring her features.
Miz Demetrice rounded up coffee, store-bought cookies and one glass of 2% milk. Cups, cream, and sugar came from the sideboard. When she put the glass of milk down in front of the eight-year-old, the girl glared at it as if it was filled with poison.
“I like coffee,” Janie announced with only the scorn an eight-year-old could pull off.
One of the women who had introduced herself as Anora, who was Janie’s mother, said, “And you still aren’t getting any, Janie.”
Bubba and the Missing Woman Page 15