Bubba clenched the oh-shit bar above the glove box. Dimly he registered that the shape of the plastic bar was contorting with the strain. He let go with a curse.
Sheriff John glanced over and said, “My cousin won’t mind. This is the car he’s going to give to his daughter when she turns sixteen. He wants it as disagreeable as can be so she won’t be taking all kinds of other teenaged passengers with her. Runs like a top but needs a paint job and seat covers. Kids don’t wanna ride in an ugly car.”
Bubba couldn’t see the logic, but he couldn’t really concentrate on Sheriff John’s words. It occurred to Bubba that Sheriff John was trying to comfort him, in his own gruff manner.
The cell phone rang and Sheriff John answered it. “Yeah?” He pulled it away and pushed the speaker button.
“Simms here. Daughtry just blasted through a stop sign,” Simms said. “Reckon he’s in a hurry. As far as I can tell, he ain’t cottoned to me. Need to back off before we reach Nardle though.”
“As soon as we get to the old church a mile out of Nardle, you turn off, and I’ll take over,” Sheriff John said.
Bubba took a breath and thought about the day he’d taken this trip in Willodean’s official county car. He hadn’t been looking around that day. He’d been staring at her, trying to figure out the best way to entice her into a date. It hadn’t hurt that she’d kissed him first, but he hadn’t wanted to make mistakes.
There was only one bitter realization. Waiting to ask Willodean out had been a mistake.
Sheriff John adjusted the volume on the police radio and listened to the chatter about the code near Nardle. Bubba knew the other deputies would reach Darla within a few minutes, and she would convince them within seconds. Darla was anything but a priggish miss.
Sure enough, Sheriff John’s cell phone rang a minute later. He spoke quickly. The setting had reverted to a regular one, and he said into the cell, “Deputy Tempchin, I know it’s irregular, but we got something going on. Pretend there’s a real damn dead body there.” He paused, and Bubba couldn’t hear the deputy’s words. “Ifin the state po-lice show up, then tell them the same thing. Keep your traps shut for the next hour. You’re investigating a dead body. Call a paramedic and the acting coroner like you would for any other damn dead body.” Pause. “Yes, I know we’ve got lots of dead bodies lately. Just go with it, boy.” Another pause, and Sheriff John sighed. “Lloyd Goshorn may only smell like a dead man but just go with it. I’ll tell you when we can move on. Pretend, dammit.”
Sheriff John shoved the phone at Bubba. “Hold that.” He punched the gas on the Mercury and caught up to Simms in the Ford F-150. Simms turned off the road at a church with a steeple that was canted precariously to one side. Bubba stared at Simms as he turned around in the church’s dirt lot.
“Sheriff?” a tinny voice said from the cell phone.
Sheriff John peered ahead, his head moving left and right. “Oh cheese and crackers,” he muttered.
“Sheriff cain’t talk right now,” Bubba said into the cell phone. As he spoke he looked to see what Sheriff John was seeing. “Just do as he said. You can call Simms on his cell phone for verification. Also Patsy at the department, too. Call the President ifin you have to.”
Sheriff John said a nasty word. He drove the Mercury around the gradual bend passing the 7-Eleven and the post office. Abruptly he pulled the Mercury to the shoulder of the road. He said a few more nasty words. Craning his neck frenziedly, Bubba peered around. He couldn’t see the Suzuki anywhere. That was the reason Sheriff John had been cursing.
There were a few cars parked near the minimal amount of houses in Nardle, but none of them was a dark blue Samurai with a cracked cream-colored ragtop.
“He’s gone,” Bubba said. His voice was a hoarse pit of anguish. “Oh no. He’s gone.”
And so was any opportunity to find Willodean.
Chapter Twenty-Four
So What Happened to Willodean?
Friday, January 6th
Miz Demetrice’s only beloved son was imprisoned and by Bubba’s own words, falsely.
Bubba had shrieked out his innocence even while the blackguards leaped upon his blameless body. No mother should have to witness such a sordid affair. One of her hands fluttered dramatically over the area of her heart indicating the possibility of an imminent heart attack.
Quickly she called Lawyer Petrie and begged for his instantaneous attendance upon Judge Stetson Posey.
“Damn the fees, man!” she bellowed into the cell phone. “Bubba has been unjustly accused of dire, horrid actions! You must act accordingly!”
Injustice occurred and legal maneuvering must overcome!
But a mother can only do so much telephonic manipulation. She finished with calls to the governor’s office, the ACLU, the newspapers, and a distant cousin once removed who attended Harvard. She followed up with an interview with the reporters who still hung about the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department like flies on, well, excrement.
It was a short interview on account of the fact that Miz Demetrice had no idea of the evidence against Bubba or why he wouldn’t have done deadly harm to Nancy Musgrave’s great-uncle, Forrest Roquemore.
The PSS interrupted with, “Bubba Snoddy is a fine and honorable individual, just like those peoples from my home world.”
The reporters spent about five minutes questioning The PSS’s general sanity.
“I am THE PURPLE SINGAPORE SLING,” The PSS said, as if the statement clarified any question of his mental competence.
Miz Demetrice glanced around the front area of the sheriff’s department and decided she would visit with her son.
Damn the authorities.
Marching into the Pegram County Jail, Miz Demetrice dragged Precious along on her lead. The PSS followed reluctantly, flagrantly wanting to continue his fifteen minutes of fame with the reporters.
Tee Gearheart sat at the front counter. Slowly he stood and towered over the diminutive Miz Demetrice. “Ma’am,” he said.
“Tee,” Miz Demetrice said.
“Ain’t visiting hours yet,” Tee said.
“You’ll let me speak to my son all the same,” Miz Demetrice instructed.
Tee pulled at the collar of his shirt. “I cain’t do that.”
Miz Demetrice frowned.
“Ma’am- ” Tee started and faltered. Then he repeated, “Cain’t do that.”
Miz Demetrice put her best sternest, motherist face on. “Tee Gearheart, you have eaten at my dinner table on more occasions than I can count. You have done your duty by my son in an honorable way by allowing him to investigate while being jailed in your cell. Surely, you can provide me with a sparse five minutes?”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” Tee said weakly.
Miz Demetrice stared at him. Her head tilted, and she looked around him. The door to the block was standing open, and she could clearly see the lines of cells. “Isn’t that Newt Durley climbing out the window?”
“What?” Tee turned to look. By the time he figured out that Miz Demetrice had fooled him, she had slipped around him and moved swiftly down the block, looking for her son.
Tee trailed after her, at a loss for what to say. The PSS wandered in, saying, “I always wondered what the inside of a jail looked like.”
“Hey,” Tee protested, “no, ah, loonies or dogs in the cellblock.”
Miz Demetrice stopped at Mary Lou’s cell and said, “What are you doing in here, Miz Mary Lou?”
“Apparently, I gotta big mouth,” Mary Lou said. Her words dripped with bitterness.
“Where’s Bubba?” Miz Demetrice asked. “Is he being questioned?”
Tee said, “Uh, uh, um. You need to talk to Sheriff John.”
“Bubba’s gone,” Mary Lou said.
“Gone?” Miz Demetrice repeated. “Gone where?”
“Sheriff John’s got some kind of trap set up for the fella who’s prolly the one who took Deputy Gray. It was Bubba’s idea, and they said I couldn’t keep my mouth sh
ut, so Sheriff and Patsy drug me here and locked me up. I’m as mad as a bear stuck in a hornet’s nest because he thought it was bees and there ain’t no honey.”
Miz Demetrice’s mouth opened and shut. Then it opened again. “The arrest was…fake?”
“Miz Mary Lou!” Tee thundered. “Cain’t you keep quiet about nothing?”
Mary Lou shook her head sadly. “No, not really, no.”
“What’s going on, Tee?” Miz Demetrice asked.
“Cain’t tell you,” Tee said forlornly.
“Bubba thinks Nancy Musgrave’s brother is really Robert Daughtry,” Mary Lou said immediately. “Or is it that Robert Daughtry is really Nancy’s brother?”
“Oh, Christ,” Tee said and straightaway added, “beg pardon.”
“And they thought ifin they called in a false report about someone finding the great-uncle dead, then Robert would rush out to check on it,” Newt Durley said from three cells down.
“And Sheriff John took Bubba with him?” Miz Demetrice asked.
“Sheriff thought I might let Bubba out,” Tee muttered.
“Where did they go?”
“Back out to Nardle,” Mary Lou said quickly.
Precious let out an anxious howl.
Newt said, “Who’s the guy in the purple mask? Oh, please tell me I ain’t got the DT’s again. I cain’t take no more of them pink spiders!”
Miz Demetrice hadn’t exactly lost hope, but she was fully aware the chances of Willodean Gray being found alive were slim. However, she liked long shots, and she would do just about anything to help her son.
“Oh, Tee,” Patsy said from the door of the block. She held a stack of magazines she was evidently bringing to Mary Lou Treadwell to keep the woman occupied. “Cain’t you keep no one out of your jail?”
Miz Demetrice rushed out of the jail, dragging Precious with her. The PSS trotted after the Snoddy matriarch. When she plunged through the exterior doors, she saw the Grays gathered near the entrance to the sheriff’s department
Ifin I was that girl’s mama, I’d want to know, Miz Demetrice thought. She went ahead and told the Grays what she had discovered while she hurried to her car.
•
“Cain’t have gone far,” Sheriff John said.
Bubba cast his glance around frantically. It was a one-horse hitching-post town. There wasn’t anywhere for the Suzuki to have disappeared. His eyes scanned a ranch house with five rusting cars parked there. Since the last time Bubba had seen it, the 64 ½ Mustang hadn’t moved, but one of the front doors had fallen off. Forrest Roquemore’s house was sadly empty. Tape had been left across the tiny front porch. The evidence team had come and gone, leaving only a bit of yellow streaming in the wind. The other shotgun houses were desolate and alone. The entire area was as quiet as a tomb.
People lived here, but they hid in their houses or were away.
Bubba got out of the Mercury. He couldn’t just sit there. It was like accepting the specter of death knocking at the door with a scythe.
What he wanted to do was roar at the world. He wanted to scream and holler at the unfairness of life. Why that woman? Why her? She ain’t done nothing to deserve that from no one.
Bubba wanted to bargain with God. God, if you’re listening, now’s the time for a little something on your end. Flaming arrows pointin’ the way. Something. Anything.
“The Suzuki was only out of my sight for twenty seconds,” Sheriff John said into the cell phone. While Bubba was trying to talk God into action, the sheriff was rallying reinforcements, and an instant of shame overcame Bubba.
“Ain’t but two roads out of here. Call Deputy Tempchin.” Pause. “No, I ain’t got his cell number. Call Darla and have her hand the phone to Tempchin. Keep an eye out for the Suzuki Samurai. It’s a 1987 with Texas plates, XJG-555. That’s X-ray, Juliet, Golf, fiver, fiver, fiver.”
Bubba spun around. Then he spun around again. Sheriff John poked fingers at his cell phone again. For a solitary moment, there was silence.
But it wasn’t all silent.
His head snapped to the left. Forrest Roquemore’s house was the third on the left. It was merely a narrow shotgun home with a dirt yard. There was a drive way up the side that went around back.
He remembered something.
Sheriff John said Forrest had properties around Nardle. If this didn’t work, they would be checking those out. The police would be searching them because Morgan and Nancy had to have a place for Miz Demetrice to be kept. That was assuming The PSS was correct about what he’d heard while heavily dosed with antipsychotic drugs.
There was something else Bubba remembered. I looked out into the backyard and noticed the old man’s property spread out significantly once it got past the typical backyard. The fences opened into pasture area with a small barn. Twin ruts twisted through the pasture toward a wall of trees in the distance. A single donkey pawed a broke-open bale of hay.
Twin ruts led through a pasture and toward a wall of trees. Twin ruts that looked well-used and Forrest said he lost his vehicle when Hurricane Katrina caused a tree to fall on it and couldn’t replace it. So ifin Forrest ain’t got a car, whose car is making the ruts well used?
Bubba heard the whine of a not-so-distant motor. He knew motors. It was the strained noise of an old four-cylinder engine struggling to cross a field of grass and mud. It made sense. In the sparse seconds the Suzuki had been out of sight, it had turned into Forrest’s drive and gone behind the house. Robert Daughtry/Morgan Newbrough had taken a moment to open the gate and drive through. He’d probably taken another moment to close the gate to ensure the donkey didn’t get out.
Bubba ran. Surprisingly for such a big man, he ran fast.
•
Sheriff John dialed Patsy and told her to put a BOLO out for Robert Daughtry aka Morgan Newbrough in the dark blue Suzuki Samurai. She was to use the secure lines in order to get it out to all the law enforcement in the area. He didn’t know if Morgan had a police radio in his car, but it was a strong possibility considering the enormity of Nancy Musgrave’s planning.
Patsy said, “Doing it right now, but Sheriff, there’s something else.”
“What?” Sheriff John snapped.
“Miz Demetrice forced her way into the jail and found out Bubba wasn’t there,” Patsy said all at once.
“Tee Gearheart weighs over 300 lbs. and he couldn’t stop that little lady? Did she have a bazooka?”
“Well, he’s afraid of her,” Patsy explained. “But then Mary Lou told her why Bubba wasn’t there. Mary Lou was desperate to tell someone something, so she did.”
“Oh crap,” Sheriff John said, “I mean carp.”
“Miz Demetrice rushed out of here, followed by that fella in the purple get-up and Bubba’s dog. And Miz D. told Deputy Gray’s family as she was running past.” Patsy sighed. “They all got in their cars and rode off like bats out of hell. They nearly ran Alice Mercer down in the road. Her dog, Bill Clinton, got away and bit one of the reporters who says he’s suing everyone. The reporter called us all but lowdown penis wrinkles.”
“Okay,” Sheriff John said when Patsy paused to take a breath. He disconnected and called Simms back. “Simms. Civilians coming into Nardle. Stop them. It’s Miz Demetrice and the Grays. Stop them even ifin you have to shoot them.”
“Really?” Simms sounded intrigued with the carte blanche to shoot someone with his official sidearm.
“No, dumbass. Just stop them.” Sheriff John disconnected again and looked around for Bubba. The passenger door to the Mercury hung open and Bubba had vanished.
Sheriff John’s head swiveled, not unlike a fourteen-year-old’s head in a 70’s horror movie.
Bubba was well and truly gone.
“CRAP!” Sheriff John yelled. “OH HELL, I MEAN CARP!”
•
Bubba took the gate by virtue of sailing over it. One hand hit the top rail, holding it as the rest of his body floated over to one side. His boots cleared the top by a good foot. The
donkey had been ambling back over to the bale of hay when she was startled by Bubba’s sudden appearance in her field. She hee-hawwwwwhed and fled for the barn, braying all the way.
He couldn’t see the Suzuki, but the grass around the gate had been driven over, and recently. The tracks of tires made patterns in the soft earth of the ruts.
Bubba followed the tracks at a dead run. He peered into the woods ahead of him seeking the Suzuki, but he couldn’t see any sign of the little SUV. Desperately, he made himself stop. For a long moment, all Bubba could hear was the hoarse rasp of his own breathing. The blood was thundering through his body and even it sounded as loud as church bells on Sunday.
Why else would Morgan drive back here? This has to be where he’d put Forrest and likely Willodean, too.
It would have been difficult to guess Forrest had all this property behind his little shotgun house. Bubba hadn’t realized it, and he wondered if anyone but the neighbors knew.
They’d probably complained about the donkey’s braying, so they had to know. But why mention it to the po-lice? It wasn’t like they recognized it would be important. Maybe the neighbors didn’t want to mess with the irritable old man and could care less about his back property. Who knew?
Bubba held his breath and listened intently. He heard the grinding of the car’s gears, and then the engine abruptly went silent. He let out the breath and loped toward the wall of forest. The Suzuki was in there. So was Morgan Newbrough. And there was where Bubba was going.
He discovered another fence and another gate, making short work of both.
He plunged into shadows and paused to let his eyes adjust. The day had sped away while they were anxiously waiting to see if their impromptu plan worked. The minutes that seemed like hours before now became like seconds instead. The sun was about to set, and the entire area would be a miasma of darkness.
Bubba made himself slow down. He made his feet make careful steps so as not to alert the man he was pursuing. It wouldn’t do to let Morgan know Bubba was right behind him.
Bubba and the Missing Woman Page 27