Bubba and the Dead Woman Page 12

  Chapter Twelve

  Bubba and the Errant Bullet

  Thursday through Friday

  Bubba Snoddy carefully scrutinized Major Michael Dearman. Dearman was officially a drunken mess. The jacket of his uniform was unbuttoned. His tie was half on, wrapped once around his neck but not tied in a knot. The pins on his medals had broken, leaving the grouping hanging crookedly down his breast. His dress shirt was stained with some unknown substance. And only the god who watched over drunks knew where his saucer cap was presently located. Clearly, he had been at the Dew Drop Inn for a long time consuming drink after drink, until he could barely stand up or even focus. How much of a liar could Dearman be? How much of a liar could a man who was so drunk be?

  Bubba believed Dearman when he said Melissa had been coming to apologize for what she had done to her former fiancée. Despite her shortcomings she had had her own sense of honor, her own sense of right and wrong. When Bubba had been angry with her, and that had been for a long time after the incident, he hadn’t been rational enough to see that. It was true that she had wanted more from life, but he had never consciously thought that Melissa was simply a golddigger. He knew that she had to have had genuine affection, if not love, for the man she chose to marry. Even if Bubba had walked in on the two of them together, it hadn’t been her plan that he find out that way. She would have told him privately, in a manner that wouldn’t have been welcome but neither would it have been cruel. She had loved Bubba in her own way, as well and had never wanted to hurt him like she had. So it had eaten away at her until she had felt compelled to tell him that she was genuinely sorry for what she had been responsible, the breakup of their union, as well as Bubba’s precipitous exit from the military.

  Bubba had loved Melissa once. He had thought he couldn’t feel compassion for her, even dead. But he was wrong. Furthermore, he felt compassion for the man who had also loved her.

  Dearman was still sobbing on the other side of the table. His hands covered his face as though the simple action could take away all of the pain from his sight. It would be a long time before that would happen.

  Bubba sighed. He silently noted that he was doing a lot of sighing these days. “Come on, Sir. I’ll get you back to the Inn.” Please, God, don’t let him throw up in my truck or on my dog.

  Dearman peeked through his hands. “What, another bar? Why not?” He wiped tears away from his eyes with the back of his hands like a little kid would do. Then he blew his nose with his sleeve. Bubba tried not to wince and failed. “It’s not like I have to go home,” Dearman added. His face crumpled again. “Oh, God.”

  Bubba put one of Dearman’s arms around his shoulder and helped him up. The Major went on speaking conversationally, “You know, since you killed my wife, life sucks.”

  Sometimes, reckoned Bubba solemnly, life has the strangest way of coming back and kicking one on the butt. It’s the ironies that make life so interesting. Dearman wasn’t a lightweight, and most of his not inconsiderable weight rested on Bubba. Together they stumbled through the tavern toward the door.

  The bartender said, “Say, Bubba, you going to take him back to the Red Door?” Privately, he was hoping that Bubba wasn’t taking the man out to kill him because surely some of the blame would come back on himself. “Or maybe to another bar?” he asked hopefully.

  “Back to the Red Door. Alive and kicking,” Bubba said, breathing heavily from the effort of moving the Major about, “if not puking.”

  “Puking?” Dearman repeated thoughtfully, halfway out the front door, one hand on Bubba with the other on the door frame. “Don’t mind if I do.” And he did.

  “Ah, Jeez,” the bartender complained loudly, screwing up his face. “Throw up outside! Outside!”

  “How much did he have to drink?” Bubba asked suspiciously, watching the Major heave and then heave again.

  An innocent expression appeared on the bartender’s face. A veritable angel, thought Bubba sardonically. “A bottle of Jack Daniels,” the barman said cautiously.

  Bubba stared at the man, silently willing him to finish the total. “And,” continued the barkeep, “a bottle of vodka.”

  The sound of vomiting carried clearly inside the bar through the open door. Several patrons made gulping motions. One covered his mouth as if that would prevent a chain reaction. Bubba’s own stomach twisted in sympathy for the man. “And three Long Island Iced Teas. But that’s it, I swear.”

  Slamming the door behind him, Bubba reached down to support Dearman in his efforts to dispel most of the contents of his stomach. No matter how bad it was, it was the best thing for the man to do. Much better than having one’s stomach pumped out, thought Bubba, twisting his face at the smell of alcohol and vomit inundating the air.

  At least he hadn’t eaten anything, Bubba thought. That would have been really nasty. His own stomach made a noise that indicated that if he wasn’t careful, parts of chicken-fried steak would be joining the rest of the liquid on the sidewalk.

  Dearman seemed to be done. “I think that’s all,” he slurred. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “God, I hope so,” Bubba said forcefully. He helped Dearman into the truck, which put Precious in her own nasty state of mind because some strange human was sitting on her seat. Not only that, but the human smelled terrible, and his smell overpowered every other smell in the truck. Sitting between the two of them, she whined pitifully, trying to put herself as close to her master as possible.

  Dearman peered at the dog with bloodshot eyes. “What the hell is that? A gremlin?”

  Precious growled a little, and Dearman promptly shut his mouth and tipped forward. Bubba said, “Why now?”

  Dearman groaned. “Why now what?”

  “Why would Melissa come see me now? Why not a year ago? Why not a year from now?” Bubba tried to concentrate on the questions that suddenly plagued him. How much of a coincidence could this all be? Melissa comes into town on the one night that Bubba’s all alone at Bufford’s and as a pile of suspicious thoughts flowed into Bubba’s head, Dearman answered him.

  “You called her,” the Major muttered forcefully.

  “The hell I did.” The hell he did.

  Dearman groaned again. “After court today, the Sheriff said they had a phone record of you calling her last week. Your number. The Snoddy Mansion number. You must have begged her to come.” Then he pitched forward, hit his head on the dash, and passed out. Bubba made Dearman as comfortable as possible and started the truck.

  Then Bubba drove him back to the Red Door Inn where Doris Cambliss helped Bubba put the man into bed. Dearman had regained a semblance of consciousness and was mumbling about a potpourri of subject matters, from his dead wife, to Monica Lewinsky, to why the color blue was the best color.

  Doris huffed and puffed as she covered Dearman up with a quilt. She waved a hand in front of her face as if that would disperse the smell of alcohol. “I’m going to have to fumigate this place. How much did he have to drink?”

  “Too damn much,” Bubba said sincerely. “Might want to put a bottle of aspirin around for him, because when he wakes up, he’s going to be one sorry son of a bitch.” He added, “Maybe something for him to vomit in, too.”

  “He’s sorry now. I’ll check on him every so often to make sure he’s doing okay,” she assured Bubba, still waving the hand in front of her face.

  They stood in the west wing of the Red Door Inn. The house was built with three distinct wings. The middle part served as the common living areas, such as the kitchen, living room, dining room, and such. The two other wings stuck out like those of a bird. Both sides were set up for occupancy. In the years since he had been in the Red Door, it had changed considerably. Bubba asked curiously, “How do you keep your client separate from your...ah...clients?”

  “Separate wings, dear,” Doris answered with a shrewd look. “The noise doesn’t carry.”

  “Mind if I pay my respects to Miss Annalee Hyatt?” Bubba asked with a smile. He always liked to take a gand
er at her portrait when he was in the Red Door Inn, which wasn’t all that often anymore. It was some portrait. Life-sized and in all her glory, Bubba could see why a Union colonel would fall for her, lock, stock, and barrel.

  Doris laughed heartily. She was used to men staring at Miss Annalee. “Sure thing, sugar.”

  Bubba left Doris and found his way to the middle wing of the Inn. In a fancified living room with a car-sized fireplace was the portrait of Miss Annalee Hyatt. The portrait itself was hung in a prominent area, surrounded by red velvet panels and was framed with gilt-edged wood. One couldn’t even walk into the living room without casting a gander at Miss Annalee’s portrait. Her notoriously well-defined figure was poised as if for the centerfold of a magazine not yet published, bending over a large, red velvet-covered chair, showing off every bit of her charms. Her hair was brownish-blonde and fell to her waist, or it would have if she had been standing up straight, her eyes were like a warm brown, like a bar of Hershey’s chocolate. She stared out at the observer with those gorgeously inviting eyes that one longed to drown within. It was said that the portrait was true to life and had not exaggerated Miss Annalee.

  Miss Annalee had had many admirers. Bubba was certain of that. One was the Union colonel. And there had been another colonel as well, who longed for her favors. Truthfully, if the more distasteful rumors were true, then Colonel Snoddy had been another one of Miss Annalee’s ardent swains.

  Bubba stared at the life-sized portrait, and something suddenly troubled him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was like something was screaming at him to figure it out, and he had earmuffs on. Troubled, he looked at the portrait for a long time.

  It was after eleven PM when Bubba pulled away from the Red Door Inn. Something about that portrait left him scratching his head like a chimpanzee aching for a banana. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Bubba dismissed the thought uneasily as he happened to drive by the Sheriff’s Department and saw Deputy Willodean Gray exiting the building all by her lonesome. In actuality, he drove by the station every time he thought of it, but this was the first time he had hit pay dirt. He pulled up beside her while rolling down the window. “Hey, Deputy Gray,” he called.

  Willodean cast her green eyes upon Bubba and rolled them in a manner that would have put off a more discerning man. Bubba reasoned that there could be many reasons she was rolling her eyes, to include working at least twelve hours this day, having a murder suspect clearly infatuated with her, taking all kinds of male-oriented crap from the other deputies, and/or a variety of reasons.

  Bubba smiled winningly at Willodean. It was his best smile, the one he had practiced endlessly in a mirror when he had been sixteen years old. It was the smile which had broken the hearts of cheerleaders all across Pegram County. “I wonder if you could answer a question for me, Ma’am?” “Gentility without ability is worse than plain beggary,” Miz Demetrice said regally on more than one occasion. It still sprang to Bubba’s mind once in a while. One needed to be tactful and quick-witted in order to get the answer that one might need.

  “No, I won’t go out with you, Bubba Snoddy,” Willodean answered tiredly.

  “That wasn’t it,” Bubba said. So much for that smile. “I wanted to know if it’s true that Major Dearman was really in Italy when his wife was murdered.”

  Willodean abruptly stopped walking and turned to Bubba. The expression on her face clearly showed the surprise of his question. He stopped the truck from motion and pushed Precious back across the seat. She was intent on smelling up the latest human to cross her path, even if that included clambering over her master to get to that human. “Good looking Basset hound,” Willodean commented mildly. She allowed Precious to sniff her fingers first, and then scratched her head appropriately.

  “Her name is Precious,” Bubba said. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Willodean’s eyebrows went up. “Precious? That’s not exactly the name I would have pictured you giving a dog.”

  “Rambo didn’t seem to fit a Basset hound,” Bubba said wryly.

  She laughed, and Bubba sighed...again. It was a nice laugh. An honest laugh. He almost giggled. What in God’s name is wrong with me? he asked himself.

  “Bubba, I can’t just keep giving you information like this,” Willodean stated. “If the Sheriff finds out, I’m history. There’s a strict rule about nonessential communication with suspects outside of interrogation.”

  “Look, Deputy Gray,” Bubba started, “you’re the only one who’s willing to talk to me. Sheriff John and Deputy Simms ain’t looking for anyone else to have done this thing to Melissa. If I didn’t do it then the most logical suspect is the husband, am I right?”

  “You’re right, but he was in Italy. Without a doubt.”

  “I figured as much. I don’t think he hired anyone to do it either. He’s as broken up as a man can get over the death of his wife. I think I don’t have a single suspect anymore.”

  “What about Neal Ledbetter?”

  “He was at the Red Door Inn during the time period.” Bubba grimaced. “He might be trying to scare off my mother, but he didn’t kill Melissa.”

  “Perhaps he has an accomplice who was there that night,” she suggested.

  Bubba nodded. “Yeah, but how do I find that out?”

  “Well, I’ve got some time tomorrow to spend tracking down the origin of the stereo equipment, and if we can place him as the one who bought the stuff, I can shake him down for why it was in the house, attempting to oh, defraud someone out of their rightful property.” She reached up with a delicate hand to scratch her head. “But right now, Bubba, I need to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  Bubba nodded again. “I’ll wait until you’re in your car.”

  Willodean stared at Bubba again but finally went to her car without saying anything else. She climbed in a Jeep Wrangler and drove off without acknowledging Bubba again.

  Bubba patted Precious’s head. “She’s cute, ain’t she?” The dog didn’t agree or disagree but merely watched as the Wrangler’s lights disappeared into the night, vexed that she didn’t automatically get her way.

  Miz Demetrice wasn’t at home when he got there, which was hardly surprising. It was, after all, Pokerama night, despite all the police involvement of late. Who was his mother to come between the card-sharking women of Pegram County and their Thursday night fun? Not that Snoddy matriarch. On the contrary, she would be there egging them on in the face of danger. “So what if the police are all over my son,” she’d say or even yell boisterously. “We deserve Pokerama! Come on, Ladies!”

  Bubba took his dog on a patrol of the big house. Miz Demetrice had reported no further break-ins since the last time, and he wondered if he had managed to scare off their would-be ghost. All of the windows and doors were secure. He left the front veranda and back porch lights burning brightly but didn’t think that would deter an individual if he was intent on burglarizing the place.

  But that wasn’t it exactly, considered Bubba. Someone wanted to frighten Miz Demetrice off. A little old lady alone in her mansion should be pretty easy to scare. It made Bubba more and more angry. It also made him laugh because those people didn’t know how determined Miz Demetrice could get. If it were Neal Ledbetter, then he would have a hard lesson learning that Miz Demetrice wasn’t going to leave Snoddy Mansion unless she wanted to leave, which presented another problem.

  If I were someone who wanted the old lady out, Bubba thought watching Precious patrol the bushes near the front veranda, and the old lady wouldn’t be scared off. Then what would be the next step?

  Why I’d have to kill her, answered Bubba. That would be the only answer. If I wanted something badly enough. He rubbed the side of his face a little. The bruising was starting to go down. He could see just a bit out of his left eye where it was all black before. In a few days the colors would begin to turn from purple to greenish-yellow and then eventually disappear.

  Precious was on the trail o
f something mobile. In the light from the veranda, Bubba saw a rabbit explode from a bush and hightail it across the yard with Precious in close pursuit. But the dog’s stumpy legs were no match for the rabbit and gave out halfway down the driveway. She snorted and sniffed around for a minute, then began trotting back to her master.

  Bubba didn’t care for the path his mind was taking him in, but it was logical. All it depended on was how far someone was willing to go. And since Melissa had been killed by someone, then it was also logical that that was how far someone was willing to go. So why not Miz Demetrice next? Why not, indeed?

  He leaned down to scratch his dog’s head and beckoned her to follow him back to the caretaker’s house. He was tired, hungry, and smelled like he had taken a bath in a distillery. When Bubba was done with a meal, a bath, and feeding his dog, he went into his bedroom and slept like the dead, snoring so loudly that even his dog didn’t care to be in the same room.

  However, not long after Precious was baying loudly.

  “Shut up, you damned dog,” Bubba muttered irritably. Wasn’t it a nice dream he was having with Deputy Willodean Gray wearing a white negligee, and her long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and...

  Precious bayed again and scratched at the door.

  Bubba opened an eye. The door was shut. The dog had inadvertently closed it in an effort to get out. She was up on her hind legs, scratching away, and baying clamorously. She looked over at Bubba and realized he was awake. Down she went and up on the bed she clambered. She stood astride her master’s chest and licked Bubba’s face, trying to tell him that someone was outside.

  His eyes were an awful chore to open, but Bubba did so, looking at the clock on the night stand. Its luminous digits said it was fifteen minutes after four AM. He brushed the dog off of his body. Precious thumped to the floor and returned to clawing at the door. Bubba rolled out of bed, clad only in boxer shorts, and pulled the door open. Precious disappeared out the door, down the stairs, baying all the way.

  Bubba pulled the baseball bat out from behind the door and followed his dog. Precious was a little frantic now, as she nudged her body against his front door. She snuffled around and pressed her body against Bubba’s legs. Bubba commanded her to shut up. The dog, who wasn’t one to obey commands overly, did so immediately much to her master’s surprise.

  All of the lights in the house were off, and Bubba looked out into the night. The back porch light on the big house was off, unlike the way he had left it. He knew his mother wouldn’t turn it off, so it was a good bit of figuring that told him that their little inquisitive buddy was back. Additionally, he couldn’t see Miz Demetrice’s car parked in its regular spot.

  Bubba went out his own back door, taking the time to slip his size-twelve Reebocks on his feet. He whispered to Precious, “If you can keep quiet, you can come.”

  The dog panted at him. Bubba made a face. “Keep your big trap shut, understand?”

  Precious seemed to be in some accord with her master, even if she did not nod or otherwise acknowledge this command.

  Bubba slipped around the side of the caretaker’s house, keeping to the deep shadows. Precious followed at his heels, for once in complete harmony with him. He was hoping that the nightly visitor would keep doing whatever it was he was doing inside the house instead of being frightened away. He wasn’t worried about the man having a gun since he or someone else had planted it in Bubba’s woodpile sometime before.

  But hey, thought Bubba, there’s that rifle, and the shotgun, and didn’t Mama own three eighteenth-century muzzle loaders, too? He looked at the baseball bat he held. Then he looked at his boxer shorts, a cloth rendition of Old Glory emblazoned across his lower body. Oh, the hell with it, decided he, determinedly swinging the bat once into his fist.

  Bubba got past the wide open yard by scuttling around his old Chevy truck. He almost dropped the baseball bat once when Precious abruptly stuck her cold, wet nose on the back of one of his calves. The closer he got to the house, the louder the sounds of noises could be heard in the house. This was undoubtedly the noise that had awakened Precious.

  Someone was methodically tossing the house looking for something. Bubba considered this for a long minute. He was standing next to the back kitchen door, where he could see, even in the darkness, the light bulb of the fixture had been removed and dropped to the ground, where it had broken into many pieces. He tried the door. It was open.

  Among the things that I need to do, considered Bubba seriously, is to change the locks. He didn’t know how their burglar got a set of keys, but the locks hadn’t been changed or renovated for forty years. Some of the Society for Preservation of the South had sets in order to come and go from the house during the spring and fall tours. Bubba had a set. Miz Demetrice gave Doc Goodjoint a set ten years before. Miz Demetrice and Adelia both left their keys all over kingdom come, from the grocery store to hanging from the locks themselves. They had been duplicated so many times that every man, woman, and child in Pegramville could have their own sets.

  Inside the house was full of darkness. The sound of banging drawers drifted down the long hallway. Bubba had spent his whole life, or most of it, clambering up and down every nook and cranny of this house. Their curious friend was in the living room searching the built-in cabinets that dated back before the Civil War. He was throwing the empty drawers on the floor. Something glass broke on the Persian rug-covered floor.

  Precious emitted a low growl beside Bubba, evidently picking up on her master’s anger.

  Bubba had every intention of sneaking up on the unsuspecting burglar or whatever the hell he was. Then he might proceed to break some bones and generally make everyone an unhappy camper before he called the Sheriff’s Department to pick up the trash.

  He was halfway down the long hall when the noises abruptly stopped. Precious made a keening sort of growl that lifted the hairs up on the back of Bubba’s neck. When he reached the door to the living room, he carefully looked around the edge and saw nothing.

  There was no one in the living room. But the drawers to the built-ins were askew. Some were on the floor. Some of the fine crystal that Miz Demetrice collected was shattered on the floor around the marble and brick fireplace.

  Bubba couldn’t understand how the man had gotten past him. There wasn’t another exit to the living room, and the windows were fastened shut.

  Precious let out a howl as someone crashed by the bushes just outside the window. Bubba yelled at his dog to follow him and took off down the long hall, ran out the kitchen door, and around the side of the big house.

  The mysterious burglar took careful aim at Bubba’s half-naked figure and shot at him.

  ~ ~ ~