Bubba and the Dead Woman Page 8

  Chapter Eight

  Bubba Finds a Clue

  Tuesday through Wednesday

  “I need to see Dr. Goodjoint,” Bubba Snoddy announced at the Pegramville Family Medical Clinic and Chiropractic Care Center. Licensed Practical Nurse Dee Dee Lacour looked at Bubba as though he had sprouted horns and a tail. Bubba craned his neck around to check if indeed he had germinated a red appendage on his gluteus maximus. He had not. What a relief. Then he realized that must mean that he had a booger hanging from his nose. That wasn’t a relief. He wiped his nose quickly with the hand which was not holding the sack of ice in place.

  Although he needed the ice to reduce the swelling on his face, Bubba thought it also made a nice cover story for going in to see the doctor. Then the doctor wouldn’t have to listen to any of Sheriff John Headrick’s blather about talking too much to suspects in an ongoing murder case. As if diabolical murders happened around Pegramville on a regular basis.

  There were three other people in the waiting room of the family clinic. One was Doris Cambliss, and if there was a soul in town who didn’t know who she was, then Bubba thought that person surely must be deaf, dumb, and blind. Simply put, and it could not be simpler, Doris ran the brothel. The Red Door Inn, to be precise, was a thinly veiled disguise for the brothel. The brothel had been in existence since the 1850s, originally opened by some of Doris’s forebears. It was widely accepted that the brothel had kept the Yankees from burning Pegramville down to the foundations by Union soldiers in 1864. A troop of brothel girls had hastily scuttled out to entertain some of the Union officers. Then the colonel in charge of the company of Union troops had become infatuated with Miss Annalee Hyatt, one of the Red Door’s most popular prostitutes. Miss Annalee had been raised in Pegramville, had family still there, and kind of liked the place. She pleaded with the colonel not to destroy it and did her utmost to convince the officer of her sincerity. The colonel, whose name had been lost in the annals of history, apparently thought highly of Miss Annalee’s charms, and thus was persuaded. Consequently, when brothels of the west became immoral and then illegal, in that order, it was with a blind eye that the law enforcement of the area overlooked the Red Door’s activities. A full length portrait of Miss Annalee, displayed with all of her charms apparent, was hanging in the living room, a testament to her influence, her ingenuity, and her breasts, not necessarily in that order.

  “Miz Cambliss,” said Bubba, reaching up to tip his hat and realizing that he no longer wore one.

  Doris was in her fifties but looked thirty-five. She wore make-up with stunning success, knowing how to compliment her features with mastery. She wore her hair dyed jet black, no one had an inkling as to her true hair color except her hair dresser, and that person wasn’t talking. She wore clothing made of silk, bearing designer labels that the local women looked on in disdain but were secretly jealous of her style and flair. Her brown eyes often twinkled with humor when she saw someone eyeing her up and down with apprising stares. She didn’t care what folks thought of her. Enough of the residents of Pegramville supported her behind closed doors and that was enough to make her giggle all the way to the bank.

  Bubba knew from talk that she didn’t run as many girls as her forebears did; the business wasn’t a cash cow anymore. So she had gradually turned the Red Door into a bed and breakfast, full of antiques, and history. Half the time, people who stayed there didn’t even know the real nature of the business, despite the portrait of Miss Annalee in all of her naked and pink glory.

  The other customers in the clinic were a mother with her small child. The pair stayed well to one side, avoiding both Doris and Bubba as if they both had the plague.

  Doris patted the seat next to her. “Say, Bubba Snoddy, welcome to my world. My blood pressure is up again.” She added cheerfully, sotto voce, “I cain’t imagine why.”

  Bubba laughed. Nurse Dee Dee scowled. The mother on the other side of the waiting room scowled. The small child stared with big eyes. Bubba sat next to the madam in one of the waiting room’s nondescript plastic chairs.

  “That’s a fine-looking piece of work, you got done to you there,” Doris commented, referring to the growing bruise and black eye.

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” he smiled. “How’s the bed and breakfast business?”

  She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Well, I ain’t seen you there since you was eighteen years old, but I have to say that the B&B is doing much better than the brothel.”

  Bubba spent about twenty minutes speaking to Doris about antiques, and bed and breakfasts. Doris was of the opinion that the Snoddy Mansion would make a fine bed and breakfast. Then the older woman was called in to see the doctor. “Small towns with colorful histories are big business these days,” she said on her way in. “And we both know just how colorful Pegramville can be.”

  Bubba spent another fifteen minutes being stared at by the five-year-old child with an obvious case of chicken pox and his indignant mother before they were called in. Looking at the child mildly scratching at his face with mittens duct-taped on his little hands made Bubba want to rub like an old hound dog. He lazily scratched the side of his nose.

  Doris came back out about ten minutes after that and called to Bubba as she left, “You come see me, hear?”

  Nurse Dee Dee made a noise that sounded suspiciously like she had smelled something bad and was trying not to breathe. Then she motioned him to follow her into an examining room, where she took his temperature, his blood pressure, and his pulse. “What’s a-matter with you?” she demanded in a sour tone that denoted clearly that she thought 99% of the patients in to see the doctor were full of tomfoolery and monkey business.

  “Now that’s a long list by some people’s standards,” he remarked idly. He started to name, “Too lazy. Too dumb. Too...”

  Nurse Dee Dee, who was a short, plump woman with a lack of humor that was notorious throughout the entire county, snapped, “Today. What brings you here today?”

  Bubba pointed at his eye, which was just about swollen shut. “Something came in contact with my eye.” He almost smiled at her. Almost. His lips twitched.

  Nurse Dee Dee muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “I’ll just bet.” Then she disappeared out the door. A few minutes later the doctor swept in.

  Doctor George Goodjoint was an elderly man who had attended Harvard and Johns Hopkins for his various degrees, including a couple in medicine and one in philosophy. Then he had returned to practice general medicine in the small farming community he loved. He was a shade less than six foot tall, tended to stoop because of a curvature in his spine, and possessed a shock of white hair that he liked to periodically sweep back over his forehead.

  Miz Demetrice had always gotten along fine with the doctor and he with her, which was why he came to supper at the Snoddy place about once a month. Bubba suspected it was because both of their spouses were dead; they had to have someone else to argue with. Consequently, Bubba tended to avoid his mother’s monthly dinner affairs as if his life depended on it. No one could be sure who would attend or what would happen in the evening. But her one and only son knew nine times out of ten it was some sort of mayhem. One memorable evening ended with a duel fought with two hundred-year-old muskets and with the entire household incarcerated in the county jail another time for repeatedly disturbing the peace. All of which would occur with his mother and the good doctor egging everyone else on, and bets on exactly how many squad cars would be deployed from the Sheriff’s Department.

  Doc grinned at Bubba, using one gangly hand to turn the younger man’s head toward him, examining the swelling on his face. “Got any teeth loose, boy?”

  “Lower molar,” mentioned Bubba. He pointed with one hand.

  Doc reached inside Bubba’s mouth with two long fingers, and liberally wiggled the tooth back and forth. Bubba grunted. “Yep,” Doc said. “That’s a loose tooth all right. It’s my professional opinion, based on years of advanced training in the area of human medicin
es, and years of practice that you should have a shot of twelve-year-old scotch, and then go see a dentist. Now lemme have a look at that eye.”

  He peered into Bubba’s swelling eye. He pulled out an orthoscope and shined a light in the impaired eye. He made several noises sounding like, “Uh-huh. How about that. Mmph.” Then Doc leaned back and said, “You didn’t come here about your eye. That eye is fine. Keep putting ice on it today, and it’ll be okay in about a week. It ain’t the first black eye you had, nor do I suspect will it be the last.”

  Bubba crossed his arms over his chest. “I been having problems with impotence,” he deadpanned. “I believe my pecker is dead.”

  Doc choked until his face turned the shade of purple that was just about the color of eggplants at the grocery store. “Jesus, Bubba, why don’t you just say you want to know about that Dearman girl. I know that’s why you’re here. Boy, you’re as slow as molasses in the wintertime. Your mama was here on Monday asking about her, and I’ll tell you the same thing.”

  Bubba waited patiently. Finally, he asked, “Which is?”

  “Not a goddamn thing.” Doc barked with laughter. “Impotence. At my age, little surprises like that are enough to give a man a coronary.” He patted the breast of his white jacket as if he were knocking on wood for good luck.

  “Or the brandy and cigars you and Miz Demetrice share.”

  “Or that, too,” Doc agreed, a little smile curling his lips. He flipped his alabaster white hair back over his forehead and out of his eyes. “Missed you out on Thursday.”

  Bubba knew what Doc meant. Doc had been out to the Snoddy Mansion to take a look at Melissa’s dead body, pronounce her dead, and all that consisted of his coroner duties. Bubba had been a little too preoccupied to walk up and give a friendly howdy. For some reason.

  “Sheriff John is about to put my head on a platter and serve it up to the grand jury,” Bubba pointed out calmly. He gazed directly into Doc’s eyes. No lie about that. It was exactly what the Sheriff of Pegram County was about to do to Bubba. Furthermore, Sheriff John was going to do it with wondrous glee in his heart and immense self-satisfaction that a murderer had been apprehended.

  Doc placed himself carefully in a chair. Bubba remained perched on the examining table. The two stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Doc said, “That Dee Dee Lacour is going to come in here and ask what in the hell is taking my old bones so long to look at a little, insignificant black eye. She’s a mean woman. Don’t ever marry a mean woman. They make your life a living hell. Glad I’m not married to her. Bad enough that she’s my nurse.”

  Bubba thought about what Nurse Dee Dee could do with her question and decided not to offer the thought up to Doc, just in case the older man was of a mood to follow up on the suggestion.

  Doc sighed. “Melissa Anne Dearman was killed approximately at half past ten of the PM on that night. Her body temperature relates that information, however, it was a warm night, and taken statistical probabilities into account, I would give Sheriff John and Deputy Simms about an hour leeway. Here comes another however, Bubba. There was a witness who places her at Bufford’s Gas and Grocery at around ten-fifteen PM to ten-thirty PM.”

  Lloyd Goshorn, thought Bubba. Nothing I haven’t thought about before.

  Doc went on, “So we can say with reasonable certainty that Missus Dearman died between ten-thirty PM and eleven-thirty PM. Personally, I would say closer to 10:30 PM. She died almost immediately upon being shot. There was very little bleeding from the wound so that would indicate this was so. Furthermore, the murderer shot her as she was running away and from a distance of about ten feet. It was either a lucky shot, or the shooter was a damned fine shot.”

  Bubba was a good shot. He placed third last year at the Turkey Shoot, scoring just below a local police officer and the mayor’s sister. Sheriff John had been there shooting as well. So had Simms. So had half the town folk. But then the thirty-eight revolver Bubba had used belonged to Bubba’s cousin, Harv, over in Louisiana, who had come to visit with Miz Demetrice. Bubba didn’t even own a handgun. Or even a rifle.

  “Otherwise, she wasn’t harmed. No defensive wounds. No bruising. Nothing to suggest that any other damage occurred to her before or after her death.” Doc sighed again. “They won’t ask me this, Bubba, but it sounds like a crime of passion. A spur of the moment kind of thing. A man in a fit of anger might shoot a lady in the back.”

  Bubba was getting tired of people giving him a look that suggested that while he might be justified in killing an ex-fiancée who had slept with another man in their own bed, that he was also a murderer. “I...didn’t...kill...her.” He clamped down so hard that his jaw audibly popped.

  Doc sat up straight in his chair. “Christ Almighty, Bubba Snoddy. I didn’t say you did. I’m telling you what the sheriff is going to say to the grand jury and what ninety-nine point nine percent of the population of Pegramville is thinking. Boy, if you didn’t shoot her, then who in the hell would have?”

  Bubba thanked the doctor, not knowing how to answer a question that had been plaguing him endlessly since he had found Melissa dead in the long grass of the overgrown Snoddy gardens. He paid the bill to a disinterested cashier, ignored Nurse Dee Dee’s sullen face, and left by the same way he’d come.

  Precious was just as eager to see him as she always was. She drooled on him as much as she could, before getting her fill and retreating to the passenger side to observe the local flora and fauna they passed in the truck. She stuck her head out the open window and panted lustfully.

  Ten minutes later, Bubba was walking into his home. For most of the afternoon he slept on the couch downstairs, his big feet sticking way off the end, but there was no one but Precious there to notice. He woke up to the phone ringing and heard Adelia Cedarbloom telling him that some ‘po-lice’ officers had been in taking fingerprints off the dining room windows and making plaster molds out of footprints from the mud underneath the same windows.

  Bubba nodded thoughtfully. Deputy Willodean Gray had come through for him. When he wandered out onto his front porch, he found that she had returned his brown Stetson and left it in one of the Adirondack chairs there. He fingered the brim where she must have touched it with her shapely hands and sighed before taking it back inside.

  There was a call from Lurlene Grady, and Bubba spent almost a half hour speaking to her, though most of the conversation went in one direction, from her to him. She wanted to know all about jail, and all about being suspected of murdering someone, and had she really been his ex-fiancée, and why hadn’t Bubba told her about that woman before? Bubba’s answers were along the lines of, ‘Yep,’ ‘Nope,’ and ‘Dunno.’

  He couldn’t help a brief mental comparison between two women. One dark. One light. One sassy. One talky. Bubba shook his head like a wet old hound dog. Man, you don’t want to go there, he told himself. So he did not.

  Since he had skipped lunch, Bubba went over to the big house to eat dinner with his mother. Adelia had made Yankee pot roast, which made her laugh uproariously when she did so for some unknown reason. Something about irony and the Civil War. However, only Miz Demetrice and Bubba sat down to dinner in the cavernous dining room.

  Bubba got a big piece of roast beef, a mountain of new potatoes, and a teetering pile of carrots and proceeded to drown the entire dish in gravy. Miz Demetrice nibbled on the roast beef and several carrots, staring at the bruises on her son’s face.

  “Miz Adelia is as fine a cook as ever,” Bubba said.

  His mother nodded. “You know, Bubba, my lawyer came by today. You know, Mr. Petrie.”

  Bubba knew Mr. Petrie. He didn’t think much of Mr. Petrie. The lawyer reminded him of a mortician. He was always dressed in a three-piece black suit, even when the humidity and the temperature were three digits, and everyone else was positively dying from heat stroke. He wore a black derby, a black tie, and wingtips. He fawned over Miz Demetrice as if gold pieces would pour out of her mouth his hands. And damned if Bubba knew th
e man’s first name. It was always Lawyer Petrie or Mr. Petrie, esquire. So basically, Bubba kept his mouth shut. Something about discretion being the better part of valor.

  Miz Demetrice rolled her eyes at her son. “I know you know Mr. Petrie. Well, don’t worry. I haven’t given him control of the Snoddy fortune yet.” She laughed. “You know that man still thinks we have a fortune. Anyway, he mentioned that he was aware of your plight and offered to be your lawyer.”

  “Lawyer Petrie does family law. Not criminal law,” he added unnecessarily.

  “You’re my son.”

  Bubba accidentally bit his tongue and cursed appropriately.

  “Well, I didn’t get you out of a cabbage patch.”

  Bubba said, “No one is saying you did, Mama. Lawyer Petrie isn’t an expert in criminal law.”

  “He’s a lawyer.”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Mr. Petrie says the grand jury is convening soon to see if you will be indicted.”

  “Doc Goodjoint said you were over at his office on Monday,” Bubba said, spearing a carrot with his fork.

  Miz Demetrice gave her son a piercing look that only a mother could give to a son. She took a delicate sip of red wine. It was a New Mexican vintage she had recently ‘discovered.’ “You should have some of this.”

  “He told me what he told you.”

  “Well, Bubba honey, I didn’t want you to worry,” Miz Demetrice explained.

  Bubba sat up in the chair. “Listen, Mama. I’m in a world of hurt here. I can’t explain to you how much in trouble I am in right now. I’m so screwed that...”

  “I get the picture, Bubba. One doesn’t need to be so graphic,” his mother protested.

  “I’m the only one who had any reason to kill Melissa,” Bubba started, and his mother cut right in.

  “You’re the only one who had a reason, who doesn’t have an alibi,” Miz Demetrice corrected primly.

  “Who better than me?”

  Miz Demetrice considered her son carefully. “I’d like to think that Sheriff John has a little more intelligence than you give him credit for. Else you’d be in jail, yet.”

  Not much was said after that. Bubba wasn’t sure why his mother didn’t mention the swollen face and black eye, but he was thankful. He cleaned up the dinnerware while Miz Demetrice put leftovers away for Adelia. Then he kissed his mother on her cheek, checked all of the locks on the windows and doors of the big house, and made his way over to the caretaker’s place.

  It was about midnight when his phone rang. He answered it sleepily on the third ring.

  His mother’s voice came across the line in a high-pitched whisper. “Bubba,” she whispered in a squeak. “The ghost is back. Come on over, quick!”

  Bubba threw himself out of bed and tripped over his dog, who responded with a pitiful yelp. He pounded down the stairs, clad only in boxer shorts, and out the front door before Precious knew what was up. He ran across a fog-filled yard toward the big house, looking around for intruders running away. The kitchen door was ajar. Just as he was about to open it, the blast of a shotgun knocked him on his butt.

  “Goddammit!” he roared. “Mama, it’s me!”

  Miz Demetrice stuck her head out the kitchen door. Her face was contrite. “Did I hit you?”

  Bubba brushed splinters off his chest. “You called me. Where did you think I would come in at?” He looked down. No blood. “Mama, you’re a lousy shot.”

  Miz Demetrice shrugged. “It’s rock salt. I’m only interested in scaring. I came down to let you in and saw a big shadow.”

  Bubba glared at his mother. “In case you haven’t noticed I’m a big man who casts a big shadow.”

  “Big baby, too,” his mother said proudly. “Eleven pounds two ounces. Nearly split me in half.”

  He stood up, brushing off bits of wood and glass with his hands. Then he carefully walked through the debris into the house. “You leave that door open, Mama?”

  “The kitchen door?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You locked it on your way out,” she stated. “I didn’t touch it.”

  “Someone’s been in here then. It was a few inches open.”

  “Then my ghost is gone,” she declared. “Dammit. I wanted to shoot him on his sheet-covered ass. Teach him to try and scare a helpless little old woman.”

  “Helpless little old woman?” Bubba repeated skeptically. “What woke you up?”

  “You’re not going to believe this but the sounds of moaning and chains rattling.”

  Bubba stared blankly at his mother.

  “I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  It took Bubba almost an hour before he found what he was looking for. It was a neat, tiny sound system that was activated by a lack of motion. Twenty minutes after its sensors which were placed in the long hallway, the staircase, and the bedroom door, detected motion, the tape was activated. The speakers were hidden behind some plants, a bookcase, and a spittoon. It was a costly little affair too, not something a man could purchase from a local hardware store.

  Bubba showed it to his mother. Then he played the tape. It was about ten minutes of moaning, wailing, and some chains rattling.

  Miz Demetrice wasn’t impressed. “We’ve never had a chain-rattling ghost at the Snoddy Mansion,” she said indignantly. “Someone needs to do their homework a little better.”

  Bubba put the whole thing into a bag, put his mother back to bed, and prepared to spend the night on the living room couch, where like his own couch, his feet stuck off by too damn much. But he didn’t really care about that.

  ~ ~ ~