Bubba and the Dead Woman Page 9

  Chapter Nine

  Bubba and the Subpoena

  Wednesday

  Trouble was Bubba Snoddy’s middle name. His name might very well be Bubba T. Snoddy. He could legally change it and no one would even make a comment. As a matter of fact, they would all agree whole-heartedly and toast his decision with a keg of Coors. Consequently, because of Bubba’s should-have-been middle name, he was not particularly surprised at the reaction he received when he reported the break-in at the Snoddy place to the police department on Wednesday morning. The emergency line operator, who was not Mary Lou Treadwell, laughed at him merrily and disconnected the telephone.

  “Say, Mama,” said Bubba mildly. He put the phone carefully back into its receiver. He didn’t even slam it into its cradle, although he that was precisely was he was tempted to do.

  His mother was sitting in the kitchen with him. She didn’t have a crick in her neck from sleeping on a couch that was precisely two and a half feet shorter than her actual height. Dressed in a cornflower blue robe with matching slippers, she delicately sipped from a cup of coffee. The color of the robe and the slippers was almost exactly the color of her eyes, the same eyes that her son had. Her white hair was in curlers, the only time Bubba would ever see her without immaculate make-up, hair flawlessly styled, and wearing smart clothing that would put the local Sunday churchgoers to shame. Her son thought it was amusing, even if Miz Demetrice did not.

  “Yes, dear,” she responded. She needed her coffee in the morning, in much the same way that a junkie needed a fix of heroin. It was much the same as her son did. Foul moods from either Snoddy were common before the deliverance of the most holy of caffeine products into the blood stream. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please, the big cup. No, the big cup.” She passed him the really big cup. He drank gratefully from it, sighing with relief at the influx of the much-needed addictive substance into his body. “I believe you should call the police about the break-in. They’re not disposed to listen to me.” He had roamed all the way around the house and had not found where the intruders had gained entrance. Obviously, they had gone out the kitchen door which Bubba had found ajar. He wondered if they had made a copy of someone’s keys. He knew that his mother was prone to leaving her keys on any old table in sight for days on end because she was always losing them. Accordingly, she had at least three different sets of house keys.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Miz Demetrice pointed out thoughtfully. She pondered, “What do I pay taxes for?”

  “Not for much,” Bubba remarked dryly. His head felt like a blown-up balloon, about to burst at any second from having too much air put into it. His eye was swollen completely shut, and Miz Demetrice had made a comment about the sheer variety of colors showing on his face. (“My, I didn’t know a human being could turn all of those colors, at the same time. My goodness gracious.”) Coffee alone wouldn’t do much for it. He knew exactly where a prescription bottle of 800 mg ibuprofen was located in his house, and as soon as the holiest of coffee was drunk, he intended to generously avail himself of the painkillers.

  But Bubba knew that his state of trouble was not limited to the inclination of the emergency line operator to listen to him. His grand list of suspects had petered out. Not only had it petered out, but it was almost nonexistent, lying in a crumpled ball somewhere outside the Sheriff’s Department. His mother hadn’t done it. His mother’s housekeeper and cook hadn’t done it. And Major Michael Dearman had been surprised to see Bubba here, where his wife had died. So the chances were significant that he hadn’t done it either.

  The final suspect on his list was Lurlene Grady, and Bubba was almost ninety-nine point nine percent certain that she hadn’t done it either. Lurlene wouldn’t know which way a gun was supposed to go, much less be able to hit a moving target at ten feet. She liked her fingernails long and painted and complained when she had to open the truck door by herself.

  So here was the thing. Bubba was counting on an unknown someone who was trying to scare his mother off the property as a witness. He reasoned that if their midnight ghost had, in fact, been the murderer, he wouldn’t be crazy enough to come back night after night. After all, and if that were the case, he had murdered someone. If one followed that logic further, then why not murder Miz Demetrice and her know-it-all son, as well. Since the haunting attempts were just that, attempts to scare them, and half-assed at best, Bubba knew that the perpetrator had to be something just short of a bumbling idiot.

  Just like Neal Ledbetter, the real estate agent with an eye on providing Pegramville with a Walmart Supercenter, instead of one fifteen miles away. A man with an eye for the immediate advancement of his own personal wealth, no matter who got in the way. A man who was dumb enough to wear a sheet and leave a sound system around as proof of his crackbrained plans.

  Bubba looked at that very system, now lying encased in plastic wrap on top of the chef’s block in the middle of the kitchen. He couldn’t find a baggie large enough to put all of the pieces into it. But there it was. He had very carefully dismantled it, touching only the edges where his own fingerprints would not remain. He would deliver it to the Deputy Willodean Gray, as time permitted, and as his impending incarceration permitted. With any luck at all, a man as stupid as Neal would have left fingerprints on it, and his fingerprints would be on record for accomplishing some other stupidness elsewhere in this world. That all in account, then the beauteous deputy could interrogate the man to her little heart’s desire and help Bubba out in the process.

  “Mama,” he started. Miz Demetrice looked up. “You could help me.”

  “What?”

  “You could talk to Michael Dearman or the Connors about their alibis,” he said.

  His mother stared at him thoughtfully. “What makes you think that they’ll tell me any more than they’ll tell you?”

  Bubba made a face. A disbelieving face. This was his mother to whom he was speaking. Miz Demetrice had an illegal poker circle going, in which thousands of dollars passed every week, and every participant, including a sheriff’s deputy, kept unswervingly mum about. She regularly petitioned the state’s politicians for whatever bit of nonsense she was involved in, to include cloth diapers versus disposables, the promotion of a monument to Miss Annalee Hyatt (one that portrayed her ample charms in all of their naked glory), and kicking the present-day mayor, John Leroy, Jr., out of office, on any given day of the week. That one included a proposed public butt-booting ceremony, in which John Leroy, Jr. would have his hind end kicked by the man with the biggest foot in the county. But then Bubba was digressing. “You could find out if he has an alibi. You could find out if the Connors are gay, swinging, neo-nazi’s who have tattoos of Charles Manson on their hinies, if you really wanted to. The Conners are the only other people who might have some motive or perhaps a clue as to who might have done it. I’ll be damned if I know why though.”

  Miz Demetrice arched one eyebrow in recognition of the backhanded compliment. “Well, I can be influential.”

  Bubba nearly choked on his coffee.

  A half hour later he was feeling the assuaging effects of not one but two 800 mg pills of ibuprofen. He had showered, shaved, and dressed in a spiffy manner. His best blue jeans, a pearl gray western shirt, belt with his biggest belt buckle, his least-battered boots, and his trusty Stetson. Now all Bubba needed was a dog, which was ready and waiting, a pick-up truck, which was also ready and waiting, and a cute cowgirl, which was not ready and waiting.

  But a sheriff’s deputy would do, thought he of the bedecked rural outfit. Then he considered. He was almost, almost, ashamed of himself. There was a perfectly good woman in that waitress, Lurlene, awaiting his manly presence, and all he could think of was a short, sassy, dark-haired woman. And big green eyes, he added mentally. Nice green eyes.

  Thus, he took Lurlene out to lunch at the Dove’s Nest, which was a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant inside an antique mall, in a town about fifty miles away from Pegramville, and thirty miles outs
ide of Pegram County. She had some sort of Nuevo American salad involving grapes, ginger, and watermelon. He had a meatloaf sandwich that made his mouth water from a mile away. They talked about a great many things, which included exactly how Bubba’s face had gotten beaten up, and to which Lurlene responded with sympathetic pseudo-language noises with which one would address any child under the age of two (“Poor little-widdle-Bubbie. Didums get a widdle smack on the face-ums?”) But Bubba was attempting to lead up to the one thing he wanted to know. In a roundabout way that wouldn’t alert an ant to the presence of an elephant about to step upon him. All subtle-like.

  Bubba, however, had just about used up any amount of subtleness that he possessed. “Miss Lurlene,” he said. Here was the only start of which he could think. Certainly, it sounded pathetic, even to him.

  “Yes, Bubba,” she murmured, fluttering her eyelashes. Bubba had to admit that she had nice eyelashes. They were long and only lightly accentuated with mascara. They very much supported her pretty brown eyes. Even if they didn’t compare with...stop it, you dang, old fool.

  “You work pretty hard at the Pegram Café, don’t you?” Well, hey, that was just as clever as a fox in the hen house.

  “It can be hard. Did you know that Shirlee Bufford is thinking about filing for divorce?”

  “Shirlee Bufford is thinking about divorcing George?”

  Lurlene nodded her head up and down. She took a bite of something that included bean sprouts, raisins, and an unidentifiable fruit. “She found out about the Bahamas and Hot Rosa Granado.”

  Bubba took a drink of his iced tea. The people at the Dove’s Nest made a delicious blend of oranges and tea. It was unusual, full of spices, and tasty. Boy, are we getting off the subject or what?

  “You work until ten, don’t you?” he asked, about as delicate as a sledge hammer hitting thin ice.

  “Sure, most nights, but not Mondays and Thursdays,” she returned happily. “This salad is delicious. You wanna bite?” She shoved a loaded fork in his direction.

  Bubba smiled weakly, shaking his head. Anything with bean sprouts in it was something that he considered horses, goats, and other farm animals should be eating. Not a full-grown man. If Miss Lurlene was inclined to eat it, more power to her, but not this cracker-barrel Bubba. Uh-uh. He thought about what she said. “So you didn’t work on Thursday?”

  “No, why?” She smiled at him and batted her eyelashes again. “Were you going to ask me out?” With her left hand she reached over and stroked his hand. Bubba noticed that her normally long manicured nails were short and brittle for a change but immediately forgot that he noticed it, as she was slowly caressing his hand. “But you were working, silly.”

  “I was just wondering if you saw anyone suspicious at the Café,” he mumbled. How did Jack Lord do it all those years ago? Where’s Danno? The hell with Danno, where’s Sherlock Holmes? The CIA?

  “Mrs. Wheatfall works late that night by herself,” Lurlene responded without hesitation. “I don’t know where Noey gets hisself off to. I hear he’s got a thing going with one of the girls over at the Red Door Inn.”

  Not likely, thought Bubba sourly. Miz Doris Cambliss, the madam, didn’t care for riff-raff like Noey in her boudoirs. If those girls just looked at Noey, they might catch something. But then something occurred to him. “You mean Noey Wheatfall doesn’t work Thursdays either?”

  “It’s not a real busy night,” Lurlene said. She ticked things on her hand. “There’s the Pokerama, which you ought to know about. There’s the auto race over in Merill County. Then, there was that bar down on Oakley Street. What’s it called? Grubbo’s. Now that’s an odd name. Well, the manager down there started a dime night. You pay your entrance fee, and then all drinks are a dime each. Every man in the county under the age of fifty was there. Excepting you, I suppose. And well, Noey, too. Of course, it was awful crowded with the live band and all. He might have been there, for all I know. I had at least a dozen rum and cokes.”

  “You went?” Well, duh, cowboy.

  “Sure, darling.” She paused, almost purring. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  So there was Lurlene’s alibi. She was dancing and drinking the night away at Grubbo’s with most of the male population of Pegramville, whose wives were off practically giving their money away to Bubba’s mother at her highly illegal, weekly Pokerama, even while Miz Demetrice called it a ‘social event’ of the Pegramville Women’s Club. Meanwhile, Bubba was supposed to be jealous of Lurlene’s extracurricular activities, but he was too busy feeling guilty instead, for thinking of another woman.

  Bubba mentally crossed Lurlene off his list. Now all he had to do was confirm Major Michael Dearman’s alibi, if indeed, he had one.

  Bubba dropped Lurlene off at the Pegram Café. She gave him a kiss on the lips that would set half of the jaws in town a-flapping. And, considered Bubba, half of the jaws were a-goggling out the window of the Café as he opened the truck door for her. At least a dozen people had their faces smashed up against the window, like a row of precocious little kids.

  Precious jumped out of the back of the truck while Bubba watched the rather attractive back side of Lurlene entering the restaurant. The dog trotted around to the open door and dragged herself up, casting a beleaguered look at her master. Certainly, she enjoyed a ride in the back of the truck but only at her convenience, and didn’t that human woman with the blonde hair smell like too much flowers and spices? The dog sniffed her own crotch. Not a nice dogly smell like herself.

  The next stop was the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department. Bubba pulled up and was pleased to notice that half the employees were gone to whereabouts unknown. He went in, spoke to Mary Lou Treadwell again and waited for Deputy Willodean Gray to emerge from the depths of the interior offices.

  She came out of the door, and he smiled hugely. My, isn’t she a perty woman? he asked himself. He even answered himself, Why yes, she is.

  Willodean stared at Bubba for a long moment with an odd expression on her face. He chalked it up to the bruises on the side of his face. Bubba held the package of stereo equipment out. She looked at it and then back at him. “Why aren’t you at home?” she asked slowly.

  Bubba wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Because I’m here?”

  Willodean shook her head. She looked at Mary Lou, who was sitting at the desk with her chin resting on her hands, gazing at the two of them as if nothing in the world could be more interesting. As indeed, at that moment, nothing could. “Look,” Willodean said in her very best deputy voice, “you need to go on home.”

  “There was another break-in late last night, around midnight,” Bubba said, not understanding what it was that she was trying to say to him.

  “Your mother called me about an hour ago,” replied Willodean.

  Bubba held out the sack. “Here’s the stuff. It’s kind of specialized. I bet we can go to Radio Shack and figure out who bought it.”

  “We? Oh, no,” she said hardily. “You need to get on home before...well...you just do.”

  Bubba shrugged. “You’ll let me know about that equipment?”

  Willodean rolled her eyes. But she said, “I’ll let you know. I’ll see you later, Bubba.”

  On the way home Bubba saw the Snoddy’s nearest neighbor, Roscoe Stinedurf, out by his mailbox. The Stinedurfs had lived in Pegram County just about as long as the Snoddys but in somewhat less fortunate circumstances. The present round of descendants had themselves a set of mobile homes that formed a little circle on their five acres of property adjacent to the Snoddy lands. For sure the mobile homes didn’t look as stately as the woebegone Snoddy Mansion, but the Stinedurfs generally kept things neat and tidy. No rotting carcasses of Edsels or Chevy trucks there. Not even a pack of half-wild dogs that might chase the mailman halfway back to Pegramville. Just the mobile homes, or what the Stinedurfs called them, manufactured homes, with little white picket fences and a big garden. In the back, Roscoe and his clan kept a herd of goats, some cows, and a chick
en coop, replete with cluckers.

  As neat as the place was, Roscoe seemed to have a few extra wives that most of Pegramville wondered about, which was why there were all the extra trailers. At least they weren’t married to anyone else, and all of the children looked like Roscoe, with his whip-thin body and hawked nose. Sheriff John and the police had ignored the situation because no one seemed to be abused or neglected. The kids always went to school and everyone had clean clothes on their backs. The women went to church together and never had a black eye or an unsightly bruise. None of the Stinedurfs complained, so what was the problem?

  Miz Demetrice lifted her nose upon occasion, talking about the traditional family unit, but Bubba didn’t care much one way or the other.

  Bubba pulled up beside Roscoe and said through the open window, “Hey, Mr. Stinedurf.”

  Roscoe was a man of few words. He said, “Hey, Bubba.”

  “You see anyone running around after midnight who shouldn’t be around?” asked Bubba, not one to be engaged in a long conversation.

  “Nope,” Roscoe said, similarly inclined. He started to walk down the quarter-mile road with his mail in his hand, but he turned back to Bubba. “You goin’ to sell your property to Neal Ledbetter?”

  “That’s up to my mother,” Bubba said promptly. “Why?”

  “We decided to sell out,” Roscoe said. “But Neal Ledbetter wants to buy out all the property around here.”

  “So ifin he don’t gets the Snoddy place, he don’t buy nothing,” concluded Bubba.

  Roscoe nodded. “Just so.” And he resumed his long-striding walk down the road. Bubba thought there was little to no malice involved. Roscoe was interested in selling his land for a profit. He would buy a similar property to put his women, children, animals, and trailers on. Or maybe instead of trailers they’d have a circle of neat little houses. It was no sweat off Roscoe’s brow. Or he could stay right there. A bit more money would be nice, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he didn’t get it.

  Bubba watched the Ichabod Crane-like man walk away then started off home himself. Precious had her head resting on the edge of the passenger seat, as she sat sprawled across the remainder of the seat, dead asleep with a croaking snore. Some watchdog she was.

  As he rounded the corner that preceded the Snoddy Mansion, he saw rows of cars backed up. Police cars. There were at least five of them. This was where nearly the sheriff’s entire department had gone, except for Deputy Willodean Gray. Bubba’s heart dropped into his stomach until he saw both Miz Demetrice and Adelia standing on the front veranda of the big house watching police officers going back and forth, as healthy as any woman around.

  Miz Demetrice waved frantically at Bubba when she saw him. He parked the truck on the side of the road and got out, allowing Precious to follow him at her own half-asleep pace.

  His mother didn’t wait; she met him half way down the huge green yard. She said, “They came right after you left, Bubba. They had a search warrant. They just finished the big house, and now they’re working on your place.”

  “What are they doing?” asked Bubba curiously. He could see Sheriff John directing people from the caretaker’s porch. But he couldn’t make out what the man was saying.

  “Searching the place for that damned gun of your father’s,” answered Miz Demetrice with a snarl. “Honestly, I have no idea where it could be though. I haven’t a clue as to why they came back to search, again.”

  There was another car that came up just then. It was an old Ford Mustang that looked to be on its last lingering legs. It belched a cloud of black smoke that ascended heavenward as the driver’s side door opened. A kid no older than twenty got out. With a curious expression, Bubba recognized the kid to be none other than Mark Evans, who had spent considerable time and effort quitting Bufford’s Gas and Grocery over the phone on Thursday last. When he saw Bubba, his Adam’s apple visibly went up and down as he swallowed convulsively. He approached Bubba and his mother as if something dreadful would happen to him.

  Mark was a young man who still had a rash of acne across his face and looked to be five years younger than his actual age. Bubba couldn’t even fathom why the young man would be showing up on his front door step, or at least, the front of the yard. “Bubba Snoddy?” he asked.

  “You know who I am,” Bubba said affably. “This here’s my mother. As I recall you had a few things to say about her. Since I’m certain you all aren’t acquainted, I figure you might be interested.”

  Miz Demetrice gazed keenly at the young man but said nothing. She knew very well that the people of Pegramville talked about anything and anyone at any time and didn’t take offense.

  “This here is Mr. Mark Evans, Mama. He done spent considerable effort quitting from Bufford’s Gas and Grocery on Thursday night. You know, the same night my ex-fiancée got herself murdered.” Bubba curled his lip into a parody of a smile. “Mr. Evans was right riled up.”

  “You would be too if old Bufford had threatened to fire you on account of a little under-the-counter…business,” Mark spit out. Then he shut his mouth. A second later, he opened it up compulsively and added, “Good thing someone tipped me off.”

  Bubba stared.

  Mark swallowed nervously again. Both Miz Demetrice and Bubba watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and up and down. It was hypnotic. “You are Bubba Snoddy?” Mark asked again. His voice was almost a squeak.

  “Sure,” Bubba answered, puzzled.

  Mark handed him an envelope. Then he galloped back to his Mustang, just a gangly teenager still growing, yelling across his shoulder, “You’ve been served!”

  Bubba nodded to his mother before he opened the envelope. “I guess he found himself a new job, serving legal papers.”

  Miz Demetrice gazed upon her son as if he had suddenly turned green. “Well,” she said after a long minute, “what it is?”

  “I’ve been subpoenaed to the grand jury on the matter of Melissa Anne Dearman,” Bubba said nonchalantly.

  ~ ~ ~