The canister, by itself, couldn’t possibly be the object of three DEA SUVs roaring down the drive. At least that was what Bubba thought. One mebe. Not three.
But his mother and Miz Adelia had been talking about “shipments” and “—they’re suspicious.” Bubba never would have guessed that his mother nor Miz Adelia would have anything to do with illegal drugs outside a few ounces of medicinal marijuana, but they had been acting very oddly lately and very protective of the Garcias.
The SUVs squealed to a stop in unison, leaving Bubba to wonder if they had regularly practiced the maneuver. Men and women in black jackets bearing the same initials poured out, apparently seeking targets. Bubba sighed. At least they hadn’t drawn their weapons.
“You!” One of them settled his avaricious gaze upon Bubba and yelled, “DEA! Don’t move!”
I’m not moving. Bubba froze. He didn’t want to get shot by a DEA agent while in an attempt not to move. Suddenly his nose began to itch. What in hellfire and brimstone are Ma and Miz Adelia up to?
The agent swiftly approached Bubba, halting a few yards away and looking at him with a patented law enforcement look that was equal parts disdain and I-got-you-ness. “Special Agent Warley Smith, DEA,” he announced, not even flashing a fancy badge. He cast an eye upon Precious, who was waiting and growling behind Bubba’s legs. She obviously knew a cop when she saw one. Most of them were hardly a step above the people who came treasure hunting on the Snoddy estate with shovels and metal detectors. (Willodean didn’t count because she took the time to feed Precious roast beef.) “You are?”
“Bubba Snoddy,” he said.
“The son,” Smith said with a note of arrogant understanding. “We’ve got warrants to search the premises. Where’s your mother and the two immigrants?”
Bubba hushed Precious under his breath. “I imagine my mother is in the house. As for the immigrants, I’m not real shore who you’re talking about.”
“Garcia. Alfonzo and Pilar Garcia,” Smith snapped.
“Mebe they ran out the back door,” Bubba suggested.
Smith snapped at several of the agents who ran around the back of the mansion in response.
“I was joking,” Bubba said.
“What do you know about the Garcias’ trips to Mexico on the fourth, sixteenth, and twenty-eighth of last month?” Smith shot out.
“They like Mexico?” Bubba said, irritation beginning to trickle through his being. “And I don’t reckon Alfonzo or Pilar are Mexican citizens. I believe they’re as American as you or I.”
“We’ll see about that,” Smith said.
Just then Miz Demetrice barreled out of the front door. “What in the name of all that’s holy is happening here?” She paused upon seeing the three black SUVs and took in the initials on the sides of the vehicles. “DEA?” she said loudly. “Why would the DEA be here?”
“Hey, Ma,” Bubba called, “is there something you forgot to tell me?”
“Shut up, Bubba!” she said. “At least I didn’t get arrested yesterday.”
“The charges were dismissed.” Bubba sniffed.
“What charges?” Smith snapped. Obviously he liked to snap. He was quite the expert at it.
“Suspicion of murder, I believe,” Bubba said. “I don’t think Sheriff John actually got around to telling me.”
“The movie director,” another agent called.
“I am totally innocent,” Bubba said. It was getting easier to say something like that.
“You need to go back to your house and stay there until we’re done with the search,” Smith said to Bubba after a moment.
Bubba’s eyebrows lifted. He might be well aware that his mother was doing something, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t have her back. “Ma? Man says he has a warrant. Asking questions about the Garcias. Hope he don’t wake up the babies.”
“I’ll just need to see the warrant,” his mother responded loftily. She had a lot of experience doing that. “I’ll need my reading glasses. I’ll have to validate its authenticity before anyone gets to touch anything. Or do I need to call my lawyer and the local police to get involved?”
Smith bristled like a long haired cat upon seeing a werewolf on Halloween. “Make sure those other people don’t have any way of getting away,” he directed his people.
“They’re drinking tea in the kitchen,” Miz Demetrice said. “Oh, yes and eating some cookies, too. Oh, the criminality of it all.” The last oozed with sarcasm.
Another two agents ushered the Garcias outside beside Miz Demetrice. Pilar was crying and saying, “Why are they doing this to us? We’ve done nothing wrong. This is racial profiling! This is illegal! Don’t you dare wake up my babies!”
“I’m calling LULAC,” Alfonzo said, and pulled out his cell phone.
“They went to Mexico three times and you think they done something wrong?” Bubba asked Special Agent Smith.
“Start with the Dodge Caravan,” Smith called. “Then we’ll work on the big house.”
“I don’t think so,” Miz Demetrice said snidely. She had her reading glasses on and was perusing the warrant one of the agents had handed to her. “This says nothing about accessing the land-based property at this address. It indicates the physical persons of Alfonzo and Pilar Garcia and their vehicular property, the Dodge Caravan.”
“Fine,” Smith snapped again. “Pull that van apart. I want to see rivets.”
Bubba began to walk toward his mother and the Garcias. Smith put a hand up to stop him. “I told you to go inside your house.”
Bubba smiled coldly at the other man. He had had a long day, which was made all the longer by the abrupt presence of DEA officials on a snipe hunt. He immediately recognized when the agent comprehended the imminent peril he was in. Smith’s hand twitched toward the gun holstered under his DEA jacket. Bubba stood about a half foot taller than the other man and weighed fifty pounds more. Bubba blocked out the crescent moon. The other man was isolated from the other special agents and the scowl on Bubba’s face was both fierce and chilling.
“That—” Bubba said and pointed to Miz Demetrice “—is my mother. I will be going to my mother and standing by her and her friends, who she has invited to stay with her in her house, which is clearly not covered under the mandates of your warrant.” Bubba stepped one pace closer to the agent and purposely crowded him. “So you don’t get to tell me where I have to go and what I need to be doing. The last I heard, it was still a free country and a free country frowns on folks who trample all over the U.S. Constitution.”
Bubba strode past Smith and joined his mother. Precious followed right at Bubba’s heels. Miz Demetrice continued to read the warrant but she whispered, “Bravo, Bubba.”
“Ma, they goin’ to find anything?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“Of course not,” Miz Demetrice replied indignantly. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
* * *
Bubba thought a lot of things about his mother. Some of them were even good things. The one thing that he did not think was that she would do anything that would garner the specific interest of the DEA. And it was Demetrice Snoddy that the DEA was interested in, as well as Alfonzo and Pilar Garcia.
Three trips to Mexico didn’t necessarily a criminal make.
Bubba considered all the options. The question wasn’t whether his mother was up to something but exactly what she up to. She suddenly was making very private conversations with Miz Adelia and to a lesser extent, Willodean Gray. She suddenly had guests who went off on midnight drives with their two young children. It wasn’t as if they could be driving all the way to Mexico from Pegram County. It was four hundred miles to the nearest point to cross over into Mexico. Even if a fellow was doing the speed limit, it would take six hours to drive one way.
Unambiguously, the DEA had taken note of the Garcias crossing over to Mexico and even traced them back to Pegram County to the Snoddy Mansion. At some point in time they had convinced some judge (Bubba didn’t th
ink it was Arimithia Perez but her Honor did have a good poker face) to grant a warrant based on some evidence he didn’t know about to search the Garcia’s car.
Something bumped his leg and Bubba looked down. Either Carlotta or Blanca curled a little arm around his calf. The DEA had, in fact, woken up the children and Pilar had gone up to comfort them. She had returned with a child in each arm, muttering, “Hombres estúpidos woke them up. Hombres estúpidos can listen to them cry.” But both babies weren’t especially upset and one of them had begun to toddle around the veranda, going from adult to adult, curious at why they were doing something different. The other one started to pull on Precious’s long ears and Precious was being remarkably patient with the child.
The baby gazed up at Bubba with large brown eyes and raised her arms in supplication. Bubba couldn’t resist that and picked her up. She was wearing footsie jammies with Dora the Explorer exploring all over them. Under the jammies, Bubba could feel the heft of a diaper that was about due to be changed. “What’s the matter, sweet pea?” he asked.
Bubba caught the simultaneous glance of his mother, Alfonzo and Pilar. They all froze in place for a moment and stared at him holding the child. Bubba blinked and Miz Demetrice was looking at the stars while Alfonzo was looking at a scrape on the back of his hand. Pilar still looked at Bubba holding the child.
“Is this Carlotta or Blanca?” Bubba asked.
“Blanca,” Pilar said.
Bubba continued to murmur sweet baby words to the baby and Blanca stared at him entranced. He glanced over at the group of DEA agents who were systematically dismantling the Dodge Caravan. Mentally he catalogued three items that the agents had broken that he was going to suggest that Alfonzo sue the DEA over. As a first generation Caravan, it would be hard to replace those specific parts.
Since Miz Demetrice had thwarted Special Agent Warley Smith, he seemed to be taking his wrath out on the van. Based on the way that his mother was relaxed in the Adirondack chair, Bubba would say the DEA wasn’t going to find bubkis in the vehicle.
Blanca tugged on Bubba’s lower lip and let it snap back. “You like that, sweetie pie? Bubba needs that to et the chow. Say, you hungry? I bet Auntie Adelia left some cake in the kitchen. Miz Adelia makes good cake. Muy delicioso.”
“There’s snickerdoodles,” Miz Demetrice said. “And milk for the babies. They don’t need much. Carlotta can gnaw on a cookie ifin Pilar doesn’t mind.”
Bubba beckoned at Carlotta. “You want Bubba to carry you, too?”
Carlotta glanced at Pilar and put her head down.
“I’ll bring her,” Pilar said. “A few bites and a drink won’t bother them much.”
“You look a mite tired,” Bubba said. “Shall I take the younnun?”
Pilar gently eased Carlotta into her arms and with a little shrug she passed the child over to Bubba. Both of the children stared at Bubba as if they hadn’t seen such a thing ever. Perhaps they hadn’t. Tall rednecks that weighed 240 pounds didn’t tromp over hither and yon.
“It’s okay. Them nasty pants law enforcement folks won’t hurt you,” Bubba said quietly. “I won’t let them. They just have a problem with a lack of fiber. They need more bran flakes in their diet, don’t they? If they didn’t keep all that poopoo inside they wouldn’t have so much vitriol.”
Carlotta gurgled. Then Bubba heard her insides make a very distinct noise. “But you don’t have a problem with that, do you, sugar lips?”
“Aie,” Pilar said. “La niña is pooping every five minutes. I think it’s the change in milk.”
“There’s children’s medications in the kitchen,” Miz Demetrice said. “There’s one that helps with their digestive systems.”
Bubba thought about it. “Mebe that’s why this one seems a little smaller,” he said. Pilar paused in front of him as if something had suddenly tugged her to a complete stop. After a brief moment, she continued down the long hallway into the kitchen.
Bubba continued to murmur at the children as he carried them along. Both stared at him as they placidly sat in his arms. It turned out that cookies were just the thing to make an apprehensive baby besties with a fellow.
* * *
The DEA finished with the van after midnight and Bubba had a conversation with Alfonzo about the repairs needed for the vehicle. They put most of it back together but Miz Demetrice made a big show out of taking photographs with her cell phone.
Special Agent Warley Smith glared at them as he got back into a DEA SUV and the rest of the agents appeared disgruntled.
Bubba said, “Perhaps they should have et some of them snickerdoodles.”
Pilar and Alfonzo carried half-asleep children inside and Bubba stopped his mother with a single stare.
“Ma,” he said, “what the blazes?”
“I’m tired, Bubba,” she said pertly. Miz Demetrice wasn’t that tired. She simply didn’t want to have this conversation with her son at that moment. “And you’ve got a movie to do tomorrow. My son, the zombie actor. How thrilled your grandmother would have been.”
Bubba watched the huge door shut and heard the lock being thrown.
When he went back to his house with his dog trailing along behind, he discovered someone had left a script on his front porch in a neat binder with the words “The Deadly Dead” on the front in a blood red font. He also discovered that Willodean had called and that he had missed the call.
Consequently, Bubba went to bed feeling very discouraged.
Chapter 14
Bubba and the Gregarious Goodjoint
And
The Gregarious Gangsta
Tuesday, March 12th
When Bubba woke up the next day it was lightly raining outside. Precious had her head underneath his pillow and her large rump sticking out. She was dreaming and her tail thumped against his stomach lazily. While he lay in bed, Bubba decided he needed to think like the people on CSI. The ones in Las Vegas, Miami, and New York. If no one was going to offer up a convenient suspect (beside himself) then he needed to know as much as he could about the corpse.
So in between work on the film, finding out what Ma was doing, and trying to catch up with Willodean Gray, Bubba was going to have to investigate to the fullest of his abilities. Therefore, he would start the way most investigators would.
Breakfast. Eggs with bacon and a bran muffin, just in case what afflicted the DEA agents started to afflict Bubba. Bubba knew that a fellow was never too young to eat bran muffins to ensure prevention of digestional intractability. In fact, he liked bran muffins, especially the ones Miz Adelia made. If he happened to see Special Agent Warley Smith, he would recommend them to him. Good for his constitution.
Bubba showered, made his breakfast, and ate while looking at the script. “‘I think we got big trouble,’” he read laboriously. “Who writes this stuff?” He gave Precious a bite of bacon. “Do you write this stuff, Precious?”
Precious woofed while she dragged the hapless piece of bacon under the small table in order to subjugate and devour it properly.
Bubba glanced at the clock on the wall, a black Kit-Cat Clock with the tail swinging and eyes that moved back and forth. It had been another housewarming gift, although he couldn’t remember from whom. It was just after eight a.m. and he knew he had enough time to continue his investigation before he had to get to the set for makeup.
The set was at the high school that day and Bubba’s stop was on the way. He left an irritable Precious with Miz Adelia in the mansion and the dog had to amuse herself by graciously allowing the Garcia children to play with her Dumbo sized ears.
The Pegramville Family Medical Clinic and Chiropractic Care Center was open at the crack of dawn because the doctor in charge happened to be an early bird sort of person. George Goodjoint was an elderly man who’d attended both Harvard and Johns Hopkins for his various degrees. Bubba knew of three degrees but had an idea that Doc had a few more than that. He was also a tall thin man with a shock of white hair that he swept back over his foreh
ead. Furthermore, he was a personal friend of the Snoddy family, often invited to regular dinners with Miz Demetrice. Bubba would have thought that there was a romantic interest between them, but over the course of years it became apparent that the pair were fast friends and nothing more. They had dinner once a month, at which other guests were occasionally invited, and sometimes very interesting things occurred, like the thirteen cannon salute of the previous month. (One of the old oak trees had suffered an everlasting indignity in that sorry incident. Who knew they could actually get one of the antique cannons to work?) Finally, and most importantly, Doc was the coroner of Pegram County. (He might not know where all the dead bodies were buried, but he knew about how they had died.)
Bubba arrived at the clinic at half-past eight and shouldered his way past three people coming out. One had a bloody nose to which he held an icepack. All three glared at the light rain and paused under the clinic’s awning. They all wore film crew standard shirts. Black background. Red lettering. “The Deadly Dead RISES!” The last word dripped with silkscreened blood ad nauseum.
“Broken?” the one with the bloody nose said. “Do you know how much the damn insurance covers? I’ll be able to afford a quarter of the x-ray. Maybe they can take a little itty-bitty x-ray of just the nose.”
The second one patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll just bill Schuler. He broke it. Let him pay for the x-rays.”
The third one said, “What the hell got into Schuler, anyway?”
“I dunno,” bloody nose said. “All I said was ‘Where’s the scarf?’”
“God,” the second one said sarcastically, “no one said that Hollyweird was so glamorous.”
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 14
