Bubba led Mike far enough away to get out of earshot of the catering van. “You bin filming stuff around here?”
Mike nodded.
“The day that Kristoph died?”
Mike nodded again.
“You over by my house that day?” Bubba hadn’t seen Mike but there had been a lot of people wandering all over the estate in the last week. It was a lot more than when people came on the biannual sightseeing tours of the “haunted” estate. His mother was even thinking about adding a Halloween event. (Bubba’s heart thundered with joy. Not.)
Mike nodded a third time.
Bubba waited for it.
Finally Mike’s eyes got large and round. “I might have captured the killer on film,” he breathed. “O.M.G.” He tugged his backpack off his shoulder, put the camcorder inside, and pulled out a large tablet all the while muttering, “O.M.G., O.M.G., O.M.G.” Bubba noticed it was about the slimmest, most compact computer a fellow could have. Oh the days had changed from the time he had ruined his first clunky computer that would have sunk a ship if it had been used as an anchor.
Mike powered it up and Bubba looked over the younger man’s shoulder. Mike found the appropriate website and used his finger to tap on the computer screen. “Here we go. What was the date? The tenth, right? I’ve got three on the tenth. That was the filming downtown. I got you being fired by that director.” He chuckled. “I’m going to have that one recut and have you doing Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO.” He looked up at Bubba’s face and his smile faded away quickly. “Let’s see. The other one was when they were filming at the cemetery again. They weren’t there very long on account that Miz Bushyhood got righteously angry that one of them zombies stepped on her husband’s grave. I wouldn’t have thought a woman that old would have been able to hit that hard.” He shook his head sadly.
Mike looked at Bubba again and moved on. “So this must be the last one. I was filming all over the place that day.” He stabbed with his finger and a screen appeared. The words “HOLMGREEN PRODUCTIONS” appeared and then it got right into the filming. There was a candid shot of the zombies getting made up. Bubba saw Simone Sheats chattering away to a woman with half of her face dripping down the front of her flowered smock. Mike panned around and got Risley Risto talking to the redhead. Then there was a take where the redhead was talking to Marquita.
Bubba glowered because Mike’s work of art was a series of clips that he had filmed throughout his day. There was no rhyme or reason to his activity. Whatever caught his notice was apt to be filmed. If someone had dangled a sparkly spinning lure in front of Mike, he would have filmed it. The camera went past the catering van and focused on Clara. Rather it focused on Clara’s cleavage. Then it was on Bubba’s house where he caught a moment of Marquita arguing with Kristoph.
Bubba perked up. They stood on Bubba’s porch and Marquita said, “You should hire the redneck back.”
That was okay. Bubba had been called worse names.
Kristoph shuddered. “That damn dog. It’s got the droopy red eyes. It’s like Snoopy on crack. It’s going to give me nightmares.”
Marquita shook her head. “It’s just a dog. Besides Risley got a couple of takes of that dog. Dogs are great for film. People will remember the damn dog. The dog will get more press than some of the actors. Zombie dog.”
“It’s my movie,” Kristoph said. “I’m going to do what I want.”
“You always do what you want,” Marquita said.
Kristoph opened Bubba’s front door. “I just want to see if we can use the inside of this house. It’s pretty quaint. Visions of D.W. Griffith abounding.”
“Jesus, Kristoph,” Marquita said, “do you know whose house this is?”
Kristoph said something, but Bubba couldn’t make it out. Then the pair went into the house. No less than thirty seconds later, Marquita returned to the door and threw over her shoulder, “You can be such a Prima donna!” She stalked off and Mike followed her as she strode away in high heeled boots, muttering, “I have to find a bathroom.”
Bubba knew that Marquita was probably not the one, given that she had already passed a polygraph test. Kristoph had likely still been alive when she’d stalked off and besides she’d only had about a half minute to do him in. Doable but unlikely. The last thing Bubba noticed was that when Mike turned his camera he’d captured one of the upper windows of the Snoddy Mansion and Pilar had been watching again.
“Shoot,” Mike said as the footage stopped. “I dint get anything.”
“You cleared Marquita,” Bubba said. “She’s goin’ to like that. Mebe let you on the closed sets, for it.”
Mike brightened.
“And I reckon you need to show this to Sheriff John,” Bubba added.
Mike’s shoulders slumped. “I guess. He looks at me funny ever since I was in jail the last time.”
Mike had failed an algebra test in high school and then attempted to burn down the school in order to hide it. He had only scorched one of the walls, but he had gotten himself thrown in jail until he could be tried. His record had been adjudicated on account of all of his community service and reparations but no one was going to forget anytime soon.
“Go on, now,” Bubba said with a little push. “Sheriff John needs all that information.”
Mike sidled away with a little wave at Clara.
Bubba looked at Precious. “Now I got to go talk to Ma and Pilar.”
Precious whined piteously.
* * *
Bubba had to stop by the makeup tent again in order to get his own clothing and give the film’s clothing back to the wardrobe department. Schuler had returned and was issuing orders like a general from the ship off the beach in Normandy. “More blood! More stringiness! More goo! That is so not what a zombie is supposed to look like! Are you using crayons? Really?” The purple-haired man ignored Bubba and Bubba ignored him. Bubba couldn’t think of anything else to ask him. If Bubba had been framed, it stood to reason that Schuler had probably been framed, as well.
Ain’t that odd, though? Bubba asked himself. Why frame two men? Why not just focus on one? How could anyone know that Kristoph was going to be in Bubba’s house? Why, the answer ain’t difficult. They didn’t know. They took advantage of a situation. Hey, look, we’re in Bubba Snoddy’s house and he’s bin accused before. Let’s just make it look like he did it. But first, let’s make it look like the head makeup artist who hates him, did it.
Bubba rubbed his head. It was starting to hurt again. He was having to think of too damn many things. He finally wandered back toward the mansion with Precious trotting behind him. He noticed that Ol’ Green had reappeared and was parked beside the large house. Someone had taken pity on him and returned it from the impound lot.
Once inside, Bubba made sure his dog had enough water and that no corpses were about. Live ones. Dead ones. Any kind.
Apparently it was clear.
His arm hurt a little and he did a little first aid. Everything looked all right for a bullet wound. Actually it didn’t look like a bullet wound. It looked like he’d been peppered with multiple pellets. Then a doctor had taken about an hour to take each and every one out. (Or so Bubba was informed since he had slept through the procedure.) (But he did have a little glass jar full of blackened pellets the size of mouse turds. It jingled in a most interesting manner when he shook it.)
Miz Adelia came into the kitchen just as Bubba was putting his shirt back on. “Be still my heart,” she said. She fluttered her hand over her face. “Better cover up all that skin, boy. I might become crazed.”
Bubba smiled grimly. “Do you know what my mother did?”
“Your mother?” Miz Adelia said innocently.
“Bet you had to buy another ten pounds of flour, dint you?”
“Flour,” she said weakly. “I don’t think she thought they would keep you so long.”
“Where is my mother?” Bubba asked coldly.
“She went to the store with Pilar to get formula and diapers.”
“Prolly some flour, too. And dint they get diapers and formula a couple of days ago?”
“Babies go through a lot of formula and diapers,” Miz Adelia snapped. “Ifin you had one, you would know.” Offense was often the best defense for women like Miz Adelia and Miz Demetrice. “Ifin you’re wondering, that is a hint. A man your age should be providing a passel of grandchildren for his mother to play with and spoil.”
“Blanca and Carlotta aren’t exactly the age to need formula,” Bubba said slowly, ignoring the grandchildren issue.
Miz Adelia began to clatter around the kitchen, picking up pots and pans and putting them back into place, as if she was looking for something particular. “There’s a special formula for toddlers. Is that the time?” she asked with a pointed look at the clock on a nearby wall. “I got to get things cooking. Them chicken breasts won’t wander into the oven all by themselves. Lordy almighty.”
Bubba finished buttoning his shirt.
“Was that your wound you was looking at?” Miz Adelia asked. “Mayhap I should take a gander? Make sure it ain’t infected?”
“Mebe I kin have the doctor from the prison look at it,” Bubba suggested.
“It was flour,” Miz Adelia snapped. “Ain’t nothing illegal about having flour in your truck.”
“I reckon it might be illegal to make a phone call and tell the DEA that there ain’t a bag of flour wrapped up in clear plastic and packing tape under the bench seat.” Bubba sighed loudly. Precious decided to hide under the kitchen table. All that could be seen of the canine was her brown and white tushy and the tail that drooped sadly. “I don’t believe the DEA arrested me because they thought it was flour. Perty shore they thought it was somethin’ else altogether.”
“Self-rising flour,” Miz Adelia said. “Whole wheat,” she added for emphasis.
Alfonzo came in, carrying one of his daughters. The other one toddled behind him. “Did you know that those film people don’t want me scraping on the front of the mansion until they’re done filming? How am I supposed to get this place painted?” he asked, unmindful to the tension in the room.
He saw Bubba and stopped. “Hola, Bubba.”
“Alfonzo,” Bubba said.
“Sorry about the whole DEA mess,” Alfonzo said. “I don’t know where those people get their ideas from. They think since Pilar and I have been to Mexico, then we must be drug smugglers. Or perhaps we’re smuggling something horrible and wretched, like knock-off handbags and football jerseys. They wanted to know if my Cowboys jersey was really from China.”
Then what are you smuggling? Bubba asked silently. It was probably better that he didn’t know. Then he could have plausible deniability later. “I don’t know” would be the ultimate excuse and it would be sincere.
The toddling girl wandered to Bubba and lifted her arms expectantly, looking up at him with chocolate brown eyes. Bubba could no more deny her than he could deny a whining puppy with a red ribbon tied around its neck. He carefully picked the small child up in his good arm and propped her on his hip. She pulled at his nose and giggled at his reaction.
Wait. Chocolate brown eyes. Bubba looked up and studied the other child in Alfonzo’s arms. Also brown eyes. Not hazel. “Dint one of them girls have green eyes?”
Miz Adelia chuckled. “You just got shot and then arrested by the DEA, Bubba. I don’t think you’re all right in the head.”
Bubba shrugged and sat in a kitchen chair. Miz Adelia made a bottle of formula for the one child while the other one got a sippy cup full of milk. Bubba helped with the aim of the sippy cup. “When is my mother apt to return?” he asked politely.
“Oh, you know your mother,” Miz Adelia said. “It could be ten minutes. It could be an hour. They might have run up to that Walmart. Better price on diapies. They might have even gone to Sam’s Club. Get a crate of diapers.”
Bubba gave up after a half hour. He helped Alfonzo with the two little girls until one of them fell asleep in a pile of oversized Mega Bloks and the other one yawned widely. Alfonzo carried one upstairs while Bubba got the other one. The two girls were asleep before they finished tucking in the blankets.
When Bubba slipped outside the door, Alfonzo said, “I really am sorry about the DEA.”
“But you cain’t tell me what’s happening,” Bubba said.
Alfonzo shook his head. “People are depending on us.”
“I kind of figured that. Ma wouldn’t do it otherwise.” Bubba sighed loudly. He was prepared to play the martyr. “Don’t worry. The DEA will get right tired following me around. I’ll take them down away from the house whenever you need.”
“Tonight after six?” Alfonzo asked hopefully.
“Shore,” Bubba said. “I’ll take them down to the park past Sturgis Creek and park behind one of them ginormous crape myrtle trees. It’ll look like I’m waiting for someone. It’ll be funny when they search me again.” The words were half joking and half bitter. “Mebe there will be a body cavity search. I could back up and wiggle just for a laugh.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“I’m shore,” Bubba said. “It’ll be just like I’m the fox and the DEA are the hounds.” He knew deep inside, there was something going on that was bigger than he was. It was bigger and more important, and his mother was just one of the organizers. She had briefly thrown him under the bus, but she had done it for a good reason.
It didn’t mean Bubba had to like it.
* * *
Bubba drove down the lane at precisely six p.m. He left Precious at home, locked in the house. The canine hadn’t been happy. She had threatened to chew holes in the quilt on his bed. Bubba had promised treats when he returned, but she hadn’t been appeased.
So he whistled the theme to Mission Impossible while he drove down the lane, at the end of which was the large gate. It was still mangled from someone trying to blow him and it up during the 1st Annual Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival. Bubba had meant to see if he could bend it back into a useable shape, but about a thousand other things had gotten in the way. It remained a testament to the thought logic processes of a twisted murderer who’d had access to chemicals used in demolition.
A hundred feet down the main road sat a plain gray van. It didn’t have windows on the sides nor did it have a logo. It did have a man sitting in the front driver’s seat, wearing sunglasses and a black jacket. The man watched Bubba assiduously.
Bubba was tempted to wave but he didn’t want to be too obvious.
Let’s see, he thought. What does a drug dealer do? I mean, what does an alleged drug dealer do?
Bubba drove downtown in Pegramville, which consisted of Main Street and a few significant crossroads. He found the statue of his distant relative, Colonel Nathanial Snoddy, and parked in the street beside it. Then he went to the statue and tied a piece of yarn around the Colonel’s right hand. What does that mean?
Bubba did not know. He was winging it. Perhaps he was signaling someone. He could have left a candle lit in his window but no one drove past the caretaker’s house on a regular, non-smuggling basis. As he finished the bow on the pink length of yarn, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The plain gray van had pulled up to the nearest corner and the nose was just edging out probably so the driver could see what Bubba was doing.
Then he got back in his truck and went to the cross on Haymaker Hill. He walked up to the cross that someone had put up years before and that Jeffrey Carnicon, the town’s only atheist, regularly tried to get demolished. He circled it on foot three times and then waved cheerfully to the west.
Good view of the sunset up here, Bubba thought. Need to bring Willodean on a picnic, ifin I kin figure out what went wrong.
Bubba followed up the cross circling with a visit to Bufford’s Gas and Grocery. He bought a package of Krispy Kreme Juniors Crullers from Leelah Wagonner and immediately threw them into the garbage outside of the store. It was a perfectly good waste of donuts but the origin of the package was iff
y when one considered it was purchased from Bufford’s.
Bubba watched with one eye as he drove away from Bufford’s. One of the agents dove out of the van and attacked the garbage can, dumping the contents over the pavement. Leelah rushed out of the store brandishing a summer sausage and yelling.
I’m goin’ to have to apologize to Leelah later, Bubba thought. Then he went to the manure factory, the Red Door Inn, and City Hall, each in its turn. When he was finished dropping some lead sinkers into one of the cannons on the front lawn of City Hall, he glanced at his watch and decided that enough time had passed for the Garcias to get well enough away from Pegramville.
Bubba went home and gave his dog a treat. Then he went to sleep and dreamed of his mother eating chicken-fried zombie for breakfast.
Chapter 23
Bubba and the
Prevaricating Peoples
Friday, March 15th
Bubba woke up with a shudder. He had been dreaming weird things again. On the end of the bed, Precious woke up with a snort and a grunt. She kicked at Bubba’s legs and then slid off the side of the bed in a snit because her sleep had been abruptly disturbed. He heard her claws rattling against the hard wood floors as she went down the hallway, likely to go downstairs and see if her food bowl had magically filled itself.
There was stuff to be done and Bubba didn’t want to get up. He wanted to go fishing, where he didn’t have to think about anything except the sound of the line as it unfurled itself against a mellow spring breeze. There would be the soothing sound of the bass jig as it hit the top of an unruffled lake surface. It would be followed by the slap of the tail of the fish as it fought to escape the hook. Then there would be the splash of the fish as it was released back into the water.
The phone rang. He ignored it and it kept ringing. Eventually the machine downstairs would pick up; but what if it was Willodean calling?
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 23
