Chapter 25
Bubba and the Equable Ending
Friday, March 15th
McGeorge’s gun was pointed toward the floor when Willodean moved and her left arm was wrapped only loosely around Willodean’s neck. Willodean simply tugged on McGeorge’s left arm and bent forward. It was a smooth uncomplicated undertaking that made it appear as though Willodean was simply turning, tugging, and tossing.
Bubba took a breath. It seemed as though the air moving through his mouth was the only thing he could hear for the longest time. It was half gasp, half protest, and all amazement. McGeorge went right over Willodean’s form, sliding over the petite deputy like she was greased up with 15W-40 motor oil. Then McGeorge was doing a flip in the air and the weapon went flying away. Bubba couldn’t take his eyes away from what Willodean was almost effortlessly doing to McGeorge, but he heard the crack when the Colt Anaconda hit the bleachers. Then McGeorge’s feet were in the air, pointing straight toward heaven. There was another crack when Willodean slammed the other woman into the floor.
McGeorge let a breath escape her mouth and her entire body went limp.
“No one is going to hurt the father of my baby,” Willodean snarled, straightening up, and brushed her hands off. Sheriff John walked over and handed Willodean his handcuffs, which Willodean used with a competence that Bubba admired tremendously. She flipped McGeorge over onto the woman’s stomach and put the cuffs on her wrists with two loud clicks. The words finally penetrated Bubba’s consciousness. His mouth opened and closed. He remembered to breathe again.
Willodean knelt over McGeorge and her lovely head came up as she realized what she had done. Her perfect mouth formed another word. “Oops.” The “Oops” echoed in the gymnasium like it was a great empty cathedral.
Big Joe said, “Hey, ya’ll are in my jurisdiction now. That’s my prisoner, I’ll have you know.”
“Waffle!” Carlotta yelled. (Carlos?)
“McGeorge kidnapped us outside city limits,” Willodean said, not taking her eyes off of Bubba.
“She kill Kristoph, too?” Big Joe asked.
“No,” Bubba said, “she dint kill no one. She put the real bullets in the gun that Tandy fired at me, though. Don’t reckon she was really trying to kill me. She knew Tandy’s a terrible shot.”
“Hey,” Tandy protested, then shrugged.
“That’s a helluva gamble to take,” Willodean said and stood up. She nervously crossed her arms over her chest and Bubba’s eyes automatically sank to her abdomen.
Bubba was supposed to say something else. He knew it and his tongue tied mouth was messing it up. He was supposed to declare his everlasting love and pledge his troth and he was supposed to make it special. This was a moment in time he would never forget and he was screwing it up.
“What do you mean, she didn’t kill Kristoph?” Big Joe asked.
“You killed Kristoph!” McGeorge screamed suddenly, glaring at Bubba. Willodean glanced down and toed the woman in the side.
“Bubba didn’t kill Kristoph,” Sheriff John said. “What the blazes makes you think that?”
“It was his big-ass knife in Kristoph’s back,” McGeorge said. “Everyone said so!”
“The knife didn’t kill Kristoph,” Sheriff John said. “He was dead before that.”
McGeorge lifted her head up to stare at Sheriff John.
A new voice spoke up. “Bubba wasn’t inside long enough to kill the director man before the girl on the floor showed up.” It was Pilar. She pushed forward, holding one of the babies in her arms, and stared determinedly at Sheriff John and then at Big Joe.
“Who’s this?” Big Joe asked.
“I’m Pilar Garcia,” Pilar said. “We work for Miz Demetrice. I was watching out of the window that day. I saw everyone coming and going from Bubba’s little house. Busy house. First, Kristoph and his wife went in.” Bubba waited for someone to ask why Pilar had been watching out of her window, but no one thought to ask and Pilar wasn’t going to volunteer why they were so paranoid.
“Marquita dint do it,” Bubba said. “Mike Holmgreen caught the footage on his camera. She argued with Kristoph but came right back out.”
Marquita pushed forward and said, “Kristoph was fine when I left. Grumpy but fine. Lord, he was so grumpy last week. He said he didn’t feel too good.”
“Well, the person who went inside Bubba’s house before Bubba came home was…” Pilar said and pointed.
The crowd around Risley parted. It might have been Moses standing before the Red Sea but Risley wasn’t Moses and the people there weren’t the Red Sea. Risley said, “I didn’t do it. He was totally dead before I got there.”
“That man was in there a long time,” Pilar said indicating Risley. “Fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“I admit I found Bubba’s bayonet in his room,” Risley said, “and I—”
“You stabbed a dead man with a bayonet,” Sheriff John said. There was a hint of disgust in his voice.
“Well, I couldn’t let, I couldn’t let, oh crudcakes, I admit it! I stabbed a dead man with a bayonet,” Risley crossed his arms over his chest and shut his mouth, obviously taking an opportunity to utilize his Miranda rights before someone read them to him.
“You tried to frame me,” Bubba said to Risley.
“It wouldn’t have stuck,” Risley said weakly, clearly forgetting about those vexatious Miranda rights. “It hasn’t ever stuck before. I read all about you. You’re like the Teflon redneck. They arrest you once a week. You must have your own jail cell.”
“Is that why I got a role in the movie, because you sorta felt guilty about the whole thing?”
Risley shrugged halfheartedly.
“Why would you do that?” Willodean asked.
“Risley was covering up for someone,” Bubba said. “Why else? He thought someone else did it. Mebe he thought Marquita did it and tried to cover up for her. She is his sister.” There was a moment of silence while everyone considered that.
“Maybe it was for that other woman,” Pilar said.
Carlotta said, “Burgopoo!”
“What other woman?” Bubba asked.
“She watched Kristoph and Marquita go in. She watched Marquita go out. She went in. She went right back out. Staggering a little,” Pilar said. She tickled the baby. “She went off toward the film’s tents. Then she came back about five minutes later holding a necktie.”
“Scarf,” Schuler said. “It was signed by Liza Minnelli and a work of art. It’s a scarf.” He fingered the shimmering red one adorning his neck. “Can’t you people just get it right?”
“Then she came back out,” Pilar said. “I almost thought they were having a party in there. I had no idea someone was dead or I would have said something before.”
“Who was the woman?” Bubba asked.
“Her name is Leigh,” Pilar said. “I heard it later when I saw her talking to the other director man.” She pointed at Risley again. The toddler liked that, so he/she/it pointed, too.
“Who’s Leigh?” Bubba asked.
Every single person from the film crew excepting Risley pointed at the redhead. The redhead winced.
“The redhead killed Kristoph?” Bubba asked.
“I didn’t kill Kristoph!” the redhead exclaimed. “He was dead when I went in.”
“But you put Schuler’s necktie around Kristoph’s neck?” Bubba asked. “You were trying to frame Schuler?”
“It’s a scarf, dammit!” Schuler said.
“I couldn’t let people think Marquita did it,” the redhead said.
Bubba remembered when he had witnessed the redhead touching Marquita. “You and Marquita are, uh, together?”
“Marquita!” Risley exclaimed. “I’m with Leigh!”
“And he—” Pilar pointed at Risley again “—watched Leigh come out the second time and then he went in and spent all that time in there.”
Bubba looked at Marquita and then at Risley. Then he looked at the redhead. “You were having a f
ling with both of them?”
The redhead shrugged. “I didn’t know Ris saw me or I would have told him what I was doing. Kristoph and Schuler hated each other. Better that Schuler go to jail for his murder than Marquita. Poetic justice. Schuler almost got Kristoph fired from the studio.”
Bubba sighed with abject confusion. “So I dint kill Kristoph. Risley dint kill Kristoph but stabbed him in the back with my daddy’s bayonet. The redhead, er, Leigh, dint kill Kristoph but tried to make it look like Schuler strangled him with his scarf. And Marquita dint kill Kristoph, unless she did it very fast and managed to pass that polygraph test.”
“I did not kill Kristoph,” Marquita said definitively. She shook her head in emphasis.
Bubba looked at Pilar. “Did someone else come into my house in-between when Marquita left and when the redhead, er, Leigh, went in?”
Pilar shook her head. “You know I would have told la policía this, if we hadn’t been…otherwise occupied. I didn’t know what was at stake. Lo siento, Bubba. You’ve had such a miserable week, no?”
Bubba waved her off.
“So who murdered Kristoph?” Bubba asked.
“Well,” Sheriff John said in his gravelly voice and scratched the side of his nose, “there’s the rub. Doc Goodjoint said this morning that Kristoph had a heart attack. A huge one. Must have happened right after Marquita left your house. That’s the announcement I was making today. I couldn’t make heads nor tails out of the other stuff such as the fake strangulation and the fake stabbing, so it’s nice to have all the answers now. It was just a big confused mess that folks made a bigger mess out of. Kristoph was NOT murdered.”
“Kristoph wasn’t murdered?” McGeorge asked incredulously.
“No,” Sheriff John said, “Doc had the Dallas coroner double check it which is why it took so long. Massive, immediate myocardial infarction. Man was probably dead before he fell down on Bubba’s floor. Sad but it happens sometimes.”
Bubba shouldn’t have felt relief, but he did. Then he looked at Willodean and felt something else altogether.
“What about the smuggling?” Agent Smith demanded. “Someone is smuggling something and everyone is acting suspicious!” He pointed at Bubba. “He tied yarn around a statue! He put lead sinkers down the barrel of an old cannon! Someone is smuggling some damn thing!”
“What smuggling?” Bubba asked innocently.
* * *
As he sat in a recliner, Bubba held a sleeping toddler. The little boy’s head was braced against Bubba’s shoulder and he rocked him gently back and forth. They all sat in one of the big living rooms of the Snoddy Mansion. His mother was there as was Miz Adelia, the Garcias and the two toddlers, and Willodean sat in a chair as far away as she could get from Bubba without being out of the room. He didn’t like that one bit. “Ya’ll bin smuggling babies,” he said. Miz Adelia and Miz Demetrice had referred to them as shipments. It had probably been so that the cat wouldn’t have been let out of the bag.
“Orphans,” Alfonzo said and rocked the other one. “The fake birth certificates we have said they were two girls, so they had to be girls all the time, or until we got them to their adopted parents. Most people wouldn’t have noticed anyway.”
“The Central American country they’re from is rocked with a civil war,” Pilar said, gently touching the toddler. “There were twenty of them. We’ve found them homes in the United States, but the government was slow to allow them entrance.”
“They were in danger,” Miz Demetrice said. “We set up a baby super highway. Safe houses. Honest people willing to break the law for a good reason.”
“Those trips at night,” Bubba said, “you were delivering babies and then getting another set of children. That explains how they were managing to grow and shrink and change eye colors.”
“Si,” Pilar sighed. “These are the last two. The priest and nuns who ran the orphanage made it out last night. They’re all safe.”
“And the DEA thought you were smuggling something. They just dint know what,” Bubba said. He couldn’t complain about that. How could anyone complain about their mother breaking the law to smuggle endangered orphan babies out of a hostile environment? He’d be like Ebenezer Scrooge, Hannibal Lecter, and Charlie Manson all rolled up into one.
“And we’ll be moving on tomorrow,” Alfonzo said. “Sorry we didn’t finish the painting.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Bubba said. “All the homes for the children,” he added questioningly, “good homes. Good people? You’re certain?”
Willodean said, “I’ve vetted all of them. That’s why I’ve been so busy. Sheriff John is onto me, but I think he’s okay with it. The DEA will get tired of you in a few days, Bubba. Agent Smith will be explaining his mistake for a month. I should feel sorry for him but I don’t.”
Bubba sighed and silence ensued for a moment. They’d spent a few hours downtown, explaining what had happened and to whom and by whom. Bam Bam and David had snuck off immediately, probably because Bam Bam had an avid distrust of all things law enforcement. Eventually McGeorge, Risley, and Leigh the redhead were the ones officially and lawfully detained by Big Joe, although Sheriff John wanted to charge McGeorge with kidnapping and attempted murder. Apparently, Sheriff John was feeling magnanimous and let Big Joe have the arrests.
“Let’s get these babies to sleep upstairs,” Pilar said and reached for the one in Bubba’s arms. “We’ve got a long trip tomorrow and we have to lose the DEA in the morning.”
“I’ll do that,” Bubba said. “I’ll skip down the highway singing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’”
Alfonzo chuckled. Pilar went out the door with one child and Alfonzo followed with the other one.
Miz Demetrice glanced at Willodean and then at Bubba. “I think I shall go and count lima beans in the kitchen. There’s a need to do this, right now.”
“And I’ll help you,” Miz Adelia said. “Some of them beans might get overlooked otherwise.”
Willodean continued to sit in her chair and looked steadily at Bubba. When they were alone, she said, “I tried to tell you but I got a little nervous. I think I missed a pill somehow.”
Bubba found the little velvet box in his pocket. He’d taken a moment to retrieve it from his house because he knew he was going to need it. He didn’t take it out at first. Instead, he said, “When we went to the cemetery last Friday, I was…I had it all planned, I thought that I would—”
“The flowers,” Willodean said in apparent understanding. She stood up and took two steps toward him. “You were going to ask me…”
“And when I was in the zombie makeup, I tried to, but the words didn’t come out right and there never seemed to be a time where it was right,” Bubba tried to explain, but the words were just as jumbled and tied now as they’d been then. He stood up. “I didn’t want you to think that it was only because you’re pregnant.”
Bubba winced. “Did that sound wrong?” He put his hands out wide. “The most important thing is that I love you.” He nodded firmly. “I love you and—” he took the ring box out of his pocket and her eyes went very large as he went to his knees, holding the box out with one hand “— would you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife, Willodean Gray?”
Willodean put her hands to her cheeks and started to cry.
There was a large painful moment while no one else said anything. Bubba was uncomfortably aware that he should have flowers ready or doves waiting to be freed from a cage or perhaps fireworks ready to be launched in exhilarating glee of an anticipated moment, but he had none of those things.
Willodean took another step toward him, still crying. Bubba didn’t care for the tears. He couldn’t recall if he had ever seen Willodean cry and he supposed it could be the hormones, but he never wanted to take her for granted.
But she was nodding and then he was smiling. When Willodean fell into Bubba’s open arms, he was waiting. And for one single sliver in time, everything clicked into place and was perfectly right.
It was a while later that Miz Demetrice said loudly, “Willodean. Willodean! You should take Bubba outside! You know, because.”
Bubba had his head resting gently on Willodean’s abdomen. Willodean reluctantly pulled away from Bubba and admired the ring on her left hand. “Sorry,” she said, “everyone got tired of waiting and they, well, they did something. They didn’t tell me until earlier today and the timing is horrible. I wasn’t sure how you felt about the baby.”
“It ain’t exactly the way I planned it,” Bubba said but he grinned hugely, “but it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Besides meeting you, of course.” He kissed Willodean tenderly and she pulled away reluctantly. “How bad could it be?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.
“Now! Willodean! Quick!” Miz Demetrice said and they heard her footsteps going down the hallway and opening the front door.
Willodean dragged Bubba outside and Precious came over to nose at his leg. She barked once and Willodean knelt to scratch her head. “I hope you like babies,” she said to the canine.
I love babies, Precious thought. The baby shall be my slave and bring me doggy biscuits and we shall gnaw them together.
“Look up,” Miz Demetrice hissed as Miz Adelia joined them.
Bubba looked up into the afternoon sky. It had been a long day but it had been productive and his chest no longer felt tight and constricted. He heard the rubber band-like engine of the plane before he saw the smoke coming out of its sides and the curling sweeps that it made in order to get the job done. He had been correct. He should have gone with the sky writer. That was what the townspeople had done.
The words read in tremendous smoke formed letters “SURRENDER, BUBBA!”
– The End –
Bubba and the Author’s Addendum
I usually add a few things at the end. Probably because I’m slightly OCD and also because it’s my book. Thanks to Lauran Strait who edited this book. But she’s not responsible for my errors so give her a break. It really is a horrible job to have to fix all the eccentric author’s mistakes. She jumped in just when I desperately needed someone to correct my glaring booboos. Thanks to my husband and daughter who always put up with my insanity while I’m writing. (“Don’t look at her daddy, she’s got her headphones on,” my daughter has been known to warn off my husband.) Finally, thanks to all the lovely people who buy my books. It means a great deal to me to have your support. There are so many authors out there who try to get their foot in the door only to have it slammed shut and I count myself as one of the fortunate few who was able to make it work. I appreciate the readers more than you can know.
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 26
