by C. L. Bevill
Miz Demetrice had followed up with a conversation that Virtna understood was dripping with sarcastic wit at her expense. The skinny redhead had taken as much she could before excusing herself with an, “I should make sure Brownie ain’t sliding down the banisters or some such ilk.”
Fudge had wandered out of the living room with a loud belch and a brief, “Pardon moi.”
“Salt of the earth,” Miz Demetrice had murmured to Bubba with a caustic eye. “Promise me, Bubba dear, that you’ll marry and have children soon so that I won’t have to leave any property to them.”
Bubba had said, “I got a woman all lined up. I just have to get her to take me seriously.”
That had been the moment that Bubba had excused himself and went to see if Deputy Willodean Gray had been working on Christmas Day. He was going to speed in a speeding trap if she was out patrolling. Or perhaps he might just stumble across her as he went to chat with Mary Lou Treadwell who manned the desk and the police line.
Instead, he stopped at the red stop light in front of city hall. Bubba had admired the decorated Civil War cannons. Bubba had admired the Santa Claus/Nativity display. Old Fred Bushyhood had made up the display about ten years earlier and donated the entire affair to the Methodist Church who then collaborated with the Baptist Church. He’d used mannequins from a defunct department store, and Santa loomed over the sleigh with one hand on the leather reins which led to five reindeer. Originally there had been nine, but every year a bunch of drunks came out to shoot the reindeer with their bows and arrows. There were so many holes in several of the reindeer that they could have doubled as pasta strainers. One of the reindeer was missing an entire leg, and Rudolph had vanished the previous year. Everyone thought that Lloyd Goshorn had stolen it so that he would have company in his little shack. Mary and Joseph were standing indulgently over the plastic crib while two and a half Wise Men overlooked Santa Claus. The stable had fallen in at the back, and one dangling support looked as if it were about to take out the baby Jesus.
Bubba had been in a fine mood as he had waited for the light to change. He was thinking of Deputy Willodean Gray. She was short, sassy, and drop-dead gorgeous. She wore her raven black hair in a tight bun at the base of her neck, which Bubba was itching to undo with his fingers. Her green eyes were the color of moss and accentuated her heart-shaped face and punctuated her full ruby red lips. She had a slim, almost boyish figure which screamed that she wasn’t a boy at all. And that was just the exterior. Bubba found the interior even better. The deputy had believed in him when a whole mess of other people had not. Not only that, but she had taken the time to listen to him, and boy-howdy, did she have as interesting a mind as she did a body. Every time Bubba saw her he wanted to howl like a dog at the full moon.
Everyone in Pegramville knew that Bubba had set his cap for Willodean Gray. However, Bubba was a cautious fella, having made two previous errors in his choice of female companionship, so he was slowly working up to asking her out. The crucial word was “slowly” and everyone in the town was on pins and needles waiting for his progress. Miz Demetrice had even taken out a betting pool on when their first official date would be. Mary Lou Treadwell had taken pity on him and let him know when the deputy was working.
Bubba had made two plates up from Miz Adelia’s scrumptious breakfast. One was for Miz Mary Lou and the other for the lone deputy on duty, the object of his affection. The light changed, and he pulled his 1954 Chevy truck into the sheriff’s department parking lot across the street from city hall. He let Precious out of the truck, and the dog made a beeline for the Christmas display, crossing the street and the grass without hesitation.
Straightening his shirt, brushing lint off his pressed jeans, and adjusting the Stetson on his head, Bubba smiled to himself. He checked his teeth in the exterior side mirror and listened to Precious suddenly howl.
Bubba turned to look at his dog. She was leaning on the sleigh with two paws and barking at Santa. Then she howled again. Her head swiveled to look across the grass at him. He was reaching for the Tupperware containers when his hand abruptly stopped. It was caused by a niggling feeling deep within him that said all was not well in the world.
The dog stared across at him. Come on, dumb ass, she said silently. I think you need to see this. She began to bay again. “Owwwww-whoooooooo!!!”
“I-uh-crud apples,” Bubba swore. Dead squirrel in the sleigh? The mayor passed out on the other side? Nazi alien bikers invading? He cast a sorry look at the Tupperware containers and shut the Chevy’s door with careful precision. Then when he walked across the street and over the grass to the display where he found out that Santa wasn’t Santa at all.
Santa was a dead guy dressed in the Santa suit. His throat had been slit, and the blood just mixed right into the red suit.
“Oh no,” Bubba said woefully. “Not another dead body.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Two - Bubba and the Police Chief
Sunday, December 25th
Pegramville Police Chief Joseph Kimple stared at the dead guy and then turned to stare at Bubba. Big Joe was a lifelong resident of Pegramville. He was married to Leturnia Kimple who was a distant Snoddy relative. Miz Demetrice was apt to invite the Kimples over to the mansion about once in a blue moon, so they were known to each other.
Bubba kicked at a clump of flowers and suppressed a groan. Not another one. He would have scuttled across the street and pretended he hadn’t found the body at all, if Precious hadn’t continued her string of spine-tingling, mournful howls. Mary Lou Treadwell had stuck her head out of the sheriff’s department to see what the hubbub was all about. She had seen Bubba standing over Santa Claus and yelled, “Hey, Bubba, whatcha all looking at?”
Bubba had been stricken. One dead body had been wretched. The fact that someone had been trying to set him up was simply incidental. Most folks understood that it wasn’t Bubba’s fault that Lurlene Grady aka Donna Hyatt from Spokane, Washington had been greedy and manipulative and somewhat of a sociopath. Two bodies were harder to take. When the realtor, Neal Ledbetter, who was also involved in Lurlene Grady’s plot, was likewise found dead by Bubba, there was plenty of talk. Although Neal had also been plugged by Lurlene in an attempt to cover up her nefarious activities, Bubba had still found the corpse. After all, everyone in East Texas could talk about odds. They were well familiar with how the state lottery worked. Someone had to win. Likewise the saying was rampant in East Texas; where there’s smoke there’s fire. But Bubba had an ironclad alibi; he had been giving evidence to the grand jury about his ex-fiancée’s death.
However, that had been months ago and the murderer caught red-handed, well, red-mouthed. She had confessed all and sundry. And everyone knows what happens to murderers in Texas, so that was Lurlene Grady/Donna Hyatt’s dumb luck. She hadn’t gone to trial yet, but Bubba had been cleared.
People, if one disregarded Noey Wheatfall’s wife, had been treating Bubba right courteously. He’d even gotten a few people who had apologized on account of them jumping to conclusions. He had started to heat up his pursuit of the beauteous deputy, Willodean Gray.
Dammit, Bubba thought. Why me? Why now?
So when Mary Lou Treadwell had yelled across city hall’s wide expanse of yard, he’d yelled back, “Best call the police chief!”
Mary Lou Treadwell had paused, which in itself was odd. “Why?” she had yelled back.
“Santa Claus is dead,” he’d yelled back.
Another pause had followed. “You know there ain’t no such thing as Santy Claus, Bubba Snoddy, don’t you?”
Even Precious’s eyes had rolled.
“I reckon so, Miz Mary Lou,” Bubba called. “But the guy in the Santa Claus suit doesn’t know that. And well, he’s not going to know it any time soon.”
So Mary Lou had called Big Joe Kimple who was the Pegramville Police Chief. Then she had called the county coroner and she hadn’t forgotten John Headrick, the county sheriff, and certainly she hadn’t forgotten to tell Depu
ty Willodean Gray. Then, Bubba was certain, she had called all of her cronies and her husband and probably people she didn’t know, too.
Bubba had pulled Precious away and locked her in the cab of his truck with the windows half down and waited for the other shoe to drop. He’d even looked around to see if he’d missed any other dead bodies. As a matter of fact, he’d looked up to see if a dead body was apt to fall from the sky. That was pretty much the course for his life recently. It was more than possible that they would start streaming from the heavens like candy from a broken dime machine.
Fortuitously no other corpses appeared, skyward or otherwise. And apparently since it was a slow Christmas morning, half the town showed up to see what the heck was happening at city hall.
This included Willodean Gray, who came to stop about five feet away from Bubba as he waited.
“Say, Bubba,” Willodean said.
“Miz Willodean,” Bubba said. He looked over his shoulder at his truck and saw that Precious’s butt was in the air as she rooted around the vehicle. One of the Tupperware dishes came flying out the half-open window and he sighed. Precious’s all too acute nose had discovered illicit, unguarded food, and she was taking advantage.
“Deputy Gray,” she corrected him idly and his heart sank. They had gotten to first name basis, and he longed to hear her say his name with her dulcet-like tones. But being instructed to go back to the more formal name meant any progress he had made had just gone into a big stinky hole.
“Deputy Gray,” Bubba repeated obediently. “Merry Christmas,” he added feebly.
Willodean’s eyebrows arched. “Not for that guy. You know who that is?”
Bubba looked over at the Santa/Nativity scene. “He’s got a beard on.”
Big Joe was poking at the beard with a pencil and pulled it down and away so that it wouldn’t get into the blood at the man’s neck. The corpse’s face was paper white, and his eyes were glazed with a white haze. He had been out here for hours because he was as stiff as a board. Even Bubba recognized that.
“What about now?” Willodean asked gently.
Bubba frowned. Damned if he did know the dead guy. It wasn’t surprising since he knew most people in Pegramville and a heck of a lot more in Pegram County. He hadn’t left the area excepting his stint with the United States Army and everyone knew about that, too. “Yes, I know him,” Bubba said slowly.
Willodean waited patiently. “Who is it?”
Big Joe’s bullet-shaped head snapped up as if he had extra sensory perception and was paranormally aware that someone who was not authorized to do his work was doing just that. “Deputy Gray,” he yelled, “are you questioning my suspect?”
Bubba winced. He had just gone from being a witness who had stumbled across a body to being a suspect. Again. Half the town had heard Big Joe’s yell and started tittering immediately. Bubba couldn’t help but to look down and make sure he wasn’t holding a bloody knife in one of his hands, still dripping with gory evidence.
Of course, there was a good reason that Big Joe immediately thought that Bubba was a suspect. The cadaver was also known as Steve Killebrew, owner of Killebrew’s Autoparts. He had been in his sixties and an active part of Pegramville politics. Sometimes he and Miz Demetrice protested together. They had a whole set of protest signs premade in the back shed of the Snoddy Estate. All they had to do was paint the boards white, and it was smack-dab ready for another fresh, new thought-provoking protest. Power to the people, Bubba thought half-heartedly. Hell, Bubba could remember making signs with Steve Killebrew when Bubba had been in high school. His mother had made protests for innumerable perceived inadequacies a mandatory activity.
Bubba nearly chuckled. Some of his fondest memories were of various protests across the great state of Texas and other states, not to disregard Washington, D.C. When he’d joined the U.S. Army, he’d had to explain some of the resulting arrests to the agents scrutinizing his background. They’d given him a clearance but with sideways expressions. He supposed that all the Defense Criminal Investigative Services had to do was to look at his mother’s records to compare. Most of the arrests had been dismissed anyway. Judges loved Miz Demetrice and she could give back as good as any long-winded mouthpiece she’d come against.
Bubba Snoddy knew the deceased victim, Bubba could hear the accusatory words in his head.
And with Bubba’s work at Culpepper’s Garage, well, there was more.
Bubba Snoddy had interaction with the deceased victim.
It turned out that Steve Killebrew was often chintzy with his auto parts. Bubba had sent back a fuel pump twice in the previous week because it was clear they were used parts and not the new parts that had been paid for. Bubba wasn’t sure if it was Steve doing the underhanded replacements or one of his clerks, but he had called up Steve personally upon reception of the second fuel pump. Words had been passed between them. Family and friendly connections aside, Steve hadn’t been happy about the connotations. It made Bubba think that one of Steve’s clerks was doing a booming secondhand business. Bubba knew that when Steve calmed down he would figure out the same thing. But Steve had popped his proverbial cork.
“You’re a ridge-riding, lowbrow, rednecked peckerwood, Bubba Snoddy!” had been Steve’s exact words. Then he’d added, “You’re a big-necked twathead. You’re a slag heap waiting for flies to land.” Steve had been partial to finely tuned insults, and he often got very riled up trying to one up his designated prey. Often Steve had been the reason Miz Demetrice had gotten arrested during protests. After all, the police didn’t take kindly to some of Steve’s more ingenious verbal invectives. In particular, they were often highly offended.
Bubba Snoddy had an argument with the deceased victim shortly before his untimely death.
Bubba had slept in one of the back bedrooms the previous night. He’d gone to bed early because Fudge had been scarfing down the 100-year-old brandy like it was Kool Aid, and Virtna had been eying the locked cabinets with the Depression Era glass in them while holding an antique silver letter opener in a shady fashion. Meanwhile, Brownie had been stalking Precious with a toy tomahawk and what suspiciously looked like a stun gun. Bubba had fled with Precious before bad things could happen, unashamedly leaving Miz Demetrice to deal with unruly relatives. After all, she had invited them. Consequently, Bubba had been sleeping alone, all night, in a back bedroom, far away from anyone else, with only Precious as a witness.
Bubba Snoddy doesn’t have an alibi for the time that the deceased victim was brutally murdered.
Abruptly, Bubba perceived that Willodean Gray was staring at him oddly.
My God, Bubba thought, stricken with the sight of the morning sun’s light pouring over her tumbling black locks and the glitter of her moss green eyes. It was as if the heavens had opened up and put a spotlight on her for the sole purpose of emphasizing her splendor. She’s beautiful. And I’m in deep trouble. Again. “Steve Killebrew,” he muttered.
Willodean didn’t react. She was relatively new to the area and may have very well not known the auto parts store owner. Bubba took in a deep breath. “He’s a friend of the family.” He sighed. “I should call Ma before someone else calls her. And Steve’s got two grown sons who live in Dallas. They won’t want to hear it from the grapevine.”
Willodean’s eyes widened as she looked behind him. Someone was whispering to Big Joe, and Big Joe was glaring at Bubba’s tall figure. Big Joe called loudly, “You have words with Steve, Bubba? Last week?”
“I’ll call Miz Demetrice,” Willodean said quickly. “Perhaps you should consider a lawyer before you speak with Big Joe, Bubba.”
Bubba brightened. The fact that Deputy Willodean Gray was advising him to get a lawyer to protect himself was heartening. Was it possible there was a little tenderness in her heart for him? He shot her a quick discerning look. She had a concerned expression on her lovely face. Her green eyes were fixed on him. His heart turned over in his chest.
But something else pulled him back. T
here was a corpse in the Santa Claus/Nativity scene behind him. The corpse had a name. Steve Killebrew had been a friend, even if he hadn’t been one of the best. As Miz Demetrice had mellowed in the last decade, finding other things, like her illegal gambling ring, to keep her occupied, her friendship with Steve had softened. Steve had kept busy with the issues he thought most important. He wanted marijuana legalized. He thought prostitution should be legalized and taxed to hell and back. He wanted to impeach the governor, the mayor, the state senators, and a few others too numerous to mention. The Secret Service came out to his place on an annual basis because of his lengthy missives to the President of the United States. Although he didn’t actually threaten the President, he was on his best pejorative and contumelious behavior while scripting his liberal literary communiqués.
Steve Killebrew hadn’t been a bad guy. No, just long-winded and loud, screaming his disregard for authority and rules. Miz Demetrice had respected the man because he was not afraid to fight for the causes he felt were just. She didn’t always agree with him, but she esteemed his audacity. Over the years Miz Demetrice’s causes and Steve’s causes had parted ways.
Bubba felt shame that he was more concerned with his reputation than with righting a wrong. He turned to look at Steve’s poor battered body clad in a Santa Claus outfit, and abruptly Big Joe was twisting him around with an efficient movement. His arms were bent behind him, and the cuffs were on before Bubba could think to say, “Hey, Big Joe…”
