Ransom of Brownie

by Bevill, C. L.

  It dawned on Bubba that nothing was happening. The FBI was prepared to settle in and wait for the perpetrators to contact them. Virtna and Fudge couldn’t do anything. Willodean and Sheriff John’s proverbial hands were tied and could only do the best they could.

  The dining room table still contained all of the evidence including the athletic shoe that Bogie had been chewing on. There was something else they hadn’t considered yet. Bubba had said it wasn’t his shoe. It certainly wasn’t Miz Demetrice’s or Miz Adelia’s shoe. And it wasn’t Brownie’s shoe.

  No, someone had snatched Brownie and then come to leave a note in the guise of a Piggly Wiggly flyer on the front veranda. While that person did that, the dogs came to see what was up and probably attempted to chew on said person. At that point the athletic shoe that was not Bubba’s had come off. Bogie had appropriated the prize and masticated it to death. There was always the possibility that Precious had snatched the shoe off the perpetrator while endeavoring to maul him and then Bogie had swiped it.

  Bubba’s reasoning was this: if the kidnapper was knowledgeable about the Snoddys and knew that Brownie had made an impromptu visit, then the kidnapper was a local. If the kidnapper was a local, then he might have purchased the athletic shoe in the vicinity, and since it was a size 11 ½ shoe, it couldn’t be that common. If Bubba could find the shoe store where the shoe had been purchased, then he might be able to identify the kidnapper and consequently, track Brownie down.

  Silently, he slipped out of the living room and went to get the shoe. From there he retrieved his keys and deftly avoided Fudge as his cousin was smoking a cigarette in the tree line and staring at the skies.

  Precious became aware that more was afoot and trotted up to him as he was getting into the old green Chevy truck that was one of his most prized possessions. Behind her trotted Bogie, who didn’t want to be left out of any potential action. She threatened to bay loudly, so Bubba let her into the truck, helping her by hoisting her hindquarters up. Bogie learned quickly. If something was interesting to Precious, then it naturally must be interesting to him, as well. Before the nearly grown pup could wail, Bubba hoisted his tuckus into the cab of Ol’ Green.

  And no one saw Bubba drive off.

  * * *

  Brownie thought that Laz was beginning to suspect. The pair had taken a shower after dinner because they had worked hard at whatever mechanically inclined thing they did. Tom had come out smelling like chicken bouillon. “Water don’t smell right,” Tom said, sniffing at his arm. “Smells kind of what your ma makes when you’re sick.”

  Conversely, Laz had a certain eau de cream cheese. “I think my deodorant ain’t working no more. It crumbled apart like it was made out of dough or something. I just bought that stick not two weeks ago.” He held up his hands which were stained a pinkish red. “And the dye in the hand soap won’t come off.”

  Brownie innocently sat in a living room chair and perused the TV Guide. “Hey, True Grit is on later, followed by Dirty Harry, and then The Big Lebowski. I made popcorn and blue lemonade. It’s a treat in our house to make blue lemonade. There’s blueberries in it.”

  “Which True Grit?” Laz asked, giving Brownie the big hairy eyeball. “Out of my chair, boy. That’s my La-Z-Boy.”

  “John Wayne,” Brownie said as he moved.

  “Well, okay then.” Laz gave a last lingering look at his red-stained hands and shrugged. “I dint know we had blueberries.”

  “Ain’t all them movies too…um…bad for the kid?” Tom asked.

  “They’re on TBS,” Brownie said.

  “It’s okay. They bleep everything bad.” Laz sat next to Brownie and gave him another prolonged look. Brownie knew the wheels were turning in the kidnapper’s head. Could the kid have done those things? Is it possible? Is the kid NOT staying in the little room while we’re gone? What else could he have done? Then Laz’s disbelief overpowered his sensibility. Clearly he’d forgotten all about the whole Matt Lauer/Christmas Killer incident. Naw. It’s a ten-year-old kid.

  “Well, okay then.”

  Chapter 8

  Wednesday, November 13th - Thursday, November 14th

  Brownie and the Beginning of the End

  After the two kidnappers went to sleep (Tom began to snore halfway through Dirty Harry. Laz nodded off during the bowling montage in The Big Lebowski.), Brownie had to find a flashlight and go outside to continue with his mission. However, he had to stop to think about the meaning of his own thoughts. Step Three was not just his mission but his manifest destiny. It was his ethereal belief of spreading the ideal that was Brownie Snoddy.

  He located a flashlight in the kitchen. (It was next to the drawer with Tayla Berryhill’s favorite newspaper clippings of her youngest son’s criminal exploits. There was also a stack of old flyers from a Piggly Wiggly. Someone had been cutting letters out of it, but Brownie didn’t know why.) He located where the pair kept Oscar Meyer chained to a fence and fed the newly anointed dog some more weenies. Oscar was properly grateful and licked Brownie in sincere appreciation while simultaneously wagging his tail and entire body in explicit joyfulness. (Brownie knew that Oscar properly appreciated the essence of Brownie. Or at least he appreciated the weenie idea.)

  “You would like my dog, Bogie,” Brownie told Oscar. “As a matter of fact, I think you should come home with me. Ifin my ma has a girl, we’re goin’ to need more boys around the house just to outnumber them. They don’t treat you right here, do they?”

  Oscar whined pitifully, nosing Brownie’s hand for more hot dogs, but Brownie’s weenie well had run dry. Brownie spent about an hour cataloging items in the junkyard for his magnum opus. He didn’t know what a magnum opus was except that Papa Derryberry had often said that various things he created were his “magnum opuses.” Once Papa said that a birdhouse was his magnum opus, but two weeks later, he had said that a triple-barreled shotgun with telescopic attachment that he’d made was his magnum opus. Occasionally, when Papa Derryberry had been drinking peppermint schnapps while sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, he said that his daughter, Virtna, was his magnum opus and then he cried. Brownie liked the phrase, and thus, he thought about it meaning something really, really good. Brownie thought that his stun gun was his magnum opus, but he had recently realized that he could do better than a mere stun gun.

  “Eat your heart out, Matt Lauer,” he muttered as he gamboled through the junkyard, picking up this and that, and making sure he had access to some tools and equipment he would need.

  When he got back to the trailer house, he discovered that Tom and Laz were still snoozing on the couch and chair, sleeping through Blazing Saddles which was a wretched shame. Papa Derryberry had also introduced Brownie to Mel Brooks. Papa’s favorite Mel Brooks movie was Young Frankenstein, and he could and would quote lines, but Brownie was partial to the bean scene in Blazing Saddles. And who could beat riding into a movie theater and watching the same movie on the big screen?

  Brownie watched Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little ride off into the sunset before he yawned hugely and considered that he had just a little more work to do. He would need duct tape, Jell-O, food coloring, an empty toilet paper roll, toothpaste, Oreo cookies, ice cube trays, Mentos, and an air horn.

  He was having so much fun. It seemed a downright shame to have to sleep.

  * * *

  Bubba didn’t have a lot of luck with the athletic shoe on Wednesday. He went to the obvious places first. John’s Shoes on Third Avenue had white athletic shoes and black athletic shoes. Period. John didn’t remember ever having shoes with green stripes. Furthermore, John couldn’t remember if his competitors had shoes with green stripes. Finally, John couldn’t remember what he’d had for breakfast that morning. Then John’s son came in and explained that John was having some memory issues on account that he was ninety-eight years old and refused to retire. John refuted that notion by striking his son over the head with his cane. Then Officers Haynes and Smithson came in to refute John’s right to refute his son
’s assertion. Bubba refuted the whole situation by withdrawing before Officers Haynes and Smithson could use their steel-tipped boots. (One of them had used one on Bubba’s head not that long ago, and Bubba still had the occasional ache there.)

  A quick trip to the only department store left in town revealed no athletic shoes with green stripes and a girl named Dina who couldn’t remember ever having athletic shoes period. She smacked her gum while she spoke, “We got loafers.” Smack. Smack. Pop. “We got Buster Browns.” Pop. Smack. Chew. “We got ladies’ heels. Mules, wedges, peep toes.” Chew. Smack. Pop. “A fella came in here last week asking for purple shoes.” Smack. Chewie. Chew. Chew. “We dint have those.”

  Bubba returned to the Snoddy Mansion with the two dogs in tow to discover that pretty much everyone had gone to the hospital except Special Agent Richard Billbee, who was dozing beside the phone sitting on the dining room table. Alongside the phone was all the specialized gear that went into tracing a call and whatnot.

  Miz Demetrice wandered in with a cup of coffee. She had declined to go to the hospital based on the fact that she was not injured nor were any of her major arteries spurting blood.

  “Anyone call?” Bubba asked, meaning the kidnapper.

  “No, and everyone else had issues.” Miz Demetrice sat the cup of coffee beside the agent who had his head lying on top of his folded arms so that if he awoke he could easily reach the caffeine goodness. “Virtna started with labor pains, and Doc called the ambulance for her. She started screaming at Fudge in what I believe to be a dead language. Special Agent Monday broke out in a rash on top of the other rash that started just under his neck and went to, well, he wouldn’t rightly say to where, but I suspect it was his nether regions based on the method he was employing to scratch that particular area. He yelled that he could no longer take it and started using a fly swatter to hit himself, which was when Doc stuck a syringe in Monday’s hindquarters.” Bubba’s mother’s face twisted in admiration for a moment. “Right through all of the clothing, too. I’ll have to ask Doc what it was that he keeps in a syringe in preparation for knocking a person out. In any case, Doc said it was the worst case of poison ivy he’d ever seen. It was as if the boy had rolled in it. He thinks that Monday might have ingested some of it.”

  “Huh,” Bubba, who had his fair share of cases of poison ivy and poison oak and poison sumac, said. His mantra toward those evil plants had become “wear long pants and shirts or wash it as soon as you touch something with three leaves.” It was a good mantra. However, hearing about the special agent’s severe case made him want to scratch something. His hand twitched.

  “So Monday and Virtna rode to the hospital together in the ambulance,” Miz Demetrice went on. “While Fudge was getting ready to follow along, Hornbuckle grabbed a shovel and said she was going to look for clues and fell in that big hole around back.” His mother sighed. “Girl broke her ankle. I know this because the bone isn’t supposed to stick out of the flesh like that.” She sighed again. “I got Fudge and Wallie to get her out of the hole, but she was holding something she said was a Civil War Era button, and she didn’t want to go.” She patted the side of her face. “I think it was a cat turd, but I couldn’t be certain. In any case, Doc had to sedate her, too. Hornbuckle caught the next ambulance, and this young man—” she pointed at the sleeping agent “—was left holding down the fort. I believe he passed out because he hasn’t slept for about a full day. I thought they made FBI agents of sterner stuff.”

  “Sheriff John? Willodean?” Bubba asked.

  “Sheriff John and Willodean went to get some food and some sleep. She said she would call you later.”

  Bubba was tired, too. He didn’t want to give up on the shoe clue, but there weren’t any stores left open, so he would have to wait. He fed the two dogs and played with both Precious and Bogie until their little sides were heaving with exertion. Then he went to bed and dreamed of giant, dancing Sharpies. It was a rather unpleasant dream.

  * * *

  Brownie slept very well until the air horn went off at 6 a.m. He wasn’t exactly surprised, so he opened his eyes briefly, smiled, and then closed them again.

  The verbal rant that followed was explicit and almost made Brownie want to break out his notepad except that he didn’t have it with him.

  “I ALMOST POOPED IN MY PANTSIES!” Laz yelled. Brownie assumed he was yelling at Tom. Brownie also assumed that Tom was being blamed for something that Brownie, gleefully, and with great malice aforethought, had done.

  Tom muttered something like, “Whatareyouyellingatmefer?”

  “IT WASN’T FUNNY!”

  “What?”

  “Duct taping the air horn behind the doorknob!”

  “Duct taping the what to what?”

  “So that when I opened the door the air horn would go off!” Laz yelled, but his yell wasn’t so ferocious. “I thought the po-lice had sent a SWAT team! I thought that a bomb went off! I thought that Ma had returned! That was…that was…” he suddenly chuckled. “Goin’ to have to have my tightie whities surgically removed. That was a good one.” Brownie agreed silently.

  Tom didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Okay. Duct taping an air horn behind a doorknob. That is funny. Almost made you fill up your britches.” He paused. “Let me hit the head, and we’ll go on. Expect the boy can get his own breakfast.”

  Brownie heard Laz tromp outside and then there was quiet again.

  Until Tom said loudly, “Oh, dear Lord, the toilet is backing up! Haww! It’s goin’ over! Hawww! It’s goin’ over! Where’s my inhaler? Hawww!” Pause. “It’s not goin’ over.” Pause. “Is that poop on the floor? Hawww.” There was another pause. Then Brownie heard Tom yell, “This ain’t funny, Laz! Making a cardboard poop is like you was in 6th grade again. I remember that grade pretty durn well. You know I went through it three times. I’m not touching it.” There was another pause. “How did he get the water so brown and gross? Seriously, where’s my inhaler?”

  A little food coloring. Bits of toilet paper. A shredded cookie or three. You just put it all in the upper tank and wait for someone to flush. You take an empty toilet paper roll and add a little water and crumple it up. It looks just like…

  The toilet flushed again and again until Brownie heard Tom say, “There. It’s clean now.” Then he laughed. “I’ll have to try that down at Grubbo’s Tavern.”

  Brownie waited as he clearly heard the stream of urine hitting the water (There were really thin walls in the trailer home.) and then Tom said, “Say, Laz?”

  Laz was still outside and didn’t hear him.

  “Laz?” Tom tried again. Then there was another lengthy pause, and the toilet flushed again.

  As Tom came out of the bathroom, Brownie heard him say, “Never had blue pee before. Hawww. What in Sam Hill does that mean?”

  The door slammed, and Brownie could hear Tom and Laz arguing mildly. They weren’t sure if they should be mad at each other or laugh at each other. Laz said, “Blue pee? It was just the light hitting it or…something.” Brownie rolled to his side and twitched the curtain on the window. He saw Laz staring at the front door, obviously thinking about stuff. Brownie could almost see the wheels turning in the kidnapper’s mind. Then Laz turned away, and they went off to the truck.

  As they drove away Brownie could see the block letters on the back of the tailgate, and he smiled again.

  It said “I ♥ kicking cute little puppies! Lots of ‘em!”

  * * *

  Bubba woke up early and actually checked for Sharpie marker remnants first before he remembered that Brownie had been kidnapped. When he went downstairs for a fresh infusion of coffee, he found Special Agent Richard Billbee packing up all the FBI’s goodies. “What’s up?” Bubba asked.

  “The little turd posted on Facebook,” Billbee said, tucking electrical cords away. He reached over to an open laptop and pulled it around so that Bubba could see the picture on the monitor.

  It was a status update of Brownie. It s
aid Brownie Snoddy. Then it had a little time posted below it. It said “12 hours ago” followed by a little symbol that Billbee explained meant that the status was available to the public. Then there was a photo of Brownie grinning into the camera. It was a self-portrait, and Bubba could see all of Brownie’s teeth, including the loose canine on the right side. The note above the photo said “Having a blast being kidnapped!☺”

  “Cain’t you trace where this came from?” Bubba asked.

  Billbee stopped and stared at Bubba. “Why?”

  “Because you could find Brownie and who kidnapped him,” Bubba said, and his voice was cold.

  “The kid hasn’t been kidnapped,” Billbee said slowly as if talking to a demented moron.

  Bubba sighed. “The boy has been kidnapped. He’s just having a good time.” He pointed at the caption of the photo. “See?”

  “They would have taken his cell phone,” Billbee said. He ground his teeth together while he said it, and it nearly made Bubba wince.

  “I don’t reckon they did,” Bubba said.

  “I’m going to have to use small words,” Billbee complained to no one in particular. “There hasn’t been a crime. There hasn’t been a kidnapping. If there hasn’t been a federal crime, we don’t need to be here.”

  Bubba took a breath. It was a deep breath. It kept him from throttling a special agent, which, he suspected, would have been a federal crime, although Bubba was certain that if he explained himself to a court in the proper method, no court would ever convict him.

  “The kidnappers are not clever,” Bubba said.

  “No crap,” Billbee said. He shut the laptop’s lid and slid the computer into a bag.