by C. L. Bevill
Peyton yelled over his shoulder, “No place for babies in my wedding! Not unless they’re carrying a ring or riding on the bride’s train!” He vanished promptly.
“He didn’t mean it,” Bubba said to Cookie.
Precious trotted up to Bubba and nudged his ankle. He reached down to scratch her head and she leaned into it. “Two beautiful girls here,” Bubba said.
Bubba sat on the edge of his steps to his porch and entertained the two beautiful girls. Cookie gurgled at Precious. Precious leaned into Bubba’s head and looked amicably back at Cookie.
There was a squealing of brakes followed by Peyton squealing in alarm. The motor of a four-cylinder vehicle revved and the actual car came around the corner of the mansion to peel to a stop next to Bubba’s 1954 Chevy 2100 truck. The Smart Car didn’t look quite right next to the antique Chevy, especially since the wraps had been replaced from the Jolly Rogers that previously been on it. Now the front half was a normal Smart Car painted silver. The silver faded into the back end which was rusting cogs and bolts and something that emitted black tinted steam.
David Beathard leapt from the Smart Car, which was a feat considering the size of the vehicle. Bubba had once been crammed in the car along with Daniel Gollihugh who was just about the largest man in the county, and Bubba had vowed never to do it again unless under threat of death.
“I say, Bubba,” David called. “I have some questions for you, being the best man and all.”
Bubba couldn’t remember ever asking David Beathard to be his best man. He couldn’t remember having asked anyone to be his best man. The topic had simply not come up. There were three bridesmaids and three groomsmen, but his mother and Celestine had been on top of that.
David whipped his top hat out of his car and placed it jauntily on to his head. He adjusted the brass monocular on his face. The lens moved in and then out as it focused on Bubba. He then straightened his brocade tailcoat and tugged on the ends of the pristine white ruffles at his front and cuffs. Precious got up, sniffed his tall boots, and apparently departed for more steampunk free climes.
“Baron Von Blackcap, I presume,” Bubba said.
“Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger,” David corrected chirpily in a normal David Beathard voice. Apparently there was no accent associated with this persona. (Bubba thought that wasn’t right because didn’t a baron need an evil accent to accentuate his evilness?)
“I’m going to get some coffee and I’ll be right back,” Bubba told the baron. “Do you want to hold the baby?”
“Goodness no, what if I dropped it?” David asked nervously.
“They don’t have steampunk babies?”
“She’s going to need a little leather corset, an aether evaporator ray gun, and possibly several brass gears in her headdress. A vampire binky isn’t really anywhere close to steampunk.” David smoothed out the jabot at his neck as he uneasily eyed the infant in Bubba’s arm.
So it was that Bubba went inside his house while holding a baby Snoddy and discovered a dead body.
“SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY, my hindquarters!” it was later said that he yelled in response.
Chapter 4
Bubba and the Discovery of a
Deceased and Departed Person
Saturday, April 27th around 9:30 AM
Bubba came outside with the baby still in his arms, but without the coffee he had sought because he’d frankly forgotten all about the coffee. David still waited by the steps to his tiny porch, looking expectantly at the other man.
Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger appeared somewhat concerned. Bubba thought a steampunk super villain wouldn’t really appear concerned, if he were, in fact, an authentic steampunk super villain. (Bubba couldn’t get away from the thought that if David Beathard was a baron von whatsit, shouldn’t he have some kind of middle European accent or possibly a bad lisp?)
“What’s wrong, Bubba?” David asked. “You look about as pale as the ghostly skin of my principal arch nemesis, Lady Whiteshade. She wears black lipstick to bring it out, you know.”
“Weren’t we just talking about oh, finding things I dint want to find?” Bubba asked as if he were discussing the price of a gallon of gasoline.
“Yes, yesterday. All you need to do is envision yourself in the correct scenario, and all will be well. This is simply a stressful event, which can produce reactions in your body that betray you. My ex-wife had diarrhea all day long, and we shouldn’t talk about what she had to do with the skirt of her wedding dress because that definitely falls under the category of too much information. I don’t think she liked that dress much after that. She returned boxes of photos from the wedding after the divorce and she had cut through her dress from about waist high on…I’ll just shut up now.”
Bubba looked at Cookie. “You saw it, dint you, girl?”
Cookie removed her binky for a moment, waved it through the air like it was a little vampire mouth-shaped airplane performing aerobatic tricks, and stuck it back in. Bubba took that to mean yes she had, but she wasn’t going to talk about it because she was still an infant.
“She saw it, too,” Bubba said to David.
David stared at Bubba for a long time. He adjusted his monocular and the eyepiece whirled and whizzed in response. “Are we talking about…?”
“Yes.”
“A real live, er, I mean, a real, not alive…?”
“Yes.”
“Which is in your house right now,” David said and gestured at the house with one heavily ruffled cuffed hand.
“Yes. I should call the po-lice.”
“Perhaps you should first let me take a look,” David suggested.
Bubba’s face crumpled into a confused frown. “Why?”
“All this stress you’re under, Bubba,” David said in a careful manner, “could cause…oh, delusions.”
“You mean to say that I saw a whatsit that isn’t really there,” Bubba interpreted.
“Just like pink elephants,” David agreed. “Or Trump as a front runner. Same thing.”
“I cain’t say as I’ve ever rightly seen any pink elephants,” Bubba said.
“But you have seen those kind of things that weren’t really what you thought before,” David said firmly and crossed his arms over his chest. The monocular moved in and out by itself again. “It’s a master plan worthy of an extreme steampunk villain. I could develop a potion that makes people imagine all kinds of delusions. I could have miniature automatons deliver their deadly bounty in places where I intend to steal technology that further all of my evil causes. Bwahaha.”
Bubba said, “Hold the baby for a minute, David.”
David took a step backward and put his arms behind his back. “No holding babies. Not since my daughter. Did you know I accidentally dropped her on her head once? My ex-wife brought that up in the divorce, and the judge looked at me like I was monster. Not that I was monster then, not like I am now. I’m a steampunk monster. All I need is steam and punks. Bwaha.” The last evil laugh seemed a bit forced. “My daughter wasn’t really hurt. She landed on a pile of blankets.”
“You won’t drop her,” Bubba said. “I cain’t take her back in there. I need a phone, and oh, crap, I mean, carp. My phone ain’t working. And I cain’t find my cellphone.” He suddenly brightened. “You have a cellphone, David.”
“I have an aether net massive discombobulating communicator,” David said proudly. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a small rectangular item. Bubba looked at it for a moment and his heart dropped.
“It’s covered with brass gears,” Bubba said. It used to be a cellphone. He wasn’t sure what it was now even if David had called it an aether net massive discombobulating communicator.
“It’s the steampunk aspect,” David whispered dramatically. He tilted it back and forth, so the brass caught the light of the sun.
Bubba took the phone and tried to pry up some of the gears. “It’s glued all over the screen,” he said.
“One of my poorer designs,�
�� David admitted. “I shouldn’t have used a two part epoxy on it. That epoxy is some bad ass stuff.”
“I don’t reckon your warranty will cover that phone,” Bubba said, giving it back.
“Bah!” David cried melodramatically. “Who needs stinking warranties when I shall soon be running the world? You will be my lieutenant, Bubba, but you’ll have to wear brass goggles and change your name to Fleet Commander Palmer Bickerstaff!”
“What kind of fleet will I be commanding?” Bubba asked because he couldn’t help himself.
“It shall be an armada of high-powered, long-lasting, diamond-encased dirigibles, my man,” David said. His face, except the eye with the monocular, crinkled with obvious disbelief. “You don’t get to be fleet commander without knowing those niggling details, so get with the program, Fleet Commander. We’re off to South Africa to reconnoiter for more diamonds. We’ll be stealing them from the very earth with my latest ray gun. The Africans will never even notice. Bwa.”
“What shall we do with Cookie?”
“We’ll rename her Air Gunner First Class Arabella Millicent and she shall be third in command. With a brass binky shaped like an octopus, she could someday rule a third world country.”
“And all of this best man bizness?” Bubba asked.
“Oh, well, yes. I have a list,” David patted his pockets upstairs and down until he located a folded piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it and began to read. “Help the groom choose the tux, which the wedding planner already did, so that’s done. Then there’s the groomsmen’s fittings, which the wedding planner did. Check. Next was the bachelor party and no one will ever forget the night of a thousand pink pantie droppers, which should be the name of a movie. All hail the pink lemonade. Then comes arranging the accommodations for the groomsmen, which your mother took care of. So that’s a big done-diddly-one. The next one has to do with a gift for you, so I won’t spoil that surprise. Just you wait.”
“It wasn’t something that I just saw inside with Cookie as my witness?” Bubba asked.
“No, of course not. I said I wouldn’t do anything like that for your wedding.” David shrugged and the monocular moved again. “We seem to have skipped the whole rehearsal dinner, so that’s taken care of.”
“It was more like a wedding breakfast,” Bubba said. “And Peyton walked us through the ceremony yesterday, don’t you remember?”
“It rings a very small brass gear-encrusted bell. Then the next thing on my list is to help you get dressed, so hut-hut, get along little doggie. Chop chop. Move your East Texas buttocks along promptly so that I may apply another check on my list.”
“The suit is in my house…with…the…you…know…what.”
“Are we still stuck on that?”
“It’s a little hard to get around it,” Bubba said.
Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger (Bubba had a surreptitious thought to ask the baron what he was revenging, but not at the present when his brain felt like a block of Swiss cheese with goo dripping through it.) sighed heavily. “For you, Bubba,” David said with an exceptionally weary tone, “I shall go in and I will ensure that no dead bodies are littering up your hallway.”
“It’s in the living room,” Bubba said.
David sighed again. The monocular moved again as if sighing with David. David mounted the steps, avoided Bubba with Cookie in his arms and Precious, who was ready to put her head down on her paws, although she seemed as if she was picking up on uneasy undercurrents.
Bubba looked around. It had to be a joke. It had to be another mini murder mystery festival complete with a fake you-know-what. It had to be someone who had died accidentally in his living room…again. It had to be anything but what it appeared to be.
Think, fool, Bubba said silently. It’s a man. There isn’t any blood. I dint see a wound, although his mouth looked like he had a little milk mustache and he had some flowers sticking out of his breast pocket, too. I dint recognize him. I dint put my hands on a murder weapon because I don’t know what killed him. I have bin with everyone for the last hour or so. I have an alibi. He sighed and looked heavenward. Dear God, he prayed, I know entirely too much about how crimes are solved. I know more than I should know. Can we skip over this today, God? You the God, God.
Cookie gurgled happily.
David opened the door and stared at Bubba. The monocular stayed, thankfully, in place. “Are you feeling all right, Bubba?” he asked.
“My stomach hurts a little. My head is a little tight. A drop of milk in my coffee would take care of that.” Bubba felt frozen in place. “What about…him?”
“It was a man?” David asked politely.
“Of course it was a man. I think I would know a man from a woman.”
“That’s not what you said when you saw that transgender contest on TV a few weeks ago. Miss International Queen, you recall. Miss Thailand was hot. She could totally be an evil steampunk super villainess.”
“My headache is getting worse,” Bubba said, “and you and Willodean said it would be interesting to watch.”
“Okay, then,” David said. “Come on in.” He gestured with flyaway ruffles emphasizing the movement.
“I cain’t take Cookie in there again,” Bubba said. “That would be wrong on so many levels. And to tell you the truth Virtna kind of scares me. Shore I kin hold the baby, but don’t let her mama catching me doing something weird, like letting her only daughter look at a dead body.”
“Air Gunner First Class Millicent will be fine,” David said. “She’s a tough cookie,” he added and chortled at his own joke. “Come on in.”
Bubba hesitated and then followed David inside. He turned around the corner to the living room and saw…
Nothing.
“Where’d it go?” Bubba asked, genuinely confused.
“There’s no blood or scratches or anything else,” David pointed out. Everything looks pretty normal. It’s even been swept recently.”
“I cleaned up yesterday because I knew people would be tromping through, not because I thought a dead body would be appearing.”
“That’s what they all say,” David said sagely.
Bubba looked all around the living room. He even peered behind the couch. Then he tromped into the kitchen, and crouched to peek under the table. He checked the half bath, tiny pantry, and the little room with the furnace and water heater in it. Finally, he looked into the tiny laundry room, and frowned. “It ain’t here.”
“Would it make you feel better if we looked upstairs?” David asked.
“It would make me feel better if it was exactly where it was when I first saw it,” Bubba snarled, and Cookie made a gasping whimper of a sound around the edges of her binky. He modulated his voice. “Sorry, baby girl,” he said softly. He looked at the Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger. “Yes, upstairs.”
Bubba went up the stairs first. He was thinking frantically. The man hadn’t really been dead. He had been lying in the living room without a pulse or anything that would indicate he was still alive. For example, he hadn’t needed the use of his heart or his lungs. So he woke up from his near-after-death-ness and walked away. Bubba had walked in, passed the living room, saw the legs, stopped, stared, stared, and stared some more. He had managed to move himself into the living room and knelt beside the unknown man. Bubba had put his hand on the man’s chest. There hadn’t been a heartbeat or the movement that would indicate the man’s lungs were working. Bubba had also put his index finger and middle fingers on the side of the man’s neck. That man hadn’t been playing dead. He was well and truly dead. Then Bubba had absently noticed that Cookie was staring at the dead man. He had stood up and went back outside to argue with David Beathard.
Bubba hadn’t looked at his watch, but that had been the better part of five minutes because he didn’t want to go back in the house and Cookie hadn’t even been the main reason he hadn’t wanted that.
The bedrooms were devoid of dead bodies, as well. So were the closets and the upstairs bathroom
was empty.
“Oh, here’s your suit, Bubba,” David called from the master bedroom. “Shall we check that item off the list now? I have to do several other things, too. Take over the world. Take over the universe. Get a banana-pineapple smoothie. You know, a lot of other imperative things.”
Bubba paused on the main landing and frowned. He was either losing his mind or someone had come in and moved the body. What was it that people who quoted Sherlock Holmes were always saying, “…When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” “Oh, hey, David,” Bubba called, “cain’t you go back to bein’ Sherlock Holmes for a bit?”
“Negative,” David’s imperious voice called, “I am the steampunk super villain, Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger, who will soon create a massive death beam in order to take over the world. First, Pegramville, and then Texas. I may skip parts of the south that I deem unworthy of taking over. I’ve always hated Florida. They have bugs the size of ponies. Wait, I’m having a steampunk super villain idea. An Edison bulb has just alighted itself above my head. I shall hypnotize the humungous bugs and glue plate armor on them. They will take over all of the authorities and plus, Lady Whiteshade hates insects. She squeals fetchingly. Bwaha.”
Bubba tromped back down the stairs and headed for the back door.
David called after him, “What about your suit?”
* * *
Brownie and the You-Know-What
in Bubba’s Living Room
Which May or May Not Have
Really Been There.
Seriously…
Around 9:25 AM which was Before
Bubba Found You-Know-What
Brownie dragged Janie out of the Snoddy Mansion’s kitchen without looking back. “Bubba’s got some fireworks at his house,” he said to Janie. “I saw them last time I was here. It’ll be fun. We can go out by the swamp and light them off. The squirrels will run like heckfire.”
“Okay,” Janie said, who had previously stated that she was sick and tired of being pinched on the cheeks and told how she looked exactly like Great-Aunt Esmerelda or Cousin Theodora Marie or Some Other Relative. “My cheeks hurt,” she said. “I’m just glad they weren’t pinching my butt. I’m not even related to some of those people; they’re your relatives.”
