Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness (The Bubba Mysteries Book 7)

by C. L. Bevill

  Sheriff John pointed to the empty flute sitting on an occasional table. “Did the you-know-what have some champagne, too?”

  “Mimosas,” Bubba clarified.

  “Did the you-know-what have a mimosa?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that you-know-whats were partial to orange juice and bubbly,” Bubba said with a straight face.

  “Just how many cases of bubbly did ya’ll buy for this here shindig?” Sheriff John asked.

  “You’d have to ask my mother,” Bubba said. A truck had arrived the day before and offloaded nothing but cases of orange juice and champagne, but he wouldn’t tell the sheriff that, as it had been a rather large truck.

  “I only ask because yours isn’t the only call about a dead body, I mean, a dead you-know-what.”

  Bubba stared at Sheriff John. “Someone else called 9-1-1 about a dead body out here.”

  “That’s right. Earlier today. Anonymous from the public phone at the BuyMeQuik. I only mention that because I don’t care to be called about such goings on,” Sheriff John said. “One of your friends playing a stupid joke. Like ya’ll would have another dead you-know-what out here. What would be the odds? On top of everything else—” he abruptly stopped as if he was about to let something else go.

  “What?” Bubba asked.

  “Oh, do you know the identity of the you-know-what?” Sheriff John asked instead of answering.

  “No. I dint know him. I checked his pulse. Put my hand on his chest to feel for him breathing. I dint think to look to see if he had a wallet on him.” Bubba would have crossed his arms over his chest, but there was a baby in the way. “Next time I’ll take a picture.”

  “All righty then,” Sheriff John said. “Let’s take a look at the house and see if we can find the incidental you-know-what.”

  Bubba had an urge to snarl, but he restrained it.

  * * *

  They combed the entire house in short time. Since the house was on the small side that wasn’t hard to accomplish. Sheriff John had even gotten down on his hands and knees to peer under the bed. “You got dust balls the size of basketballs, here,” he said. “I think that one winked at me.”

  “Surely not,” Bubba said. Cookie said, “Mah, mah, mah,” in a way that suggested that she was needing something. “Kin we get this going, John? The baby needs changing or food or a weapon, I ain’t shore of which.”

  Sheriff John’s head came up from the other side of the bed. “Mebe the size of baseballs then, and don’t call me Shirley. You wouldn’t really give that chile a weapon, would you?”

  “Mebe if she learns about them early, she won’t turn into Brownie,” Bubba suggested.

  Sheriff John shrugged. “You dint really have a body, did you, Bubba?”

  “I did really have a body, twice,” Bubba said, losing all of his sense of humor. “The same dead body. Twice. In. My. Living. Room.”

  “Are you just yanking my chain?” Sheriff John asked, slowly climbing to his feet. “You know about the other thing, and since Willodean said not to—”

  Bubba interrupted with— “Willodean said not to what?”

  “— tell you,” Sheriff John finished and peered into Bubba’s face. “Well, I reckon you did not know.”

  “Tell me or I’ll give Cookie to Darla.” Darla was Sheriff John’s wife. “She wants a grandchile, right?”

  Sheriff John winced. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Then his police radio cackled and Sheriff John reached over to his shoulder mike to answer. A short conversation later and the law enforcement official stared at Bubba again. “You chased two people down the driveway?”

  “They were reporters and they were trespassing,” Bubba said. “I never laid a hand on them, although I accidentally destroyed one of their cellphones. Accident, really. They killed an oleander bush down by the gate in their getaway with their Jeep. That oleander has family.”

  “Reporters,” Sheriff John said. “Is that how you know?”

  “What?” Bubba said suddenly. “What should I know? What’s the big secret except the part about how no one believes me about having a dead body in my living room?”

  “Bubba, did you have to chase them down the lane?”

  “One of them was that gal, Daisy Dillworthy,” Bubba explained.

  “‘Rarified Redneck Rube Detective Rips a Mystery,’” Sheriff John quoted with understanding. “Okay, I’ll tells Simmons to tell them ifin they won’t press charges, you won’t press charges. That’ll fry their bacon. God help me ifin you went to jail on your wedding day, before your wedding. I wouldn’t be able to run for county dog catcher when your mama was done with me.”

  “I think they call that animal control now,” Bubba said helpfully.

  “And we kin forget about the body for now?” Sheriff John added questioningly.

  Bubba glanced around his and Willodean’s bedroom. There was a large knot in the middle of his chest. It wasn’t like he wanted a dead body to be flinging itself all of the Snoddy Estate on the day of his wedding. On the other hand, he didn’t want to upset Willodean either. “It ain’t like it’s slapping me in the face,” Bubba capitulated, “so I reckon so.”

  They went downstairs and Sheriff John said, “I recollect the day that I got married. I bit down on an ice cube and cracked one of my teeth. The only dentist within twenty miles was gone to Bermuda on a vacation, and I had to see a veterinarian who gave me a sedative meant for pets. I don’t remember much after that, but Darla showed me the marriage license and where I signed it. Now what they got in Bermuda that they don’t got in Texas, I ask you?”

  “Bermudians,” Bubba said. He considered. “Well, there might be a few of them in Texas anyway.”

  “Don’t you got to change into your suit?” Sheriff John asked.

  “Don’t you got to tell me what happened so that my mother went around and tole folks that I wasn’t to borrow their cellphones and someone came around and took the television sets off somewhere?”

  “Oh, it was just a little problem a little bit ago. The Pegram County Sheriff’s Department is right on top of it. Big Joe is helping out, too.” Big Joe was Joseph Kimple, Pegramville’s chief of police. Big Joe didn’t really care much for Bubba, and Bubba didn’t care much for him, but Big Joe wasn’t all bad. Big Joe was kind of like the Grinch before his small heart grew three sizes that day. (Big Joe hadn’t yet discovered the strength of ten Grinches plus two, but Bubba was ever hopeful.)

  “What kind of problem?” Bubba insisted.

  Cookie whined again. From somewhere in the house Precious whined in response. Bubba tried to remember if he had remembered to feed his dog. With all the fuss, wedding arrangements, steampunk super villains, dead bodies, and such, he couldn’t recall. He thought he had, and Precious would have let him know, but he was so discombobulated.

  “You gonna change?” Sheriff John asked again.

  “Are you?”

  “I’m on duty today,” Sheriff John said, “but I’ll be here, provided we don’t have no more calls about what-not and what-the-frick.”

  “I’m not in charge of that,” Bubba said. “Okay, you feed my dog, and I’ll go feed Cookie.”

  “You want me to feed your hound?” Sheriff John said.

  “Unless you want to switch,” Bubba said as he glanced in the living room. Just in case you-know-what had magically reappeared. It had not.

  “Hell, no,” Sheriff John said emphatically. He tromped into the kitchen with his boots making a louder than normal noise on the hardwood floor. “Where’s the dog food?”

  “In the pantry. The can opener is in the first drawer on the right.” Bubba stepped down the hallway and then Miz Demetrice burst into the room in a manner very similar to how Sheriff John had done it not long before.

  Chapter 10

  Miz Demetrice and Drunken

  Lawyers and Silly Barons

  Saturday, April 27th around 10:50 AM

  “I have to say,” Lawyer Petrie said as he leaned agai
nst both Miz Demetrice and Caressa, “that as your family attorney, hiding a human body is a violation of statute 32-584-1, I think.”

  Miz Demetrice guided a stumbling Lawyer Petrie into the Snoddy Mansion via the kitchen door. Caressa held one of the attorney’s arms as her sister opened the door. Unfortunately, the kitchen was full of various people who came and went with trays of canapés and flutes of mimosas. Miz Adelia was washing glasses in the oversized sink. Most of the occupants quickly glanced at the trio and then away and then back in ways that said they simply couldn’t not look.

  “Coffee,” Miz Demetrice said. She knew her hair was askew but she had checked her tangerine outfit to ensure that it had not been dirtied in the stuffing of a cadaver down a crawlspace door. She looked rumpled, as if she had been escorting an inebriated lawyer about, instead of transporting a corpse away from the possible scene of a crime.

  “Oh my Lord,” Miz Adelia said, rushing to the row of coffee pots on a nearby sideboard. “Someone said they saw a naked barrister running about, but I thought that was just the excessive amount of champagne flowing.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lawyer Petrie. “I reckon he got into Bubba’s clothes before the reporters could see him, dint he?”

  Miz Demetrice looked at Lawyer Petrie and ascertained that the two pieces of clothing that he was wearing (a gaping t-shirt that said “Ho Lee Chit” in Asian looking letters on the front and a pair of jeans with legs that went past the lawyer’s feet and dragged behind him) definitely belonged to someone much larger than he. As she knew that the attorney had been in Bubba’s house, it wasn’t a stretch to conclude that the clothes were Bubba’s.

  “Bubba found me in the barn where I had passed out,” Lawyer Petrie said. “I don’t know why I was in the barn. There was something about cow tipping and post office mail trucks, but I don’t remember much else.”

  Miz Demetrice and Caressa directed Lawyer Petrie into a kitchen chair. Miz Adelia provided a mug of black coffee. Lawyer Petrie drank of the coffee and then muttered, “This would taste much better with a dollop of cream, a spoonful of sugar, and possibly a tot of brandy in it. Two tots.”

  “Drink the coffee,” Miz Demetrice said wishing for one of those ball gags so that she could cut off Lawyer Petrie’s words. It was a pity that she didn’t have access to one, and it was a further pity that she had no idea from where to obtain such an item.

  “That thing we were just talking about,” Lawyer Petrie said as if he was having a casual conversation with a normal person, “is a class 4 felony. ‘It is unlawful for a person, without the authority of law to prepare, disinfect or embalm a dead human body according to standards of practice in the funeral industry, to mutilate a dead human body.’” He giggled drunkenly. “Do you know how long it took me to memorize that section?”

  “And ain’t it a shame that Lawyer Petrie is so drunk he cain’t see through a ladder,” Miz Adelia said loudly. She motioned with her hands, shooing half a dozen people in the direction of the door. “Everyone git out there and serve folks!”

  The kitchen cleared almost immediately, leaving only four of them.

  The look upon Miz Adelia’s face as she gazed upon Miz Demetrice was not unlike looking into the face of a hanging judge pronouncing judgement upon a man who had recently stolen a horse, robbed a bank, and spit into the face of a nun. “What have ya’ll bin doing?” she asked slowly.

  “There’s also some other issues of obstruction,” Lawyer Petrie said. “Failure to report a felony, preventing execution of civil process—” he chuckled again— “although that’s a tricky one. There’s interference with public duties, although that might be more in line with the act if there was a law enforcement official present. Unauthorized practice of law might be applicable if you presented yourself as a lawyer to the dead body.” He paused and swung around to look at Miz Demetrice and Caressa. “Did you?”

  “No, we did not represent ourselves as lawyers to a dead body,” Caressa said.

  “We should report this,” Lawyer Petrie said.

  “After the wedding,” Miz Demetrice said.

  “The wedding,” Lawyer Petrie exclaimed. “Did you know the fella who drove me out here is coming to the wedding? We stole a mail truck. The steering wheel is on the wrong side. Must be a British mail truck.”

  “Sounds like you committed some felonies, too,” Miz Demetrice muttered.

  “A precise representation of a cacophony of facts,” Lawyer Petrie said. “Perhaps if I were to forget about what I saw, you might forget about what I said. A delightful deal, if I do say so myself.”

  “Perhaps,” Miz Demetrice agreed.

  Miz Adelia had gone to get a coffee pot and was holding the carafe in one hand. She looked aghast at the other three. “I kin see you doing something like this on today of all days, Miz Demetrice, and even you, Miz Caressa, but Lawyer Petrie. Ifin he tells you there’s cheese on the moon, you best to break out the crackers. In fact, the man starches and presses his tighty-whities.”

  “My housekeeper does that,” Lawyer Petrie protested. “I tell her too much starch but she doesn’t always listen. You know, like housekeepers are wont to do.”

  “We don’t have time to explain,” Miz Demetrice said. “Where’s Bubba?”

  “He chased two reporters down the lane,” Miz Adelia said.

  “While still strapped to the baby?”

  “He still had Cookie and Precious was following. I think it was mostly bark and no bite. One of them reporters was that Dillworthy gal.”

  “‘Rarified Redneck Rube Detective Rips a Mystery,’” Caressa quoted and then cackled. She sobered instantly. “No wonder Bubba dear got angry and chased them off. You didn’t invite the media, did you Demetrice, darling?”

  “Of course I did not,” Miz Demetrice said. “I would have greeted them with my blunderbuss if I had.” She had two blunderbusses if anyone thought to ask, but most people didn’t ask about those.

  Caressa shrugged elegantly. “I need to freshen up. I think my frock is unkempt.”

  “Later, Caressa,” Miz Demetrice said. “Keep pouring coffee down the mouthpiece. Don’t let him talk to anyone.”

  “You know, people keep calling out here,” Miz Adelia said, pouring some more coffee into Lawyer Petrie’s mug. “Asking things like do we know where Newt Durley is, have we seen Peter Pitcock, and do we know anything about—” she looked around surreptitiously— “that fella we ain’t supposed to talk about.”

  “Who’s Peter Pitcock?” Miz Demetrice asked and then immediately answered herself, “oh yes, the social worker from Dogley.”

  “Dogley called an hour ago. He was supposed to bring the patients to the wedding, drop them off, and pick them up about four, but he hasn’t come back to the hospital,” Miz Adelia explained.

  “Peter Pitcock!” Lawyer Petrie said. “Peter piped a peck of pickled mimosas. If Peter piped a peck of pickled mimosas, then how pickled did Peter Pitcock get?” He stared at the three women in drunken earnest. “I ask you, could an intoxicated man say that?”

  “How drunk is he?” Miz Adelia jerked a thumb at the lawyer.

  “As pickled as Peter Pitcock could possibly be,” Miz Demetrice answered sadly. “I have no idea about Newt.”

  “Then Mary Lou Treadwell called and said that those reporters that Bubba chased down the lane left one here by mistake and could we see that Bubba didn’t pound him into mincemeat.” Miz Adelia poured more coffee into Lawyer Petrie’s mug.

  Miz Demetrice took a deep breath. The last few weeks had been a sorry test on the spriest individual. Even the night before there had been people wandering around the woods when all should have been quiet. She’d come out with one of the shotguns twice to fire into the air because she wanted them to know that it wasn’t the night of easy pickings. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Mayor Leroy tried to grope one of Willodean’s sisters and she put him into a headlock,” Miz Adelia said. “Interestingly enough, that dint dissuade him. He als
o brought his own alcohol in the form of a keg in the back of his brother’s truck. It’s already tapped and he’s got a supply of party cups.”

  “I’ll have to call Mayor Leroy’s wife,” Miz Demetrice said with a groan.

  “This is the best wedding ever,” Lawyer Petrie said. “It’s got everything. Liquor. Mystery. Drama. Liquor. Intrigue. Spectacle. Liquor. Ya’ll will never live it down. Where’s the mayor’s brother’s truck parked?”

  “As long as we live through it,” Miz Demetrice said.

  “There are people here that ain’t what bin invited,” Miz Adelia said, “like them reporters. Peoples got invited. They invited other peoples. I know we expected some extras, but it’s getting a bit ridiculous.”

  “Plus a real dead man mucking up the works. And there’s that fella all dressed up in a top hat with a neon flashing ray gun,” Lawyer Petrie said. “You know that boy has made one too many trips to the crazy pile.”

  Speak of the devil and the devil appeared.

  Baron David Von Blackcap the Revenger opened the kitchen door with notorious aplomb, waving his chittering ray gun, and saying, “‘Death is as light as a feather!’” His brass monocular systematically scanned the four startled people. For a long moment there was only the mechanical ratcheting sound of the eyepiece moving back and forth.

  “The best wedding ever,” Lawyer Petrie murmured. “Why wasn’t my wedding like this?”

  “Loosen your corsets, madams!” David proclaimed. “The day is about to get weightier by a factor of ten.”

  “Is that for certain?” Caressa asked. She fingered her Boss jacket. “I don’t think my corset is coming off without a sharp knife and a bottle of baby oil. Possibly not even then.”

  “David,” Miz Demetrice said, “I don’t need any more shocks.”

  “Prepare yourself because in fact Inquisitor Ulysses Ezra Skimpole has arrived upon the scene. He was in possession of a crude firearm which he holds ably in his hand as he disembarked from his black and white land dirigible, and he appeared intent on entering the domicile of Fleet Commander Palmer Bickerstaff. It is a well-known fact that Inquisitor Skimpole is under the nefarious influence of Lady Whiteshade, my arch nemesis.” David turned off the ray gun with a grand movement. “Lady Whiteshade is demonically influential.”