by C. L. Bevill
Newt had once read about a man named Heisenberg. Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist and chiefly remembered for an abstract concept he’d proposed. He’d also been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for his work with quantum mechanics. The truth was that Newt wouldn’t have known a quantum mechanic if one had bitten him on his gluteus maximus, or anywhere else for that matter. But the simplified concept that was the Heisenberg theory had stuck with Newt, even when he’d been drinking too much blueberry/string bean sour mash.
Newt likened the Uncertainty Principle to his entire life, although he was well aware that Werner Heisenberg certainly hadn’t been talking about truck drivers or alcoholics. Simply put, and it had been simply explained to Newt, no one thing has a definite position, a definite trajectory, or a definite momentum. Everything was relative to uncertainty. If Newt had been the kind of man to get a tattoo on his butt, he would have had those phrases infixed there for all to survey in its basic explanation of how the universe truly works.
Newt believed that his whole life was one big Uncertainty Principle in action.
Cue a dead body falling on top of Newt while he was just waking up in a crawlspace belonging to the house of only God knew who. How much more uncertain could any moment ever be?
For about three seconds Newt did not know that the other person was, in fact, deceased. Mostly this was because Newt was struggling to breathe as the impact had centered itself on his solar plexus and knocked the air right out of him. Then as the stomach of the dead guy rested across Newt’s head, it registered that the person was very, very lifeless, and that very, very lifeless possibly meant dead in a place like Pegram County. Newt recovered enough air to scream and scream he did, right into the stomach of the corpse.
There had been a dim light for a few moments, and then when Newt took a brief screaming break, he heard a loud thud as something was being replaced above him. It also dawned on him that there was another entrance to the crawlspace through which someone had deposited the motionless being above him and of which had just been closed up.
Newt made a noise that would have alarmed the most jaded of horror-movie-watching aficionados and immediately did a crab walk. The body, much to Newt’s dismay, came with him.
There had been other times where Newt had been horrified. He’d woken up in a strange bed once with a goat, and although the owner of the goat had sworn they had only slept, emphasis on actual sleeping, together, Newt had been skeptical. Once he had found himself face down in a pile of cow manure, which didn’t bother him as much as the goat had. There had been a third time when he’d woken up with a ninety-three year old great-grandmother, which had been worse than the goat.
But falling cadavers were another thing altogether.
Newt scrambled backward on his hands and feet and tried to scream as the corpse went along with him. If he had been dry for more than a few hours he would have suspected he was in the midst of an episode of Delirium tremens, but there wasn’t a colony of pink, oversized spiders intent on tickling his toes anywhere to be found.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Newt said as the dead man was jerked along with him. “Get away from me!”
Newt bumped his head on a cross member and went down for a moment in a cloud of grayness that confused him. He wasn’t confused when his head cleared and there was still a corpse on top of him. Then he realized that the body’s shirt had caught on his belt buckle and that was the reason it was tugged along with him. He turned his head and found himself at the side entrance, likely the same one he had crawled into hours before. He pushed at it, shoved the body away from him, and scuttled out into blessed wretched daylight.
All things considered, Newt did not stop to close the door behind him, as he gained his feet, and stumbled past the Snoddy mansion, past a half dozen wedding guests, and past some curious caterers.
“It’s the UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE!” Newt yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared around the first corner of the long Snoddy driveway.
Thusly, Newt Durley was never seen again in Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness. (Except one other time, but only as he was moving out speedily.)
* * *
Bubba and More Impending Doom
Around 11 AM
“That,” Sheriff John repeated ominously.
Bubba looked at the bottom of the pantry. Precious had pawed up the crawlspace door and stuck her nose downward. She lifted her head and bayed broodingly.
Bubba took another step forward and stared downward. He saw nothing but dirt. It was plain and simple dirt.
Miz Demetrice stuck her head under Bubba’s shoulder and looked down, as well. It was apparent that she saw nothing but dirt, too. She said, “Huh,” which was the shortest sentence that Bubba could remember her saying in the past few years.
David Beathard jumped up and down behind them as he tried to see over their heads. “What is it? Lady Whiteshade? A disincombusting, articulating, subterranean vehicle of unknown origin?”
Bubba glanced up at Sheriff John.
Sheriff John said, “That’s a moisture issue, boy.”
Bubba didn’t know what to say.
Miz Demetrice issued forth an exaggerated sigh.
“You ain’t got plastic sheeting down there, Bubba,” Sheriff John said. “The earth releases moisture all the time. You got to have plastic sheeting down there as a vapor barrier. I cain’t believe Wallie done this to you. You’re goin’ to have mold problems something fierce. Sooner or later the place will start to smell like mold, too.” He smiled. “But plastic sheeting is cheap.”
“I’ll get some rolls next week,” Bubba said.
“Here’s what you need,” Sheriff John said. “Ten millimeter, high density, cross-laminated virgin polyethylene. It don’t have all the pinholes and imperfections of six millimeter clear or black plastic. That thick stuff also will resist alkaline soil like we get around these parts. Might help with radon gases, too. You had the place checked for radon gases, dint you, boy?”
“I dint,” Bubba admitted sadly. If he had known what radon gasses were, he definitely would have had the place checked for them.
“Radon is a chemical element,” Sheriff John said knowledgeably. “It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas which occurs naturally as a decay product of radium. We git that around here sometimes. The right type of plastic sheeting will help with that, too. You’ve got a chile coming, Bubba, you need to be up to date on these kinds of things.”
Bubba was instantly horrified. He covered Cookie’s head with a large oversized hand. “Lord Almighty,” he said.
Sheriff John said, “Don’t worry. Testing is cheap and it ain’t something you have to worry about day-to-day exposure. It’s the exposure over a dozen years that you got to fret over. I’ll help you with the sheeting, although I don’t care to get in your crawlspace. I’ll volunteer that new boy at the sheriff’s department. He’s skinny and looks like he could get in a tight space or two.”
“I appreciate that, John,” Bubba said.
“Cain’t have my best deputy living with mold and radon,” Sheriff John said. “Mebe you best to have the mansion tested, too. My sister-in-law had her place tested last month. It cost her $3000 for mitigation. They ain’t got a crawlspace so they had to drill through the slab and vent through the attic.”
Miz Demetrice peered down into the hole.
Precious bayed again and nudged Bubba’s leg. Bubba reached out to grab a can of Blue Buffalo. He pushed the cover into place and shut the pantry door.
David frowned mightily and then brightened. “Then you can put your suit on, Bubba. I’ve got to check something off my list. It’s like an addiction. I have to check something off my list as best man. I need to check something off my list as best man.”
Bubba cast a suspicious glance at his mother. Then he looked back at the closed pantry door. It was almost as if she expected to see something very different down there.
Chapter 12
Brownie and Janie and
Mysterious
Mysteries and Also Some Firecrackers
Saturday, April 27th
around 9:50 AM and Onward*
*Which is Before Bubba Found
a Drunken Lawyer
in a Barn Instead of a Dead Body
and Before Some of Those Other Things
Happened Because it is That Kind
of Book.
Really.
Brownie and Janie made their precipitous exit through an opening created by rotting wood and termites in the rear of the barn. They did not look back to see who had been at the barn door because neither of them found their particular positions enviable. (Both were well aware of the inimitable quality of witnesses to their perfidy.) They scrambled into the deep grasses on the far side of the field and sat still in a thicket while catching their breaths. After a few minutes, they both sighed in unison.
“Well, that takes care of bizness,” Brownie said. “Wedding back on. Body hidden for the moment.”
“Good,” Janie said. “I hate to see Auntie Wills miss her wedding on account of a dead— on account of another dead body.”
“You know,” Brownie said, “I always wanted to solve a murder mystery. When I was a Sam Spade wannabe, I would have killed for this mystery.” He considered. “Mebe not killed. Poor choice of words.”
“Thought you said it wasn’t a murder,” Janie said. “He didn’t look murdered. No blood. No stab wounds. No smoking gun.”
“But the glass at the back door was broken.”
“He could have broken himself before dying on the living room floor,” Janie surmised.
“I still know that we shouldn’t have moved the body,” Brownie said. “Besides what are the odds of a second man having a fatal heart attack in Bubba’s living room? If you put it like that, then he had to be murdered.”
“Those are not very good odds,” Janie admitted. “Probably it is murder. This place is like the weirdest place ever. It’s probably the murder capital of the world.”
“What say we go back, check to see if the barn is clear, and then check the victim’s identification,” Brownie suggested. “Once we know who he was, we kin figure out why he was done in. It’s definitely an advantage. You got that tablet and Miz Demetrice has a wireless router to which I know the password. The Internet is our buddy.”
“Did Miz D. give the password to you?”
“No, but I know where they keep their passwords written down. It’s kind of stupid to have an open file with a list of various passwords to the websites they use the most. Like they use ten different variations of buttercup. Buttercup1. Buttercup1954. That one is the year of Bubba’s Chevy truck. BUTTercup with the butt part in caps. Then there was Buttercup! And also Buttercup!1. I reckon Bubba likes Buttercup.”
“I thought Buttercup was the skunk from Bambi.”
“That was Flower. Buttercup is either a girl from a farm who becomes a princess and runs away with a pirate or a Powerpuff Girl.”
“Bubba likes Powerpuff Girls?” Janie asked. “Does that sound like Bubba? I don’t think so.”
“Mebe. But it’s also a character from a Toy Story movie. A unicorn.”
Janie stared at Brownie. “You know way too much stuff about that.”
Brownie shrugged. “I am not ashamed. I figure it’ll all come in handy when Cookie gets a little older. I’ll be the older bro who knows all.”
Janie jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s go look.”
They cautiously crawled through the tall grass until they reached the part that Bubba had weedwacked. They peered out toward the barn.
“Look, there’s the wedding planner guy,” Brownie whispered. He watched as Peyton quickly strode back and forth along the back wall of the barn. He was holding his cellphone to his ear as he made soothing noises. “What is he doing?”
“Listen.”
They heard Peyton talking to someone he called, “Sugarplummy,” and “Little spicy pumpkin piekins.” He also told the person he would be all done, and back in three days, and to be patient. They watched as he disconnected his cellphone and skipped around the front of the barn.
“Mebe he’s talking about the murder,” Brownie said.
“He’s talking about the wedding,” Janie corrected. “He’s the wedding planner. I think he was talking to his girlfriend.”
“He wears makeup. That makes him suspicious.”
“I kind of like it,” Janie said. “It means he doesn’t care what other people think of him.”
“Okay, he goes at the bottom of our list,” Brownie said, “but he’s still on it.”
“It looks clear,” Janie said.
“Duck,” Brownie whispered. “There’s someone else coming.”
“It’s that tall guy, Daniel Gollihugh,” Janie murmured. “He’s with Jeffrey Carnicon and Jesus, that guy from Dogley. My grandma says you should never trust a man who wears a sheet like a toga. It says that he doesn’t have all his dogs on one leash.”
“Jesus isn’t so bad,” Brownie murmured. “Them loonies have good hearts. Even my ma began to think so.”
“What are they doing?”
“Jesus has some weed,” Brownie said. “Wonder if that makes it holy.”
“What?”
“A joint, Mary Jane, locoweed, a bud, ganja,” Brownie named. “Your parents don’t let you Google anything.”
They watched as the three men smoked their way through a joint, each taking a turn puffing on it.
“I don’t get that,” Janie muttered.
“Me neither,” Brownie said. “Look, they’re going.”
Daniel stomped the remains of the joint into the ground, and they hurried around the building.
“Okay then,” Brownie said. He started to rise up and then ducked again. “Someone else is coming,” he whispered and tugged Janie beside him.
“Who is it?”
“Lloyd Goshorn, Mayor Leroy, Mark Evans, and Mike Holmgreen,” Brownie said. “They’re sharing a bottle of wine. Bad wine. Even my alcoholic aunt Lulu won’t drink that kind. You can get it at the Circle K for like $1.99. I have a recipe that uses that particular wine as an explosive device.”
“Lloyd’s a handyman, the other guy is the mayor, and Mark Evans is that one. Do you know him?”
“Mark goes to college and does odd jobs, kind of like that Kiki lady we met while we were on the case of the missing stuff. He hangs out with Mike Holmgreen, who is the grandson of that woman who gave us the weird directions that one time. He mostly records things for his YouTube channel. Did you ever see the one where Bubba got kicked in the head by one of those city policemen?”
They watched and in about 3.5 minutes the bottle was finished. Mayor John Leroy, Jr. burped and said loudly, “There is a keg located near here, boys. I kin count on your votes, right? Let’s go.”
The four men went.
“It’s like a grocery store just before a winter storm,” Brownie said. “Should we take a chance?”
“Why not?”
They went to the barn and crawled back through the hole. Brownie kept a solid hand on his racket, swishing it as they went, like it would knock obstacles from his path. Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, the body was gone, however there was another one.
“Who’s that?” Janie asked.
“That’s Lawyer Petrie,” Brownie said. “Look, he’s still breathing. Great. He’s not really dead.”
“But he’s only got boxer shorts on.”
Brownie waved his hand across his face. “He’s bin drinking. You think we missed him when we were in here before?” With his other hand he poked Lawyer Petrie with the racket. The lawyer did not move.
“He is kind of hidden behind those bales of hay. But where on Earth is the first D.B.?”
“That’s the $64,000 question, shweetheart.”
Janie looked around. “Should we tell someone about the lawyer?”
Brownie inched closer to Lawyer Petrie. He gently nudged him with his foot. “He’
s okay. That auntie of mine; she gets like this about once a month. You should hear my mother talking about her. We simply roll him on his side.” He knelt and hefted the attorney onto his side. “That way he won’t choke on his vomit.”
“Eww,” Janie said.
“You should probably remember this ifin you’re goin’ to be a police officer,” Brownie said. “Let’s see. Signs of alcohol poisoning include blue lips, seizures, waxen skin, and too slow breathing.” He carefully watched the lawyer breathing. “I think he’s all right. Ifin he had any of those things, we should call an ambulance. Otherwise he just has to live with a hangover.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Janie said. “The lawyer didn’t move the body, right?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then one of those people probably did it.” Janie crossed her arms over her chest. “They saw him in here under the hay and wanted to cover up. They’re definitely suspicious.”
“Mebe they were thinking along the same lines as you,” Brownie suggested. “Most people here don’t want to see the wedding cancelled. They’re having a good time.”
“It’s a mystery all right,” Janie conceded.
“We dint get those fireworks in Bubba’s house,” Brownie said suddenly, standing up.
“And the back door has a broken window,” Janie said. “It’s practically an invitation.”
“I do like the way you think, Janie Redgrave.”
* * *
Bubba and Possible Rediscovery
Around 11:15 AM
Caressa returned with a warmed bottle for Cookie, and Cookie took the little bottle with arms waving enthusiastically. She spit out her binky with all of the expertise of a cowboy expelling tobacco juice into a brass spittoon.
Bubba patted Cookie’s head, thanked Caressa, eyed his mother carefully, and nodded at David Beathard. Sheriff John fed Precious, and it was then that Bubba remembered that he had, in fact, already fed his dog. Of course, Precious wouldn’t have stopped Sheriff John to remind him because it meant that she was getting two meals for the price of one. Instead she pranced around as if she hadn’t been fed in a month of Sundays.
