by C. L. Bevill
The voice mail clicked and ended on him before he could say anything else.
Kiki told the mayor to stop looking down her cleavage.
“You’re the girl from the fortune cookie factory,” Mayor Leroy slurred. “There’s a line in there about that somewhere.”
“Sweet girl, you are the fortune in my cookie,” Bam Bam Jones supplied.
“Tha’s it,” Mayor Leroy said. “Make that man an advisor to my administration.”
Kiki put the bag of phones down on the ground, and placed her hands akimbo. “That is objectifying women, at the very least.”
“You’re the object in my o-ba-jek-ta-fy-ing,” the mayor said snapping his fingers to each of the syllables in “o-ba-jek-ta-fy-ing.”
“Aren’t you married, Mayor?” Kiki asked. “What would Mrs. Mayor say?”
“She’s very understanding,” Mayor Leroy said. “I should be talking about my platform, right?”
“How you’re going to bring jobs to Pegramville,” Kiki supplied.
“Tha’s right,” Mayor Leroy said. “Make that woman an advisor. I can pay in smooches.” He puckered his lips in demonstration and Kiki took a step backwards.
Bubba put the iPhone back in the bag and began to pace. This entire situation came back to Nancy Musgrave. It started, ended, and met in the middle with her. She sent her brother to Pegram County to be…murdered? No, that couldn’t be correct. Nancy was many things but she wasn’t the kind to sacrifice her brother for the bigger cause. She didn’t roll on him when she was caught. Instead she waited for him to make his play with Miz Demetrice. However, Morgan Newbrough had screwed up and kidnapped the wrong woman. Even then the siblings hadn’t turned on each other. Morgan, not as canny as Nancy, hadn’t squealed at all about his sister. He’d made his own deal and gone with that.
Whoever it was that was helping the pair had gone off the proverbial reservation. The person had killed Morgan because he or she thought it was the thing to do. Possibly it had been inadvertent.
What was Nancy going to say when she found out that her worker bee had done the unthinkable? Maybe the worker bee was going to blame Bubba for it? How would Nancy react?
Why, Bubba didn’t know, but he suspected she wasn’t going to be happy. Furthermore, if he were to poke her in the correct way, she might pop and let them know who it was.
However, Bubba couldn’t drive over to the prison to visit her like he had before when he wanted to get Nancy’s perspective on people who stalked. He didn’t have the time and the drive to the prison was too far. He could call her, if the prison officials would be nice enough to allow him to talk to her. His mother could grease those skids as she knew just about every elected official from the governor on down on the eastern side of Texas. (She knew some on the western side, too, but she tended to cultivate the ones who might be able to help her out at a later date.) (Hadn’t the governor been invited to the wedding? Why, yes he had, but he’d declined because he was stumping for the Republicans for November.)
Also, Bubba needed to see if Steve Simms had been successful in getting a call back from the Sheriff of Smith County. Bubba might not even need to speak with Nancy, and who really wanted to talk to a certifiable, psychotic murderer? (Bubba got to talk with certifiable people all the time who weren’t murderers.)
Kiki pointed at the mayor and said, “Do you even know any of your platforms?”
“Free beer for any registered voter here!” Mayor Leroy yelled. He hugged the gigantic keg with both arms and kissed the side.
More cheering ensued.
“I have spared no expense in obtaining the largest keg available!” Mayor Leroy went on. “I call it Count Kegula! Count Kegula will be another member of my administration.”
Weak cheering resulted. Apparently Count Kegula wasn’t the best nickname for a ginormous keg, or possibly some people didn’t approve of a keg being part of the town’s government.
Bubba looked at Sheriff John and Celestine. They had obtained a box of sandwich bags from somewhere and were putting John Johnson’s hands in them and securing them with plastic Flexicuffs. John Johnson was protesting vociferously. “This is a clear violation of my personal freedoms as set down in the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution and all that stuff on the back of the dollar bill, too!”
“How many gunshot residue evidence kits do you have?” Celestine asked Sheriff John.
“I think there’s five,” Sheriff John said, considering John Johnson’s hands. “It’s not like we use them a lot. As a matter of fact, the last one I used was on Bubba.” He paused while Celestine frowned. “We should prolly test everyone who wasn’t in sight when the shots went off.”
“I think we can get a couple dozen kits from Dallas,” Celestine said. “We need to lock this guy up in the back of a prowler.”
John Johnson groaned audibly.
“What about just doing the presumptive tests on his hands?” Agent Monday asked.
“Same kit,” Sheriff John said. “We’ve only got five. You know as well as I do that sometimes these things don’t work. Plus if this fella changed his brake pads, it could test positive for gunshot residue.”
“Gunshot residue evidence tests for everyone!” Mayor Leroy yelled.
Weak applause resulted.
“Ma!” Bubba called. “I got a job for you!”
“Wait!” Mayor Leroy said. “It’s not one of my jobs, is it? Sorry, Miz Demetrice, you’re just not right for my administration.”
“Just hug the Keg from the Black Lagoon, Mayor,” Bubba said.
Mayor Leroy scowled at Bubba and did just that.
Kiki sighed. “I should just run for mayor.”
“No dreadlocks allowed!” Mayor Leroy bellowed.
“Dreadlocks would give Pegramville street cred!” Kiki bellowed back.
“I don’t know what that means,” Mayor Leroy said. Then he tilted drunkenly to one side. The entire keg shifted and Bam Bam Jones reached over to yank the mayor away as the truck made an ominous noise. The weight of the keg was perched on the tailgate and the tailgate was clearly unhappy. The metal groaned and the keg went over to one side.
Everyone watched as the keg continued its inevitable reaction to the laws of physics.
“OH NO!” Mayor Leroy screamed. “NOT THE BEER!”
The keg fell off the side of the truck and smashed the entire bag of cellphones with a loud and painful crunching noise.
Bubba looked at the mess. Beer leaked out of the spigot and Mayor Leroy collapsed onto the ground, curling into a fetal position, crying and squealing at the same time.
Bubba looked up at the large group of people still sitting in lawn chairs. Some of the people had changed. Thelda was now sitting in Jesus’s lap while the aluminum protested at the extra weight. Alex Luis, the star of The Deadly Dead, sat in one while holding a flute of mimosa in one hand. He was evidently flirting with Daniel Gollihugh who was sitting next to him. Stanley Boomer sat in one while staring with evident horror at the fallen keg. Sam Jones, the Chinese-American owner of Wok This Way, the only Chinese restaurant in town, sat next to his wife, and both looked a little stunned and lambasted at the same time. Lloyd Goshorn held a beer in one hand and a flute of mimosa in the other while he whispered in Martha Lyles’ ear. Martha, a schoolteacher was flushing prettily while fanning her face with a lottery ticket form. The sleeping man with the Dallas Cowboys hat was still entrenched in his chair with his arms neatly folded across his chest. Apparently the noise hadn’t disturbed his drunken stupor. Even Jeffrey Carnicon looked remarkably stunned at the latest state of affairs as he stood by Lloyd. He grabbed Lloyd’s red cup of beer and downed it in a single gulp while Lloyd protested.
Bubba said, “I’m goin’ to need another cellphone.” Several fingers pointed at the crushed bag of cellphones in response to Bubba’s statement.
Miz Demetrice stopped at Bubba’s side, eying the downed keg. The fall from the truck had bent the coupler tap as it hit the edge of the tailga
te. It began to hiss portentously.
“Take cover!” she yelled and dragged Bubba down just as the keg blew up.
Bubba lifted his head a few minutes later and heard ringing in his ears. He looked around for the cellphone that had a call coming in. For a few instants he thought it must be Willodean calling him back before he realized that Willodean couldn’t possibly know which cellphone to call him on, and furthermore, all of the cellphones had just been pulverized by a huge keg, which had then just exploded into beery, frothy bits.
“We kin save some!” Lloyd shrieked. “Grab a bucket!”
Bubba shook his head to get rid of the ringing and was pleased to hear it diminish. “Ma,” he said, “you okay?”
“I smell like beer,” Miz Demetrice said. “This has all gotten remarkably ridiculous. If this were a television show, there would be a laugh track about here.”
“You gotta call the governor,” Bubba said.
“About an exploded keg?”
“No, I need to talk to Nancy Musgrave,” Bubba said.
“Nancy knows about an exploded keg?” Miz Demetrice lay on her stomach next to her son. She lifted her head and plucked bits of grass from her face. “You don’t suppose she rigged the keg to blow up?”
“Nope,” Bubba said. “That was serendipity. But she knows who kilt her brother.”
“You think she’ll just tell you?”
“Mebe. I wish I could see her in person.”
“I kin see that.” Miz Demetrice looked around. “I don’t suppose anyone else died when that keg went kaboom.”
There was nearby moaning, but it was only Mayor Leroy lamenting the loss of the keg. “Oh the deposit,” he wailed. “And the votes!” In an act of inadvertent heroism the mayor had tackled Kiki in a rush, and presently Kiki was struggling to get out from under his waywardly wandering hands. Finally, she snarled loudly, and punched him in the face. She stood up and wiped froth from her face. Then the mayor wailed in genuine earnest because his nose was bleeding like a sieve.
“Is anyone hurt?” Bubba called.
There were resulting groans but no one admitted to anything but bruises. The mayor said, “I ink I os ie roken,” which translated to “I think my nose is broken,” to Bubba. Bubba wasn’t concerned about the mayor, who had undoubtedly been hit by a woman before.
Lawyer Petrie took that moment to wander outside and look around him. “Seriously,” he said. “Best wedding ever.”
* * *
Miz Demetrice produced her cellphone a few minutes later. The yard was full of state police and city police and there might have been a few Texas Rangers walking about. Several people were secured and more had plastic baggies secured over their hands.
“They’ve got her on hold,” his mother said.
“Nancy?”
“Yes, you wanted to talk to her, correct?” Miz Demetrice asked impatiently.
Bubba scratched the side of his head. “I wasn’t exactly thinking it would happen so quick like. Who you got in your back pocket, Ma?”
Miz Demetrice shrugged innocently.
He took the phone from her hand, putting it to his ear, and said, “Hello?”
“I’ll connect you to the prisoner,” an unknown woman’s voice said. “Hold the line.”
“Okay,” Bubba said.
“Hello?” a tentative voice asked.
“Miz Nancy?” Bubba asked.
“Is this…Bubba Snoddy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered sincerely.
“Why, we haven’t spoken since you visited,” Nancy said. “It’s been a month of Sundays. How are things? I was hoping that a meteor had crashed down upon the mansion, but I suppose that hasn’t happened today.”
“It’s still early,” Bubba said. “You never know what might happen.” He watched as David Beathard pranced across the yard as Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger and as two state police officers watched the steampunk super villain with cold eyes. Bubba could tell that the two law enforcement officials were attempting to gauge whether or not they could arrest David based on the way he was dressed.
“I heard you were getting married to that pretty deputy,” Nancy said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t attend. I’m somewhat preoccupied.”
“Someone else attended,” Bubba said carefully. He closed his eyes and attempted to concentrate on exactly the right thing to say to Nancy Musgrave, current resident of a women’s prison, waiting on a trial that never seemed like it was going to come. However, the delay of her trial was due to the machinations of her own lawyer.
“Do tell,” Nancy said. “Best to hurry this conversation along, Bubba. The guards look a little itchy here. I’m not sure what they think I’m going to do with a telephone.”
“I figure they’re recording all these talks on the phone,” Bubba said.
“I imagine they do. They have signs all over the payphones that they do, but I’m not on a payphone right now. It must have been a very special occasion.” Her voice was dry.
Bubba bit his lip. He hadn’t thought about that part. There was no way that Nancy Musgrave was going to own up to anything if she thought she was being recorded. She wasn’t going to indict herself any further than she already had. (But she had confessed in front of a group of people just before she had been Tasered by Brownie Snoddy, so she wasn’t averse to spilling the beans.)
“Someone came who wasn’t invited,” Bubba said in most neutral voice. “I don’t know what he was goin’ to do, but it’s moot now.”
“What happened?” Nancy asked. There was just the slightest note of concern.
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Bubba said. “I dint touch him. He was dead when I found him.”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
Nancy gulped audibly. “Morgan is dead?” It gave something away. She was expecting someone else to be dead.
“I’m sorry that he died,” Bubba said sincerely. “I don’t want that to happen to folks. You must know that I don’t. Not even you.”
It was a long pause later before Nancy whispered, “How do I know you didn’t do it?”
“I ain’t never kilt no one,” Bubba said. “I swear it on my mother’s head. And you of all people know how much I love my mother.”
“How did he…?”
“I don’t know,” Bubba said. “It wasn’t obvious. No wounds. No bruises that I could see. There was one thing I noticed.”
“What?”
“Some white stuff around his mouth,” Bubba said. “Doc Goodjoint said it might be poison. Mebe some kind of poison that works very fast.”
Nancy was silent again. Finally, she said, “What do you want from me?”
“I dint think that you planned this,” Bubba said. “Not this way. I figure you wanted me dead. Mebe you wanted my mother dead, again. I don’t think you wanted Morgan dead. So that means that someone else is he’ping you. Someone’s bin he’ping you for a long time. Mebe they bin planning this for a long time, only other stuff happened to git in the way.”
Someone said something to Nancy on the other end. Bubba would have cursed at the interruption, but it wouldn’t have helped him.
“They’re telling me to wrap it up,” Nancy said and her voice was cold. He opened his eyes and saw everyone milling about, a great group of grownups who were garrulous.
Bubba had gambled and lost. The murderer was still out in the front yard of the Snoddy Mansion and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men might not be able to figure out which one he or she was. Somewhere Humpty Dumpty was giggling.
Chapter 21
Bubba and the Progression
of Mysteriousness
Saturday, April 27th around 12:40 PM
“O.M.F.G.!” Peyton howled. He had just come out of the front door to the Mansion and clearly couldn’t believe his eyes. He put his hands akimbo and gaped at the scene in the front yard. “I leave for a quick smoke, and look what happens. The wedding is…history. If the word gets out that I was re
sponsible for the arranging of this affair, I’m…history. Pure Love Weddings LLC will be…history. I’ll have to go on welfare. Ginger will leave me for a Guatemalan midget wrestler who loves vegan sushi. I’ll never get Texan barbeque from the Hogfather’s again. I’ll have to live on the scraps I get from arranging weddings on the bad side of the city. I might have to use cotton instead of silk.” He moaned loudly and slapped a hand to the middle of his chest. “What happened? Bubba, for the love of all that is white and billowing and trimmed with antique lace, how did this happen?”
Bubba stared at the cellphone in his hand. He hadn’t managed to crush it which was a plus. Nancy had evidently hung up on her end or one of the guards had. He looked at his mother and caught an expression of pity. Everything was falling apart. Certainly Bubba and Willodean could get married but the thought of an unknown murderer would hang over their heads like the sword of Damocles. (Just like Lara Croft dodging falling swords in the Tomb Raider game, of course.)
“Someone shot at Bubba,” Kiki told Peyton. Peyton eyed Bubba’s face and said easily, “We can cover that up with lots of pancake. It’s not a problem.”
Bubba cast Peyton a look that said everything about how he would not now, and not ever, be applying any type of makeup to any part of his body no matter the cost. “Ma,” he said, “who got you in touch with Nancy Musgrave inside maximum security?”
Miz Demetrice looked upward and to the left, and he knew she was planning a lie. He said quickly, “I got to talk to that woman again.”
“Nancy?”
“No, the one who hooked us up.”
“I think I burnt that bridge,” Miz Demetrice offered. “There was a certain game and the po-lice were called. Let’s just say there are parts of Austin that will never be the same again. I talked them out of arresting us and losing the paperwork, which worked out very well.”
Bubba presented the cellphone to her. “Call…her…back,” he said with each word gritted out.
“Is that a keg?” Peyton asked as he stared at the remains of the mighty alcoholic vessel lying on the lawn. One side was blown out in a way that might remind a history buff of the RMS Lusitania, no matter the lack of German U-Boats in the immediate vicinity of Texas. “Who brings a keg to a wedding? Someone was tailgating your wedding? I knew I was in the burbs but this is ridiculous. What happened to the spring flowers along the driveway? Who took the décor from around the front doorway? There were people directing parking at some point.”
