by C. L. Bevill
“Well,” he said, resting his forehead against the swelling and feeling the baby move with gusto, “I do want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy,” Willodean protested. “However, I’m also bored. Also tired of peeing four times a night. I’m ready for the baby to come. I’m more than ready. I don’t care if it’s two weeks until the due date. If I could walk, I’d be doing laps up and down the driveway in order to get things going.”
Bubba nodded against her belly. It was a long driveway down from the road to the Snoddy Mansion. The caretaker’s house in which they resided was just around the back of the mansion, and a walk up and down the drive would have been a half mile, give or take. A heavily pregnant woman would have been like a beachball with legs walking up and down that road. However, Willodean was officially on bed-rest orders on account of her blood pressure and the swelling in her legs. There was going to be no walking. In fact, the obstetrician was talking about inducing labor if things didn’t start rolling along in short order.
“I’d be eating spicy food,” Willodean added. She eyed Bubba with intent, “I’d be taking advantage of that myth about a husband’s duty to get things in motion.”
Bubba blushed, but he didn’t raise his head. Willodean leaned back into the pillows and sighed.
“Mary Lou Treadwell said that pineapple juice and garlic mixed together would do the trick if I drank a half gallon of it,” Willodean said, “but seriously who wants to drink a half gallon of pineapple juice mixed with garlic? Gross buckets.”
Bubba agreed silently. In fact, his stomach turned over backwards at the thought of it.
“There was something about castor oil, but talk about barfing up my toe nails,” Willodean said. She patted his head. “And I know it doesn’t really relate, but there is something in particular I want to talk to you about.”
“Ice cream?”
“No, although that was very nice.”
Bubba sighed. There was a brief respite in his constant worry. Everyone said that the pregnancy was the easy part, but he didn’t see it that way. Early on he’d had sympathetic pregnancy symptoms, and those had been bad enough, but now all he could do was think about what could happen to Willodean during this time. Since she was having some issues that were dangerous, it made him as nervous as two buckeyes bouncing around in a bucket of buttermilk.
Miz Demetrice, Bubba’s mother, said to relax and that everything was being seen to, but that wasn’t the way Bubba did business. It wasn’t the way that Miz Demetrice did business, either, but “Do as I say and not as I do” was a frequent mantra with his mother.
“It was generous of Gideon Culpepper to give you paid time-off to take care of me,” Willodean said, and Bubba could tell that she said the words very carefully. He rubbed her belly once more and shifted his head so that he could look at her lovely face.
There was a snuffle of discontent from nearby, and Bubba abruptly realized that Willodean was in bed with someone else. He should have been outraged, but this was someone who couldn’t be dissuaded, even under pain of death. This someone seemed to be as worried about Willodean as he was. In fact, the someone faithfully stayed with Willodean even when well-masticated tennis balls and abundant Milk-Bones were mentioned.
Bubba reached over and scratched under Precious’s jowls. The Basset hound leaned into his large hand and whined. “Who’s my other good girl?” he murmured to his dog.
“She went downstairs and opened the door for herself,” Willodean said. “Then she shut it when she came back in. Crawled back in bed with me and watched the last two episodes of Game of Thrones. I think she doesn’t like Cersei very much because she growled whenever she popped up. Also, she might have a crush on Tyrion.”
“Let me get you something to drink and bring you some ice cream, and then I’ll feed her,” Bubba murmured, using both hands to scratch Precious. The hound rolled over and presented her belly for further and better rubbing, and being a Southern gentleman Bubba was obliged to accommodate. (It truly was a belly rubbing kind of night. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a fella could go through life rubbing other people’s bellies? No, wait, that would put a fella in jail.)
“Iced tea,” Willodean requested. “Miz Adelia brought me some earlier plus extra, but I went right through that.” She indicated the empty glass and the green Stanley vacuum bottle next to it.
“Shouldn’t you be cutting back on caffeine?”
“It’s a decaf kind,” Willodean said, “and besides I have to drink enough liquid not to be constipated. That’s kind of a damned if I do and damned if I don’t scenario. I drink too much and have to pee twice as much as I do, or I don’t go to the bathroom at all. Who forgot to mention all of this about being pregnant? I bet that wasn’t in the book I read.”
Bubba finished with Precious and gave his wife a brief and fierce kiss. “Won’t be long now,” he murmured. “Then it’ll be midnight feedings. We kin take turns, and they say that don’t last long.”
Willodean sighed. “I know, but this sucks.”
“Tea. Ice cream. I’ll rub your feet.” Bubba climbed to his feet and beckoned at Precious even while he gathered up the empty glass and vacuum bottle. “Come on, pretty dog,” he said, “there’s a bowl with your name on it downstairs, but it ain’t got ice cream in it.”
Precious lifted her exceptional nose, and her ears fluttered with interest. She knew when food was being offered. Her main human was home, and the other one was safe for the moment. She clambered off the bed and trotted toward the stairs. Later she would chew one of his slippers to indicate her unhappiness with his absence, but that was later.
“Sorry I couldn’t find Häagen-Dazs,” Bubba called over his shoulder as he followed his dog. “I got Ben & Jerry’s in three different flavors. There’s Blondie Ambition, which has brownies and toffee in it. And there’s Mint Chocolate Cookie, which has got mint and chocolate cookies in it. The name kinda gives it away. Then there’s Phish Food. It’s chocolate with marshmallow swirls and chocolate fish in it. There might be caramel, too. Ain’t for shore.”
“Ben & Jerry’s?” Willodean called. “Wait. What?”
“I’ll just bring ‘em all up, and you kin figure it out.”
Bubba went downstairs and put the empty glass and vacuum bottle on the counter. Then he fed his dog some organic food that was recommended by descendants of owners of the original Lassie, and then he poured tea over ice in a fresh glass. Finally, he gathered up a spoon, reconsidered and got two spoons, and the three pints of Ben & Jerry’s. He stopped when he realized there was something in the kitchen that shouldn’t have been there.
A small freezer was jauntily parked in the middle of the floor. Someone had plugged it into the nearest outlet with an orange extension cord. It had been shoved as far to the side as it could be in order to get it slightly out of the flow of the kitchen. (It was a fairly small kitchen.) A tired Bubba hadn’t noticed it until he tripped over the cord and almost dropped two of the three pints of ice cream. “What the hel-i-copter is this?” he grumbled.
There was a long moment of indecisive confusion. Chest freezers were good for freezing a lot of stuff like fish, meat from elk or deer, and oversized stuff from Sam’s Club. They were also good for freezing things that Bubba didn’t want to find. What’s wrong with me that I automatically thought of that? he asked himself.
“Sweetums,” he called up the stairs, “do you know who left the freezer in the kitchen?”
“People been dropping things off for the last half hour,” Willodean called back. “It was a bat-crap crazy scuttle. I would have thought there was a parade down there, but your mother came up to explain. Miz D. said there was a rush on getting stuff down in an orderly manner and not to worry about it.”
“My mother said that?” Bubba asked, mostly of himself. If he stepped one foot to his left, he could look out the window and see the Snoddy Mansion. The lights were on in the back indicating that his mother was up and about. He could go upstairs and enjoy a bite
of ice cream with his wife and then go question his mother about what she was up to and why a freezer had suddenly materialized in his kitchen.
The question Bubba really wanted (not really) to ask was whether there was any chance of a dead body being inside the chest freezer. It was a chest freezer on the smaller side, and he couldn’t imagine getting anyone’s corpse in there. And furthermore, why would anyone carry the danged freezer into his house and leave it for him? And further furthermore, why would anyone do that while his extremely pregnant wife, the sheriff’s deputy, was lying upstairs with her service weapon on the nightstand next to her? Or was he just being paranoid?
“Am I being paranoid?” Bubba asked his hound.
Precious gave her dish a last lick and looked questioningly at her human. She shook her head and ears went everywhere. She trotted past him, gave the freezer a brief sniff and went to the door, waiting to be let outside. Bubba gave the freezer a wide birth while he acquiesced to canine demands, moving the three pints of ice cream around in his arms so that he would have a free hand with which to open the door. He didn’t open the freezer because, well, he didn’t want to open it.
Can of worms, Bubba told himself. It’s a Kenmore chest sized 5.0 cubic feet, labeled can of worms, is exactly what it is. Ifin I ignore it, it’s entirely possible it will disappear accordingly.
Bubba sighed heavily and went toward the stairs with the ice cream. He paused and went back for the iced tea. He was able to carry everything up without dropping a spoon or spilling the tea, so it was all hunky-dory.
When he sighted his wife again, he said, “You look so good I could sop you up with biscuits.”
Willodean giggled and covered her mouth. “Have you been talking to Bam Bam again?”
“Ain’t seen him since he went north to visit with his twin brother’s kinfolk,” Bubba said as he set up the ice cream and tea. “Reminds me, though, I seen that movie director’s wife today and also that makeup gal. You know from that movie The Deadly Dead.”
“New movie in town,” Willodean said.
“Oh, you knew,” Bubba said.
“It’s on Facebook, and on the news, and my mother Skyped me about it, and I think your mother was talking about it yesterday,” Willodean listed. She looked at the ice cream. “Oh, Phish Food. I approve. Bubba, you’re too good to me.”
Bubba smiled. “I wish I could have found the Häagen-Dazs.”
“It’s fine. There’s a ton of it downstairs,” Willodean said. “In fact, I think we’re going to have to figure out what to do with it.”
“Wait, what?”
“The freezer in the kitchen,” Willodean said, snatching up a spoon and the pint of Phish Food.
“That has ice cream in it?”
Willodean pried the lid off the Ben & Jerry’s and made a little squeal of delight. “Yum.” She scooped up some with a spoon and put a big mountain into her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled around the spoon. “So hungry suddenly.” After she took a moment to swallow, she looked at him oddly. “What? What did you think was in the freezer?”
Bubba shrugged awkwardly.
An expression of incredulous skepticism crossed over her lovely face, and then she abruptly giggled. It took her a moment to stop. “You thought there was another dead body in it? Oh, Bubba, I think you need to take a break from all of this. You should get up in the morning and go fishing. Don’t think about anything at all. You can bring the cellphone with you, and I’ll call if there’s anything going on, but Miz D. and Miz Adelia check on me ten times a day. Seriously, if I don’t answer a text, my mother calls Sheriff John. I think she scares him.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Bubba asked. He grabbed the other spoon and helped himself to the pint of Blondie Ambition.
“Yes.” Willodean looked at him sternly. She was so adorable he almost melted on the spot. “I am fairly healthy. My blood pressure is under control. I’m taking my medications, and I’m seeing the doctor twice a week now. I am in bed except to pee. I have the charger for my cellphone and my laptop. You should go back to work or go take a break.”
Bubba mumbled something.
“What?”
“Gideon said I couldn’t come back until after you gave birth on account that I put a Cadillac engine into a Mazda by mistake. It ain’t the type of thing I typically do.” He scratched the side of his head. “I was wondering why it dint fit. I wouldn’t have really used that sledgehammer. It was only a threat to make the engine fit. You know, psyching it out.”
“Poor baby,” Willodean crooned. “You’re so worried about me it’s making you sick. If you can’t go back to work, then you need to find something to occupy your time.”
Bubba shrugged. He didn’t think fishing would be relaxing. He’d be wondering if the cellphone worked in the middle of the lake or whether the cellphone had enough of a charge or whether Willodean’s cellphone had suddenly gone belly up. (No pun intended.)
He could always find something to do around the Snoddy Estate. The grass around the mansion needed weed whacking. It was getting so high that they were going to see people in pith helmets exploring the great jungle that the Snoddy Estate had become. There might be bearers with supplies to supplement their surveys into the dark acreage. They might be so unlucky to fall into the koi pond and encounter the KOUO who would then eat them. (Koi Of Unknown Origin that were in the koi pond somewhere out back.)
Bubba’s tired mind snapped back to the present. “People brought ice cream, and someone brought a freezer over, too?”
Willodean nodded and took another bite of Phish Food. “I got a fish,” she mumbled happily.
More of her statement registered. “In the last half hour?”
She nodded again.
Well, there was another mystery. Bubba had been exploring the vicinity for free-range Häagen-Dazs. He’d hit up several places, to include some that were long shots at best, and then he’d run into Marquita and Simone at the five-and-dime. He’d said something about Häagen-Dazs. Marquita had said something about something going on at the movie set and would he look into it because the police couldn’t be involved. Then Herbert had made some phone calls.
“I’m whipped,” Bubba said. “I cain’t make head nor tails of nothing no how.”
Willodean glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It said it was just after 9 PM. “Why don’t you clean up and come to bed? A good night’s sleep will do the trick.”
Bubba nodded wearily and gathered up the ice cream that Willodean didn’t want. He went down the stairs and was passed by Precious who woofed at him on her way up. That meant that she had opened the door by herself, or someone had come inside, allowing her to come inside. Also if someone had done that, it was someone she knew and trusted because she hadn’t barked, growled, or nibbled someone’s foot off.
Just as Bubba entered the short hallway, he saw headlights through the kitchen windows. Someone carefully reversed their car and then taillights appeared as they briefly braked. Then the car disappeared around the side of the mansion.
Bubba glanced at the freezer. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like it had just been opened. (What did a freshly opened freezer look like? What were the key details? He did not know, but it was just a feeling.) He couldn’t help himself. Juggling pints of ice cream, he got a hand free. He stood just at arm’s length away from the errant appliance and tentatively reached out an arm to touch the lid. It was both warm and cold and he grimaced as he gingerly pulled up on the handle. It popped open with a slight creak, and he could clearly see its contents.
Bubba’s eyes went wide. He stared and then stepped closer to stare more intently. Then he stared a little more.
“You okay, Bubba honey?” Willodean called.
“Yep,” Bubba called back. He peered inside the chest freezer and tried to understand why it was chockablock full with Häagen-Dazs. Pint after pint after pint was piled inside the waist high appliance. Not just any Häagen-Dazs but two particular flavors. There
was a hefty bunch of Peanut Butter Salted Fudge and there was a smattering of Pineapple Coconut to complete the ensemble.
His beleaguered brain whirled and clicked. It probably would have blown smoke out of his ears if it had been capable of doing that. Two facts came to him slowly. Those two flavors were Willodean’s favorites and the two that Bubba had gone in search of just two hours earlier.
“Say, Willodean,” Bubba called as he stuck the Ben & Jerry’s inside with the Häagen-Dazs where they could duke it out for world ice cream domination, “did anyone say what the name of that movie was?”
“The curse of something or other,” she called back.
Bubba shut the freezer, locked the front door, and then locked the back door for good measure. He turned off all the lights and went back upstairs muttering, “It’s the curse of something all right. The curse of curses of curses.”
Chapter 3
Bubba and the Way
These Things Usually Start
Bubba woke up and discovered he had forgotten where he was for about 3.2 seconds. Then his right hand reached out in an investigative fashion and promptly encountered a rump. It was a furry rump so Bubba patted it twice and went looking for the other one that was supposed to be in bed. When he could not locate it, his eyes fluttered open, and he scanned the room.
As if on cue, Willodean opened the bathroom door and waddled back to the bed. He held the covers for her while she tucked herself in. She sighed and said, “I’ve peed ten times since midnight. I thought you should know.” She smiled brightly at him. “But hey, you slept pretty good. You were out like a light. You look a lot more perky today.”
Bubba grunted. “Woman cuddle,” he commanded, so she did. So did Precious, who plainly didn’t want to be left out of a good cuddle.
Willodean wiggled until she was arranged against his larger body, and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. “The baby’s hiccoughing,” she said.
Bubba reached down and covered her abdomen with his oven mitt. Sure enough, the baby was hiccoughing. There were little movements that repeated at regular intervals. “Hold your breath,” he advised. A minute later, the hiccoughs stopped and Bubba felt a foot kick the front of Willodean’s belly. The flesh rippled, and she made a noise. “Dang,” he said. “We’ve got a football player.”
