by C. L. Bevill
Ratchley took it with obvious trepidation. If Bubba had to guess, he would say it was because the nurse expected someone to yank the peanuts from her before she could eat them. Privately, Bubba thought that if Ratchley really wanted to eat antique peanuts from a defunct airline, then it was on her own head.
“So what happened to you, Da-er, Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons?” Bubba asked.
“Once the explosion occurred, I took the opportunity to freshen up,” David said and withdrew a compact from the clutch. He opened it up and powdered his nose. Peyton made a noise and quietly asked to borrow the compact to check his own makeup.
“When I came back from the facilities,” David went on, carefully adjusting his dress by doing a little hip shimmy, “the cafeteria was empty. Imagine that. I knew that you, Peyton, Ratchley, and Tandy had gone out to view the explosion, so it was simply Dr. Adair, Cybil, and myself.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “I blame myself. If only I hadn’t left my brass knuckles and sap in my room.”
“Does the murderer think he’s going to kill us all off?” Tandy asked. “I mean, if there’s only one person left when the police show up, they’re just going to blame that person for the crime.”
“Yep,” Bubba agreed. “I reckon that’s the plan.” Thinking about the unknown murderer’s plan gave rise to a plan of his own. If it came down to it, that was what Bubba would do.
“You mean the murderer doesn’t care if he or she is caught?” Peyton asked. “Where in the name of Saint Hubert of Leige does he hide them all? Is there a place where all the bodies are piled up?”
There was a pop of electricity from above Bubba’s head. He glanced up to see that the fluorescent lights were flickering madly. Why hadn’t he thought about that before? It was because he couldn’t just leave all the people unprotected. He had tried that once, and it had turned out horribly. But he should have come back to it. If his head wasn’t throbbing and his eyes weren’t burning with fatigue, perhaps he would have. It might not be too late.
“I got tied up in the next building,” Bubba said. “Let’s mosey over there and check things out.”
Ratchley rattled the package of nuts in her hand. She tipped it upside down and watched a few grains of salt spill out. Then she licked the bits of salt. “That only had four peanuts in it,” she complained.
“Well, it was a wretched airline,” Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons said. “There were strikes galore by the union workers.”
“What if the guy has a gun?” Tandy asked. “I mean, all these people don’t just go with him or her, right? He has to have a way of…persuading them to go with him. I wouldn’t just walk off if someone walked up to me.”
“That would depend on who it was,” David said, “now, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons had an upper crust accent as if she had gone to an Ivy League school and graduated to take over the management of her family’s mansion. She was the kind of woman who knew exactly what kind of hors d’oeuvres to serve at a breakfast meeting on the north lawn with the Federation of International Polo. (Not pigs in a blanket.) Bubba couldn’t help but wonder where David dug up his personas, but of course he was still Sherlock Holmes, albeit Sherlock Holmes in the guise of Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons.
“No, she’s right,” Bubba said. “Ain’t no one just goin’ to go by themselves especially when they be knowing what else has happened. For example, the doc ain’t a fool.” Bubba wasn’t sure about Cybil, the dupable Daphne.
“We should bring whatever weapons we can,” Tandy said, “and go and look. If they tied you up, then they might have tied them up, therefore they might be still alive.”
“I can see the headlines now,” Peyton said. “‘Wedding Planner Solves Mystery and Saves Victims From Certain Doom.’” He grinned broadly and handed the compact back to David. “Also the subtitle would be ‘His Wedding Planning Was Kick Ass.’” He thought about it. “Do you think they would put kick ass in a headline title?”
“Maybe,” David said, putting the compact back into his clutch.
Everyone flowed out of Dr. Adair’s office, and Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons lingered long enough to mutter into Bubba’s ear, “I have a gun.” He eyed Peyton, Ratchley, and Tandy and quickly gave Bubba a peek into the clutch. Inside was a small revolver. If Bubba wasn’t mistaken it was a J-frame revolver with a black grip.
“That’s Ma’s Smith & Wesson 642,” Bubba whispered.
“Miz Demetrice said it went with the outfit,” David whispered back.
Bubba’s mouth opened, and if a couple of dozen of flies had thought to fly inside, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. There were a number of things he would have liked to say to his mother at the moment. One was that he couldn’t comprehend where she was putting all of her illicit weapons on the property. Two was that her registration with the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department must read like Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Three was that his mother had absolutely no business giving a loaded weapon— “Is that loaded?”— to a resident of a mental institute.
“Of course, it’s loaded,” David said, snapping the clutch shut. “An unloaded gun is like walking with a stone in one shoe and a pebble in the other.”
“Did my mother say that?” Bubba hissed.
“She might have said that,” David admitted.
“Do you know how to use that revolver?” Bubba demanded. He knew how to use it, but the 642 was a lady’s weapon, and his big fumble fingers could barely squeeze into the trigger guard. He might not be able to even hold it without dropping it.
“Of course I do,” David said loudly. Tandy glanced back, and David’s mouth snapped shut. When Tandy turned back to say something to Ratchley, David whispered, “She gave me lessons. Well, one lesson. We shot at the old oak tree in the back. Pull the hammer back, point, and shoot.”
“Did you hit the tree?”
“Once.”
“It’s only got five rounds,” Bubba said.
“That’s a twenty percent chance of success,” David confirmed happily.
“Can you walk in those heels?”
“Sherlock Holmes is a master of disguise,” David said indignantly. “What kind of master of disguises would I be if I couldn’t walk in heels?”
Bubba couldn’t think of an answer for that, so he didn’t say anything.
* * *
It took Bubba a little bit of time to figure out where the building was located. After all, he was thinking with a majestic headache, and his caffeine meter was depleted. He needed quarters, and none were to be had. Not much was making a lot of sense. He wanted a nap, but he didn’t want to wake up to find another missing person.
After turning left and right, Bubba made a noise and sighed.
Ratchley said, “You mean the old office building?”
“There’s an old office building?” David asked.
“It was inconvenient, so the administration discontinued using it. The last I heard they were trying to convert it into offices for insurance companies and such, but who wants to be all the way out here? And besides, most insurances can do their business over the phone.” Ratchley shook her head. “Originally it was staff headquarters for the first hospital here. I hear it’s haunted. One of the first administrators shot himself. He couldn’t make the hospital profitable and bit the big one. I think they’re going to demolish the building soon.”
“That’s just wonderful,” Tandy said and lit a second cigarette. She didn’t bother putting out the first one. It was an indication of how nervous the movie actress was getting. “Thank God it’s not dark anymore.” She stopped in the middle of a grassy area and checked all of her phones. “Where’s my Samsung?”
“Whoever hit me took it,” Bubba said. He glanced at his sock feet. “Took my boots, too. I stepped in goatheads. I think I ruint the socks Willodean gave me. I’m a mite put out about that.”
“And you’ve got a baseball-sized bump on the back of your head,” Peyton said. He tilted his head. “No, it’s about th
e size of a grapefruit now. The photographer can totally work with that. Besides it should go down in a few days.”
Bubba had thrown away the rapidly melting bag of corn, so he’d have to hit the cafeteria’s kitchen for something else for the swelling, but nothing was to be done about it at the moment.
“Do you know anything else about this building, Nurse Ratchley?” Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons inquired as if she was asking about what colors were trending in New York this spring.
“Three stories. They store a lot of crap there. I heard there were rats. There are no snackies there,” Ratchley said. “I’m really wanting the snackies now. Those peanuts didn’t last long.”
“Did you know you have an eating problem, Ratchley?” Tandy asked.
“Did you know that a bear poops in the woods while wearing a pope’s hat?” Ratchley snapped back. “People in glass houses shouldn’t smoke two cigarettes at once.”
Tandy rolled her eyes and put the shorter cigarette out.
“It’s this way,” Ratchley said.
Bubba and the rest followed her. It turned out there was a nice well-appointed path, one he’d missed altogether when he’d been fleeing earlier. There was nary a goatshead to be found on the path.
“Did you mean that you think the doctor might have done it?” Peyton asked Bubba as they walked.
“I mean the doctor might have helped,” Bubba said grimly.
“You think they watched that movie?” Peyton asked.
“I think they dint watch that movie,” Bubba said. “I think they think they’re smart, but they ain’t nearly as smart as they think they are. I think I need a big cup of coffee.”
Peyton frowned in obvious concentration. “It’s been twenty or more years since I’ve seen it. I don’t really remember it except for the singing rhyme.” He began to sing, “Ten little Indians standing in a line. One toddled home and then there were nine…” He paused. “Every time someone died or vanished, one of the statues got broken.” He pursed his lips, and Bubba realized he had applied raspberry-colored lip gloss. “We don’t have a statue of ten little Indians around here.”
“We’ve got cupcakes,” Bubba muttered grimly.
“You mean someone eats a cupcake every time someone dies,” Peyton said. Then he laughed. “That’s coincidence. Someone doesn’t want to admit they’ve got the midnight munchies and are scarfing the goodies.”
“There are five cupcakes left.”
Peyton looked around. He muttered aloud. “You. Me. David Sherlock Penhallow-FitzGibbons. Ratchley. The movie star. That’s five.” He glanced at Precious, who had stopped to pee on a rabbiteye blueberry bush. “And your dog, of course. But what about the someone else?”
“Mebe the someone else decided to cut back on his possible exposure,” Bubba suggested. “Eliminate the middleman so to speak.”
David fell back, carefully treading on his heels so that he didn’t trip on the gravel of the path. “Good show, Watson,” he said. “We route out the villain in his own lair.”
“What do you think, Sherlock?” Peyton asked. “Was it the doctor, or rather, is it the doctor?”
“The doctor had a motive, to be sure,” David said with an accent that was part upper crust New York and part British and altogether odd. “The implication is that the plans were laid before Hurley Tanner was put into this place.”
“Mebe,” Bubba said. “I reckon if we looked or asked we would find out that someone steered Hurley to this place and then picked a time. After all, he wasn’t killed during the time where most of the residents and employees were gone. Even if there hadn’t been renovation of the place, he would have been murdered. I figure all this—” he waved at the hospital, the people, and the building they were walking toward— “was cover up. Mebe the killer would have been happy ifin Hurley’s death was recorded as an accidental overdose or a suicide. But he still covered up. The plan was to frame someone. The plan was to make sure no one else was looked at but…” Bubba’s gaze settled on David. “And then you had to go and open your mouth, screaming to everyone that both Mrs. Ferryjig and Hurley Tanner had been done in by means most foul.”
Peyton hmphed. “You don’t always sound like a redneck, mendacious redneck groom of mine.”
David leaned close to whisper into Peyton’s ear, but Bubba heard the words anyway. “That’s because he isn’t really. He’s truly Dr. Watson.”
“So David precipitated the whole Agatha Christie ensemble? Blowing up the cell phone tower and covering the only road in? Everything?” Peyton asked. “Where did they get the explosives? I would think that was a question that people would want answered.”
“They’re going to demo the other building,” Ratchley called back. “There’s an explosives shack on the other side. I heard some of the orderlies talking about it. It’s locked.”
“I reckon it ain’t locked now,” Bubba said.
“Okay, then,” Tandy said, “what now? I mean, if we all know, then the person, or persons, can’t let us go. This is actually bad news unless the police show up right the eff now.” She looked eagerly heavenward as if expecting a police helicopter to appear.
“We could hide,” Bubba suggested.
“I say we look in the building for those other people,” David said. “Who knows what clues we might locate? Besides, the killer will not recognize me, as I am cleverly disguised as Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons.”
“You’re not really—” Peyton started to say, but Bubba interrupted him, “Just give him his moment, Peyton.”
Peyton nodded.
* * *
The other building was pretty much as Ratchley had said it was. It was mostly locked, filled with various boxes, and dusty. There was one door that had been used; they could tell by all the footprints in the grime.
“It’s like a treasure map,” Tandy said, “except with dust and footprints.”
David produced a flashlight out of his clutch. Bubba secretly wanted to know what else he could magically fit into such a tiny bag. There was probably a safe in there, too.
They found the room that Bubba had been in by virtue of observing the door lying on the hallway floor.
“I dint feel like using the knob,” Bubba explained. “But also it was locked.”
“Look, the straitjacket,” Ratchley said, pointing to the twisted garment on the floor. “You know we don’t actually use those anymore. These must have been left over from the time that the criminally insane were held at the hospital in 1978. There was a brief period where the hospital only held psychopathic prisoners from Huntsville.” She looked at the expressions on the people around her. “What? There’s a plaque in the foyer that talks about it. Also a picture. Did you know the Foghorn Ripper stayed here for six months? He did sculptures made with matchsticks. One of them is mounted by the plaque. It’s amazingly complicated.”
They looked over the entire building floor by floor and found evidence of people being there. There was one room with empty Pepsi bottles and a pile of empty Hormel Vienna sausage cans. “Are you sure they’re all empty?” Ratchley asked despondently. The room also had a single aluminum chair by the window with a cheap set of binoculars sitting on the sill.
Bubba held up the binoculars and looked out the window. “You kin see most of the entrances of the hospital from here.”
“But there isn’t a signed confession about,” David said with clear frustration. He swung his white clutch around as if he wanted to hit someone with it.
Bubba put the binoculars back on the windowsill. “Let’s go take a gander at the explosives shack.”
He paused on the way out, shooing Ratchley from where she was checking to see if there were any remaining unopened cans of Vienna sausage. On one of the other windowsills was a single little doodad – a stylized oil derrick no bigger than the palm of his hand. On the bottom it said Amarillo, Texas.
Bubba said, “Hmm.”
Chapter 20
Bubba and Explosive Potential
Sunday,
April 7th
The explosives shack had a broken lock on its door. The actual shed sat within a chain-link box that was supposed to further protect it. The gate to the small enclosure had been twisted off and broken by someone with a determination that Bubba couldn’t quite envision. Neither Bubba nor David were surprised considering that a cell phone tower and a cliff had been blown up. Nor were they surprised that there were clearly explosives missing inside the shack. The neatly aligned bricks sitting within the shack were askew and had gaps.
Bubba took a moment to look closely at the explosives that were left. A company name had been imprinted on the plastic. Nunngesser’s. He gave a little sigh. It wasn’t a big world when he recognized things like that. He’d run into the Nunngesser company before, but he quickly dismissed it.
“Should we take some?” Tandy asked. “I mean, a little Semtex would be just the thing if someone tried to cap my ass.” She fingered a small box with a skull and crossbones emblazoned in red across it.
Precious nosed a stack, dismissed it, and went outside to pee on the exterior of the shack.
“I don’t reckon they’ll hold still long enough for you to put the device on them and then wire it to a detonator,” Bubba advised. “And I wouldn’t try it except as a last resort.” Pegram County had had entirely too many people running about helter-skelter with explosives, his mother included. Who knew what would happen if he let the famous actress have some. Furthermore, Bubba didn’t want to mention that there was more than plastique explosive in the shed. He also saw a box of dynamite half hidden underneath a tarp.
“Is the building already wired?” David asked Ratchley.
“I don’t think so,” Ratchley said. “They wouldn’t just leave it that way. We’ve got no security out here. Wouldn’t they have put up a chain-link fence or something around the building to keep people out?”
