by C. L. Bevill
David rubbed his closely shaven chin and accidently smeared some pinkity-pink-pink lipstick off. Peyton did a little motion with his index finger and his thumb. “You’ve got a lipstick smear there, fella,” he whispered loudly. “Also you might want to reapply your guyliner.”
“Your manscara is starting to wear,” David said promptly.
“Awk,” Peyton said and looked around frantically. David gave him the compact before reapplying his lipstick.
“Ifin we lock it again, then someone might just break it open,” Bubba reasoned. “I don’t think the fella or gal is planning to blow us all up, or he-she-it would have done it already.”
“You don’t want to make it easy for the murderer,” Tandy said. “I say we hide the stuff.”
“I know what to do with it,” Ratchley said. “Pick it up, and we’ll take it to the cliff. We toss those suckers off and problem solved. Someone would have to have rappelling gear or be related to a spider to get the stuff back.”
There was little argument to that.
Bubba carried about half of the explosives that remained, putting them into a sackcloth bag that had been left in the shack. The rest of the bricks were divided among the other four. Tandy was surprisingly reluctant to carry one considering that she had just suggested taking some with them for protection or possibly for offense.
“What if it blows up while I’m holding it?” she asked, holding a yellow package of the explosive material between her thumb and her index finger. “It looks like Play-Doh. How can something that looks like Play-Doh blow so much stuff up?”
“It requires a detonator to blow it up,” David said. “It’s like they say in the North, ‘You can hide the fire, but what will you do with the smoke?’”
“What does that have to do with explosives?” Tandy asked with a grimace.
“I don’t know,” David said, “but it sounded like something Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons ought to say at the moment.”
Ratchley motioned to them. “This way.” She led them back down the trail and cut to the north. They threaded through tall piney woods and scrub until they ran into the rim of the mesa. Bubba was surprised how close it was and how deep it appeared to be. “There’s a bench down that way,” the nurse elaborated. “The staff and some of the patients use it as Make Out City. I’m married, so I wouldn’t know.”
Bubba edged up to the brink while Precious whined uneasily at him from a safer locale. The cliff dropped away fifty feet into a sea of oaks and pines. The Sturgis River had chipped away at the mesa until it was a steep step for anyone to cross. The finality of the rock face was the reason why no one could leave the back way. He might have tried because there were always ways to and fro, but the precipice was a solid “No!” shouted in his face at a very close interval. “Now why don’t the hospital have a fence around this?”
Ratchley shrugged. “Most patients stay in the hospital or the yard. We have a ropes course around one side but we only use that in really good weather. It’s never been a problem.”
“Will the stuff blow up when we toss it over?” Tandy asked hopefully. She had actually stubbed out her cigarette before accepting one of the explosive packages.
“It shouldn’t,” Bubba said. He took the package from Tandy and motioned for everyone to back up. “Keep going,” he added. Then he pitched the single package over the edge. He jumped back and covered his ears, waiting for the possible kaboom.
A long minute later, Bubba uncovered his ears and looked at the other people. He raised his eyebrows in a see? way. David shrugged and aimed his package for the side. He threw it like it was a football. They heard it ten seconds later as it crashed through the tree limbs below. No explosion ensued.
Bubba shrugged the bag handle off his shoulder and put it on the ground. He withdrew a yellow wrapped brick and shucked it like a baseball, hoping there weren’t deer or other animals below that he would hit. Peyton threw his and hit the edge of the cliff. He winced when it bounced and then sallied over the edge.
He waited for the sound of branches being hit before he said, “I always did throw like a girl, which is why I played volleyball in college.”
Ratchley handed her package to David, who skidded it across the granite of the cliffs like it was a stone on water, until it hit free air and dropped away.
“Mebe you shouldn’t do that,” Bubba said nervously.
Tandy brushed her hands together. “So the murderer can’t blow us up now. That’s good, right?”
“Makes me happier than a pig in poop,” Bubba said. He threw three more bricks over the side and listened to each one as it hit the canopy of leaves far below. “Or at least as happy as a fella can get at the moment. The only way I’ll be happier is ifin the po-lice stick their faces in the front door of the hospital and I wake up in the morning with Willodean by my side and Precious lying on my feet.”
“There’s one more brick,” David pointed out.
Bubba brought it out with a sigh. “This isn’t how I expected to spend my Sunday. I should have been going to church with Willodean. Then we’d be eating breakfast with Ma and Miz Adelia. Miz Adelia’s family is coming today. I was supposed to make my special biscuits and gravy. My gravy is a secret passed down from my father’s side, which was about the only good thing passed down from my father’s side.”
“Biscuits and gravy,” Ratchley drooled out of the side of her mouth.
“I was planning on sleeping in,” Tandy said, “with the potential of smoking three packs of cigs later. I’m reading a script for the sequel to Bubble People, which is really an issue since they killed off my character in the first one.”
“I was going to watch a Basil Rathbone film festival,” David sighed.
“Wedding planning research,” Peyton said, “but the biscuits and gravy sound divine.”
Bubba hefted the last brick. He inhaled the spring air and found just the scantest moment of knowing that not all was wrong in the universe. “It ain’t bad right this minute, but I wish I knew where Jesus, Thelda, and the rest were. I hope they ain’t dead because I’ll be angry. I just cain’t imagine someone doin’ something bad to a nice fella like Jesus or a gal like Thelda. Just for what? Money?”
“It’s a lot of money,” Peyton said. “The Tanner family has billions. I don’t know what the details of Hurley’s will are, but I would imagine most of it would go to his wife and daughter.”
“All that from oil,” Tandy said. “I make a pretty good living as an actress, but I don’t have to show up in a board room, and I don’t have to take every job anymore. I don’t think my mother would kill me for my money, but then I just bought her a house in Tarzana, and she gets a big allowance every month. I also just bought her a car with one of those fancy GPS units built into the dash. She still gets lost anyway.”
“GPS unit,” Peyton said. “There’s a GPS unit in the Charger. Once they figure out that I’m missing, too, all they have to do is call Avis and ask where the car is at. We’re so saved.” He clapped his hands together.
“They have to figure out that you’re missing first,” Bubba said, balancing the last brick in his hand.
“I’m sure they’ve figured out that you’re missing,” David said to Bubba, “so it’s not a stretch that the wedding planner is with you, Watson.”
Bubba nodded. “Shore hope so.” He cocked his head. “Do you hear music?” If he wasn’t mistaken it was “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. (“Whoa-oh-ah-ah.”) The wind had died down, and he could swear Axl Rose was crooning immortal words of heavy metalness.
Ratchley’s head came up and she muttered, “I smell popcorn…and tequila.”
Bubba tossed the last brick. Because his head was still aching, and he was tired like a dog, he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing, and it bounced on the edge of the cliff. He saw the spark as rocks ground into other rocks when the brick pushed them together. He ducked even while he pulled David and Tandy to the ground. The thought of Precious, Ratchley, and P
eyton crossed his mind but there really wasn’t anything he could do about them in that last instant.
Then everything went boom and not in a good way.
* * *
There was a lot of dust and grit in the air. Bubba sat up from a prone position on the ground and brushed bits of debris from his shirt. He could hardly read the “Bun in the Oven” part because it was so stained and dirt covered. He shook his head and looked around. “Precious?”
An extraordinary nose bumped into his arm, and a tongue licked him wetly, leaving a clean trail after the swipe. Bubba hoped that it was his dog and not David before he saw a very dirty canine sticking her nose under his arm and her tail weakly wagging. Not David, unless his disguises have gotten really good. He checked his dog and was relieved to find that she seemed uninjured.
The vast cloud of dirt stirred and swished away as a wind gently dispersed it over the cliff edge, but the cliff edge was a lot closer than Bubba remembered. In fact, he could reach out and touch it, it was so close. As the wind pushed more of the dust away he could see that it was like a giant had taken a tremendous bite out of the side of the cliff. A forensic specialist would have tittered with glee at the fantastic half-round shape that had been left behind.
David groaned from nearby. “I broke one of my heels,” he said. He had lost both of his fake accents and sounded like plain old David again.
“I lost my cigs,” Tandy said, “again.”
Peyton said, “Way to go out with a boom.” Then he giggled weakly.
“Did I do that?” Bubba asked.
“I didn’t see anyone else throwing explosives off the cliff,” Tandy said.
“I did,” David interjected. “I guess I was wrong about them blowing up.”
“Wait, so should we just leave them at the bottom of the cliff like that?” Bubba asked. “What if a troop of Boy Scouts comes by and decides they are packages of Play-Doh?”
“That’s an isolated area,” David said. “The likelihood of children happening past and causing a fatal explosion is improbable.”
“Well, I caused an explosion,” Bubba said, patting Precious awkwardly. He thought about it. The Semtex wasn’t supposed to go off if simply dropped. There had been the dynamite, and he winced at the thought of having left it in the shack. Most importantly, the dynamite tended to leak drops of nitroglycerin, which in its pure form was highly volatile. (Odd facts that he could thank his mother for imparting to him.) If some of it had gotten onto the blocks of explosive plastique, then…
“It wasn’t fatal,” David explained, “so it’s all gravy goodness.”
“Gravy,” Ratchley said longingly.
“You don’t suppose that someone heard that from out there?” Tandy asked. “Maybe they might call the sheriff’s department?”
“Then they would have called when the cell phone tower and the cliff, the other cliff that is, blew up,” David concluded.
“Oh,” Tandy said. “It was a thought. Maybe after the third one they might get a little curious.”
“Was that music I heard before?” Bubba asked. “I thought it was a blast from the heavy metal past.”
“My ears are ringing now,” Tandy said. “The only music I heard is the sound of my heart racing. You know this would make a great movie. I should talk to some screenwriters; I’m not going to be a popular actress for much longer and getting the good zombie-movie parts. I don’t want to be stuck doing Lifetime’s movie of the week for the next decade.” She shuddered.
Precious whined and put her nose on Bubba’s knee. He glanced at the semi-circle of air that used to be part of a cliff. “Mebe we shouldn’t tell this part to the po-lice,” he suggested, “but I guess we do need to tell them about the Semtex lying down there. I mean the ones that dint blow up.”
Tandy inched up to the new side of the cliff and looked down. “Some of it is probably covered with about three tons of cliff face now. I’d say it was moot except possibly to the construction company who will have to pay for the missing explosive materials. Hey, you made a ledge about ten feet down.”
Somehow that didn’t make Bubba feel better. “What do we do now, David?”
“Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons,” David corrected. “A lady always knows what to do in situations of ill repute.” He took off one shoe and efficiently broke off the heel. It then matched the other one. He replaced it, a bright smile appearing on his grimy face. The pink lipstick was pretty much the only thing visible.
“I’m thinking we go back to the hospital,” Tandy said, “and lock ourselves in a room until the police come, just like I wanted to do to begin with. That way four of us and one dog make it just fine.”
“Mebe we should hunt around for that music,” Bubba said. “I’d like to know who was having a party and why we weren’t invited. Wait, did you say four of us?”
“I don’t really feel like crashing a party,” Peyton said, “but it’s better than hanging out here.”
“Four of us. That don’t sound right to me.” Bubba sat by the edge of the cliff and patted his dog’s head. “Um, I think my head is goin’ to explode next. Where was the VIP lodge, Ratchley?”
There was a ringing in one ear. Bubba slapped it with one hand, thinking one knock deserved another. If he could blow up half a cliff, then he could get rid of a pesky ringing in his ear so that he could hear if Axl Rose was still wanting to know where he was supposed to go now. Bubba recognized the irony there but didn’t want to concentrate on it. Instead of hearing the front man from Guns N’ Roses, he heard…
Nothing.
“Ratchley,” Bubba said again. “You said something about a…”
“Oh, crud monkeys,” Peyton said with more perception than Bubba possessed.
Bubba finally looked around. There were only four of them. Tandy had made it to her feet and stood there with knocking knees, patting her pockets for her cigarettes. Peyton sat near Tandy’s feet. His eyes were like the brightest pair of moons on a starlit night. David crawled to his feet and checked out his newly altered shoes.
“Ratchley?” Bubba asked. He looked at the cliff. He looked back at the other three people. He glanced back at the cliff meaningfully. “Did she—?”
“She was behind us,” Tandy said. “She was in the tree line. When you said back up, she backed up. She must have run off. Possibly to find snackies.”
Bubba certainly hoped Ratchley had run away to find snackies. In fact, he hoped she was up to her elbows in Twinkies, Lay’s Potato Chips, and chocolate-covered cherries, if that was what she was into, as long as she was alive and kicking. (Vanilla ice cream with broken-up Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion-flavored chips on top popped into Bubba’s head. He made himself think of England.)
David offered Bubba a dusty but well-manicured hand. Bubba took it and helped himself up. Precious scooted away from the cliff edge as more rocks began to fall. “Perhaps a judicious retreat,” David suggested. Bubba concurred.
Tandy jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “There was a trail back there. It probably goes to that bench Ratchley talked about.”
They found the trail without trying too hard and stumbled on their way. No one was singing, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” or skipping. Precious didn’t look like Toto in the least. Bubba wasn’t about to put on a gingham dress even if he would have been able to find one that would fit him.
Bubba dry swallowed the rest of the aspirin he’d been given by Dr. Adair. He did check to make sure the package hadn’t been tampered with. He looked around the woods and shook his head. He wasn’t just out of ideas; he was completely dumbfounded and flabbergasted. His mother would have called him a nonsensical nincompoop and that was only if she was in a good mood. He would have agreed with her.
There had to be a way to catch the murderer or murderers without losing any more people. Bubba was plumb tired of looking up to see another person missing, or even worse, dead. All he could think of was a plan that involved two people left, and he didn’t want it to come to that if it
could be prevented.
They came around a curve in the trail, and David stopped in front of Bubba. Bubba bumped into him and said, “Sorry, Dav-er-Mrs. Penhallow-FitzGibbons, I’m a little put out. In fact, I’m would up tighter than a two-dollar watch what been dropped in a group of overwrought yard monkeys.” He waited for David to say something, but David didn’t say anything and Bubba added, “I’m like a bear with his head caught in the hive?” Still nothing. “You cain’t even drive a needle up my butt with a jackhammer?”
Bubba finally looked up and saw that Peyton, Tandy, and David were all stopped in similar positions, standing shock still with their eyes on the bench ahead. Precious had paused to pee on a nearby oak tree.
Of course, Bubba’s eyes followed theirs and saw the person sitting on the bench as if they were watching the distant clouds floating away. However, they weren’t really watching anything because they were really dead.
The knife sticking out of their chest was the big giveaway clue.
Chapter 21
Bubba and the Fact That He
Don’t Go to Jail in This Chapter
Sunday, April 7th
The person was dead. For a split second, Bubba had a sudden thought that it was Ratchley sitting there. The nurse had run off in search of the ultimate snackie-poo to make her feel better. Alternatively, she had discovered a knifey-poo and death. But the split second passed, and he realized abruptly it wasn’t Ratchley sitting on the bench. There was not even a single detail that remotely resembled Ratchley. Also, the corpse didn’t have a pile of snackies sitting beside them ready to be consumed in a fit of nervousness.
No, it was Dr. Adair. Bubba took a moment to decide that he needed to ensure that the psychiatrist was really, really dead. (Bubba had previous experience with corpses not being dead or not being murdered that he didn’t care to share with the rest of the group again.)
“Well,” Peyton said while spreading his hands palms-up in the air. “I’m going with…the doctor didn’t do it. It’s just a little thought I had.”
