“Hounds are a good call,” Sheriff John grated. “Lewis Robson’s dogs can track a pickle through a cucumber patch.”
It was in the forties, and everyone was wearing coats, but Bubba wiped sweat from his hand with an impatient hand. Sometime after midnight, someone had passed him a sweat shirt with the letters “PPD” on the back. It was a tight fit, but it had kept him from shivering.
“What else can happen?” Sheriff John said mostly to himself. “One guy called in sick. I got one in the hospital with a broken leg. Gray’s missing. We need all the help we can get. I don’t got time to be noble about this, Bubba. I got to take what I can get.”
“I need something for Lew from her place,” Bubba said gruffly.
Sheriff John’s craggy face was grim. “I-I,” he stammered for a moment.
Bubba looked at the ground. No one, least of all Bubba, wanted to face what might be the inevitable conclusion. “Let me get a shirt she wore or something, John. You don’t think she’s here, but we have to know for certain.”
“Take my vehicle,” Sheriff John said. “Gray’s keys are in the center console. Go right there and bring something back. I think Lewis Robson likes the items in a paper bag, so make sure you get a bag before you pick up…her clothing.”
“Yeah,” Bubba agreed faintly. He didn’t want the hounds to mix up the scents if he handled the clothing with bare hands. His hands were filthy with smoke and dirt and everything else he’d handled in the last sixteen hours of the day.
One of the reporters wanted to jump in front of Bubba’s face but he cast her such a frightening expression that the solitary woman peeped like a chicken and stepped back without protesting.
Bubba drove through Pegramville and thought about how empty it was in the early morning. A rusting Suzuki Samurai nearly drove into him as Bubba went through a four-way stop. A man with a startled expression eyeballed Bubba through the windshield, watching as he drove the sheriff’s department vehicle past him. He probably thought Bubba had stolen another car.
After a few minutes, Bubba reached his destination. Willodean lived in a duplex. She rented from Judge Stenson Posey’s sister. In one side lived three college students. The other side was Willodean’s. Bubba parked on the street, pulling in diagonally. There was no driveway for the entry side of the duplex. Cars were haphazard on the street leaving only a half of a spot for him to park within. He figured that if someone was going to complain they could get in line.
It took Bubba a minute to find the keys from the center console of the SUV. There were several. Fortunately, one set was neatly labeled “Gray.” He took another moment to look at Willodean’s home. He was supposed to be here last night. It would have been his first time at her residence. There was a neat walkway lined with flower beds that had been put to sleep for the winter. The walkway split into two directions leading to the separate doors of the duplex. The students’ side had a keg sitting on the porch and a black brassiere hanging from an otherwise empty flag pole.
There was a swing on Willodean’s porch. A set of bronze wind chimes dangled from the porch rafters. He could picture her sitting there with her lovely black hair moving in the breeze, listening to the music of the chimes. He took a moment to collect her mail from the box. She had been just as busy as he had been this week. She’d been trying to protect him and helping out in the sheriff’s absence. The mail had piled up.
Unlocking the door, he pushed it open as he tidied the stack of envelopes and junk mail in his hand. It made Bubba think of the letters that Sheriff John had mentioned. “The letters started again,” is what Sheriff John had specifically said. “Girl left Dallas P.D. because a fella was stalking her. Came down here for a fresh start. She tole me all about it. I wouldn’t tell you exceptin’ you need knowing.”
Thinking about a strange man scaring the indomitable Willodean Gray made the hole in Bubba’s gut begin burning anew. The boiling belly intensified when someone put the barrel of a very large gun to the side of his temple and said, “If you move, I will blow a hole in your head so large, Bigfoot could crawl through it and think it was roomy.”
What else could Bubba say? “I ain’t moving.”
Chapter Four
Bubba Meets Willodean’s Family and Not in a Good Way
Friday, December 30th
Directly in front of Bubba there was a small living area decorated in shades of reds and browns. Willodean owned a comfy-looking leather couch with hand-crocheted throws draped over the sides. A painting hung on the wall of a misty landscape, a twilight tossed evening on a distant mountain. Bubba would have thought that Willodean’s living room looked very inviting, except that there were two women in front of the couch pointing guns at him. Another person standing to his left had a weapon up to his temple. A fourth, a man dressed in a ragged t-shirt and old jeans entered the opposite end of the room, peering in from a small kitchen. The man observed the situation rather blandly and blinked.
It was a long minute before anyone else spoke.
Bubba said, “Can I put Willodean’s mail on the coffee table?”
“Don’t move,” said the voice behind the gun at his head.
Bubba perceived that it was a third woman although he didn’t dare turn his head to look. Instead he got an eyeful of the three people in front of him. One woman was as short as Willodean with hair as black as hers. Her face was gently rounded and a bulky t-shirt couldn’t disguise she was prone to plumpness. Her eyes glittered coldly at him as she adjusted her aim.
The other one was a little taller with reddish hair. She was as trim as Willodean with similar green eyes. Both were older than Bubba, in their early thirties. The man standing in the kitchen door was older than all of them. His hair was brown streaked with gray and his blue eyes contemplative, as he studied the situation.
Comprehension was slow to Bubba. He would have chalked it up to stress and fatigue if he’d thought about it for a moment. Eventually, he added two and two and came up with sixty-four and a half.
Sheriff John had called Willodean’s parents. These people were in Willodean’s home. These folks were her relatives. The two women in front of him were her sisters. The man in the kitchen was her father.
And who was the one with the cold steel prodding his forehead, threatening to lower his IQ by about a thousand points? The heart-stopping voice had been that of a woman. He shifted his eyes to the left and leaned his head just a little, so he could see her. The gun pressed a little harder for a moment, but both of Bubba’s hands were completely visible.
She was a little different from the other women in front of him. In fact, she was almost a foot taller than Willodean. Her hair was just as black as Willodean’s. Some of her genes had clearly been dominant. But Willodean and the sisters hadn’t gotten the height from her. Her green eyes spit fire at him not unlike a Tommy gun from a cheesy forties movie with Jimmy Cagney. The tall woman was also dressed in a police uniform. Bubba couldn’t see the badge well enough to determine what police department she was part of, but he was thinking it was likely Dallas.
A thought occurred to him. Bubba didn’t know for certain, but he came to the conclusion that Willodean was the baby of the family. And the baby’s family had come rip-roaring to the rescue. There was her father. Her sisters, and…
“Pleased to meetcha, Mrs. Gray,” Bubba said numbly.
•
Bubba still stood at the door. These people were Willodean’s family, and they all appeared as though they could take out a Bowie knife and carve holes in his abdomen without undue strain or moral doubt. That was, with the exception of the father, who looked like he could throw a heavy book at Bubba’s cranium and not think about it twice.
“You’re Bubba Snoddy,” Willodean’s mother said. It was a frosty voice full of suspicion and condescension.
One of the sisters nodded. “Bubba Snoddy,” she confirmed. She was looking at the identification from the wallet she had plucked from his back pocket. She’d also taken the stack of mail f
rom his hand and thrown it willy-nilly on the coffee table. “He’s got a fishing license, a library card, and a Blockbuster membership. There’s a photo of a Basset hound.” The last was pronounced with mild distaste. It might have been that she didn’t like dogs, or it might have been that he had a photograph of his dog in his wallet. Either one.
“There’s about twenty-three dollars in there, too,” Bubba added.
He was at a loss. He was also in a hurry. Willodean’s mother and sisters had grudgingly put their weapons away, but they were all glaring at him as if he had been caught in the act of something despicable. The father had retreated into the kitchen where he was making coffee.
“No condoms,” the sister with the wallet said suspiciously or not so suspiciously.
Is the lack of condoms good or bad? Bubba wasn’t sure.
The other sister had a strange expression on her face. “You’re Bubba Snoddy,” she repeated. “Jesus, Wills didn’t say you were a freaking giant.”
Well, I’m only six foot four- and wait, did she say that Willodean talked about me…to her sister? About me?
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t explain why he’s here,” Willodean’s mother snapped. “Or why he has her keys. And what do you know about her being missing?”
“I need a paper bag,” Bubba said tightly. “I don’t have time to explain anything to ya’ll. I need something that Willodean…wore recently.”
It wasn’t the right thing to say. All three women froze. The oldest one’s hand twitched toward her weapon again. Willodean’s father made an incoherent noise from the kitchen. For an endless moment no one moved. The man in the kitchen soundlessly returned to the door between the rooms and studied Bubba with disconcerting scrutiny.
“Oh, Jesus,” Bubba said.
He wasn’t a talkative man and words usually got stuck in his throat. He didn’t know what to say to Willodean’s family. He didn’t want to tell them why he needed something that she had recently worn. He suspected that Willodean’s mother might already know. She was law enforcement and possibly the two sisters were as well, considering the sidearms that they had so capably held against him.
“I’ll look in the kitchen for a bag,” Willodean’s father said slowly. “My name is Evan Gray, young man. And the lady with the largest firearm is Willodean’s mother, Celestine. Anora is the black-haired one and Hattie, the one with the auburn hair. We came down to help.”
Bubba thanked God for Evan Gray. No one wanted to say the actual words indicating the severity of Bubba’s errand.
“I’ve got a gun and a shovel,” Celestine said warningly.
“Sheriff John Headrick called you about Willodean,” Bubba said instead of rising to the bait.
Evan nodded. “Early this morning. We were on the road an hour later.”
“I don’t know what he told you,” Bubba added. The unspoken part was that he was utterly unsure about what he could tell them without breaking their collective hearts.
“Willodean’s official vehicle was discovered wrecked yesterday evening,” Celestine said, and even Bubba could tell the older woman was holding on by the tips of ragged fingernails as she slid down the precipice. “There was…blood that might indicate that Wills was hurt in the wreck.”
Bubba noticed that Celestine wasn’t calling it an accident. It indicated that she knew about the stalker. It revealed that Willodean’s mother was desperately worried about her child. It made Bubba sicker than he already was.
“They’ve done a search of the area,” Bubba said slowly. “Ain’t much there to show what happened.”
A bit of wreckage. A Dodge emblem. The appearance of someone who was waiting for an opportunity. That specific farm road was the way most people would go if they were going to the Snoddy Mansion. There were other ways, but it was the most direct. If a fella knew that someone was going over to the Snoddy’s place, then that same fella could sit there in the pull-out and wait.
“Nothing?” Hattie said wrenchingly. She put her hand over her mouth and gasped, “God. Nothing at all?” The undeclared part was, “No sign of Willodean?”
Celestine stared at Bubba. “Ev,” she said, her voice neutral. “Did you find a paper bag?”
Evan held up a lunch bag.
“Bubba here needs something Wills wore. Maybe her uniform t-shirt or something from her dirty clothes basket. Don’t touch the shirt with your hands, Ev. Use the paper bag to pick it up.” Celestine’s voice broke a little.
“There’s some rubber gloves in here,” Evan said carefully. “They haven’t been opened. I’ll use those.”
Evan turned away and Bubba heard the rattle of the plastic as he did what he said he was going to do.
Anora said with a half choke, “You’ve got a cadaver dog here?”
Bubba swallowed. “No. Hounds. They’ll scent Willodean and…”
“Why is he here?” a new voice demanded.
Bubba looked up and saw a young girl glaring at him from the door to the kitchen. She was about eight years old and had similar features to the Grays. Dressed in a gray t-shirt that said “Police” and jeans, she folded her little arms over her chest and cast her most determined stinky eye upon Bubba.
“Who is he?” she went on. “Is he a perp? I’m tired of hiding out in the bedroom. I can handle a little action just like the rest of you.”
“This is my daughter, Janie,” Anora said tersely. “Janie, this is someone who’s come to help with Auntie Wills.”
Janie looked Bubba up and down as if she clearly found him lacking. Her little arms didn’t unfold. “He’s not a boy in blue. I think he looks like a street thug. A convict. A felon. An outlaw. Yeah. He’s up to something. You can tell by the look in his eyes.”
Celestine sighed. “You’ve been letting her hang around the station house too much, Anora.”
Anora shrugged. “Didn’t hurt any of us, Ma. The loo is all right with it.”
“I like Lieutenant Andrews,” Janie said without looking away from Bubba.
The eight-year-old had cold little eyes. Mistrustful eyes focused in on Bubba like he had a target painted on his forehead. “He lets me drink coffee. Chink. Chink. Where’s Auntie Wills?”
“We don’t know yet, sweetie,” Anora said.
“And why is he here instead of the real popo?” Janie insisted.
Celestine looked distrustfully at Bubba again. “It’s a good question.”
“They’re busy at the…scene,” Bubba said.
How did he say to Willodean’s family that Sheriff John was at an impasse? How could he say that they weren’t going to actually search the area for days? Well, dammit, he couldn’t. Not to Willodean’s family.
There was an awkward silence. “We’ll follow you out there,” Celestine announced.
Oh, that’ll be peachy.
Bubba would have groaned, but he thought that the three women would pull out large, pointy guns and methodically shoot him. He didn’t know if the eight-year-old had a sidearm, but she probably knew how to use one.
Sheriff John is going to kill me when he sees them. Ifin these gals don’t beat him to the punch.
“But he’s a civvie,” Janie protested. “If he’s not Johnny Law, then he’s a suspect, and he knows too much.” She looked as though she would pull over a handy spotlight to blind Bubba while she adroitly interrogated him.
“His name is Bubba Snoddy,” Anora said to her daughter.
“Bubba?” Janie repeated. “But Bubba is the name on the…”
“Hush!” Evan had returned with the paper bag in his hand and put his other hand on Janie’s shoulder. “That’s none of your concern.”
What? My name is on what?
Bubba cogitated for a moment but he was too tired, too concerned about Willodean to focus on what Janie said. Time wasn’t slowing down for anyone or anything.
“Follow me out,” he said brusquely, “but I’m leaving now.” He cast an eye on the draped windows. Through the inch-wide crack in the drapes he could see th
e sun was about to peep over the horizon with ferocious declaration.
Bubba didn’t want the Grays trailing him out to the place where Willodean’s lonesome official vehicle was still sitting with blood inside, but he couldn’t see how he could stop them.
Sheriff John will just have to turn on the charm, Bubba concluded.
•
Lewis Robson was unloading his hounds when Bubba parked Sheriff John’s county car. Lew spared Bubba a brief look and brushed off two reporters who were hurling questions into his ear. The hounds were slobbering over the reporters’ shoes, and one of the reporters was wiping his hands on his slacks.
Bubba jumped out of the vehicle and glanced over his shoulder. Two cars had followed him. A gaggle of Grays streamed out. Bubba didn’t wait. He assumed Celestine could locate Sheriff John all by herself and give him the unadulterated hell the sheriff didn’t really need.
Holding the paper bag with Willodean’s clothing, Bubba went to Lew Robson. “Hey, Lew.”
Lew was a good ol’ boy and a member of the Real-Men-Don’t-Need-to-Talk demographic. He held three hounds by leashes and waited patiently for Bubba. Lew nodded at Bubba and spat a mouthful of tobacco juice at the ground. A reporter adeptly dodged it. The man was probably used to avoiding all types of nasty things. Bubba glared at the reporter who was probably used to that, too.
The man barked, “Are the dogs being used for locating a deceased individual?”
“Ain’t dogs,” Lew said vehemently, motivated by the fact that his hounds were being called merely dogs. Dogs were common animals. His canine associates were more than merely dogs. Unquestionably, they were elevated to royalty in his determination.
The reporter appeared confused. “They look like dogs to me.”
“They’re hounds,” Lew snapped.
He had a long, craggy face that could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty, weatherworn skin, and striking blue eyes that sparkled when he was enjoying himself. Most of the time Lew spent with his hounds, was time that Lew enjoyed. But even Bubba knew Lew wasn’t going to be thrilled if they hunted a woman’s dead body. For a man who owned and trained animals to track, he was remarkably weak-stomached at the thought of any living creature being harmed.
Bubba and the Missing Woman Page 4
