by C. L. Bevill
“Justin didn’t seem like he was troubled earlier in the day,” Jeffrey added.
“You saw him earlier?”
“Yeah, I was trying to get him to sign a petition about the cross on Haymaker Hill. You know, that’s public land.” Jeffrey nodded his head firmly. “No one would like it if I put up a David’s Star or a pentagram there.”
“Maybe a Jewish person or a wiccan would,” Bubba said, unable to help it.
“That’s not the point,” Jeffrey said. His forehead wrinkled in thought. “What was the point? Oh yes. Justin seemed pretty chipper earlier. Happy as a goat with two peckers even.”
“That’s perty happy,” Bubba said, stopping to think about it. “Maybe you should go talk to Big Joe. You might have bin the last one to see Justin alive, other than the murderer.”
Jeffrey’s face wrinkled some more. “You mean the festival murderer, right?” He didn’t wait for Bubba to answer the question. “I think this is just one of those fancy-dancy murder mysteries that the committee has thrown into the mix to make things really exciting. I bet folks need to find the body and then find the murderer. Very stimulating. Bet your mother thought of it.” He paused. “Maybe I should talk to Big Joe. Maybe he would sign that petition. Say, Bubba, would you sign?”
“The cross on Haymaker Hill has bin there since the ‘60s, Jeffrey. Ain’t hurting no one.”
“It’s a clear violation of church and state,” Jeffrey said fervently.
Bubba turned to face Jeffrey solidly. “You remember years ago when the Taliban in Afghanistan blew up all those ancient Buddhist statues?”
Jeffrey glowered. “It’s not the same thing. Those statues were over a thousand years old. Maybe older.”
“And once they were about forty years old,” Bubba said softly.
Sighing dejectedly, Jeffrey turned away. “Hey, I got to get back to the festival. They’re supposed to catch me at Paco’s Chop Suey Palace.”
Bubba stood in the crowd listening to people talking about murder and who done did what and when they done did it. Silently he thought a bad thing about his mother. It was one of her worst ideas ever. Surely someone’s goin’ to get upset about the connotations. I cain’t be the only one thinking about what this means.
His thoughts drifted back to the note in his pocket. Abruptly, he changed course. He wanted to ask his mother a question. As a matter of fact, he wanted to ask his mother a couple of questions. And he wasn’t going to be put off.
Miz Demetrice was near the tent that certainly did have a sign saying “If someone is dead and you know whodunit, see us here.” He couldn’t tell if his mother had yet done in the Honorable John Leroy, Jr. or not. She was still dressed in her impeccable cornflower blue dress and her shoes were still patent white and she still had the white handbag hanging from her arm. Unambiguously, without bloodstains and a battle axe, she appeared rather benign.
That was only to the foolish. Ma had been known to tear the Achilles tendons from her prey so that they would be unable to run away. She wasn’t averse to tearing out their vocal cords so they couldn’t scream for help, either. God alone knew what she could do with that innocent-looking, white handbag.
“…Not Miss Scarlet in the library with a candlestick,” Miz Demetrice said to Doc Goodjoint.
“Well, I cain’t be expected to recollect everyone’s name,” the doctor said. He held a large blue travel mug that had the familiar skull and crossbones on it. He paused to take a drink from it and then said, “There was Holly Woods and Rufus Leaking. And of course, I cain’t forget the inscrutable and not-so-unmentionable individual from the darkest depths of Asia, Hung Lo. But the rest have mashed into a mix of wretched punnery.”
Miz Demetrice chuckled. “I liked Shandy Lear myself. Then there was Anita Moorhead.”
“No, really?”
Bubba stepped up, and his mother waved at him. She put her finger up and stepped up to a microphone at the opening of the tent. “Announcing round 4 of the Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival. That’s round 4 for all of you aspiring detectives and investigators. Anyone needing to ascertain their points, see the Points Clerk at the right end of the tent.” She pointed in the same way as a flight attendant would point to an exit on an airplane. Two hands chopped the air in the proper direction. “See Geri Attrick or Lou Zer at the large table at the right side of the tent.” Her hands chopped again.
Bubba watched as a few more people shuffled toward the right end of the tent. Two men were amicably arguing about the points being awarded over the denouement of Harry Pitts. Lawyer Petrie brushed red flakes off his three-piece suit while he awaited the outcome.
“Bubba,” Doc Goodjoint said. “Good to see you, boy. You ain’t bin getting headaches lately?”
“Not for a few months,” Bubba said to the physician.
“Good. Good. I would advise you to avoid women with swinging manacles,” he said and chuckled. “Also, you might reconsider that helmet I recommended.”
Miz Demetrice tittered. Bubba blasted her with a look.
“It took longer for the Sharpies to wear off than the headache,” Bubba said, directing it at his mother alone. “Still some Sharpies around the house.” That was Bubba’s best idea of a threat.
“They’re all locked up,” Miz Demetrice said promptly. The threat had been thwarted.
“I kin buy some more,” Bubba volleyed.
“You’re broke, and you won’t take money.” His mother sank his battleship without compunction.
“Ma, was Justin Thyme one of your ideas?” Bubba asked without forewarning.
Doc’s white eyebrows climbed into his forehead. “I heard about that.”
“Everyone’s heard about that.”
“Disappearing bodies,” Miz Demetrice said. “Wish I’d thought of it. Sorry, Bubba dearest. I wouldn’t have done that to you. It makes me think of the time when I dropped Elgin’s body down into a deep well. He was still alive, you know.”
“You wouldn’t have known it was me who would find Justin Thyme,” Bubba said. He watched his mother for the telltale signs of lying. She had a few that he knew about. Miz Demetrice had a difficult time telling her own child fibs, although telling whoppers to strangers didn’t seem to bother her overly. “And Pa had a heart attack.”
“Oh, that’s just the company line, dearest,” Miz Demetrice shot back.
Doc rubbed his chin consideringly. The travel mug tottered in his other hand. “Lots of poisons out there that can cause heart attack-like symptoms.”
Bubba glared at the doctor. “Ifin you want Big Joe to start poking around in that business, just keep it up.”
Doc shrugged with a gleeful smile. “I’m just getting into the swing of things.”
“Ma?”
“What, Bubba dear?”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you have anything to do with Justin Thyme’s murder or murder?”
Miz Demetrice covered the microphone with her hand. “I did not,” she said firmly, “but don’t tell anyone because it’s spicing things up something nice. Revenues are up, way up. We don’t have final numbers, but I think we tripled what we expected today, and we still have the rest of the day, the rest of the week, plus the big finale.”
Bubba didn’t want to ask what the big finale involved because it would probably give him a flaming, fargling case of the screaming-meanies. Overuse of Pepto-Bismol might be required.
“Ma, I’m almost ashamed of you.”
“Ten percent off the top goes to the Victim’s Advocacy Fund of Texas,” Miz Demetrice said. “Dint you listen to anything I told you earlier?”
“I might not have listened. My mind petered out after the words murder, mystery, festival, and Pegramville were all combined in the same sentence.”
“You have been busier than a one-legged cat covering up whoopsie-doodles on a marble floor,” Miz Demetrice acknowledged. “Somewhat stressed out, as well. Have you considered medication, Bubba dearest?�
�
“I’ll take the afternoon off and go fishing,” Bubba gritted through clenched teeth. “That’s enough medication for me.”
“Your face is excessively red today,” his mother went on, oblivious to his tension, or she was ignoring it with style. “That could be an indication of high blood pressure. You wouldn’t have gotten that from my side of the family, however. Another bit of something for which to thank your father.”
Bubba didn’t want to state the obvious when Doc Goodjoint and several other interested parties were unashamedly eavesdropping, hoping to hear something juicy. If his mother wasn’t responsible for the disappearance of the late Justin Thyme, then someone else was. If his mother, who was very likely the most knowledgeable about the Murder Mystery Festival’s scenarios, didn’t know what was up, then something fishy was going on.
Bubba shook his head. Something fishy was always going on in Pegram County. It was part of the reason he wanted to go fishing. At least when he was out on the lake or a stream, the fishiness came naturally.
“Ma, I done asked you once,” Bubba said carefully. “I’ll rephrase it on account of the fact that I don’t want any miscommunication.”
Miz Demetrice’s eyes narrowed. “Do tell, dear.”
Bubba leaned forward. “You could start an argument in an empty house, Ma.”
“It’s a well-practiced skill,” she said.
“Is Justin’s body disappearing part of the show?”
“If it is, it wasn’t approved by me,” Miz Demetrice admitted in a whisper. The group of people suddenly quieted down and leaned forward in an unconscious imitation of Bubba. “There, you got it from the horse’s mouth.”
Bubba didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It wasn’t one of his mother’s machinations, which was good, because sometimes Miz Demetrice could carry things a tad too far. When she had played up the information to People Magazine about ghosts and Civil War, she had regretted it because it had come back to haunt her but good. It also came back to haunt Bubba, although he didn’t blame his mother.
“And the note?”
“What note?” Miz Demetrice’s finely arched eyebrows knitted into a frown. “You said something about a note earlier. Something about a joke, too.”
Bubba reached in his pocket and pulled out the baggie with the note. Miz Demetrice took it reluctantly and read it. Her frown intensified. “This isn’t a sammy. I didn’t write this. My name doesn’t start with an M. And I wouldn’t have done this to you, boy.”
“I dint really think you would,” Bubba said sincerely. “Don’t reckon you know something ‘bout someone murdered in the last fifty or so years whose name started with an M?”
Miz Demetrice’s eyes went down to the note again. “Bubba Nathanial Snoddy!” she said loudly. “Not another real murder mystery!” She didn’t notice the feedback from the microphone or the fact that the words echoed across the entire enormous lawn of city hall. The remainder of people suddenly went silent. She was too occupied with what Bubba had just plopped down on her plate to realize what had just happened.
“An old note that says someone with the name starting with an M is about to be murdered!” Miz Demetrice shouted. “That makes my butt want to chop stove wood!” The feedback made everyone wince, and her eyes went as large as moons when she comprehended what she had done.
The hush was so overwhelming that even Bubba wanted to dunk his head.
Miz Demetrice coughed and said into the microphone, “Which is just another expression for being really happy.”
Doc Goodjoint had just taken a drink out of the travel mug. He abruptly choked and began to gasp for breath. Bubba thumped the much older man on his back until his throat was clear.
“Much obliged,” Doc grumbled.
“What in the name of a canary’s yellow tuckus are you so upset about?” Bubba whispered to his mother.
Miz Demetrice looked around frantically. “I reckon the po-lice will be coming to get you.”
“I think this happened before I was born,” Bubba said dryly, “so I might be safe from Big Joe and Sheriff John. Not even sure when it happened, much less to whom.”
Miz Demetrice looked at the note again. “Where did you get this?”
“It was inside the air cleaner for Ol’ Green.”
His mother took that in. “Those old parts you got from Canton.” Slowly her shoulders relaxed. “Cain’t have anything to do with this county then,” she asked and then answered herself, “no, nosirree. Cain’t. Lightning cannot strike so many times in the same spot.”
“Tell that to the Empire State Building,” Doc said wryly.
“Hush, George,” Miz Demetrice snapped. “See ifin I invite you over for Miz Adelia’s Yankee Pot Roast again.”
“I’ll bring the Nero d’Avola,” Doc said sagely.
Understandably, Miz Demetrice had to think about it. She handed the note back to Bubba and said, “We’ll talk about this later.”
Bubba tucked it back into his pocket and nodded. Behind them the noise of the audience had risen in volume again. It was just one more little part of the spectacle. Bubba sighed. He was doing a lot of sighing lately, not that it improved anything significantly.
Chapter Seven
Bubba and the Women
Saturday, August 18th
If the truth was to be told, Bubba needed to get back to Snoddy Mansion and work on his truck. If he didn’t have transportation to and from work, then he would be making bupkus. If he made bupkus, then he would not be paying anyone anything he owed. His pride would dictate that he move out of Snoddy Mansion because he couldn’t contribute to the groceries. Pretty soon he would likely be living in a cardboard box out around the swamp in the back forty acres of the Snoddy Estate. By the swamp, there were mosquitos large enough to slap a saddle and ride. He would become a mosquito cowboy and sleep under the stars. Then he would become the Mosquito Whisperer and Animal Planet would want to do a show about him. Then he would be known as the man who liked mosquitos too much, and no one would want to talk to him about anything else. He was pretty sure that Willodean wouldn’t want to go out with the man who was obsessed with mosquitos.
Bubba didn’t want to become a Mosquito Whisperer.
Bubba also didn’t want to become a detective. Besides the fact that he’d gone down that road before, Willodean had agreed to help him with the mystery of the note after the festival was over. But there was an undeniable truth there, too; it was implicit in her words. The note really was a mystery, a mystery that was just about falling over the line of totally mysterious into the undecipherable realm of unsolvable. If the Canton Police Department wished to take over the note’s investigation, then Bubba couldn’t do anything about it. That police department would probably disregard it as a hoax or something that no one could solve. That event would likely occur within minutes of the note being turned in, and no one would ever know what had happened to M. Or care, for that matter.
I care, he thought. I want to figure it out.
All of the thinking led Bubba back to one of his favorite adages. If a fella wanted a job to be done, then he needed to do it himself. The most important part of the whole affair was that the tone of the note bothered him. It more than bothered him. He could almost hear the plea in the unknown person’s voice. It was begging. From a distant time, years and maybe decades in the past, someone was calling to him.
Furthermore, it was serendipity at its most serendipitous. Who else but Bubba might have touched a decades-old auto part? Who else but Bubba would need that specific part? How long had it sat on someone’s shelf or in some cardboard box, waiting for the right person to come along?
Had someone high above nudged Bubba in the right direction?
How could Bubba ignore that?
Did a one-legged duck swim in a circle?
He couldn’t ignore it.
As Bubba walked through the crowd listening to people discuss what was happening and where the bodies were most likely to be found, his th
oughts came back to Justin Thyme. There was serendipity there, too. Either Bubba was completely wrong, and it was possible, or Justin was dead, having been done in by someone at the festival and then carted away like a sack of potatoes. If Bubba was correct then Justin’s dead body would turn up at some point in time, and the police would lay a suspicious eye upon Bubba, or they would blissfully ignore his blatant nanny-nanny-doo-doo’s or both. Either way was bad for Justin.
Bubba found himself by the oleanders once again. Big Joe and his officers had left; off to eat donuts or disperse unruly crowds in some other locale. They left the yellow caution tape, but Bubba disregarded it. He wanted to see if there was something left there that would answer his other set of questions. After all, Big Joe and his sterling crew of crime prevention officers had been known to miss evidence.
Chastising himself, Bubba glowered. It wasn’t Big Joe’s fault that they weren’t tip-top homicide investigators. Before the last year, there hadn’t been a homicide in Pegramville for so long a time, that Bubba couldn’t quite recall it.
He paused at the place where he’d seen Justin Thyme’s body. The dirt and stomped grass were a mess. Footprints tracked in every direction. Anyone with feet had clomped through the locality with great alacrity. Some of them were probably his. Everyone and his sister’s black cat’s kittens had been through the area to see what had happened.
“So was he dead or not?” asked a soft voice.
Bubba turned to see the Honorable Missus Posey. Petite and very nearly mousy, she looked at him curiously. She indicated the general area of the ground.
“Not sure,” Bubba said honestly. “Thought he was dead. Didn’t take his pulse. I reckon he could have bin pulling a fast one on me.”
Miz Posey nodded. “This isn’t an ideal situation for anyone.”
“Justin likes to compete with Lloyd Goshorn, so I suspect mebe he decided to play dead, too, even though he wasn’t part of the set-up,” Bubba said, although he didn’t really suspect that. He suspected that Justin was really dead, and he suspected that someone had really carted his body off. He suspected that Justin’s lifeless husk would be found at some point in time. Then Bubba suspected he would be blamed in some capacity. It might be because Big Joe wanted to point a finger at him or that someone would feel like Bubba didn’t try hard enough to convince the police that Justin was, in fact, really, really, really dead.
