Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note

by C. L. Bevill

  •

  Bubba didn’t know it, but he slept through the rest of the day and night. Miz Demetrice, Miz Adelia, Willodean, and Precious came and went, checking on him periodically as Dan supervised. He took his guarding job very seriously. He napped in the room next to Bubba’s, which had an extra-long bed in it because there were some very tall folks in the Snoddy line. It didn’t really matter because Dan was used to his feet hanging off the end of the bed.

  Miz Demetrice had woken Bubba up three times and asked him to recite Percy Shelley’s sonnet, Ozymandias, which Bubba had memorized in the eleventh grade. Bubba went back to sleep immediately. Dan had been impressed because he hadn’t made it past the ninth grade.

  Dan peeked in on Bubba the next morning after everyone else had gone to Pegramville. Then Dan went downstairs to meditate. His goal was to transform his mind and use it to explore himself and other phenomena. Also to become a better person by achieving inner peace.

  Then he would find some more of that pain-free Canadian bacon, which was some pretty good stuff. If he was lucky, he would also find some pain-free eggs and some pain-free biscuits which Miz Adelia said she had stocked the kitchen with. After all, biscuits didn’t have a face.

  Dan reconsidered. Unless one drew one on with ketchup and mustard. A fella could use raisins for the eyes, too.

  He surely enjoyed the Buddhist lifestyle.

  •

  Bubba was dreaming, although he didn’t realize it until later. He would have liked to be dreaming of Willodean in particular, but of course, folks didn’t always get to choose their dreams. He would have died happy if he could have had the one dream that involved Willodean and pudding in it again. Alas, life was not always fair.

  Instead he dreamed of a faceless woman sitting in a small, cold room. The room was also dark and uninviting. There were shelves in the room as if it had been used for storage. There were even boxes on the shelves, but there was nothing the woman could have used to protect herself.

  So she sat on the floor against a bare wall, shivering and horribly expectant. Alone. Would no one look for her? Would no one ever remember that she had been and that she had once been lively and vibrant?

  Because of the rampant shadows in the room, Bubba couldn’t see her face in the dream. She didn’t seem particularly young or old. She wasn’t fat or skinny. She was remarkably typical sitting there waiting for something to happen. Her hands shook as she smoothed her skirt. Her shoulders trembled as they touched the icy firmness of an unbreakable wall.

  The woman checked the door once more. It was locked and blocked from the outside with something she hadn’t seen. There were no windows in the room and only a small vent in the ceiling. The walls on three sides were cinderblock. She had broken several nails trying to pry one out. She crawled along the floor looking for something to help her. Finally, along one of the boxes on the shelves she found a ballpoint pen. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It seemed like something she could use to protect herself when the time came.

  The woman returned to her spot at the wall and sank down. She used the edge of her skirt to cover her goose bump-covered legs. She wrapped her arms around her body and waited.

  Her eyes skated over the room, looking for something that wasn’t there. Finally, she noticed a clipboard hanging on the wall near the door. There was paper on it, plain paper she could write on. If she wrote a note and left it in the open, they would see it and destroy it. If she slipped it under the door, they would likely find it first. If she left it on her body, they might also find it.

  Her desperate gaze settled on the boxes. They contained things she wasn’t familiar with, car parts for something she didn’t know anything about. One day they would be used. Someone might see the note and remember the woman and what had happened to her. She might not be able to save herself, but she would be damned if she would let those people get away with murdering her.

  Decision made, she cogitated on what she would write. It had to be something serious. It had to catch people’s attention. It needed to not be disregarded as some silly prank played by an unknown person. She retrieved the clipboard and uncapped the pen. Holding the lid in her teeth, she wrote the words “If someone finds this note, then I have been murdered.” She wanted to write more. She wanted to say the name of her murderers. She wanted to blast them into hell itself for their sins.

  The correct words to accomplish her wishes didn’t come to her frantic brain. Instead, she began to write “My name is M—” when she heard them coming. Desperate, she ripped the paper from the clipboard and replaced it where it had hung. She stuck the pen down her shirt and frenziedly folded the note.

  Low voices spoke outside the door. Whatever was used to block it was being moved as the woman pulled one box down and stuffed it inside. She thrust the box back on the shelf, just in time to sink to the floor as if she had been sitting there all along.

  Light spilled in from outside of the room and exposed the face of the woman. Bubba saw that it was his mother, lost in the gloom of her imprisonment. Miz Demetrice blinked with terror and confusion. In the dream, the face changed into Miz Adelia’s. Her brown eyes were awash with tears. There was another blink, and the face transformed into Willodean’s. The lines that scored her lovely face revealed the stress and anxiety eating into her being.

  Bubba woke up with a loud grunt.

  He was lying face down on the bed, still fully dressed. He snorted once and rubbed his eyes without opening them. Sleepily he thought about the dagnammed dream. It wasn’t a nice dream. It certainly wasn’t a dream where Willodean featured prominently, costarring with chocolate pudding. Instead, it was a dream that made him want to punch a hole in the nearest convenient wall.

  “That him?” said a voice from behind Bubba.

  Bubba didn’t move straightaway. Living in the Snoddy Mansion until the caretaker’s house was rebuilt meant that occasional strangers passed through. He’d been interrupted by folks touring the antebellum mansion on more than one juncture. Once, one had even once attempted to go into the bathroom while he was taking a shower.

  Still three-quarters asleep, he said, “This ain’t part of the tour. Go find Miz Demetrice. She’ll straighten you out.”

  The voice repeated, “That him?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” said another voice. Bubba thought the other voice sounded familiar.

  “He don’t look like he’s got connections.”

  “Really, fellas,” Bubba mumbled. “The only historical significance of this room is that Cornelia Adams Snoddy once redecorated it in posy pink. Ma thought it looked like Pepto-Bismol and painted over the wallpaper.”

  “Don’t look like the law neither,” the first voice said.

  “What about the other fella?”

  “Think he’s stuck in that yoga position. You know, the one where you get your feet up on the opposite knees. Besides, he says he’s medicating.”

  “You mean meditating.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay then.” The first voice let out a sigh. “Bubba Snoddy, right?”

  Bubba dimly perceived that the voice was addressing him. “Shore. This is my bed, too. I’m sleeping in it.”

  There was a distant woof, and Bubba wondered what his hound was doing that she was barking. The muffled noise sounded like she was trapped behind a closed door. “Where’s Precious?”

  “Who’s Precious?”

  “The Basset hound,” Bubba mumbled.

  “Locked in the kitchen. You know she loves potato chips?”

  “That’s why we have to keep the bags on the top shelf,” Bubba said. “She’s also bin known to suck the filling out of Twinkies.”

  “She’s fine. She ain’t exactly happy that we’re in the house, but we’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

  Bubba rubbed his eyes some more and gathered some brains. “Seriously, fellas, this ain’t part of the tour.”

  “We’re not here for the tour.”

  Bubba opened
his eyes and turned his head. In actuality, there were three men standing there at the end of his bed. One was a younger one with black hair and green eyes. He had a t-shirt and jeans on. His muscular arms were covered with tattoos. One was a Celtic cross. Another pledged eternal love to some girl named “Griselda.” He had a red handkerchief wrapped around his lower face as if that would disguise who he was. It didn’t really.

  “I know you,” Bubba said and rose up.

  One of the other men was familiar, too. He was a similar height to the one with the tattoos. His hair was graying black, and the color of his eyes was a dim shade of hazel. He stared at Bubba with a hard countenance. The handkerchief wrapped around his face was blue and speckled with white paint. “You had your people call mine,” he said coldly. “It was a mistake to threaten us.”

  Bubba was somewhat confused. “My people called your people.”

  “David Beathard called the queen,” the man with the gray hair said.

  “David Beathard called the queen?” Bubba hadn’t been aware that Dreadnaught David the Dizzy knew any queens.

  Bubba rolled over and sat up. It was a little hard for him to wake up. Coffee in a gallon-sized container would have helped. He looked at the three men again. All three of them stared at Bubba with flinty expressions. The young one with the red handkerchief was the one from First Monday Trade Days.

  “Rory, right?” Bubba said.

  Rory winced. “Maybe we should have gone with the Shrek masks.”

  “It don’t matter,” said the one with the blue handkerchief.

  “And a long-sleeved shirt,” the third one said meaningfully.

  “And you’re Paddy Sheedy,” Bubba said, looking at the one with the blue handkerchief.

  The third man had a red, white, and blue handkerchief. Bubba looked at him. “You, I don’t know, and I dint have David call no one.”

  “You’re coming with us,” Paddy said ominously.

  Then Bubba happened to notice that all three men were holding guns. Rory had a Glock. Paddy had a sawed-off shotgun, a Remington, if Bubba wasn’t mistaken. The third man had a Browning A5 shotgun. Bubba knew because his mother had one hidden somewhere in the mansion. It wasn’t the same weapon, however. The stranger’s looked as if it had just come from a gun shop. The wood shone as if recently polished. His mother liked to use hers. The stock had notches in it that Miz Demetrice had scratched in herself. He wasn’t sure what the notches denoted, but he was sure it wasn’t something good.

  “Do I have time for coffee?” Bubba asked amicably.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bubba and the Terrible Travellers

  Tuesday, August 21st

  When Bubba walked outside via the motivating factor of guns aimed at his body, he found the Travellers had a van. The van was a ‘80s Chevy with no windows in the back. It occurred to Bubba that only movers and serial killers had vans without windows. But as he wasn’t a twenty-year-old female coed with long flowing locks, he wasn’t particularly concerned with that.

  “Do you fellas have an affinity for Darth Vader?” Bubba asked as they directed him toward the van.

  “What?” Paddy snapped. All three men had pulled their handkerchiefs down. The cloths fluttered loosely around their necks as if waiting for opportunity. Combined with the ‘80s van, the handkerchief-around-the-neck look was only waiting for Def Leppard and Axl Rose to arrive.

  “Darth Vader, ruthless henchman of Emperor Palpatine? Luke’s father? Deep voice, lots of heavy breathing?” Bubba explained.

  “Rednecks are crazy,” Rory said and pointed toward the van with his Glock.

  “Did ya’ll call me and threaten me using a Darth Vader voice?” Bubba persisted.

  The third man gave Bubba a little push.

  Bubba gave the third man a little growl.

  “No, we didn’t call you and threaten you using a Darth Vader voice,” Paddy said with a great sigh. “Jesus Christ Above, I have never had so much trouble as I have when I buy merchandise from the hicks in this state. Connell,” he added, “just get him in the van.”

  Bubba was taking a step toward the van when he heard that. He abruptly stopped and faced Paddy. Clearly, the older man had an idea about what was happening. “I need to know where you got the auto parts you sold me. It’s important.”

  “You can take it up with the queen,” Paddy said.

  At that moment, Daniel Lewis Gollihugh wandered out onto the front veranda. “Say, Bubba, these fellas bothering you?”

  All four men turned to look at Dan. Three of the men quailed visibly as their gazes went up, up, up. “Holy crab cakes,” Paddy said. “How frickin’ tall is that?”

  “Seven feet and change,” Bubba said. “I reckon his shoulders are about half that, but I ain’t never thought to measure them.”

  Rory finally thought to point the Glock at Dan while Connell aimed his Browning in the same direction.

  Dan saw the guns and frowned mightily. “I don’t care for firearms,” he said. “The last time I got shot, it was like a little bumblebee had stung my tuckus. The nurse had to give me three separate shots to numb the flesh there so they could take the bullet out. I wanted to keep it, but the po-lice dint want to let me on account the bullet was considered evidence.”

  “How did you get shot in the butt?” Bubba asked.

  “That happened before I became enlightened,” Dan explained.

  “Oh, say hey, Dan,” Bubba said, “these fellas have invited me over to talk to a queen. I wasn’t sure ifin it was a good idea or such.”

  “Dan?” Paddy repeated with recognizable dread in his voice. “Not…Daniel Lewis Gollihugh?”

  Dan smiled broadly, although, to the typical onlooker it might appear somewhat sinister. A fella could have driven a motorcycle through the gap between his two front teeth.

  Rory dropped the Glock. It hit the ground with a solid clunk and then the young man scrambled to pick it up.

  “I don’t like firearms much,” Dan remarked, “but that ain’t no way to treat one.”

  “Did you ever get the feeling that you just bit the big hairy hog on the butt?” Connell asked no one in particular.

  “I get that feeling all the time,” Bubba said.

  “You want to go with these fellas, Bubba?” Dan enquired. He reached up and lazily scratched the side of his nose. “Cause ifin you don’t, I don’t ‘spect you have to.”

  “I wasn’t inclined,” Bubba said, “but they might know something I need to know.”

  “You called us and threatened us!” Paddy declared. “We didn’t know you was running about with the biggest, meanest man in east Texas.”

  “I knew you didn’t really want a line on old parts,” Rory accused.

  Dan’s very large hand fluttered over his chest. “I know it’s so, but it kinda hurts to have to tell folks over and over again, I’m a changed man. I done renounced violence.”

  “My bodyguard,” Bubba said. “He’s supposed to protect me, but he’s a pacifist.”

  Paddy shot Bubba an amazed look. “We’ll take them both.” He pointed with the end of his sawed-off Remington. “Get in the van. Open the damn door, Rory.”

  Rory tripped while trying to keep his eyes on Dan. Dan shrugged as he watched the younger man open the van’s side door.

  “Get in,” Paddy repeated. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

  “Chances are that it’ll only tick Dan off,” Bubba said. “Shore he’s reformed, but he’s always had a terrible temper. God alone knows what would happen if you set him off.” Bubba was feeling better after a good night’s sleep. The bruises didn’t really hurt anymore, and his head was only mildly sore. If he had caffeine, he would have been happy. There was nothing like a good rest to set a fella straight on the road to his destination again.

  “Shore, I’d like to go on a ride,” Dan rumbled. “Nice day for it. Besides, Miz Demetrice would be put out ifin I didn’t keep my promise about keeping an eye on Bubba. Ifin he goes in the van without me,
I cain’t keep an eye on him.”

  “I reckon we’re goin’ with you fellas,” Bubba said and climbed into the van.

  The side of the van dipped a few seconds later when Dan climbed in. Then the springs squealed in protest when he sat down with a heavy thump.

  Rory and Connell sat as far away from Dan as they could without being outside of the vehicle. Paddy drove.

  “Can we stop for coffee?” Bubba asked pleasantly.

  •

  It took them about an hour to go wherever Paddy was driving them. Bubba was concerned that they would be going all the way to the opposite side of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and he didn’t really have the time for that. Instead, they eventually pulled into a hotel on Interstate 38. He saw the sign for the freeway as they exited and pulled into Jack Cass’s Hotel and Resort. The resort part was the pond out back in which Jack had a catfish noodling contest once a year. The last time Jack held the contest, an oversized catfish had nipped off the tip of an unlucky tourist’s index finger, but that sorry little event hadn’t held Jack back.

  As they came to a stop, Dan attempted to explain the tenets of Buddhism to Rory. “Ifin we eliminate ignorance by the road of understanding,” he said, “then we can get rid of cravings and such, and achieve the highest level of happiness. Nirvana, you know.”

  “I thought Nirvana was a ‘90s grunge band,” Rory said.

  Dan scowled tremendously. “Nirvana means to attain inner peace and freedom from suffering.”

  “I think I would like this Buddhism thing,” Rory said, playing with his Glock.

  “I’m gonna tell Father McLaughlin you said that,” Paddy stated.

  “Buddhists respect other folks’ religions,” Dan said.

  Bubba hadn’t tried to further explain that he didn’t have David Beathard call anyone to threaten them. His thoughts returned to David’s call to some Travellers he said he knew. Specifically, David had called someone named Pip, and David had made certain comments that could definitely be taken as threatening. “This fella, Sheedy, he don’t want to mess with my matey. Me matey’s the biggest, baddest freebooter to ever loot a galley.” And there had been, “Me matey’s got connections. He can do things. Some people wouldn’t want to wake up with a Bassett hound in their beds, me be telling ye.”