by C. L. Bevill
“Me likes a challenge,” David said roundly. He spryly strutted toward Willodean.
And of course, that was when something else happened.
Chapter Eighteen
Bubba Thinks of Something
Tuesday, August 21st
“You’re Bubba Snoddy,” someone said to his back. Bubba turned and saw a very short woman in her fifties or sixties. She was so short that Bubba had to further agitate the crook in his neck.
Dan looked around for the speaker and then looked down, down, down. “Well, hey,” he said. “I know I be tall, but dang.”
“How’s the weather up there, tushyface,” the woman said snidely to Dan.
“Hey,” Dan protested.
Bubba didn’t know the woman. Her hair was solidly gray and swept away from her face in a neat pony tail. She wore a t-shirt that said “If the broom fits, ride it!”. She was also wearing white capris with bejeweled sandals on her feet. Bubba still didn’t know her. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before.
“I’m Bubba,” he said cautiously, looking for a bomb, a gun, or something else that was deadly. Since things seemed to happen to him, he was naturally expecting the worst. Maybe this woman had a dynamite vest on underneath her t-shirt, although it didn’t seem like the shirt was loose enough for that.
The woman held out her hand. On the palm sat the note in the baggie. Bubba’s hand hesitated for a moment, and then he took it abruptly. He had forgotten that the queen had kept it. Obviously this woman was one of the Travellers. He looked around warily.
“Relax, sweetie,” the short woman said. “The queen sent me. No soldiers. No weapons. No water balloons. Although I do have a fingernail file in my pocket.” She gleefully waved purple-colored nails at Bubba. “Nail care is very important to me. I detest jagged edges.”
“And your name is…?” Bubba asked politely. He glanced at the baggie, ascertained it was the original, and then stuck it in his front shirt pocket.
“Iva,” she said. She didn’t hold out her hand. “Iva Biggun.”
Dan burst out with a raucous laugh that silenced the crowd around them.
Iva glared at Dan for a moment. “The giraffes must hate you, buddy.”
Dan stopped laughing abruptly. “I don’t appreciate that.”
Bubba said, “Um, Miz Iva, Dan don’t have a lot of patience for jokes about his height. Or jokes about him at all.”
“Bet your mama told you not to be long,” Iva snapped at Dan.
Dan rumbled in his chest. “You’ve got a big mouth for someone so small. Must make you tilt right on over.”
“Haha. I’ve never heard that before,” Iva said. “Is that the best insult you can come up with?”
“You’re so short, you kin see your feet on your driver’s license,” Dan barked.
“You’re so tall, you tripped and hit your head on the moon,” Iva bit back.
“You’re so short, you kin sit on a dime and dangle your feet,” Dan said promptly.
“Hah! Jack climbed up you instead of the beanstock,” Iva said right back.
Dan thought about that one and chuckled. Then Iva chuckled. Bubba didn’t chuckle.
“Arr,” David said. He appeared from the crowd, gazing seriously at Iva. It was immediately apparent to Bubba that David knew the woman. Iva cast David a look and smiled broadly. She waggled her purple-tipped fingers at him.
“Bubba,” David whispered harshly, “don’t ye be messing with her. She’s an itchway. She’ll astcay an ellspay on your assway. Maybe your enispay, too. I heard she made one guy’s enispay fall off. Fall off forever.”
“I can understand you just fine, David,” Iva said. “And that story is totally exaggerated. It was reattached.”
“That t-shirt isn’t an okejay,” David whispered into Bubba’s shoulder because he couldn’t make it to his ear. “She really is an itchway. She’s the Travellers’ itchway.”
“Go watch Willodean,” Bubba said.
“I am,” David said. “Er, me is watching her. She’s headed this way.”
Bubba looked around and saw Willodean about twenty feet away. She glanced at him and tilted her head curiously. Then serendipitously someone stopped her to ask something.
“Seriously, Bubba,” David said. “Pip told me about Iva a few years ago. We were drinking Smurf Farts, and she got very loquacious. Let me tell you, you don’t give the queen Blue Curacao and blueberry Schnapps. Never again. But the itchway is adbay assway.” He looked at Iva. “No offense.”
“You’re a witch?” Bubba said, and David hit him in the arm.
“Technically, I’m an Irish witch. Irish American if you want to be particular. The last time we had a convention, the Irish witches said they couldn’t understand my accent. It was very cold. They think their magic is much more wonderful.” Iva shrugged, indicating she could care less what the Irish witches had thought.
“And you’ve come to do something to me?” Bubba asked. “Curse me? Cause fungus to grow on my big toes? Make nails come out of my stomach?”
“Goodness, no,” Iva said. “No, the queen wanted you to have the note back. And I was coming to the festival anyway. I love murder mysteries.”
David wiped his forehead. “Arr. That’s a huge relief.”
“Also, to give you a name,” Iva added.
“A name?” Bubba repeated. “Whose name?”
“Well, not M’s name,” Iva said with a playful air. “Obviously, I don’t know M’s name.”
“Cain’t you…conjure it or something?”
Iva leaned close to Bubba and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but it doesn’t work like that.”
“Too bad,” Bubba said. “What name are you giving me?”
“William Johnson,” Iva said.
“William Johnson,” Bubba repeated. His eyebrows knit together into a frowny line as he thought about it. “I don’t know a William Johnson.”
Dan said, “There’s prolly fifty thousand William Johnsons in the United States alone.”
“This is the William Johnson who sold the car parts to Paddy Sheedy,” Iva explained. She looked around. “Now, I’ve got to go or all the good murders will be taken. If you happen to find out what happened to M, I’d like to know. I’ll buy you a drink. We can all have a good laugh about it.”
“I ain’t inclined to— ” Bubba started and Iva interrupted.
“In exchange for a little leniency about certain situations where someone might have gotten into a van and might have been driven someplace and words exchanged,” Iva said. “Some things that might have been identified as weapons might have been involved, but it’s all very blurry. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
Bubba glowered. “I don’t suppose William Johnson’s got an address, too?”
“No,” Iva said and snapped her fingers as if she was out of luck, and by proximity, he was out of luck, as well. “But I don’t think you’ll have to look far.” She flapped her purple-tipped fingers at him. “Such a big boy. All those spirits don’t have to look far to find you.” Her gaze transferred to Dan. “Or you. But I guess you actually scare them off.”
Dan frowned. “What the heck does she mean by that?”
Iva waded into the crowd just as Willodean approached. He took a moment to admire her lovely figure and face. Then he took another moment to remember that Willodean and his mother had set him up with Daniel Lewis Gollihugh. Beautiful and canny. I’m a lucky man. Hellfire, I best to knock on wood before fate comes and bites me on the assway.
“Where have you been today?” Willodean asked Bubba. “I called the house a half-dozen times. Miz Adelia ran out there earlier and said Precious had been left in the kitchen. Your hound got the fridge door open, and she about ate everything within doggy reach. Then she rolled around in everything. I’ve never seen Miz Adelia so upset with Precious. She said she didn’t even touch the jar of dog treats.”
“She’s okay, right?” Bubba could have slapped himself upside the head for not thinking ab
out his hound.
“Sure. She had water in her bowl. She had a lot to eat. In fact, she ate the rest of the cake I made. It was in the fridge, too.” Willodean shook her head. “Too bad. I may not have another chance to bake.”
Bubba made a mental note to keep an eye on Precious to make sure the animal hadn’t been inadvertently poisoned. However, since the hound could eat partially decomposed skunks and trot about as if she had won the lottery, he thought she’d probably be all right. His gaze came up, and he immediately caught sight of Iva watching him. She made an ah-ah-ah motion with her index finger at him. She grinned and then vanished into the throngs of people gathered there. “We had to talk to someone about them parts,” he said. That’s the truth, right? I ain’t exactly lyin’.
“We?”
“Dan and I,” Bubba said. “Had a problem with transportation, so I called David to pick us up.” Well, that’s not exactly a lie neither. Just kinda stretching the truth. God will understand, right God?
“You got Daniel Lewis Gollihugh into that little car?”
“Some of him.”
Willodean tilted her head again. Those bottle green eyes twinkled at him. “You mad at me, Bubba?”
Bubba decided to play dumb and also to lay on a little Snoddy charm. “Why would I be mad at a perty little thing like you?”
David said, “Arr. Yon wench looks a mite pink in the cheeks. Mayhap—”
“Have I threatened to decapitate you lately, David?” Willodean asked serenely.
“Not lately,” David admitted and decided to weigh anchor like a buggering plank-monkey caught in the act of sabotage. “Me will watch from over there. By yon buxom strumpet with the deep-fried turkey legs.”
“Turkey legs?” Dan repeated. “Don’t mind ifin I do.”
The pair surged toward their intended booty.
“So ifin I wouldn’t get out of town, then you figured I could use a little…guarding,” Bubba said slowly.
Willodean grinned. “The whole Buddhism thing puts a dent in it, but most people know Dan by sight, so it’s a good bluff. After his religious transformation gets out, it won’t work, but by then I think we’ll have the person. We’ve managed to track down some of the components of the bomb to a specialty store in Dallas. They’ve got video surveillance of their customers. They sent it over early this morning.”
“There’s a store that sells bombs?”
“No, it’s more like Radio Shack but a lot bigger. Also, they sell all kinds of electronics, washers and dryers, video games, and just about everything a nerd would need to be in hardware heaven.”
“Big store,” Bubba said. “That means it’ll take a while to dig through the surveillance, right?”
Willodean nodded. “We’ve got one of the deputies matching up receipts with camera footage, but the footage is shaky. You wouldn’t think so since one of the things this store specializes in is security systems. Guess they didn’t spring for their own stuff.”
Bubba couldn’t help but wonder if the mysterious Darth Vader caller was getting frustrated. The person couldn’t know what was happening with the note. Bubba had publically refuted it, but there was no way of knowing if the information had gotten back to the right person. He also couldn’t help but wonder about Dallas’ proximity to the Travellers. That was too close, but then if a fella thought about it, a smart criminal would have gotten their bomb-making materials from as far away as possible.
Naw, the Travellers had me right where they wanted me. Ifin they had wanted me dead, then Dan and I would be pushing up daisies in some remote field. And David did say the queen was trying to avoid all things criminal, although kidnappin’ aint’ exactly avoiding all things criminal.
Willodean touched the side of his face and surprised him. He had been momentarily lost in his thoughts.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m feeling like ifin I put my brains in a thimble, they’d rattle around like peas in a bushel basket.”
“You should go home and rest.” Willodean smiled tentatively. “Dan will sit on the veranda with a glass of lemonade and make sure no one leaves any surprises. That’s if Precious will even let him halfway up the drive.”
“Prolly why they left it at the gate,” Bubba said and it made him angry again. No, damn it all, I won’t leave this be. Blow up the gate. Maybe blow up the wrong person. It could have been Ma or Miz Adelia just as easily as me at that gate on Sunday night. He was getting close, and something was itching away at the back of his brain, begging him to think about it. Someone had something to hide.
It came to Bubba in a flash. “I’ll go home in a bit,” he said honestly. “I just need to look at something at the library.”
Willodean frowned. She was pretty even when she frowned, which meant that Bubba was in a fierce amount of trouble. He wanted to kiss those ruby-colored lips into a smile. But since she was on duty in the middle of a crowd, she wasn’t prone to a scene of public affection. At times, Bubba couldn’t quite believe someone like Willodean really, really liked him. She seemed a thousand times better than he was, and it was as if he was reaching for a mountain top.
“The library,” she said, mulling over the word.
“Where they keep books,” Bubba explained carefully resisting the urge to smile.
“You’ll take Dan with you?”
“Unlessin’ someone knew ahead of time I was goin’ to the library, I cain’t see as how they would have a bomb waiting there for me,” Bubba said. He didn’t really want to take Dan with him. Dan stuck out like a big seven foot tall sore thumb.
“Are you sure you don’t want to consult with your research assistant?” Willodean asked sarcastically.
Bubba thought about that. “Kiki? Did you call her to ask what we talked about?”
“Yes, I did,” Willodean confirmed without any shame.
“Are you jealous?” Bubba asked. Willodean’s face twisted a little. “You’re jealous of Kiki?”
“Should I be jealous?”
“I dint want to bother you while you were working, Willodean,” Bubba said. “Besides you said them po-lice in Canton would prolly take it just the way you did. As unsolvable. Put it to the wayside.”
“That was before someone tried to rearrange the gate at the front of the estate,” Willodean said dryly.
“Kiki’s good with a computer, and she ain’t interested in me that way,” Bubba said. He captured the small hand that was about to retreat. “She don’t make me cake.” And Bubba sincerely hoped Willodean would never make him another cake. He amended that. He hoped she felt like making him a cake but that she didn’t actually do it. Or maybe that she learned how to make a better one? There’s no way I kin win that one.
Willodean stared at him. Her expression revealed that she was only partially mollified. “What are you looking for at the library?”
“I forgot something,” Bubba said. “I aim to remember it.”
“If you get killed by some dumbass murderer, I’m going to kill you,” Willodean warned him.
Bubba thought about it. “That might be a problem. But I hope to live a very long life, so I’ll be sure and duck more often.”
“That was a low blow.”
“No, it wasn’t a low blow, you aimed high,” Bubba deadpanned. “Robert Daughtry isn’t nearly as tall as I am. You might have thought about that.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything except making sure he didn’t hurt us,” Willodean gritted. She was referring to herself and Forrest Roquemore, who had also been held captive by the deranged brother of the Christmas Killer.
Bubba slowly grinned at her. “I know that. I just need to figure this out, the same as when you were missing.”
Willodean’s pretty mouth shut because obviously she couldn’t think of something clever to say to Bubba.
“Do you know a William Johnson?” Bubba asked instead of letting her stew about it.
“William Johnson,” Willodean repeated. “There’s Jerry Johnson.
Marge Johnson. Foot Johnson. George Johnson. Rosalee Johnson. And, let’s see, Geronimo Johnson. I don’t think he’s really a Native American though.”
“Well, that don’t help, do it?” The words were harsher than he’d meant them to be.
“Find a telephone book then,” Willodean growled and swung away.
“Crap,” he said. “I mean, carp.” Bubba watched Willodean march away. He didn’t know a woman that size could walk like she really meant it. Bubba’s eyes caught David’s, and David waved the massive turkey drumstick in Willodean’s direction. Bubba nodded firmly. Then his eyes searched out Miz Demetrice and saw her speaking to Jesus Christ. Her hands fluttered in the air. Jesus shrugged and pointed at David.
Bubba figured that the two women were probably safe. Then he thought about Miz Adelia. She was likely still cleaning the kitchen at the Snoddy place or she had given up in disgust and decided to throw in the towel.
Looking around, Bubba saw someone with a cell phone. “Kin I borrow that?” he asked politely. The woman looked startled, but she handed the phone to him. “It’s a local call,” he said.
“It’s all right. I have unlimited minutes,” the woman said.
Bubba called the Cedarbloom residence and Miz Adelia answered. He breathed a sigh of purest relief. “Miz Adelia,” he said. “I heard ya’ll found Precious in the kitchen.”
“In the kitchen?” Miz Adelia said incredulously. “She was mostly in the refrigerator. She got all the way up to the third shelf. She also took everything out of the door. Ifin I dint know better, I’d swear that dog was upset about something.”
“Yeah,” Bubba said, “that sounds like it. She still at the house?”
“No, I brought her over here with me, boy,” Miz Adelia said. “I had to look after Mama, and I was afraid Precious might keel over on account of everything she ate.” She paused. “She ate that cake that Willodean made. I guess I should say the rest of it anyway.”
“That’s what Willodean said,” Bubba said neutrally.
“Ifin that cake don’t kill that hound, nothing will,” Miz Adelia laughed. “I never met a worse cook in all my born days. Her cookin’ is so bad that the flies got together and fixed the hole in her screen door.”
