Bayou Bubba

by Sam Cheever

  Bayou Bubba

  Sam Cheever

  Electric Prose Publications

  Copyright © 2020 by Sam Cheever

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Stay in Touch

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Read More Mischance & Calamity Mysteries

  Bubba Dub Dub

  Also by Sam Cheever

  About the Author

  Praise for Sam Cheeveer

  Sam Cheever creates some of the best characters you could ever find in the pages of a book.

  SensualReads.com

  Ms. Cheever writes with class, humor and lots of fun while weaving an excellent story.

  The Romance Studio

  * * *

  Where Miss Chance finds Cal Amity

  * * *

  Miss Felicity Chance’s father is missing, and her delectable PI Calford Amity thinks he’s found him. Together, they follow a trail of gold coins and secrets to Bent, Alabama, where a homeless guy named Bayou Bubba has turned up dead with an alligator tooth in his hand and a gold coin between his teeth. Unfortunately, the fish have been at poor Bubba, and it’s really hard to figure out if he’s Felonius Chance III or just a random stranger.

  Is poor dead Bubba Miss Chance’s misplaced father? Or will she be disappointed yet again? More importantly, will the mystery of his disappearance suck her down into the bogs of the Bayou, and ruin her favorite purse?

  Stay in Touch

  I don’t give away a lot of books. But I value my readers and, to show it, I’m gifting you a copy of a fun novella just for signing up for my newsletter!

  * * *

  SIGN UP HERE!

  1

  I looked at the name on my cell phone and cringed. In the months since I’d decided to hire a private investigator to find my long-lost skunk of a dad, it had been an up and down roller coaster ride of emotions.

  Did I really want to find out what had happened to Felonius Chance III? Or was I better off living out my life not knowing?

  Up until that moment, I’d let the decision float around on the winds of chance—no pun intended. But since PI Calford Amity was calling on a Thursday morning, rather than our usual Monday afternoon weekly meeting, I could only assume he’d found something.

  Either that, or he’d finally succumbed to the voodoo I’d been practicing to make him fall in love with me. I wasn’t holding out much hope on that since I was a spoiled little rich girl from Indianapolis, Indiana and therefore pretty much stunk at voodoo.

  Besides, I had an aversion to getting chicken blood on my clothes.

  “Hey, Cal. What’s up?” I mentally braced for the husky magic of his deep voice, knowing it would roll over me like warm butter and turn me all gooey like a heated cinnamon bun.

  “Miss Chance. I’ve found him.”

  And there they were. The three words (okay five) that I’d been both praying for and dreading. I swallowed hard. “Are you sure?” Was that hope in my voice? Or dread? Hopeful dread?

  “I’m sure. One of the coins has turned up.”

  My gaze slid toward the closet, where the bag I’d packed in the first fever of parental loss sat ready and waiting beside my floor-to-ceiling purse rack. I grimaced. Nobody should have that many purses. “Where is he?”

  “A place called Bent, Alabama. I’m booked on a flight out this morning. It leaves at eleven.”

  I laughed. “Funny. Where is he really?” A stark silence met my question and I frowned, realizing he wasn’t kidding. “What’s he doing down there among the alligators?”

  My always circumspect PI didn’t respond. That was probably just as well. If anybody knew the extent of my father’s debauchery at that point, it was oh-so-yummy Cal Amity. He’d been buried up to his perfect Greek nose in it for weeks.

  “Get me a ticket too, please. I’m going with you.” And I was. I didn’t know why I’d decided to face my father’s perfidy up close and personal. But apparently I had. I was already reaching for my suitcase.

  Cal started to object, but I said a cheerful goodbye and hung up on him, mid splutter.

  I was heading to the Bayou.

  Grimacing, I realized the dresses and heels I’d packed for the trip weren’t going to go with the hip waders and gator repellent I’d need.

  Unzipping the bag, I disconnected and stood staring down at the three-inch heels I’d laid over the top of my favorite pink suit. Was there such a thing as gator repellent? If there was, I’d definitely need some.

  My phone rang again, and I answered without looking at caller ID, assuming it was Cal again. “Don’t worry, I’m bringing bug spray and sensible shoes.”

  “What in the world are you talking about, Felicity?”

  My smile dripped from my face like pancake makeup in the Alabama sun. “Oh. Hi, Breze.”

  My evil stepmother sighed at the tone in my voice. “Why must you always say my name like it’s something on the bottom of your shoe?”

  Because I believe everyone should get the respect they deserve.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s up?” Grabbing the frou-frou I’d packed, I threw most of it on my bed and went to gather up more suitable clothing for the trip.

  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about your father.”

  The hopeful tone in her voice almost made me feel guilty for hating her. Then I remembered seeing her tipping the pool boy upside down the week before my father disappeared, and I pushed the nub of guilt away. I’d had to bleach my brain for a week just so I could get through a day without throwing up.

  For the record, gin and tonic is a highly effective brain bleach. And if you add a spritz of lime, you get a portion of your day’s vitamin C too. Win-win. “Funny you should ask. My PI just called. He thinks he’s located Dad. We’re getting on a plane in a couple of hours.”

  Silence. “Oh. That’s wonderful.”

  “Yes. It is. I have to go, Breze.”

  “Wait…”

  I hung up. “Sorry to get in between you and my dad’s money, Evil,” I murmured, glancing at the clock.

  I had to hurry. The flight was a mere two hours away, and I still had to navigate the heavy traffic on 465 to the airport.

  Excitement warred with fear, spinning like a whirlwind in my belly. I was excited by the idea of finally putting all my questions about my father’s disappearance to rest. I was more than excited about the chance to spend some time with too-perfect Cal. And I was terrified to face my negligent parental unit at long last.

  What if he’d left because he didn’t love me? What if he’d left because he was dying and didn’t want me to know?

  I swallowed hard. What if he was already dead?

  I zipped my suitcase and headed for the door, grabbing up purse number one hundred and five on the way out. It was the one I’d already filled with my wallet and stuff. Fortunately, it came from my conservative and practical collection of bags.

  I’d have hated to face the Bayou with nothing but a sparkly clutch in my hands.

  By the time we drove into Bent, Alabama, I’d reconsidered the wonderfulness of spending time with the no-longer-perfect Cal Amity. A more judgmental, stick-up-the-posterior person I’d never met. I realized as he scoured me with a look that said, You’re an idiot, ar
en’t you? for about the hundredth time since we’d met at the airport in Indy, that the gulf between him and me just might be too wide to leap…or cross with a 747.

  “I made reservations at the Backwater Inn,” he told me as he turned left off Bent’s wide, main street and headed for the dirty brown strip of water in the distance.

  “Of course you did,” I murmured.

  “I heard that.”

  “Of course you did,” I murmured more softly.

  “I heard that too.”

  I glared over at him. “What’s the deal with the muddy puddle up ahead? Has there been a flood?”

  “That would be the Bayou. We’re staying close to the water because I might need to use a boat for part of my investigation.”

  I didn’t miss the “I” in his declaration. I would have argued, telling him there was no “I” in “me too” but the other part of his statement iced my bowels. My eyes widened as we turned into a pockmarked gravel parking lot, which was adjacent to a long building with fake orange logs for walls. “We’re going out there?” I jabbed a finger toward the muddy ribbon cutting a swath along the edge of Bent. “Why ever would we do that?”

  “Because that’s where I believe your father is.” Cal cut the engine and climbed out of the black Jeep he’d rented for us. He unfolded his long, lean frame and stood, stretching like a jungle cat before closing the door.

  Yes, heaven help me, I did stare at his irresistible physique as he stretched. He might be a pain in my buttocks, but his were finer than hundred-year-old Scotch in front of a roaring fire.

  Or as the people of Bent would probably say…finer than frog hair.

  Do frogs have hair?

  Shaking my head on the question, I climbed out too, groaning and clasping my back as pain zig-zagged down my leg. “I don’t want to sit down for a week.”

  Cal focused his Caribbean blue gaze fringed with thick black lashes on me and, despite the “You’re an idiot, aren’t you?” look on his chiseled features, my knee ligaments melted a little. “It was a long trip,” he offered in only a slightly disgusted tone.

  I blinked, nearly toppling to the muddy gravel with surprise. “Um. Yeah. It was.”

  I followed the intrepid Cal toward a door marked “Office” at the center of the long building.

  A ten-foot-long concrete alligator adorned the narrow strip of grass alongside the door. The gator’s painted surface was chipped, and the flower-decorated hat on its head was faded from the sun.

  Cal’s assessing gaze slid right over the gator, seeing no entertainment value in it at all. But I just couldn’t resist a quick selfie. Crouching down next to the silly critter, I made my dark blue eyes go wide, and my lips form a terrorized “O” and clicked a picture to send to my cousin Joey. I chuckled as I hit Send and turned, squeaking a little as I almost ran into a man with a thin, graying ponytail and a tattoo of a gator running up his enormous biceps. “Oh, sorry.”

  The man fixed me with a glacial gray gaze. He didn’t speak, his too-small mouth pursing a little inside the boundaries of a mustache and scraggly beard.

  “Well.” I felt like a complete fool for my selfie antics, so I laughed self-consciously and stepped around him, imagining I could feel the sting of his gaze on my back as I hurried inside.

  Cal was talking to a man who I assumed was the manager.

  “Yeah, I know him,” the manager said. “That’s Bayou Bubba. Bent’s most interesting homeless guy. He don’t look like that no more, though.” The manager grinned, showing jagged teeth the color of the Bayou.

  Cal slipped the picture he carried of my father back into his shirt pocket and gave me a concerned glance.

  The manager’s mud-colored smile slipped away. He glanced at me…probably noting, too late, the shell-shocked aspect of my face. He inclined his head in my direction. “Ma’am.”

  “Hello.”

  The man I assumed was the manager of the Backwater Inn reached beneath the counter and pulled out a key, handing it to Cal.

  One key. Uh oh. I opened my mouth to object when Cal handed it to me. “Do you know where Bayou Bubba is living?” he asked the motel manager.

  The man skimmed me another look.

  Cal glanced my way. “Miss Chance, will you go to the room, please? I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.” Remembering my close call with the frigid-eyed guy outside, I considered digging in my heels and insisting that I stay, but something on Cal’s handsome face made me nod and exit the stifling office. Despite the thick, overheated air outside, I was thankful to leave the stale ashtray scent of the office behind me. I looked at the key, which had a grinning alligator key chain, and noted the number nine on the gator’s yellow belly.

  Room number nine wasn’t far from the Jeep. I wasted no time unlocking the door and ducking inside. Recoiling at the sour, coolish air that met me at the door, I shielded my nose with one hand. “Ugh!” The room was dark and noisy, with a portable air conditioner toiling loudly from its hole in the wall.

  There were two beds, both covered in dark green cotton spreads, and one small table between them.

  The carpet was also dark green, making the whole room depressingly dark. I went over and yanked the heavy drapes back, sneezing as dust bloomed on the air. Sunlight speared the room with light and heat.

  The reflection of a passably pretty twenty-something woman with wide blue eyes and wavy blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders stared back at me from the steaked glass. She looked tired. And the slight curl of her glossy lips told me she was disgusted with her room.

  The door snapped open, and the delectable Cal was suddenly backlit by the blazing sun. He stared at me for a moment and I held my breath. My gaze followed him as he closed the door and crossed the room. He scanned a look over the bathroom before coming back.

  “Do we have enough towels?”

  He didn’t even crack a smile.

  “Soap?” Okay, there was a slightly desperate sounding squeak in my voice. I twined my fingers together and swallowed. “Just hit me with it. Rip it right off like a Band-Aid.”

  Cal’s dark eyebrows peaked. “Rip what off?”

  “What did the manager tell you that he didn’t want to say in front of me?”

  “Oh.” Scrubbing a big, square hand over his chin, Cal looked me right in the eye. “He told me your father’s in the morgue.”

  My knees buckled. To his credit, Cal proved he had excellent reflexes as well as a truly fine backside. Thank goodness he caught me. I’d have hated to land on the filthy carpet.

  The sun streaming across it had illuminated something that looked a lot like dried blood.

  2

  “Well, I have to say that you follow instructions well. You were brutally direct.”

  Cal winced. “I’m sorry. There was no easy way to tell you.”

  “It can’t be true.”

  Cal sat next to me on the lumpy bed, looking distinctly uncomfortable. It was probably the tears. Maybe the sobbing. Or it could have just been that he was worried I’d get snot on his khakis.

  I was a really messy crier.

  Whatever. His large, warm presence next to me was reassuring.

  “We don’t even know if this Bayou Bubba is your dad. The manager told me he was found face down in the Bayou, and the fish had…”

  “Crisis on a cracker!” My stomach heaved at the visual he created. But I grabbed hold of the tiny spark of hope and rode it for all it was worth. “If he’s unrecognizable, maybe they’re wrong. Maybe it isn’t him.”

  Unfortunately, Cal’s dark brows were lowered in a not comforting way. “I’m going to the morgue.”

  I stood up. “I’m going with you.”

  “I don’t think…”

  “I’m not paying you to think.” I frowned. “Well, actually I am, but I’m going with you anyway.”

  Cal’s brows lowered even farther. His wide, perfect mouth tightened. “As I was saying. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come. I don’t know what kind
of shape…Bubba’s in. You might be traumatizing yourself for no reason.”

  “Even more reason for me to come with,” I argued. “I know him, Cal. I lived with him for twenty years. You only know him from a picture. If the…” I swallowed bile. “—face is mangled, I’m more likely to recognize him.”

  I could tell I’d convinced him, but he didn’t look pleased.

  Either way, I wasn’t interested in his opinion. I’d spent all day traveling to the wide, muddy backside of the universe. It would be stupid to wimp out when I was so close to finding out what had happened to my dad. Grabbing my purse, I headed for the door. “Come on, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can start looking for my father.”

  I thought I heard a sigh. But I’d already breezed through the door, my wobbly optimism pasted over the tidal wave of niggling doubt surging through me.

  After all, there was always the brain bleach option if what I saw threatened to scar me for life.

  “Sorry about snapping at you back there,” I told Cal.

  He slid his gaze to me but didn’t comment.

  I had no idea if that meant he forgave me or if he was still going to hold a grudge, so I added, “This whole thing has made me kind of tense. When I get tense, I get snappish.”

  He nodded. “No problem.”

  We were standing outside in the heat again. Because, apparently, nothing in Bent was going to be easy. We’d gone to the hospital to view Bubba’s body but were informed by the morgue attendant that we had to clear it with the local sheriff. So back to the Sheriff’s office we went. Luckily I had Cal to do the talking because, after seeing the sheriff ride up on a giraffe that was pretending to be a horse and then strap the genetic experiment to a bicycle rack outside the sheriff’s office, I wasn’t sure I could keep a straight face.