Bubba and the Dead Woman (18 page)

Bubba scowled blackly, and looked over at the bar. Tom Bledsoe stood with his back to Bubba and the major. His reputation was well-earned. He would be around for a few months until he got caught stealing something or other, or someone got tired of him shoplifting in the market. Then he would disappear to jail for a few months. He was, as Sheriff John would say, a re-peat o-ffender. “Say, Tom,” Bubba called darkly.

Tom Bledsoe was a man in his late thirties. He cast an eye over his shoulder at Bubba and Dearman and then at the door, silently calculating odds in his head.

Bubba looked at the picture. It was a wallet sized photo of a toddler, who grinned into the camera, wearing a sailor suit, and a sailor’s cap. He was white-blonde, and in his features, Bubba could clearly see both Melissa and Michael Dearman. “He’s a good looking boy,” Bubba said sincerely. His heart did a little leap for the child that could have been his and Melissa’s. But more importantly, his heart did a little leap for the poor child who would grow up without his mother. Then there was guilt there. Guilt because Bubba was looking to clear his name, not to give peace to a little boy who might want to know why it was that someone felt it was necessary to murder his mother.
Damn whoever did this
.

“Sure he is,” Dearman said. He pulled the wallet back over to him, and examined the picture again. “Didn’t want him to wear the sailor suit, you know. Wanted him to wear something army. Camouflage or something. But the wife thought it would be cute.” His words died away as he considered what he was saying. His wife would never pick out clothing for Michael, Jr. again. He took another long drink of the coffee and didn’t complain about it being non-alcoholic. “Who’re you, anyway?”

“The only one who worked for me around here was that damned, big, old country boy, Bubba. Bubba-Wubba-Bubba.” Then he giggled drunkenly. Bubba sighed.

“I’m Bubba Snoddy.”

“Well, if you are, I ought to kill you. I already hit you once. I could do it again.” Dearman thumped his chest again, like King-Kong. “You killed my wife,” he said amicably.

“Maybe you did,” Bubba said softly.

“Me kill Melissa?” Dearman seemed amazed at the statement. “I
loved
Melissa.” He started to cry, copious tears and sobs tearing away at him, as if his heart were breaking.

Every single person in the tavern almost immediately took a step backwards. Now Bubba understood why they were giving him leeway, and it wasn’t because he was being aggressive. There was nothing, repeat nothing, like a sloppy, crying, depressed drunk to make a bar seem like the most demoralizing place on the face of the Earth.

“I could never kill Melissa,” Dearman sobbed. “She was...she was wonderful.”

“If she were so wonderful, why was she coming to see me, that night?” Bubba asked incredulously.

“She felt guilty!” he suddenly screamed at Bubba. “She never could forgive herself for the way she treated you. She wanted to apologize so she could forgive herself and get on with the rest of our lives. She was coming here to apologize.” Dearman lowered gradually, until it was of a normal level, as if he were talking to his friend. “We talked about it. But I didn’t think she would actually come here. She waited until I went to Italy for a three month temporary tour of duty. She took the kid to my parents. She waited until I wouldn’t find out about it. Then, you still killed her.”

Major Dearman covered his face again, and started to sob loudly again.

Chapter Twelve – Bubba and the Errant Bullet –

Thursday Through Friday

Bubba Snoddy carefully scrutinized Major Michael Dearman. Dearman was officially a drunken mess. The jacket of his uniform was unbuttoned. His tie was half on, wrapped once around his neck, but not tied in a knot. The pins on his medals had broken, leaving the grouping hanging crookedly down his breast. His dress shirt was stained with some unknown substance. And only the god who watched over drunks knew where his saucer cap was presently located. Clearly, he had been at the Dew Drop Inn for a long time, consuming drink after drink, until he could barely stand up or even focus. How much of a liar could Dearman be? How much of a liar could a man who was so drunk be?

Bubba believed Dearman when he had said Melissa had been coming to apologize for what she had done to her former fiancée. Despite her shortcomings she had had her own sense of honor, her own sense of right and wrong. When Bubba had been angry with her, and that had been for a long time after the incident, he hadn’t been rational enough to see that. It was true that she had wanted more from life, but he had never consciously thought that Melissa was simply a golddigger. He knew that she had to have had genuine affection, if not love, for the man she chose to marry. Even if Bubba had walked in on the two of them together, it hadn’t been her plan that he find out that way. She would have told him privately, in a manner that wouldn’t have been welcome, but neither would it have been cruel. She had loved Bubba in her own way as well, and had never wanted to hurt him like they had. So it had eaten away at her, until she had felt compelled to tell him that she was genuinely sorry for what she had been responsible for. The breakup of their union, as well as Bubba’s precipitous exit from the military.

Bubba had loved Melissa once. He had thought he couldn’t feel compassion for her, even dead. But he was wrong. Along with that, he felt compassion for the man who had also loved her.

Dearman was still sobbing on the other side of the table. His hands covered his face, as though the simple action could take away all of the pain from his sight. It would be a long time before that would happen.

Bubba sighed. He silently noted that he was doing a lot of sighing these days. “Come on, Sir. I’ll get you back to the Inn.”
Please, God, don’t let him throw up in my truck or on my dog.

Dearman peeked through his hands. “What, another bar? Why not?” He wiped tears away from his eyes with the back of his hands, like a little kid would do. Then he blew his nose with his sleeve. Bubba tried not to wince and failed. “It’s not like I have to go home,” Dearman added. His face crumpled again. “Oh,
God
.”

Bubba put one of Dearman’s arms around his shoulder and helped him up. The major went on speaking conversationally, “You know, since you killed my wife, life sucks.”

Sometimes
, reckoned Bubba solemnly,
life has the strangest way of coming back and kicking one on the butt. It’s the ironies that make life so interesting.
Dearman wasn’t a lightweight, and most of his not inconsiderable weight rested on Bubba. Together they stumbled through the tavern toward the door.

The bartender said, “Say, Bubba. You going to take him back to the Red Door?” Privately, he was hoping that Bubba wasn’t taking the man out to kill him somewhere, because surely some of the blame would come back on the bartender. “Or maybe to another bar?” he asked hopefully.

“Back to the Red Door. Alive and kicking,” Bubba said, breathing heavily from the effort of moving the major about. “If not puking.”

“Puking?” Dearman repeated thoughtfully, halfway out the front door, one hand on Bubba, the other on the door frame. “Don’t mind if I do.” And he did.

“Ah, Jeez,” the bartender complained loudly, screwing up his face. “Throw up outside! Outside!”

“How much did he have to drink?” Bubba asked suspiciously, watching the major heave and then heave again.

An innocent expression appeared on the bartender’s face.
A veritable angel
, thought Bubba sardonically. “A bottle of Jack Daniels,” the barman said cautiously.

Bubba stared at the man, willing him to finish the total. “And,” continued the barkeep, “a bottle of vodka.”

The sound of vomiting carried clearly inside the bar through the open door. Several patrons made gulping motions. One covered his mouth, as if that would prevent a chain reaction. Bubba’s own stomach twisted in sympathy for the man. “And three Long Island Ice Teas. But that it, I swear.”

Slamming the door behind him, Bubba reached down to support Dearman in his efforts to dispel most of the contents of his stomach. No matter how bad it was, it was the best thing for the man to do.
Much better than having one’s stomach pumped out
, thought Bubba, twisting his face at the smell of alcohol inundating the air.

At least he didn’t eat anything
, Bubba thought.
That would have been really nasty.
His own stomach made a noise that indicated that if he wasn’t careful, parts of chicken-fried steak would be joining the rest of the liquid on the side walk.

Dearman seemed to be done. “I think that’s all,” he slurred. “Thank you, Jesus.”

“God, I hope so,” Bubba said forcefully. He helped Dearman into the truck, which put Precious in her own nasty state of mind, because some human was sitting on her seat. Not only that, but the human smelled terrible and his smell overpowered every other smell in the truck. Sitting between the two of them, she whined pitifully, trying to put herself as close to her master as possible.

“Why would Melissa come see me now? Why not a year ago? Why not a year from now?” Bubba tried to concentrate on the questions that suddenly plagued him. How much of a coincidence would this all be? Melissa comes into town on the one night that Bubba’s all alone at Bufford’s, and as a pile of suspicious thoughts flowed into Bubba’s head, Dearman answered him.

“You called her.”

“The hell I did.” The hell he did.

Dearman groaned again. “After court today, the sheriff said they had a phone record of you calling her last week. Your number. The Snoddy Mansion number. You must have begged her to come.” Then he pitched forward, hit his head on the dash and passed out. Bubba made Dearman as comfortable as possible and started the truck.

Then Bubba drove him back to the Red Door Inn, where Doris Cambliss helped Bubba put the man into bed. Dearman had regained a semblance of consciousness and was mumbling about a potpourri of subject matters, from his dead wife, to Monica Lewinsky, to why the color blue was the best color.

Doris huffed and puffed as she covered Dearman up with a quilt. She waved a hand in front of her face, as if that would disperse the smell of alcohol. “I’m going to have to fumigate this place. How much did he have to drink?”

“Too damn much,” Bubba said sincerely. “Might want to put a bottle of aspirin around for him, because when he wakes up, he’s going to be one sorry, son of a bitch.” He added, “Maybe something for him to vomit in, too.”

“He’s sorry now. I’ll check on him every so often, to make sure he’s doing okay,” she assured Bubba, still waving the hand in front of his face.

They stood in the west wing of the Red Door Inn. The house was built with three distinct wings. The middle part served as the common living areas, such as the kitchen, living room, dining room, and such. The two other wings stuck out like that of a bird’s. Both sides were set up for occupancy. In the years since he had been in the Red Door, it had changed considerably. Bubba asked curiously, “How do you keep your client separate from your...ah...clients?”

“Separate wings, dear,” Doris answered with a shrewd look. “The noise doesn’t carry over to this wing.”

“Mind if I pay my respects to Miss Annalee Hyatt?” Bubba asked with a smile. He always liked to take a gander at her portrait when he was in the Red Door Inn, which wasn’t all that often, anymore. It was some portrait. Life sized and in all her glory, Bubba could see why a Union colonel would fall for her, lock, stock, and barrel.

Doris laughed heartily. She was used to men staring at Miss Annalee. “Sure thing, sugar.”

Bubba left Doris and found his way to the middle wing of the Inn. In a fancified living room with a fireplace so large one could park a car in it was the portrait of Miss Annalee Hyatt. The portrait itself was hung in a prominent area, surrounded by red velvet panels, and framed with gilt edged wood. One couldn’t even walk into the living room without casting a gander at Miss Annalee’s portrait. Her notorious and well-defined figure was poised as if for the centerfold of a magazine, not yet published, bending over a large red velvet covered chair, showing off every bit of her charms. Her hair was brownish blonde and fell to her waist, or it would have if she had been standing up straight, her eyes were like a warm bar of Hershey’s chocolate. She stared out at the observer with those gorgeously inviting eyes that one longed to drown within. It was said that the portrait was true to life and did not exaggerate Miss Annalee.

Miss Annalee had had many admirers. Bubba was certain of that. One was the Union colonel. And there had been another colonel as well who longed for her favors. Truthfully, if the more distasteful rumors were true, then Colonel Snoddy had been another one of Miss Annalee’s ardent swains.

Bubba stared at the life-sized portrait and something suddenly troubled him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was like something was screaming at him to figure it out and he had earmuffs on. Troubled, he looked at the portrait for a long time.