Bubba and the Dead Woman (29 page)

Bubba let out a breath that was the last vestige of hope of his future freedom. If Mark Evans were unconscious he might be able to tell them who had tipped him off about getting fired from Bufford’s. Mark had said something about it when he had served Bubba his grand jury notice. Bubba hadn’t been at the top of his game that day and it had slipped past him. But it wasn’t slipping past him now.

They had to try, however. All of them loaded up, drove to Pegram County General Hospital, where a nurse screamed at them about the hygiene of animals until Willodean said that Precious was a seeing-eye dog and Mike pretended that he was blind, stumbling crookedly into a wall, a coke machine and a little old lady in a wheelchair until the determined nurse relented. They badgered another nurse into taking them into the critical care unit, where they ended up staring down at Mark Evans, who was, thankfully (for him), unconscious.

Mark was a mass of bruises, casts, bandages, and tubes. Dan Gollihugh had wiped the proverbial floor with him, and then squeezed him out to dry.

“I don’t think he’s coming to, any time soon,” said the nurse not unkindly.

“Well crap,” Mike said. “I mean, carp. You’re going to have to wait until he wakes up.”

Bubba didn’t say anything. It could be days, weeks, or months before Mark woke up. Provided he woke up at all.
The pitiful dumb son of a bitch
.

“Jesus Christ have mercy,” said a new voice. “Do you know how hard it was to track you down, Bubba Snoddy? Do you have any idea how many places you’ve been today since skipping out of the jail? Do you know how much gossip is circulating in this cesspool that we call home?”

Everyone in the crowded hospital room turned to look at the latest addition. It was Miz Demetrice, and boy-howdy, was she ticked off.

Chapter Twenty – Bubba Goes to Jail…Again…But Not Before a Little Trip to the Local Bordello -

Saturday

There Miz Demetrice Snoddy stood in all her livid glory. She was wearing the same charcoal gray suit she had on when she’d reluctantly stepped on board the Amtrak train, with not inconsiderable assistance from her son, Bubba Snoddy. She was missing her bag and her hair was mussed as if she had been driving in a convertible with the top down. The teeth-gnashing expression on her face that spoke of the future hell that lay in Bubba’s life concerning his recent betrayal. Finally, there was a silent tall man standing behind her fretfully shuffling his feet.

Miz Demetrice glanced angrily at the rest of the group and then Precious, who hid behind Tee Gearheart. Lastly she looked briefly at Mark Evans lying supremely unconscious in the hospital bed. She brought her glare back to Bubba and then instantly went back to Mark. “What in the name of holy peaches and cream happened to him?” She took a step forward. “Is that that young man who served you your papers the other day, Bubba? Did you beat him up? My lord, the young man looks like Elgin the time I tried to run him down with the bushhog. The mean bastard was more resilient than I figured. Of course, that didn’t stop me from drowning him later.”

The critical care nurse, who had been in a state of shock, suddenly came to her senses and declared authoritatively, “Everyone’s going to have to clear out of here. Especially the dog.”

Before anyone could tell the nurse that Precious was a seeing eye dog or Mike could stumble into a wall or piece of equipment, Precious went to nip the nurse’s ankle. Bubba caught Precious by the collar before any damage could be accomplished. However, the group obediently piled out of the room, leaving Mark alone and blissfully unaware of the glorious melodrama that was occurring all around him.

Bubba let go of Precious and pointed at the tall man who had followed Miz Demetrice into the hospital. “Who the heck is that, Ma?”

“Oh, that’s Joe Bruce,” she answered reasonably. “He gave me a ride back when the Amtrak stopped in Waxahachie. Right friendly fella. Told him all about the goings on around here, and he thought he’d take a gander.”

“Hey,” Joe Bruce said. He was in his fifties, well over six feet tall, and had gray inquisitive eyes. Bubba sized him up and decided he was harmless. Miz Demetrice had probably told him about the Snoddy Mansion and the Snoddy estates and Joe Bruce thought he was going to hook a live one. If that was truly the case, then Bubba would quickly and unequivocally dissuade Joe Bruce.

“Now what?” Willodean said. Tee nodded in agreement of the question.

Mike Holmgreen said, “You talked to Melvin. He corroborated your story. So did Mary Bradley. Probably Mark Evans would too, ifin he were awake. If that isn’t enough to suggest Bubba is innocent, then I reckon you need to find that guy that filmed all those cops beating up that guy in L.A. and ask him who his lawyer was.”

Tee lightly smacked Mike on the back of his head. “Son, do you even know what corroborate means?”

Miz Demetrice was mentally chewing on the information she had received. “Bubba, why are you wearing hand cuffs? And all these people are saying that someone set it up so you would be the only one at Bufford’s that night? So you’d be the one everyone thought was guilty.”

Willodean gritted her teeth and thought about going home to her quiet and cozy place, listening to Nina Simone sing the sultry blues, and drinking some chamomile tea after she was summarily dismissed for gross dereliction of duty. Finally, she ungritted her teeth and said, “Bubba, what next? I’m out of ideas and what I should do is run the three of you,” she was including Mike, Tee, and Bubba in that count, “back to the jail.”

Miz Demetrice quickly got into the swing of things. The beautiful deputy, the oversized jailor, and the absconding arsonist were all on Bubba’s side. It was a whole lot better than nothing. “What have we got?” she asked. “I mean, what’s the evidence that proves Bubba’s been set up?”

“And that same someone killed Neal Ledbetter and planted the rifle in the back of Bubba’s truck,” Willodean mused. “But they wiped all the prints off the weapon, which doesn’t seem like something Bubba would do if he were putting the gun back into his own truck.” Then she turned and looked intently at Bubba. “So what does Melissa Dearman have to do with someone getting their hands on the Snoddy properties?”

“Her? Not a damn thing,” Bubba muttered irately. “She just happened to be a woman that if she were murdered, I could be easily framed for her death. She would have been easier to get to come to Pegramville than her husband would have been, as he was in Italy. Once Melissa was dead and I was suitably framed, I suspect Miz Demetrice would have been forced to sell off the Snoddy Mansion and the Snoddy lands to pay for a decent lawyer. Neal Ledbetter would have swooped in with a take-it-or-leave-it offer, betting that Miz Demetrice would have been so demoralized by the whole sorry affair that she would have taken it immediately.” He glanced at his mother. “Neal definitely would have been underestimating Mama.” It wasn’t a compliment and he didn’t mean it to be.

Miz Demetrice glared.

“Then Neal would have gotten the property to be the next Wal-Mart Supercenter and his collaborators in crime would have all the time in the world to find what they were looking for.” Bubba went on, ignoring his mother.

“Oh, for the love of St. Peter,” Willodean cursed. “
What
the hell were they looking for?”

“Confederate gold,” Bubba said slowly. “A whole wagon load of it. Stolen from the Confederacy in 1864. That’s what that article in
People magazine
was all about. Lost treasure. That’s why there are about a million holes in the ground on the Snoddy properties. That’s why someone broke into the library and stole Colonel Snoddy’s private papers. Gold. Gold. And a little more gold.”

Miz Demetrice groaned. “Damned frumpy Miz Clack should have called and told me about the stolen papers. Uptight librarian.”

The expression on Willodean’s face was as priceless the smile on the Mona Lisa. It declared with great skepticism that she didn’t believe it. The Snoddy stolen Confederate gold story was a big fat crock and a tall tale and the smelliest horse poop she’d ever smelled.

Tee nodded and added, “Folks have been running out to the Snoddy place for the last hundred years to dig a hole here or there. The fact that ain’t no one found it don’t seem to be stopping people.”

Joe Bruce said with an avaricious note, “How much gold is in a wagon load?”

Miz Demetrice rolled her eyes. “Hundreds of pounds. Do you need a calculator, dear?” She stopped to gather her thoughts and then added, “Before I murdered Elgin by putting a rattlesnake in his bed, he used to go out and frequently dig holes, especially when he was drunk. He never found anything either. And Elgin knew about the truth of the matter. Couldn’t help himself.”

“Okay, I’ll buy lost Confederate gold as a reason,” Willodean said reluctantly. “But how about
who?
”

“Do we have time for one more trip?” Bubba asked with a devilish glint in his eye. “You won’t regret it.”

Twenty minutes later they were standing in a lavishly decorated living room. Red velvet abounded. Satin glimmered in the light of real Tiffany stained-glassed lamps. A lead crystal chandelier stridently glittered its proclamation that gaudy but dazzling garnishment was not dead. When someone said that a room was decorated like early American whorehouse, they were talking about this room, right down to the actual sized portrait of a naked woman leaning over a red velvet chair.

Bubba, Willodean, Miz Demetrice, Mike, Tee, Joe Bruce, and Precious were all staring up at the portrait of Miss Annalee Hyatt, savior of Pegramville from the Union.

Doris Cambliss had let them in without aplomb and hadn’t even commented when Bubba had told her what they needed to look at. “What took you so long?” she asked knowingly. Bubba blinked with trifling confusion.

“Wow,” Mike said, his eyes locked on the portrait.

“Shut your mouth before you drool on the carpet,” Tee instructed. He’d seen the portrait before, but he didn’t want to admit it where it might get back to Poppiann in her delicate and highly volatile state. That was Tee’s major A-number-One rule lately: Thou shall not upset a pregnant woman. He intended on following that rule diligently.

Joe Bruce said, “Good Golly Miss Molly.”

“Miss Annalee,” Bubba corrected lightly.

“You know,” Miz Demetrice said quietly, “I always wanted to see what this portrait looked like. Elgin, before I shot him dead with a muzzle-loader, used to visit the Red Door Inn frequently.” She folded her arms across her chest and carefully scrutinized the portrait. Then she tilted her head to one side. Unconsciously, Bubba, Tee, and Mike did the same thing.

“I believe Mother Snoddy,” she said, referring to Bubba’s paternal grandmother, “said she was from someplace in the west. The northwest, if I recollect correctly.”

“That might be someplace like Oregon or Washington,” Bubba said musingly.

“Yep,” Tee said. “Poppiann wants to visit Mt. St. Helens one day. So she can see it pop.” He grimaced. “Don’t know what’s got her thinking that way. Anyway, they call that whole section the northwest.”

“Wow,” Mike said again.

“You know,
Washington
,” Miz Demetrice said calculatingly. “The state.”

“But why now? Why not Miss Annalee’s daughter or her grandchildren? Why now?” Tee asked quietly.

“Something happened,” Bubba said. “Like someone looked through an old chest. Someone read some old diaries. Something. Maybe they were doing some genealogy and dug up something in some old letter their mother had stuck in the middle of a family bible. They came across that old
People
article and suddenly discovered a love for old papers.”