Bubba and the Dead Woman (6 page)

“Oh, Bubba,” she had said, looking up at him with sad eyes. “We were going to tell you. I swear. This weekend. We’re going to get married. Me and Michael.” She had stroked his head, as the man on the floor struggled to overcome pain and regain a little composure.

“You got your officer, then, ‘Lissa?” he had asked, numbly. It was the one thing that had popped into his head. It had been the meanest, most cruel thing he thought that he had ever said to another human being. Although it was true he still regretted the words.

Melissa had stared up at him with her large, blue eyes, eyes so blue they had reminded him of the afternoon skies in spring. Her chest had been heaving with exertion; her honey-colored hair was askew. She hadn’t said anything to him. As a matter of fact, it had been the last time she had said anything to Bubba at all.

Bubba had called an ambulance and the police, in that order. The captain’s arm had looked to be broken, and indeed it had been. He had spent a night in the local jail, before the military police came to collect him. They called it a general discharge under other conditions than honorable. Before a month had passed, Melissa had received her own general discharge and married Captain Michael Dearman. A spiteful part of Bubba had wondered if it were in order to avoid charges pressed against the officer and Melissa herself. After all, Michael Dearman had been Melissa’s commanding officer, as well as Bubba’s. And Bubba had found the two of them in bed together, obviously fraternizing with each other. On another level, the captain and Melissa had been in as much trouble as he had been.

So Melissa Dearman nee Connor had gotten her officer. There had been a few people, Army buddies, who had written to Bubba once or twice. One had stopped over last year on his way to another post. They had told Bubba that Melissa and the captain seemed to be happy. She had gotten pregnant last year, and given birth to a boy. The captain had been promoted to major and went to some battalion on another post, taking his family with him, the temporary scandal seemingly not affecting his career ladder. To be certain, Captain Dearman hadn’t been the first to marry an enlisted woman, nor would he be the last. Bubba hadn’t heard anything else about them and he hadn’t cared to hear anymore.

That was, until Melissa had shown up dead, almost on his doorstep. She had been using a rental car. Had she flown in from wherever they were stationed now?

What had Melissa wanted with Bubba? Bubba couldn’t imagine that Melissa wanted to declare her rediscovered love for him. She had been too pragmatic for that. She had had her life mapped out for her. Her husband would make major, then lieutenant colonel, and most certainly the rank of colonel. If it were possible he would wear the star of a general. Then he would retire and start as a consultant to a lucrative defense contractor, with the family at home, doing officer’s wifely things. Perhaps he might dabble in politics, with his serene, beautiful wife at his side; his two point five children would be on his other side. That had been the world that she had been on her way to. Perhaps she had genuine feelings for Michael Dearman, Bubba didn’t know, and didn’t care to know for the last three years.
But what in the name of God had ‘Lissa been doing in Pegramville, looking for him?

Because, as sure as the day was long, Melissa hadn’t known anyone else in this small town hundreds of miles away from the big cities, perhaps a thousand miles from where she presently lived with her husband and family. Because, as sure as night falls, she was here to see him, and him alone. Because, as sure as the leaves will fall in autumn, Bubba was the only one who knew Melissa and had the only reason to kill her.

Bubba was the one Sheriff John was looking at with a rapt, disconcerting eye, because Bubba almost certainly could be the only one who had any reason to kill Melissa Dearman.

And Bubba was going to jail on a permanent basis unless he could figure out who had killed Melissa and damned quickly.

Bubba snapped back to the present with a precipitous feeling that left him feeling discombobulated. His path became clear to him. He had to solve the murder, before the sheriff solved him, solved him right onto death row, waiting for the deadly drip to take him into the next world. A place where he couldn’t do a damned thing about who had really murdered Melissa Dearman.

His first stop was the Pegram Café where Lurlene was working. Bubba needed to use the phone as well as flirt shamelessly with the blonde haired thing. After a man had spent a time or two in the jail, a pretty, young, encouraging woman was just the trick to make things seem a little more pleasant.

Lurlene dropped a plate of eggs, hash browns, grits, and bacon unceremoniously on the counter when she saw Bubba coming through the door. She threw up her arms and shrieked, “Bubba!” Then she leaped into his arms and kissed him. He was, after all, a big man, and caught her very nicely. “They let you out!” she yelled.

Bubba winced. She had yelled directly in his ear. “Yes, Miss Lurlene, I noticed that.”

“Well, Bubba, what are they going to do?” she asked, still in his arms. She studied him carefully with her warm, brown eyes.

Bubba looked around at a crowd of interested faces. He thanked the Lord above that the Pegram Café was a small café, with only enough room for twenty people. However, every chair was full at nine in the morning on this particular morning and their attention was focused fully on Bubba. He waded through the crowd, accepting the odd, “Good to see you, Bubba.” “Did they torture you, Bubba? That’s what Miz Demetrice said.” “We knew you dint do it, Bubba.” Finally, he deposited Lurlene back at the counter, where she blushed furiously, picked up the dropped plate of eggs and fixings, and went back to work.

Noey Wheatfall, the cook and owner of the Pegram Café, came out with a white chef’s hat on his head and a white apron wrapped around his torso. He grinned at Bubba, and said, “Hey, Bubba, did you see the paper yesterday?”

Noey was a good-looking man, about ten years older than Bubba. He had dark brown hair cut short, and the eyes to match. He wasn’t as big as Bubba, but he wasn’t a short man either. He was also married with four children, all of whom could be found in the café helping out in the summer time. His wife, Nancy, also was a hard worker. She spent most of her days at the manure factory as a secretary, and her evenings helping at the café. Bubba liked Nancy, but had never quite taken a liking to her husband. If he had had to put a reason to it, it would have been that Noey always seemed a little too slick, a little too smiley, and a little too eager with the ladies on nights when his wife was off doing something else. But Bubba hadn’t really thought about it before, and the thought only sat with him now because Noey was looking directly at him and asking, “That was some kind of headline, huh?”

“Hell, use the phone in my office,” Noey replied cheerfully. Then his face twisted. “Don’t those folks over at the jail let you make a phone call?”

Bubba smiled weakly at the other man and followed him into his office. Noey left promptly without saying anything else. He dialed his phone number and waited for Miz Demetrice to answer.

Adelia Cedarbloom answered the phone about twenty rings later. Adelia was his mother’s housekeeper as well as confidant as well as general dog’s body. She gave him a cold hello, and told him that his mother was talking to their state representative at the town twenty miles down the road. “About you, course,” she answered when Bubba asked why. Bubba told her that he had been released from jail, and would be home presently, if Miz Demetrice deigned to telephone.

“Thank the Lord almighty!” said Adelia wholeheartedly. “I have heard about what happens to men in places like that. It is a good thing that you are much bigger than most. You know that if you went to prison, as big as you are, you could have yourself a bitch.”

Bubba asked her to repeat herself. He thought that maybe he had something in his ears, because she couldn’t have said what he thought she had said.

“You know, you could run the place, because no one would dare mess with you,” Adelia explained patiently. “When a man controls another man, that other man is called a bitch. I heard it on television.”

“Have you been watching those daytime shows again, Miz Adelia?” asked Bubba.

“Of course not. There’s too much trash on that show. I don’t believe they could find so many people who are sleeping with their girlfriend and their girlfriend’s other boyfriend at the same time. They just make that trumpery up.” Adelia’s voice was indignant, but obviously she still watched the show, like a dirty little secret in her closet, kind of like the dirty little secrets on the show.

Bubba wasn’t positive, but had an idea that the dark haired, dark eyed forty-ish woman who had been with Demetrice for the last twenty years, was a co-conspirator in the infamous weekly, Pegram County Pokerama. The game was getting to be so well known that they moved it to a new and previously unused location each week. The phone at the big Snoddy house rang off the hook the day before the game, so that Bubba didn’t dare answer it, if he happened to be in the house. But mostly Bubba wouldn’t answer it because Adelia would beat him to it, and give him a don’t-you-dare look besides.

It had been true that he had been expecting the police to show up at the Snoddy place, but for an altogether different reason than the one which actually had occurred.

Adelia continued to speak on the other end of the telephone, “I’m sure glad you’re coming home. All kinds of trouble makers out here, lately.”

Bubba sat down heavily in Noey’s chair. “What do you mean, Miz Adelia?”

“Saturday night, Miz Demetrice, had to shoot at someone trying to steal something off the front porch. Your mama ain’t so young anymore that she should be getting knocked down from shooting that blasted elephant gun. Her posterior was so bruised, she couldn’t sit down most of Sunday. She said that someone was messing around the property last night around midnight, too. Like that be something new around here. Precious was howling up a storm, mind you. Miz Demetrice decided to keep her in the big house last night, and weren’t it a good thing, too.”

Bubba digested this information. “Thank you, Miz Adelia. I’ll be home tonight. I’ll take care of it.”

“You best do so, before Miz Demetrice up and kills someone.”

The phone line was buzzing in his ear, before Bubba realized that Adelia had hung up. But Bubba was thinking about his mother. Miz Demetrice had a mighty fine temper when she was so thwarted. She could be vexed about certain matters for months. Last year alone, she would cross the street, rather than walk on the same sidewalk as Susan Teasdale. Susan’s offense was that she wore the exact same hat as Miz Demetrice to the big church social on Easter Sunday. Of course, Susan had known full well that she was wearing the same hat as Miz Demetrice. She had done so specifically to infuriate Miz Demetrice, for reasons that dated back three decades. It had been something about Susan dating Elgin Snoddy before Miz Demetrice, and just look who ended up marrying him, and becoming the infamous Snoddy matriarch.

Bubba snorted to himself. Susan had gotten the better end of the bargain, but Miz Demetrice sure wouldn’t admit that. Susan had married a Baptist preacher, who had a church on the far side of Pegramville, and was doing very well, thank you. But the gist of all of it was that Miz Demetrice held a grudge. Hell, she probably couldn’t even remember why she disliked Susan to begin with.

But back to the point that Bubba had been so laboriously making in his head. If Miz Demetrice’s one and only child had been hurt, and there had been no doubt that Bubba had been hurt badly, she would have held a grudge against Melissa Dearman, no matter why Melissa had come calling past 10 PM on a Thursday night.

Bubba could picture it in his mind. Melissa pulls up to the Snoddy house, and sees Miz Demetrice there, hurrying to go to her poker game. Melissa introduces herself. Miz Demetrice rushes into the house, finds Elgin Snoddy’s old Army .45, and returns to shoot Melissa in the back. All in the name of revenge upon her only, beloved son.

Bubba snorted again. Then he laughed. Then he laughed harder. Noey even peeped into his office to see just what in the name of God Bubba was laughing at, and had he lost his mind? When Bubba was done laughing, he wiped a tear away from his eye. He had laughed so hard, his eyes had watered, and his gut ached.

The truth was that if Miz Demetrice wanted to kill someone, she would have shot them in their face. It was even more likely she would have clubbed them right between the eyes with a baseball bat. Then she would have called the police herself, and confessed immediately. The fact of matter was that when Melissa had driven up to the Snoddy place Miz Demetrice had been long gone and at her floating poker party, already taking someone’s social security money from them with an evil smile.

It wouldn’t be hard to verify. Probably ten women could attest to when Miz Demetrice arrived, and ten more to when she left. As soon as he verified that fact, Bubba would make a list of suspects. Who had access to the grounds? Who had motive to kill Melissa? Who had a gun? Who would want Bubba framed for a murder?

Chapter Five - Bubba Still Makes a List -

Still Monday

Bubba Snoddy made his list. The problem was that it was a small list. Miz Demetrice Snoddy was at the top of the list. For all of the reasons he had listed mentally before, she was at the very top of the list. She was the pinnacle of Mount Everest on the list. She had motive. She had the weapon. She had opportunity. However, all he had to do was to verify her alibi, and she would be crossed off.

Then there was Adelia Cedarbloom, listed for the same reason as his mother. She would have felt the same indignant anger over Bubba’s abrupt dis-engagement and exit from the military service as Demetrice had. Adelia also had the motive. She had access to Elgin Snoddy’s military .45 caliber handgun, the same as his mother. She might have been present when Melissa Dearman had driven up, and introduced herself to the housekeeper. Perhaps Adelia had just been trying to scare Melissa off. But Bubba realized that whoever was chasing Melissa hadn’t wanted her near her rental car. She had been going in the opposite direction. No, it was no accident. It was murder, no doubt about it.