Bubba and the Dead Woman (7 page)

Then there was Lurlene Grady, listed for the same reason, but then Bubba crossed her off, because he didn’t think she was capable of producing a violent, shoot-someone-in-the-back anger that had been necessary to accomplish the task. Then Bubba put her back on his list because he thought maybe it had been jealousy. Lurlene might have the motive. They had dated several times. Six official dates, to be precise, and Bubba didn’t want to forget that. She very well could know about Bubba’s history. Working at the Pegram Café was like working in a gossip factory. Anyone that Bubba cared to point at on the street probably knew the story, although Bubba had only told his mother, and she had sworn up and down on a stack of bibles that she had only told Adelia. Three-quarters of the population of Pegramville probably went into the Café during the odd day, in order to catch up on their daily ration of gossip, and maybe pass it on it on to the Café’s waitresses or whomever else was there to listen. But what had Lurlene been doing from 10 PM to 1 AM on Thursday night and early Friday morning? And had she felt sufficiently angered by Bubba’s ex-fiancée to do such a thing? And how would she have known that Melissa would be anywhere about? Bubba would have to find out.

Bubba added another name to his list. Major Michael Dearman. In every crime drama he’d ever seen on television or at the movies, the husband was the first logical suspect. Yeppers. The spouse was the number one killer of murdered significant others. So here was the mental scenario that Bubba came up with, concerning Major Dearman as the killer. Melissa had decided that Bubba had been, after all, the love of her life. She was going to visit him, and tell him so, begging him to forgive her, and run away to live in Bubba-like happiness. The insanely jealous major follows, and in a rage, kills his wife, practically on Bubba’s door step, leaving the self-same Bubba to take the rap, while he slips out of town unseen and unnoticed.

Bubba considered. Or maybe Melissa had grown tiresome. Perhaps the major hadn’t made lieutenant colonel in a record amount of time. He hadn’t been nominated for such and such award. He got a bad evaluation. He was making the officer’s wife look bad to all the other officer’s wives, so she was on his back. So the major wanted Melissa out of the way. And looky here, here was Bubba to take the rap. All he had to do was to get Melissa out here and then shoot her dead on the Snoddy property. Then he would wait for the bad news and let the insurance money flow into his bank account.

Sighing, Bubba scratched that theory out with a savage pen stroke. But how would Major Michael Dearman know about the missing .45 caliber handgun? He wouldn’t. If he were a smart murderer, and Bubba thought that he had to have some brains in order to be a major, then he wouldn’t take the chance of the slug being found, and identified to the correct murder weapon. But then it could have all been a spur of the moment murder.

Bubba’s head was starting to ache as if he had drunk a jug of moonshine the night before.

From the Pegram Café he hoofed it home, relieved Adelia of the burden that was his dog, Precious, and retreated to his domain, the caretaker’s house. He and the dog walked carefully around the crime-scene area still taped off with canary yellow tape that was labeled ‘Police line – DO NOT CROSS.’ Bubba scowled when he saw that Melissa’s rental car was still parked at the side of the house. Precious was cheerfully oblivious, content that her master was home and pranced in the only way that a basset hound can, long ears flopping in the air and jowls going every which way.

When Bubba entered the caretaker’s house, his own home, he immediately noticed that it had been searched. It was a Spartan home with only the necessities. So cleaning the house didn’t take much out of Bubba, which was just the way he liked it, thank you very much. The oak plank floors only needed a sweeping here and there. Some of the oil paintings, cast-offs from the big house, on the walls, needed to be wiped off upon occasion to keep dust from growing so large that an extra placemat was necessary at the dining room table. Once a year, Adelia showed up to do all of the floors and all of the windows, whether it needed it or not.

It was a house with two floors and a simple veranda. It didn’t look much like the small stable it had once been. The first floor was a living room with a walk through hallway that led right to the back door. This was commonly referred to as a shotgun hallway, because one could fire a shotgun from outside the front door and hit someone outside the back door, provided both doors were conveniently open and one wished to shoot the other person. The kitchen was in a cubby hole out back, with not nearly enough room for a man as big as Bubba to turn around in. On the second floor were two bedrooms. One was empty, and the other held Bubba’s bed, upon which he tended to sleep diagonally or his feet would stick out on the ends, and a simple armoire.

But with all of the sparse furniture and fixings, he could tell that all of the things had been moved around. The downstairs were more obvious. The ratty couch had been moved a few feet away from its original position. The rug it sat on was cockeyed, from someone yanking it up to look underneath. Pictures hung crooked. The book that Bubba had been reading had been dropped carelessly to the floor, bending some pages in the process, and left that way. He picked it up, and straightened up the folded pages, then replaced the book on the coffee table.

They were looking for the gun
, thought Bubba.
The gun that killed Melissa
.

There was a little desk in the corner. It was called a lady’s desk, because it was about the quarter of the size of a regular desk. It was a delicate thing made out of mahogany, and shined to a dark brilliance. It had used to belong to Miz Demetrice when she had been a child. His mother had given it to Bubba when he was in elementary school. Bubba once thought he might like to give it to a daughter of his own, but he didn’t think that was much likely these days. Bubba went to it, and rolled up the cover. Then he got out writing paper and a pen.

He sat himself down on the couch and made himself the list of suspects. Precious sidled up to her master and lay down under him, placing her head delicately on his boot, big brown eyes staring upward. She didn’t know what the issue was, but she was going to offer her dogly protection and compassion to her master no matter what the situation.

For the life of him Bubba couldn’t think of why anyone else in this town would want to murder Melissa. No one knew her. She hadn’t been robbed. Her purse had been sitting in the passenger seat of the rental car, all the money and credit cards intact. Tee Gearheart had told him so on Sunday, when the man hadn’t had anything better to do. He had also told him that the keys to the rental car had been found half-way from the big house to where Melissa had ended up in the long grass.

Bubba swore tiredly at himself. As soon as that crime scene tape came down he was going to mow that grass so low it wouldn’t come back for the entire summer. He might even burn it so that it wouldn’t grow back for years. That is, if he got the chance to do so.

All of the things he considered told him logically that there was only one conclusion, since it wasn’t a robbery, and Melissa hadn’t been molested. She had been completely dressed when he’d found her. So it was a murder. She was there. Someone else was there. Someone else had a forty-five gun, perhaps even Elgin Snoddy’s own weapon from Viet Nam. Someone else had capped Melissa in the back as she was running away, and she had died instantly.

Bubba ruminated. Melissa had known she was in danger, which was why she was running away. What would make her think so? An aggravated woman coming at her, yelling, with a big old, forty-five in their hands, pointed at her? Sure would make Bubba run like hell, if it had happened to him. Come to think of it, it probably had happened at least once when he was really, really shnookered.

There was also the moral issue that was tearing Bubba apart. He desperately wanted it to be the husband who had done this terrible thing to Melissa. Then there wouldn’t be a moral issue to deal with. Because if Bubba found out that his mother or Adelia had slipped out during the poker game, to get something from the house, for example, then what could he do? And if Bubba found the gun hidden someplace, with his mother’s fingerprints on it, or perhaps Adelia’s on the grip, then what?

There was only one thing to do. He would have to confess to the crime. He would go to Sheriff John himself, and tell him this story. It had been a fit of anger. He had seen Melissa at Bufford’s Gas and Grocery. He had followed her to his own home, where no one was home. She had parked her car. He had parked his truck. He had gotten out. She had spoken to him, standing outside for a minute. Perhaps he had invited her in, asking her to wait for a moment. He had known exactly where Pa’s old M1911 .45 caliber pistol was, in the top of Miz Demetrice’s closet. He had pulled it out, loaded it, and returned downstairs. Maybe Melissa had seen the look in his eyes; she had known what it meant. She had seen that look before, once before. She had run out the door, and Bubba had chased after her. She couldn’t get to her car in time. Bubba was right in back of her. She could hear his breath coming faster and faster. The noise of her heart and adrenaline was almost deafening. There was another house! Perhaps someone was there to help her. She had headed in that direction. But there was a single gunshot that broke the night. She wouldn’t know that the nearest neighbors were almost a mile away and wouldn’t hear the blast. She wouldn’t know because she was dead before she hit the ground.

Bubba would know because he had been an expert marksman in the military. He had grown up with guns. His grandfathers’ on both sides had taught him well. Sheriff John probably already knew that. Even though he didn’t own a single one, he had access to them. Miz Demetrice had a boocoodle of guns stashed all over the mansion, most of them belonging to Snoddy ancestors.

It was the only thing that made sense. Then Bubba would tell Sheriff John that he had driven back to work, throwing the gun out the truck window somewhere along Sturgis Creek. He wouldn’t remember exactly where he had tossed it.

Bubba sighed. But before he confessed to a crime he hadn’t committed, a crime that he couldn’t have committed, he had to find out if his mother or Adelia had done it. He simply didn’t have the time to waste. The sheriff was, even now, doing background checks on Bubba. He knew about the incident with Melissa Dearman’s husband. He was probably talking to Major Dearman this very day, if he hadn’t previously done so. He probably had already spoken to Melissa’s parents about the same incident. Sheriff John might even have a copy of the report from the night that Bubba had broken Major Dearman’s arm. All Sheriff John had to do was wait for the results of the gunshot residue test that Deputy Simms had performed on Bubba’s hands to come back. Then once he had pretty much summed up a time line that indicated that Bubba had every opportunity to kill Melissa and not an alibi in sight, Bubba would be indicted and arrested, posthaste. He could have been wearing gloves. Bubba probably had been planning this for years. Sure, yes, indeedy. Bubba was guilty. No doubt about it.

Bubba put the pen down onto of the sheet of paper, and reached one of his big hands down to scratch Precious’s ear. She tilted her head into the gesture, milking it for all it was worth, leaning her body into it. Then she looked up at her master with a baleful eye, silently rebuking him for having left her with Miz Demetrice and Adelia over the weekend.
You should have seen what they made me do,
she seemed to say.
They cooed at me. A lot. Then Miz Adelia gave me a bath, and she put perfume in the water. I’m nice now, but wait until I leave you a little present in one of your boots. A big, smelly present. So there
.

“You want to play ball, Precious,” Bubba cooed at her too. “Little wubby precious dog.”

Bite me.
Precious moved her head away from Bubba’s hand. It was time for a dog to play hard to get.

“I know you want to play,” Bubba continued. “Get that ball.”

The hell with playing hard to get
! Precious exploded for the kitchen where her ball was located, baying all the way down the hall, her claws clattering down the oak floor.

“Now wouldn’t it be nice if a woman were like that,” muttered Bubba. Only a little thing to keep her happy, not one to hold a grudge for more than a few minutes. He shook his head, and went out back, where he didn’t have to look at the crime scene tape or the rental car, and played with his dog.

Adelia looked out from one of the third story windows in the big house, and saw him, throwing the ball for Precious to retrieve again and again. She paused a moment, paper towels in one hand, and a bottle of Windex in the other. Then she sighed, continuing on with her work. It was nice to see Bubba acting halfway normally again. Adelia thought,
Oh, the pain and misery that woman has brought into our lives. Now she’s back, even if she’s dead, to do it all again. That one will haunt Bubba from beyond the grave.

An hour later, Bubba got a call from George Bufford in the Bahamas. In front of the fire place on a Mexican rug, Precious was snoring, all four paws in the air, the picture of doglike contentment. She was dreaming of large, red balls, and leaping endlessly over tufts of grass.

“Say, Bubba,” said George, unceremoniously. “This is George Bufford.”

Bubba wasn’t exactly ecstatic to hear from his boss. But neither was he surprised. He didn’t know how exactly George had heard the goings on from the Bahamas where he was having a rip-roaring time with Rosa Granado, his nubile and voluptuous secretary. However, it was true that the CIA didn’t have a thing on how the tiny city of Pegramville did business. “Say, George,” he replied neutrally. “How’s Minnesota?”

George hesitated for a moment. Bubba could clearly hear a woman’s giggle in the background and he was sure that if he listened closely he could probably hear palm fronds gently wafting in a Caribbean breeze. “Fine. Fine.” He paused again. “Well, boy, I heard about your difficulties.”