Bubba and the Dead Woman (17 page)

Lurlene had ordered another salad. She paused with a fork full of lettuce and blue cheese dressing and pointed it for emphasis. “If you’re gonna execute someone, at least give him a choice.”

The rest of Bubba’s chicken-fried steak covered with thick, creamy gravy suddenly didn’t look so appetizing to him. Lurlene went on, “I hear that Gary Gilmore got to choose between being shot, hanged,
or
electrocuted. Now that’s a progressive state.”

Miz Demetrice, ever one to get involved in an open discussion, said, “Well, they do allow polygamy there.”

“No, they don’t,” Lurlene asserted. Her features flushed with red. Abruptly, her half southern accent vanished, and she spoke as though was from some mid-western state, without any discernable accent at all. “Utah doesn’t allow it. They just don’t prosecute it much.”

The younger woman suddenly sat up straight, having abruptly discerned that Miz Demetrice was trying to yank her chains. “This is very good salad,” she said, brightly, showing her teeth like a pit bull about to go for the femoral artery. Her accent returned to pseudo-southern. “How’s your steak, Bubba?”

Bubba studied the lumpy, congealed mess that he formerly thought very palatable. “It was good.” He paused and said to his mother, “What about the major?”

“Sorry, dear,” his mother said. “He took one look at me, and said I could go straight to hell.” Her blue eyes studied nothing at all for a moment as she considered her own statement. “Well, it wasn’t exactly what he said, but that was the gist of it.”

Bubba nodded tiredly. Miz Demetrice could find out a number of things, but only if she had a foot in the door. Given a little time, he didn’t doubt that his mother could wiggle her way into the Connor’s lives, as well as Major Dearman’s, finding out every tidbit of information that he needed to know. There was a problem, however; he didn’t have the time to waste.Bubba had thought what occurred at the court house ought to have made him feel better. The Honorable Judge Posey had given away a lot of useful information. One, the polygraph results had been officially confirmed. He had passed. Or in technical terms, nothing he said was determined to be deceptive in nature. Two, Bubba’s gunshot residue test had been negative. Three, none of Bubba’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. However, here was the bad part. Sheriff John had every intention of continuing to pursue Bubba as his main suspect. If maybe the evidence didn’t point right to Bubba, then the sheriff was gonna find some more that maybe did point right to Bubba. And that was even if Sheriff John had to point out to the jury that the evidence pointed right at Bubba. As if anyone in Pegram County didn’t already know he was the main suspect and had already been arrested for the deed.

Sheriff John was looking for people who might have gone to Bufford’s Gas and Grocery and found it empty during the critical time period. Bubba knew that they wouldn’t find any, but people might confused after a week or two and think maybe they
had
passed the store that particular night and maybe it
had
appeared empty.

Furthermore, Bubba was sure that Sheriff John or Deputy Simms could find someone who thought maybe that they had seen Bubba’s green Chevy truck driving that way around that time, even if they weren’t sure it was, in fact, on the correct night of the week. Bubba drove down that road all of the time. Sometimes when he had taken a break from mechanicking, he would drive himself home for a dinner break, and to watch the news and Jay Leno. If Sheriff John pushed hard enough, someone was going to say, “Well, maybe it could have been Thursday night last. No, wait, I’m sure of it. No, I’m not. Yes, I am sure.” Then in court the witness would be bull-doggedly determined that on the night in question the evil, wrong-doing Bubba Snoddy had been driving down by the creek toward the Snoddy place with an iniquitous expression on his face, as if he were unshakable in his attempt to murder the woman who had once done him so wrongly.

Bubba had a lot of zippola. Sheriff John had a lot of circumstantial evidence which could theoretically send Bubba to a place that Texas was famous for, Huntsville, where the murderers are real regularly like fried on a stick. Or injected, if that made a body more happy.

His Honor, Judge Stenson Posey, might be right about a jury of Pegramville citizens not being able to convict him, but Bubba sure as hell didn’t want to get to that junction to find out whether His Honor was correct.

Bubba was abruptly brought back to the moment, when Miz Demetrice said loudly, “I have got to do things in preparation for tonight, dear.” In secret, mother talk that meant that the Pegram County Pokerama was back on, despite possible rigid persecution by John Q. Law. Perhaps the danger of being caught added to the excitement of the game. She had to make many phone calls, to decide where to hold the illegal event, and to round up tonight’s bringer of food and snacks. Poker was on, again! The Pegramville Women’s Club was back in action. Crime and evil doing abounded in abundance in the tiny town.

Lurlene hinted that she would like to spend some time with Bubba alone, but Bubba was equally determined to proceed with the elimination of suspects. If his mother couldn’t talk to Major Dearman, then there was nothing stopping Bubba from doing so.

So Bubba dropped his mother off, delivered Lurlene to her apartment, and ignored her look of spiteful resentment, and went searching for the major. He hoped that his former commanding officer hadn’t already left with Melissa’s body.

He started off with Mary Lou Treadwell of the Sheriff’s Department, who told him that Michael Dearman was checked into the Red Door Inn. She wasn’t reluctant about giving out such information at all. Nosiree, Bob.

Bubba clicked his tongue, and then chastised himself. The major probably didn’t have a clue as to the true nature of the bed and breakfast. When Bubba showed up there, he found Doris Cambliss dusting off the front desk, an 18
^th
century Pennsylvanian Dutch desk with delicately carved nooks and crannies. She systematically polished it until it glowed.

“Why, Bubba Snoddy,” she exclaimed, a chamois in her hand. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, so soon.”

This afternoon, Doris was dressed conservatively in a silk flower print, with ivory Jimmy Choo pumps on her feet. A lovely ivory silk scarf was wrapped around her slender throat. Doris appeared every inch the prosperous bed and breakfast owner. Not a madam, to be certain.

Doris studied Bubba for a long moment, as if analyzing his expression could determine his intent. “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” she asked after sincere cogitation.

“No, Ma’am. I just want to find out a few things,” Bubba said. He held his Stetson in front of him like a little boy.
Like a little boy who towers over a much smaller woman and doesn’t take advantage of the disparity
, Doris considered.

Doris thought about it for a while longer and then silently determined that Bubba probably wouldn’t hurt the man under the circumstances. Too many witnesses and such. “He went out around three. Said something about wanting to get, how did he put it, shit-faced? That was it. Shit-faced.” She shook her head sadly. “Not a very nice term. But very succinct.”

Bubba processed this information. There were about ten bars in town. There were two restaurants which served liquor as well. There were three liquor stores where the major could buy a bottle or two and proceed on his own at a location untenable to Bubba. “Do you know where he went?”

Doris continued to study Bubba. She hoped that the younger man wasn’t in a mood, like his daddy could get before him. Doris had known Elgin Snoddy, and felt sincerely sorry for Miz Demetrice for all her gentile soft nature. But in the end, Elgin hadn’t broken the woman’s spirit, and Bubba wasn’t one to go around striking down those who couldn’t fight back. Bubba had gotten in a fight or two in his day, but she couldn’t recall him ever being mean nor malicious. However, he was on the verge of being put in jail, never to be let out again, if Sheriff John had his way. Who knew what he was capable of doing? She finally answered, “I believe he was going to cruise down Main Street, which means about three bars for you to search.”

Bubba found a very much drunken Major Dearman in the last bar in which he looked. It was a little hole in the wall affair named, like a million others, the Dew Drop Inn. Bubba, who was getting tired of drunken Pegramville residents asking how it felt to get even with the woman who done him wrong and the smell of cigarette smoke permeating every bit of his clothing and hair, almost didn’t go in. He thought that it was true that the major could have gone anywhere. Even to dime night at Grubbo’s, where Lurlene herself had an inclination. He was scowling as he parked his truck in a metered slot.

But he walked into the Dew Drop Inn, allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness, and looked around. There were about ten people in the bar. Indeed, the place probably would only hold twenty at best. A few were leaning up against the bar. A few were at tables. But it was the solitary man in a green uniform at the back of the bar, pounding on the juke box that caught Bubba’s attention.

It was Major Dearman. He was three sheets to the wind. As drunk as a fiddler, pie-eyed, soused, jug-bitten, stinko, pissy-eyed, or in other words, staggering, blind, crapulent drunk. As Bubba watched him, he was wondering why the man hadn’t already been transported to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, for it was surely only a matter of time. The folks at the emergency room would have to pump out his stomach, and then things would really get messy.

The bartender, a man Bubba whose name he couldn’t remember, yelled at the major, “Hey, soldier-boy, it don’t respond to fists! You gotta put quarters in it!”

The major said, “I did, Goddamnit.” Then he fell on his table with an audible thump. It was unclear as to whether or not the table would take the abuse, but it did.

There was a conspicuously large amount of space in between him and other customers at the Dew Drop Inn. A large area of empty tables circled the area in which Dearman sat, isolated, and drunk.

Bubba turned to the bartender. “You got coffee?”

“Sure,” the bartender said. He didn’t care if someone got stinking drunk in the place, unless they started puking their guts out. In that case, he threw them out faster than he could yell, “Get the hell out, you lush!” He produced a cup, filled it with steaming coffee, and pushed it over to Bubba.

Dearman’s bloodshot eyes lifted to examine the man standing next to his table. The problem was that he had a hard time focusing on anything at all. All he saw was a big, dark, blur. “Hey, buddy-boy, sit on down. Can you believe the people in this bar don’t want to have anything to do with me? That one,” he pointed at the bartender, then his hand pointed at the rest of the bar, “said I was a bad drunk.” He breathed alcohol laden fumes on Bubba who almost ralphed. “Can you believe that?”

Bubba sat down in the chair across from Dearman. He thought that maybe having a table in between them, might prevent a drunken rush from the officer once he finally figured out who was sitting down with him.

Dearman took another drink of the coffee. “Hey, this isn’t Irish,” he said again, his words slurred. He squinted at Bubba from across the table. “Do you know why I came to this shitty little town?”

Bubba signaled the bartender for another cup of coffee. It was going to be a long evening. “I got an idea.”

“Tha’s right,” agreed Dearman. “Everyone’s got an idea. Somebody puts a fucking hole the size of a fist in my wife.” He thumped his chest hard with his fist, indicating the location of the hole. “Then, the judge, that lowdown, briar-hopping, redneck, lets the other lowdown, briar-hopping redneck go.” He waved his hand through the air, bouncing it up and down, like someone skipping away from the courthouse. “Just like that-la-de-dah-dah-dah.”

Bubba encouraged Dearman to take another drink of coffee.

The major did. “This still isn’t Irish, I gotta let you know.”

Bubba clamped his jaw down tight. Dearman was so drunk; he didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t have a chance of sobering him up enough to get anything out of him. By the time, he got enough coffee in him, he would recognize Bubba, and then, all hell would break loose.

Said Dearman, “You look familiar.” Then he laughed uproariously. “But then so does that wall.”

“I heard you have a kid,” Bubba said.

Dearman brightened. He fumbled for his wallet. Checked all of his pockets. Some of his pockets he checked twice because he couldn’t remember if he had checked them. “Can’t find my wallet. Wonder if I left it at the Inn.”