Bubba and the Curious Cadaver Read online

  “Her car was broken down, and she wanted a lift to work or she would be fired. I would never objectify anyone,” Bubba defended himself. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to come into Bazooka Bob’s. His stomach growled loudly as he considered that he didn’t think he even knew how to objectify a person anyway.

  “Bubba!” came another squeal. Cayenne Pepper sauntered out and smiled at him as she took the clutch purse from him. “I’m so glad you came in.” She looked at Kiki. “The car broke down. I think it was the battery, empty gas tank, and some smoky thing that was happening. Very stinky poo.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kiki said.

  Bubba’s stomach growled again. This time he was certain that the entire bar probably heard it.

  A tall thin man with tattoos running up into his upper arms came out and snatched a microphone from the DJ booth as the B-52’s song came to a conclusion, and the dancer slowed her energetic motions. “That was Lucy Lips!” he yelled. “Give it up for Lucy! She’s here all week long with her amazing ping pong ball act. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Lucy playing with her balls!”

  Bubba winced again except externally this time.

  “Wings, right?” Cayenne said. “I think I kept Bubba from eating, and his stomach is about to begin WWIII or explode, one or the other. I’ve got to go on, but the girls will take care of you!” Cayenne strode to a door, threw it open, and began yelling instructions inside.

  The announcer said, “Five minutes of slow rock and roll and then we’ll have the one, the only, the inimitable Cayenne Pepper with her twirling lemons! When life gives you lemons, you have Cayenne Pepper twirl those bad boys!”

  “Uh,” Bubba said helplessly.

  Just at that moment a swarm of women poured out of the back and encircled Bubba and Precious. Precious was instantly enfolded in the grip of two women who were clearly identical as they said, “We lurve puppies. Cute little precious wecious puppy dogs. We have bite-sies for you.”

  Precious understood the whole concept of bite-sies and followed the pair without protest.

  “That’s the twins,” Kiki said. “One is Diamond, and the other one is Destiny. They do their thing together on stage. In real life they’re going through college. I have both of them in two of my summer classes. I think they’re interested in botany, though.”

  “Oh my gracious,” said another girl as she looked up at Bubba. She reached out to squeeze his oversized bicep. “He’s so big and tall.”

  “Girls,” Kiki said, “this is Bubba. He’s married.”

  “So?”

  “He’s married to a sheriff’s deputy,” Kiki added.

  “So?”

  “She’s pregnant and handy with mace,” Kiki said.

  “You mean Willodean Gray,” one said with obvious awe in her voice, snatching her hand back from his hefty bicep as if it had been on fire and her hand was paper. “No problem. Hands off, girls.”

  They led him into the kitchen where Precious had already received a bounty of cut-up chicken breast. A portly man in a chef’s hat was saying, “Cain’t be having animals in the kitchen. Ifin the county health department pays a visit, we’re all up poopy creek.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, Leslie,” one girl said. “We’ll flash him, and the demerits will vanish into the ether. The inspector lurves us. Especially on Sundays when his wife is at church.”

  “This here fella saved Cayenne Pepper,” one girl said to Leslie the chef. “She almost dint make her show on account that that car done dint have no gas, and its battery was dead. All them lemons would have gone to waste.”

  “And there was something about smoke.”

  Leslie looked at Bubba. It became obvious that Leslie liked Cayenne Pepper.

  “I would have done it for any lady on the side of the road,” Bubba said, “and I best be getting home because I need to rustle up some chow for the missus. She’s hungry all the time.”

  “This is Bubba Snoddy,” Kiki said to Leslie.

  “No kidding,” said Leslie. He was about six feet tall and weighed about thirty more pounds than Bubba. His size gave credence to the old saying, “Never trust a skinny cook.” His blue eyes scoured Bubba and apparently decided that Bubba was telling the truth. “Since you have done this very generous thing, and I can hear your stomach from all the way across the room, I will cook for you, Bubba Snoddy, and then you will take some home to your wife. I was first in my culinary class in Paris.” He coughed and added, “Paris, Texas that is. My wings are de-lish.”

  “They are,” several girls chorused.

  “Wings, corn relish, and armadillo eggs,” Leslie said. He rubbed his hands together and got to work. Bubba was nearly blinded by how quickly he went. His stomach made a kind of errrppp, which Bubba took as tacit approval.

  It was odd, but for some reason, Leslie looked familiar, as if Bubba had seen him from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it. Usually Bubba knew everyone, but Leslie sounded like he’d just moved to the area, so maybe it was simply that Bubba had seen him around and that was all.

  Then Kiki began to introduce all of the girls, and Bubba fought not only to keep his stomach from making noise, but to keep a straight face. “This is Queen Vajayjay. You met Diamond and Destiny. Then there’s Tomi Knockers over there with the hair extensions. Lucy Lips is the one that just came off the stage. This is Chastity Angel, Alotta Fagina, Gummi Worm, Granny Goodbang, and Pop Tart Smith. That’s Snuggles Palomino over there.”

  Bubba bit down on the inside of his cheek. He was beginning to sweat. Furthermore, he couldn’t fathom why all of the strippers, er, exotic dancers were all there at the same time. “Can you excuse me just a moment? I need to use the little boy’s room.”

  Several of the girls tittered, but Granny Goodbang, who didn’t look like any granny he’d ever met, said, “Go down this hallway to the private bathrooms. They’re a lot cleaner.”

  “Food will be up in five minutes,” Leslie called.

  “We’ll take care of your doggie,” the twins said in unison.

  Precious obviously didn’t care as she kept getting tidbits of chicken breast.

  Bubba heard one of the other girls ask, “So when is the big meeting?”

  Lucy Lips answered with, “When the boss man gets here, right? Has anyone even seen him?”

  Bubba didn’t hear anymore because he went into the bathroom and prayed that no one could see the Chevy truck parked between the Dodge tow truck and the Chrysler K car. Then he found a dead body, because that’s what happens when one is already in a dilly of a pickle. Generally things get worse. At least they usually did for Bubba.

  Chapter 3

  Bubba and the

  Dead Body of Doom

  Tuesday, August 22nd

  Bubba took a moment to check that the bathroom door said “Gentlemen” and not “Morgue.” He wasn’t altogether certain what a morgue would be doing in Bazooka Bob’s, but Pegram County had been known to do some bizarre things in the name of saving money. Renting facilities from a gentlemen’s club might be one of those cost-saving devices that someone like his mother might have conceived. (“They have freezers. No one goes in the back. It’s not like they need the space. Morgues do business during the day; they do business during the night.”) He shook his head. No. No. No. Not even his mother would have done that. Instead, she would say something like, “Bless your heart, has your little red choo choo jumped its track? Putting a morgue in a strip joint would be like knitting with one needle, which is exactly what I used to kill your father.”

  Sighing, Bubba bent to assess the man’s pulse. With index and middle fingers, he checked. The man didn’t have a pulse which didn’t surprise Bubba. The dead man was wearing a dapper suit, a black suit that looked like something one wouldn’t be able to buy anywhere in Pegram County. (Bubba had gone through a problem with tailors and suits at his wedding, so he had recent experience with which suits were appropriately expensive and which were not. However, his experience wasn’t so much that
he would have said he was 100% positive.) There was a tie sticking out that was yellow and brown striped that Bubba didn’t think much about, white cuffs indicated the color of his shirt, and finally on his feet he wore the leather oxford shoes that Bubba associated with men in black or the feds or morticians, not necessarily in that order.

  Bubba considered the circumstances. I’m bein’ real calm about this whole thing. The last dead body I found was on my wedding day, and it done vanished as soon as I turned my back. And hey, my stomach stopped hollering. Who knew?

  He inched to one side to see the face of the dead man. The fluorescent lights of the bathroom illuminated everything very well and showed the single shot that had been used to murder the man. It was located right in the middle of his forehead, dead center, if one will forgive the pun.

  It wasn’t the bullet hole with the little dribble of blood that really alarmed Bubba. It was the fact that he had suddenly remembered where he’d seen the AMC Gremlin before. It belonged to a man named Bam Bam Jones. Bam Bam was an entrepreneur who Bubba had initially met in Dallas. Bam Bam gave Bubba a little assistance in locating Willodean Gray, who had gone missing at the time. Bam Bam had also taken a liking to Bubba and later directed a film production to use the town for the setting of a zombie movie. Bam Bam had attended Bubba’s wedding, and that was the last time Bubba had seen him. It had also been the last time Bubba had seen the sparkling purple metallic AMC Gremlin with silver-and purple-trimmed rims for the wheels. It had been lowered a tad in the front and had gold-plated curb feelers on the sides. A pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rear view mirror. Or at least the fuzzy dice were still there when Cayenne Pepper had clambered onto the bench seat of the Chevy truck.

  Sure, Bam Bam wasn’t the squeakiest clean individual in the great state of Texas, but how many people did Bubba know who were? (Willodean straightaway popped into his head, but no one else came to mind.)

  And lo and behold, it was Bam Bam on the floor of the bathroom deader than a dodo, deader than disco, and deader than a plate of iced catfish sitting next to a hot grill.

  “Dang,” Bubba said. “Ain’t no way to die. Shot in a gentlemen’s club just like a plot from a sorry soap opera. Right sorry, Bam Bam.”

  It didn’t seem like there was a lot of mystery to this one. Cayenne Pepper had been driving Bam Bam’s car. Cayenne Pepper seemed very anxious to get Bubba to Bazooka Bob’s. It made him suspicious about whether or not Bam Bam’s car battery was really dead and whether the gas was really empty and whether there had been stinky broccoli-smelling smoke coming from under the hood or not. Bubba would hazard a guess that none of that was true and that if he were inclined to amble back to the Gremlin and if he had the key to the ignition and that if he started the car up, it would run just fine.

  Cayenne had been waiting for Bubba to drive by, and she’d been a little nervous because he’d been running late. Why? Bubba had been driving the same road several times a week for the last month and a half. Half the population of the county probably had seen him. His own mother had probably broadcasted the news on Facebook and Twitter. #Mybigspecialboobooishelpingthecedarbloomsagain. #Ain’thespecial? #AttentionpeopelwhowanttoframeBubbabecausehe’satthecedarbloomsrightnow. Bubba hated hashtags, but hash browns sounded good.

  Bubba’s stomach grumbled. That wasn’t a good sign. Usually murder put him off his feed. That meant one of two things. Either his stomach wasn’t acknowledging the whole murder thing, or he was becoming jaded to it.

  Bubba stood up. It would be real fine to figure out who done it and how it was done all before the police showed up to beat him in the head with metal-tipped boots and then throw him in the klinky.

  “Hey Bubba,” one of the twins said from behind him. “Do you think your sweet little doggie will eat jalapeño peppers? Destiny says that dogs cain’t eat vegetables, but we had one that would eat carrots. You know those peeled baby carrots. That dog would eat them like candy. Of course, it made his poop orange, but, hey. He got run over by a car later, but it didn’t have anything to do with him eating carrots.”

  Bubba looked over his shoulder and saw that the bathroom door had stuck in the open position, and Diamond stood there staring at the dead body. Destiny’s head appear over one of her shoulders, and two identical heavily made-up expressions (were those diamonds on their eyelids?) goggled at Bam Bam in his lifeless state.

  “Holy guacamole,” Diamond said. “Bam Bam is dead.”

  “Are you sure?” Destiny asked. “He could be just passed out. Remember that time he drank all that tequila?”

  “Is that a hole in his head?”

  “I think we should make like terrorists and blow this place,” Destiny said. “Bubba’s dog is cuter than a button in a bug’s ear and all, but dead people mean the po-lice will show up, and I seem to recollect that we skipped our last meeting with our probation officer who will not understand our association with…you know…corpses.”

  “Did you kill him, Bubba?” Diamond asked. She might have been asking him if he knew if it were going to rain later in the day.

  “Do I look like I have a gun on me?” Bubba asked. This was what he got for being nice. He stopped to help a woman who had been broken down on the side of the road and had given her a lift. Then he had brought her purse inside, and just look what happened. He’d found another dead body. Folks in Pegram County already thought he was jinxed, but it was starting to get ridiculous. Never mind that half the time folks were trying to set Bubba up by planting a dead body where they thought Bubba would find it and look appropriately suspicious. (Like now, for example?)

  “When was the last time you saw Bam Bam?” he asked.

  “Not ten minutes ago,” Destiny said. “He was talking on his cellphone. I think he said something about spices, so he might have been talking about food.”

  “Wasn’t he wearing a Cowboys jersey and those tall purple boots?” Diamond asked. “When did he have time to change? I like those boots. I bet his feet are a lot bigger than mine, so I guess I can’t steal them. Does this mean Bazooka Bob’s is going out of business? Oh dang, I hate going to the unemployment office, and we’ve got student loans. They don’t have any scholarships for exotic dancers, and believe me, we’ve looked. If I ever win the lottery I’m going to start a scholarship for exotic dancers. Boobies don’t stay perky forever, you know.”

  “Ten minutes ago,” Bubba repeated. That didn’t sound correct. He bent again and touched his fingers to the man’s throat. If he wasn’t mistaken Bam Bam was cold. A fella didn’t get shot and his body go cold in ten minutes. That meant that Destiny had to be wrong.

  Cold meant that Bubba couldn’t have possibly shot Bam Bam, even if someone could have come up with a reason for Bubba to have shot the other man. There were also witnesses out front who wouldn’t all lie about the time Bubba had first entered Bazooka Bob’s. Kiki wouldn’t lie. Most of the other women probably wouldn’t lie. If Cayenne Pepper was trying to set Bubba up, then she might lie. However, the Cedarblooms wouldn’t lie about what time Bubba had left their home, even if Ralph didn’t really like talking to the police.

  Bubba stood back up. He was well and thoroughly confused. Bam Bam couldn’t have been shot less than ten minutes previous. Cayenne Pepper was out waiting for Bubba for at least twenty minutes. Possibly it had been more because she couldn’t have known exactly when he was going to head down FM Route 35 on his way back to the Snoddy Estate. Ergo, the twins had to be lying. He turned his head to look at them, but both of them were staring at Bam Bam’s body as if it had grown horns and was about to go prancing down the hall as it was reanimated.

  “Ten minutes ago,” he repeated. If he wasn’t mistaken the pair were well and truly horrified at the sight of Bam Bam’s dead body.

  “Sure,” Diamond said. At least he thought it was Diamond. They really were identical. From the meshy red dress with a multitude of holes that showed that they liked little to no underwear to the red stiletto heels that brought them to about the height of
Bubba’s elbows. Even their blonde hair had been tossed and brushed in matching fashion. “I don’t get it. How would he have time to change and then end up here, dead on the floor? I guess we should call the po-lice, but I don’t really want to.”

  “Probation officer,” Destiny reminded her sister.

  “See ya,” Diamond said to Bubba, and he heard twin clicking steps rushing down the tile floor.

  Bubba turned to follow them. He should just go ahead and call his wife. He really wanted to see his wife, but not in this capacity, and also he needed to make sure she had listened to her voicemail before she discovered where exactly he was located. Plus he didn’t want to be caught in the act of kneeling over the lately deceased person whom he not only knew but had associated with.

  Regardless of those careening thoughts about Willodean, there were a multitude of other questions bouncing about in his head. So what was Bam Bam doing in Bazooka Bob’s? How did the twins know Bam Bam? It sounded as if they knew him very well.

  Bubba came out of the hallway and heard the twins telling all the other girls that Bam Bam was dead in the back bathroom. He stopped and listened for a minute.

  At first there was abject silence. Bubba understood. No one wanted to hear that someone was dead. (There were a few exceptions; Miz Demetrice never got tired of hearing that her husband and Bubba’s father, Elgin Snoddy, who had been a bad husband and a neglectful father as well as an awful drunk, was dead. She even liked to invent new and unusual ways for him to have died because that was what she did.) Most people didn’t like it, and they knew they were supposed to be properly respectful of the recently departed.

  Then the words erupted in a heated storm of controversy. Kiki was first. “What the hey-hey happened?” The question was quickly followed by lots of others. “How could Bam Bam be dead?” “He promised me a raise, so I guess that’s out, isn’t it?” “Shouldn’t we call the po-lice?” “Does this mean I can’t do my shift today?” “This is creepy! Isn’t it creepy?” Then Leslie asked, “Didn’t someone say that bathroom was broken?”