Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness (The Bubba Mysteries Book 7) Read online

  “Apparently I propositioned her in front of the innkeeper,” Evan said.

  “Propositioned who?” Bubba asked, startled. “My mother?”

  “No, silly, my wife. She likes to be the cool, cool kitty police officer even when she’s off-duty.” Evan giggled. “I’ve always liked that about her.”

  Too much information! Bubba’s inner voice screamed. Also he remembered that Evan had more than a passing fancy to Jessica Rabbit. He shuddered inwardly.

  “So, will you?” Evan persisted and Bubba struggled to remember whether he would or wouldn’t. “Take care of my little baby girl?”

  “Of course I will,” Bubba vowed. “I’d protect her from Judge Doom and a whole bunch of others, too.”

  Evan patted Bubba’s shoulder. “Tha’s good. You’re a good joe, Bubba,” he slurred. “Your mother told me you have a degree in history. I suppose that’s why you’re a mechanic.”

  Wait. Is that an insult, or a compliment?

  “Tha’s one of those degrees that is horrible to get a job with. Psychology. Sociology. History. Underwater basket weaving. You know.”

  “Kin I borrow your cellphone, Evan?” Bubba asked politely. “I’d like to talk to Willodean this morning, and I cain’t find mine.”

  “Oh,” Evan said. He patted his sweater vest. His graying brown hair flopped over his forehead and it crinkled in response. He patted his trouser pockets. “You know I don’t normally drink alcohol,” he said.

  “Of course not,” Bubba said. He hoped Evan didn’t normally drink alcohol. He was a silly drunk, and Bubba didn’t overly care for drunks. There were too many bad memories of his own father.

  “Here it is,” Evan said and produced an iPhone.

  Miz Demetrice immediately snatched it out of Evan’s hand, and said, “Breakfast. Come on, Bubba dearest. You’re first. We all know you have things to do.”

  “But Willodean,” Bubba started and Evan cut him off with, “She’s fine. She asked about you. Said somethin’ about your cellphone and how you forget to charge it and all. She’s fine, though.”

  “Breakfast,” Miz Demetrice said with a determined gleam in her cornflower blue eyes. “No time for idle chit chat. People are waiting on you, boy.” She gave her only son a shove toward the buffet on the sideboard.

  Bubba sighed and went toward the food. Ironically it reminded him of when dying people were told to go toward the light. (Or NOT to go toward the light, as the case may have been.)

  Chapter 3

  Bubba and the Sense of Impending Doom*

  *Because it is That Kind of Book

  Saturday, April 27th around 8:50 AM

  Bubba ate, chatted with people which actually meant that he said one of three things, “yep,” “nope,” or “mebe,” and plotted with an intensity that would have impressed his own not-so-saintly mother. With a biscuit, he finished mopping up the gravy upon his plate, and said, “Yep,” to something Virtna was talking about. He looked around cannily. He put his plate on the table so he could have his hands free for whatever his next move was going to be. He had earlier, and extremely clandestinely, escaped to the bathroom and with a minor side trip discovered that the house phones were indeed dead. Verizon had likely failed them, or somehow his mother had bribed some employee of the company to make it so. (The previous maniacal laughter and dirty clothing could very well attest to his mother’s determination to keep something secret. A vision of Miz Demetrice digging up and slicing the telephone lines popped into his head.) To continue along that vein, cellphones had mysteriously vanished and no one was admitting to having one or having one that was currently operational.

  Bubba didn’t want to be obvious about it, but when no less than five separate souls replied in the negative to his request to borrow their cellphone, it meant something was up. His cousin, Harv, had said, “No can-do, big guy. My pig ate it yesterday. I’ll have to wait for Betsy Brownnose to poop it out. She’s a prize winning hog. She won Lil’ Miss Sausage Queen of Union Parish. I have a picture of her in my wallet. Where’re you goin’?” Brownie had said, “I wasn’t allowed to bring it to breakfast. I was goin’ to take lots of pictures. This sucks.” Anora Gray had said, “A perp crushed it a few days ago and I haven’t had a chance to replace it. You know those perps who are always smashing your phones. By the way, my daughter has a surveillance cameras around somewhere, in case you feel like picking your nose.” Miz Adelia had looked down her nose at Bubba, which was hard to do considering that he was a full foot taller than she was, and said, “Don’t got no time for cellphones, boy. More food to bring out. Eat up, chile; you’re wastin’ away.” Another cousin named Jason had said, “Ulp. Cellphone. Sorry, Bubba, ain’t got one. Um, never saw the use for one. In fact, the one I had six months ago is at home, still in the box, gathering dust and such.” Bubba had known it for a lie because he just seen Jason put a BlackBerry into a pocket the minute before Bubba had asked to borrow it.

  Once was a happenstance. Twice was a sorry state of affairs. Thrice was a miserable coincidence. Four was pushing the envelope of acceptability. Five was a well-defined conspiracy with which Oliver Stone would have gotten on board and then probably hooted with delight.

  The question was why. Why did Bubba’s mother not want him to have access to a cellphone? There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with Willodean or the baby because withholding that kind of information wouldn’t have been something that Miz Demetrice or the Gray family would have done. Furthermore, everyone was acting fairly normal, with the exception of the cellphone thing. That meant Willodean was fine, which was good, good, and goodlier goodness with goody whipped cream on top. However, it meant that something else was wrong. Moreover, it was something that no one wanted Bubba to know.

  Bubba nodded again at Virtna who was saying something like, “Frap nup too luk murg?” Then she handed him Cookie. Cookie had a small thatch of red hair and green eyes to match her brother’s. She wore a little jumper that said, “Born to raise hell.” She sucked on her thumb and looked at him with large eyes. Females with green eyes usually got to Bubba in a big way and Cookie wasn’t an exception. He looked up to see Virtna hurrying over to the open bar to grab two flutes of mimosas. He didn’t know what he’d agreed to do, but whatever it was in all probability had to do with the creature wiggling in his arms at that moment.

  “Do you know what they don’t want me to know?” Bubba murmured to Cookie.

  Cookie winked at him. She was too young to talk, but she extracted her thumb, and said, “Blug.”

  “You want your binky, little lady?” Bubba asked. “I happen to know where your mama put your bag with all of your goodies. I bet there’s a binky in there someplace.”

  Bubba took to his newly designated duty as Cookie’s babysitter with all of the composure he didn’t feel. Virtna had probably handed him the baby to keep him from finding a cellphone. He looked for the redheaded mother of Brownie and Cookie, only to find her in a conspiratorial huddle with Miz Demetrice, Miz Adelia, Celestine Gray, and Aunt Caressa. Miz Demetrice cast a quick glance at Bubba and ducked back into the scrum. He pretended that he didn’t see it so as to not have more of her attention focused upon him. It was Bubba’s only chance.

  “I kin play this game,” Bubba said to Cookie.

  Bubba found the little room near the front living room that was reserved for coats, purses, and whatnot. There was a pile of coats and purses on the two lounge chairs in the room that had become a mountain of casualwear.

  Cookie kicked her little legs vigorously, and he shifted the infant as he looked around. He knew that Fudge and Virtna were staying at the Red Door Inn because there hadn’t been enough room at the mansion for all of the aunts, cousins, and soon to-be in-laws. Plus Doris Cambliss, the owner and proprietor of the once infamous brothel, but presently a bed and breakfast, had given the Snoddys a cut rate for renting all of the rooms at the inn. Consequently, a baby bag had to be in close proximity. It was probably one of those unwritten laws that Murphy had m
eant to write down and had never done. (One day Bubba was going to have to look up Murphy and figure out how he had been so discerning about human nature.)

  Bubba chortled when he found the bag with Cookie’s name on the outside. He reached in, dug around, and found a binky, i.e., pacifier. He held it up and saw that it had a pink outside with white lettering on it, proclaiming it to be a “Mute Button”. In smaller letters, it said, “Pull to sound alarm.”

  As he offered it to the infant, Cookie happily pulled out her thumb and latched onto the binky with unbridled enthusiasm.

  “That’s a good binky,” Bubba said. “Mebe I should try one.”

  Cookie sucked happily on the binky in response.

  “So,” Bubba said as he held the baby, “what should I do next?”

  More sucking noises ensued.

  “That’s what I thought,” Bubba sighed. “You don’t know any more than I do.”

  Fudge popped into the room. “Hey, Bubba,” he boomed. “Have you seen my other chile?”

  “Brownie’s hiding under the coats,” Bubba said, gesturing with his elbow.

  “BUBBA!” Brownie protested vehemently from under the coats. The protest was somewhat muffled.

  Fudge smiled evilly. He cast Bubba a quick glance. “Cookie’s more partial to the binky that looks like vampire teeth.”

  Bubba frowned and dug in the bag for the better binky. The item was located and the exchange was quickly made as Cookie detected the difference.

  Brownie slithered out from the coats, evaded his father’s clumsy grasp, and darted out the door.

  Fudge said, “Flipping farpling fickle frog farts!” He glanced at Bubba and Cookie again. “Trying to cut down on my swearing. The little woman makes me pay a dollar a word. I don’t know how she knows what I’m sayin’ at work, but…she…knows.” He frowned for a second. “Mebe you shouldn’t get married, Bubba, but yours has a gun and she’s trained to use it. Too bad. You’re hosed, buddy boy.”

  “I thought getting married was all that,” Bubba said dryly. “Hey, do you have a cellphone, Fudge?”

  Fudge’s eyes widened. “I, uh, um,” he muttered helplessly. He looked down at his shirt pocket, and Bubba could see the noticeable shape of a cellphone under the fabric of his pocket. “Oh, hey, I hear Virtna screaming my name,” he added quickly and scurried out of the room in a close semblance of his son’s departure from the same.

  “If it’s not the wedding, and it’s not the baby,” Bubba said to Cookie, “then what kin it be?”

  Cookie sucked her binky happily. She looked like Dracula’s baby with red lips and long white fangs, but she was content. Adjusting her in his beefy arm, he went into the foyer, looked around, and saw his mother duck back into the formal living room.

  Bubba pursed his lips. He said to Cookie, “They think that by saddling me with you that it will stop me from seeing what’s what. They don’t know me very well.” His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “

  “Bubba!” Miz Adelia yelled down the hallway. Bubba winced and imagined the tear-drop shaped crystals on the Volkswagen size chandelier above him juddered. “We need you to propose a toast!”

  Propose a toast? Bubba considered. I could toast to all the missing cellphones in the house, whose presence is being sorely missed. Plus, why do they want to know if I’ve seen the news lately? I should find a television and watch the news, right? He looked at his watch. It was almost 9 AM. There might be some news on at the moment. The worst case scenario was Headline News.

  “Come on, Cookie,” Bubba said to the baby. “We’ll propose a toast and then find a TV.”

  * * *

  For the life of him, Bubba couldn’t quite recall what he’d said at the toast. His mind was aflutter with all the possibilities that could be occurring. He made a list of things it could not be. 1) It could not be Willodean, as previously stated. 2) It could also not be the baby, ditto stated. 3) The end of the world was unlikely, and there wasn’t any significant reason to keep it from Bubba. 4) It could not be a zombie apocalypse because Pegram County had already been featured prominently in a zombie movie and what self-assured zombie would be caught dead in a place that had already been “done”? 5) ?????

  Bubba always enjoyed a good round of making a list with the intent of clearing himself of having committed a crime, or clearing a close relative of committing a crime, or finding out who had done some wicked deed, but this was ridiculous. His mind was completely taken away with thoughts of ruining the wedding in some fashion.

  In addition, Cookie was attached to him like a little six month old leech. With a half-dozen and more matronly figures swarming about, cooing at Cookie and sometimes at Bubba, not a single motherly one was reaching for the infant or protectively offering to take her out of his arms. Fudge, Virtna, and Brownie had all made themselves mysteriously absent. It was a surreal world of evident intent to befuddle Bubba.

  Once Bubba had a chance to escape the direct locality of half-inebriated well-wishers, he went into a study where a television was prominent. (Whose idea had it been to serve mimosas at the wedding breakfast? And by the way, he had been informed by a sodden cousin that it was actually a pre-wedding breakfast, to which Bubba had said, “Meh,” because he didn’t really care one way or the other.) He was flummoxed because the TV was missing. Another mystery. A further mystery was that there was a lack of dust on the table where the television had been. A typical thief would have simply taken the television. Only Miz Demetrice or Miz Adelia would have paused to also dust.

  Cookie said, “Thfppt.”

  “You want to see my hound, little lady?” Bubba asked her. “Precious needs to get used to wee babies, and she’s bin locked up for a good hour or so now. She might have chewed half way through a door, with all of this excitement going on.”

  Bubba wandered through the kitchen and briefly paused to watch all the people cleaning up with Miz Adelia in charge. The normally talkative housekeeper kept avoiding Bubba’s gaze. He modified the baby’s position in his arms so that she was properly displayed to the abundant womenfolk. Even he had to admit that Cookie looked adorable. Her little tuft of red hair was the golden red shade that would have given Erik the Red a run for his Viking horde’s money. Her little green eyes sparkled as she took in all of the action. Finally that pair of oversized red lips with the elongated canines just made her as cute as a freshly washed pickup truck.

  A few women took a moment to gaze upon the baby and coo appropriately, but there wasn’t a single taker as to who got to hold the child first.

  Bubba became certain that all was amiss.

  Janie wandered past with a plate of cookies. Snickerdoodles battled for space with pecan bars. Bubba snagged a snickerdoodle with his free arm. Janie snatched the plate away from him with a brief glare. “You want to hold the baby, Janie?” he asked of her little retreating back.

  “I’ve got a little brother, so no thank you, I don’t,” Janie called back.

  “Is there a portable crib or the like for the little one?” he asked the multitude of women in the kitchen.

  Everyone pretended they didn’t hear Bubba, except Miz Adelia, who, after a long moment of silence, said, “Oh, suck it up, Bubba. You should get used to it.”

  Bubba smiled thinly. Oh, I’m going to suck it up. He took the back exit and when Miz Adelia asked him where he was going, he said, “I’m sucking it up.”

  Outside the Snoddy Mansion were various people doing this that and the other for the wedding. Bubba had no idea weddings were so complicated until Peyton had rumbaed his way into the Snoddys’ lives.

  The devil himself was pointing, directing, and choreographing with heartfelt enthusiasm. If there had been music, it would have been a rousing Argentine tango to go along with the tempo of the wedding planner. “That goes in the gazebo! Inside! Not on top! It must be mounted and displayed properly for the effect I desire! Don’t drop that, you terrible person! It was the only one within three hundred miles. I swear I will drop to the
ground, and have a hissy fit in only the way that a man like me can have hissy fits! Are those flowers fresh? I won’t have sagging, wilting flowers around any wedding that Pure Love Weddings LLC arranges! It isn’t done!”

  The man glanced at Bubba. “Are you feeling more up to par, dear redneck?” Peyton yelled across the grass yard.

  Bubba shrugged. His stomach was full. He had a baby held capably in one hand. If all things went well, then he would be getting married to the woman of his dreams within hours. There was only this nagging sense of whatever it was that everyone was trying to protect him from. He gestured at Peyton, who sighed melodramatically and pranced over.

  “I have so many things to do, Bubba,” Peyton complained.

  “May I borrow your cellphone?”

  “You may not,” Peyton said. “I’m expecting twenty-three calls in the next ten minutes. If I miss one, I will die, and it won’t be a Hollywood cinematic masterpiece of a slow death; it will be explosive and ugly and people will have to clean up after it.” He capered off.

  Bubba strolled over to the caretaker’s house and carefully unlocked the door to let his dog out. Precious took one look at Bubba holding the baby and made for the tall grass so that she could do her dogly business. “That’s my dog, Cookie,” Bubba said. “Not that her name is Cookie, it’s Precious. She’s a dang fine hound. That fella who had her before me said she’d never hunt, but she does okay. I think that she was too clever for that fella to train. You got to talk to her like you talk to any crafty woman. That’s the trick.”

  Cookie shook both of her tiny fists at Bubba and blew a spit bubble out of the side of the binky and her mouth. He used the bottom of his shirt cuff to wipe it away. She thought that was hilarious and chuckled around the binky.

  Peyton dashed around the side of the house, yelling, “Class three wedding emergency! We need plastic cutlery! Also white and silver nonpareils! For the love of God and weddings!”

  “I have a baby you kin take,” Bubba called, “and I have no idea what a nonpareil is.”