Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

By C.L. Bevill

It’s the day of Bubba and Willodean’s wedding day. The sun is shining. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The pergola is decorated in high style with baby’s breath and ribbons streaming galore, and the preacher is ready. So what can possibly go wrong?

Just about everything can go wrong. While twenty-two types of canapés are being served along with gallons of mimosas, Bubba finds the one thing that he well and truly did not want to find. There’s a dead body in his house. Then the dead body disappears while Bubba goes for help. Then the body reappears with nary a witness except Bubba. One would think all of that would be bad enough, but throw in a super steampunk villain, a cranky baby, no available cellphones, a mother who invited “everyone” to the wedding, and dozens of people trying to keep a secret from Bubba, and one’s got a bona fide comical caper of epic proportions.

The questions are very nearly endless. Will there be a wedding? Will Bubba ever find the dead body again? Will he find out who the murderer is? Will this trailer ever end?

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is the seventh book in the Bubba Mystery series. The series is as follows: Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Brownie and the Dame (3.5), Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note, The Ransom of Brownie (4.5), Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies, and Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.L. Bevill
• Release date: Apr 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310009570

C.L. Bevill

C.L. Bevill is the author of several books including Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Bayou Moon, The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager, Veiled Eyes, Disembodied Bones, and Shadow People. She is currently at work on her latest literary masterpiece.

Book preview

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

By

C.L. Bevill

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

Published by C.L. Bevill LLC

© 2016 by Caren L. Bevill

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The order of the Bubba mystery series is as follows:

Book #1: Bubba and the Dead Woman

Book #2: Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas

Book #3: Bubba and the Missing Woman

Book #3.5: Brownie and the Dame

Book #4: Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note

Book #4.5: The Ransom of Brownie

Book #5: Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies

Book #6: Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies

Book #7: Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

Ideally they should be read in order or bad things might happen like meteors falling out of the sky, or possibly someone might stub their big toe, maybe a paper cut, or the reader will be somewhat confused.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Note from the Author

About the Author

Other Novels by C.L. Bevill

"I specifically stated none of those were invited to this wedding.

It was on the invitations, I’m quite certain." – Miz Demetrice

Prologue

Bubba on the Subject of Dead Bodies

Friday, April 26th

Pegramville used to be a right pleasant place to live, Bubba Snoddy said wistfully. Pegram County, too. Used to be the worst thing that happened was something like Dan Gollihugh peeing on a po-lice car whilst the po-lice man was still inside. Law enforcement officials don’t look upon that kindly. I reckon it’s those Neanderthal genes still bouncing around in our DNA. Don’t be wanting another fella marking their territory and all.

Dan can be a very scary individual, said the other person in the room.

Shore, Bubba agreed. Dan stands a hair above seven feet tall, and that gap between his front teeth is rightly terrifying.

I was thinking more along the lines when Dan picks someone up and throws him across the bar as if the other person weighed no more than a small child. He took out half the glasses, and his head dented the cash register.

That was Laz Berryhill sliding down the bar one ladies night at Grubbo’s, and it was a long time before Laz had a notion to mess around with Brownie Snoddy.

Must have knocked some nonsense right into his skull. After all, who is stupid enough to mess around with your, what is he, a second cousin or something?

He’s my cousin’s son, and I don’t know what that means officially, but he’s blood kin, bless his heart. The last part was said in the southern method. Bless their heart was typically the same as adding the poor dumb bastard to the end of a statement. It was also added to politely excuse oneself for being insulting. He don’t have enough brains to give himself a headache, bless his heart. However, Brownie did have plenty of brains, and he used them in a way that would have made extreme super villains rapaciously jealous. (It was said that Brownie’s Boy Scout Leader, one Marlon Tarterhouse by name and who had lived in Monroe, Louisiana, was on the verge of a mental breakdown. The man had abruptly moved to Barrow, Alaska for the very specific reason that it was the United States’ northernmost town and lay some 320 miles above the arctic circle, presumably out of Brownie’s malevolent reach. Apparently, Scout Leader Tarterhouse hoped that Barrow’s remoteness would preclude Brownie’s presence. Whether Brownie made it to Barrow or not, remained to be seen in Bubba’s humble opinion.)

Is Brownie coming? The other person sounded mildly alarmed. Certainly the subject of Brownie was alarming enough to disturb even the most placid of individuals.

Oh, yes, he’s already here. His folks arrived yesterday, with both Brownie and the new baby.

I’ll alert the media. People need to be warned.

Prolly a good thing to do, Bubba said. Can we get back on subject?

Of course. How do you feel about it?

How do I feel about what?

What you wanted to talk about.

"I feel sick. I bin dreaming about it. I keep thinking I’m going back in the woods and I’ll find one of those goshdarned holes that treasure hunters keep digging on the back forty, and it’ll have a little surprise in it. Well, not a little surprise, but one about five to six feet tall and weighing in accordingly."

Do they still dig holes?

Of course. Ma spread the word about Colonel Snoddy bringing Union gold back to the Snoddy Estate all them years ago, and how he buried it somewhere. You know. I tole them news people over and over again about how it was really a load of rusting iron ore and how Nathanial Snoddy was deep in throws of late stage syphilis. Sometimes the colonel thought his wife was the anti-Christ. Once he accused her of being Ulysses S. Grant. The colonel even threatened to shoot a local pastor with one of the cannons on the front lawn of City Hall. I do believe he would have done it, if he had been able to find a cannon ball. But Lord Almighty, there ain’t no gold, and did I mention it’s getting worse, on account of the Internet? There are treasure hunting sites that specifically mention the coordinates of Snoddy Mansion and say we’re saying there’s no gold so we can search for it and keep it to ourselves. He emitted a long suffering sigh of purest condemnation. I think we would have found it by now. Found everything else including that truck my great-great-uncle stole from some politician and buried it. Buried it, by God. What does that say about the Snoddys?

It says you have a history of creative, interesting relatives. The other person nodded, and Bubba knew that creative, interesting relatives was another way of saying cracked, rip-roaring crazy folk. Of course, that would always remind Bubba of…

My mother, Bubba said. He paused to consider his mother. Miz Demetrice Snoddy had not been born a Snoddy, but she had squeezed herself into the family as if she had never been apart from it. In fact, she regularly made reference to the various and sundry ways she had killed her late husband, Elgin Snoddy, despite the fact that he had died of a heart attack. (Elgin had been a fan of too much liquor and fried foods, and had spit in the face of the old chestnut stating that only the good died young.)

Recently, Miz Demetrice had been up to things that Bubba did not wish to contemplate. Smuggling orphan children into the United States, waving a red flag at the DEA’s bull-like attributes, and regularly running a high stakes and illegal floating poker game under the banner of the Pegramville Women’s Club were all her hobbies when she wasn’t protesting some political agenda or bailing her son out of the local jail. I don’t know what to say about my mother, he finally said.

She told me that she killed your father by using a lightning rod during a thunderstorm, the other person said, which is a helluva way to do someone in.

"He had a heart attack," Bubba said vehemently.

Have you ever considered why it is that Miz Demetrice comes up with all these ways to ‘metaphorically’ kill your late father?

Because he was a metaphorical peckerwood who beat her when he was drunk and sometimes when he was sober, too. It was a blessing when God took him away. Pa was probably roasting weenies in hell when it came down to brass tacks.

And how do you feel about that?

I feel like my mother is just fine. Can we just get back to the other thing, please?

Very well. Tell me about your belief that this very bad thing will happen to you again.

It’s happened, wait, how many times has it happened before?

There was your ex-fiancée and Neal Ledbetter, the person said. There was that man in the Santa sled, but of course I remember him. And that poor old woman who was merely a tool in the great drama of bloody revenge.

Beatrice Smothermon, Bubba supplied the name. She had been a friend of Miz Demetrice’s.

There was a man who worked for DMV who was murdered by Nancy Musgrave and her brother.

Dint happen in Pegram County, Bubba said, but I reckon he should count, too.

The judge’s first wife and the man who blackmailed Constance Posey.

Bubba sighed. Yeah, but the director fella wasn’t really murdered, so that cain’t count.

You did find his body, and he was dead. Dead dead.

Okay, Bubba mumbled.

But there was only the one murder out at the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being.

The one that we found. There were the others that Landry did in order to put his wacky plan into play. Also, I wasn’t alone when we found the doctor, Bubba protested, but I was alone when I found Blake Landry.

Who wasn’t really dead, you recall.

Who knew his family was such a bunch of psychotics?

Bubba, you know you’re not really paranoid if someone is really after you, the other person stated philosophically.

It’s just that it’s such a big day tomorrow, Bubba said. What if the worst happens? What if, you know?

One of the most important concepts I’ve ever learned, said the other person, was that of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bubba had once taken psychology 101 in college and vaguely recalled the term. Do tell.

Well, it was the sociologist, Robert Merton, who developed the theorem. In a nutshell— the other person stopped to giggle— no pun intended, it’s when someone believes something will happen, then it will happen because they believed in it. Usually it refers to something bad. Let’s say, if a teenager believes he will fail his driver’s test, then he socially and psychologically sabotages himself to fail the test, and voilà, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs.

It’s not like finding a dead body is something I can make happen, Bubba said dryly. I can’t produce one out of the ether.

You could if you caused someone to be dead, the other said.

I’m not planning on killing anyone, Bubba said.

There you go. If you’re not planning on killing anyone, then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

But what if…

Shmah. What if the sun suddenly goes supernova? What if aliens suddenly decide to invade? What if the President decides that he prefers smooth peanut butter over crunchy? These are all important what-if situations, but we can’t live our lives saying ‘What if?’ all the time.

I understand, Bubba said, but no man has gone through what I’ve gone through in the past few years. It’s statistically impossible.

Nothing is statistically impossible, Bubba. It’s statistically unlikely, but not impossible.

Let’s just say it’s unlikely and then wham, there’s another dead body, Bubba said. I mean, do I attract them? Am I a dead body magnet? Is there something about me? It’s not like I’m in a position that would lend itself to that.

Like a coroner or something like that.

Exactly. I’m an auto mechanic. I’m getting married tomorrow, and I think a little honest paranoia and anxiety is warranted. In fact, it’s downright American to be suspicious and apprehensive.

It’s not abnormal given prior circumstances.

Okay, I kin feel like this. Check. Great. What do I do about it?

"Don’t find another dead body."

I’m not sure I kin do that, Bubba said. I mean, how kin I make myself be a little less anxious?

Did you know the top ten events that make us most stressed? the other person asked. It’s surprising, really.

That’s not really part of my bedtime reading.

Okay, death, of course. Typically the death of a spouse which the studies officially detach from the death of a relative. Then there’s divorce, injury, being fired from a job, being jailed, and marital separation. I think you can see why all of those would be stress producing.

Bubba had gone through some of the items, and did understand why they could be stress producing.

But then there’s items that you wouldn’t guess would be stressful, too. The other one clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth. Retirement, for example. Very stressful, too, but in different ways.

Bubba’s mother had retired from regular work, but she hadn’t stopped moving forward, so he didn’t quite get that one. Miz Demetrice was rarely stressed; conversely, stress often brought out her very best analytical thinking and reactions.

And marital reconciliation is extremely stressful. The other person sighed heavily. Will it work out? Is she still cheating on me with the Hell’s Angel from Anaheim? Am I going to get genital warts because, well, you know.

Bubba shrugged.

But marriage is the one I’m talking about. Getting married is considered a significant stressor in most human beings’ lives.

Naw. The only thing stressful about getting married was that dead bodies kept flinging themselves in the path down the aisle. A fella could step over them, but what about the bride in her big dress? She cain’t step over them. I’m digressing.

I can see the disbelief on your face, Bubba. I’m just saying that you’re experiencing a certain amount of anxiety because of all these other events in your life, and consequently you’re looking for something to blame it all on.

Bubba stared at the other person. You mean, I’m stressed out because of the wedding, and I’m blaming it on the possibility of finding a dead body.

Exactly, the other person cried. Quickly, how do you feel right at this moment?

Better, actually, Bubba said. Like a load of cement was taken off my shoulders.

The other one nodded solemnly.

Thanks, David, Bubba said.

Oh, I’m not David, David said.

They were in the small parlor of the Snoddy Mansion. Bubba lay on the velvet covered chaise lounge and a folding chair had been provided for David. On one side of the room was a tall, oak, built- in bookcase with a wide variety of reading material for one’s entertainment. Bubba knew that his mother used the room to read on the odd five minutes that she had to herself. Bubba also knew that Colonel Snoddy had once used the room as an office, and in this room, had personally penned a prolific and memorial list of all the voluptuous assets of the town’s most infamous prostitute, Miss Annalee Hyatt. (Her wondrous breasts are as round as the moon and their pale luminosity is similar to the shine of a prize sow’s ass.)

Bubba sat up from where he had been reclining and reflected on David Beathard. David once had been a postman, but lately he was a resident of the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being. Sometimes he was other things, like a superhero, a pirate, Sherlock Holmes, and a psychiatrist. (Once he was supposed to be the first lady, but Bubba had never personally witnessed it.) The psychiatrist was very helpful at the moment, but David wasn’t dressed like what Bubba imagined a psychiatrist would wear. Instead, he wore a heavily decorated brocade tailcoat. The tail was neatly tucked to one side so he could sit down. The sleeves came to a neat end and ruffled white sleeves poked out impudently. The pristine white ruffles matched the white jabot at his neck that nearly obscured the front of the vest, which was a brown velvet with two rows of bronze buttons. The pants were black fall front trousers. The bottoms were tucked into a pair of black boots. (Preacher boots were the style that Bubba recalled, but danged if he could remember where he knew that from.)

David stood up and plucked a hat from a nearby Jacobian table. The hat was black and almost a half a top hat, with a small grouping of colorful feathers attached to the side. He adjusted a brass monocular on his face and stared back at Bubba. The brass eye suddenly whirled and clicked as it adjusted itself automatically. A specialized lens of no more than a ¼ inch in diameter extended itself and focused on Bubba. (What kind of batteries does that use?)

It was helpful to talk it out, Bubba said. He wasn’t sure what persona that David was into. It was equal parts Victorian gentleman and Mad Hatter with a splash of Jules Verne.

I’m a steampunk super villain, David announced.

But you were a super hero before, Bubba said. David had been The Purple Singapore Sling, sometimes known as The PSS, and had dressed accordingly all in purple, while fervently lauding his super human powers. Fortunately for all involved, the persona hadn’t lasted long, although The PSS had been rather helpful in solving a certain mystery.

And many heroes go through a phase where they become evil, David proclaimed. Just ask Stan Lee or Jack Kirby.

But you were just helping me. Just now. Bubba pointed at the chaise lounge.

Even super villains have friends.

You’re not going to kill anyone as a super villain, are you, David?

I’m not that kind of a super villain. I use my brains and my exceptional mechanicalizing skills to craft superior creations of evil personification. For example, I am recently making an automaton mecha-soldier constructed from advanced aether components and a metal smelted from a meteorite. Under my command, the soldier will take over the White House and hold the President for ransom. It cannot fail. It could never fail. But if it does fail, I have a plan to take over the Mississippi River.

But nothing at the wedding, David? Bubba prompted gently.

I swear. And my name is no longer David. I am the Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger.

Chapter One

Bubba and the Bright Beginning of a Wonderful Day*

*Sarcasm is Strongly Implied

Saturday, April 27th around 6:30 AM

Bubba woke up in his extra-long bed and stared at the ceiling. He wasn’t alone, but he didn’t have the beauteous sheriff’s deputy, Willodean Gray, warming up his side. She had succumbed to the belief that the groom seeing the bride before the wedding would be bad luck. Since they didn’t need any more bad luck, she had absconded from the caretaker’s house of the Snoddy Estate.

Willodean had spent the last three days in Dallas with her parents, and the night before the wedding at the Red Door Inn. (There had been a rumor about a bachelorette party involving nonalcoholic drinks and beerless pong. Possibly it was lemonade pong or punch pong. Willodean was just about two months pregnant, and the smell of alcohol made her want to throw up, but then the smell of a lot of things made her want to throw up.)

He shook his head at the thought of more bad luck coming down on the Snoddy family’s heads. A muffled grunt from beside him revealed how his activity disturbed his bedmate. The lady in the bed with him didn’t care for him moving about.

No more bad luck, Bubba thought ardently. He reached down to the hard wood floor and rapped his knuckles on it. Please God, not today. Amen.

The lady in the bed with Bubba grunted again and raised her head to stare at him. Her brown eyes were large, round, and sad, as if she knew she was soon going to lose him forever to another woman, which wasn’t exactly true. I’m always goin’ to be yours, baby, he told her sincerely. She snorted disdainfully and put her head back down, clearly determined to ignore him.

Bubba could hear something going on outside. Vehicles were going and coming. One of his eyes came to rest on the clock on the nightstand, and he saw that the numbers said 6:29. First on the agenda for the day was a wedding breakfast with close friends and family. Then everyone would get ready for the remainder of the day’s activities. Willodean would be getting gussied up by a stylist at the Red Door Inn and then transported in a limo to the wedding.

Conversely, Bubba would dress in the gray suit hanging under plastic on the closet door. He would make sure he was all straight and that he didn’t have any elusive boogers hanging from his nose. He would put a shine on his fancy shoes. (Oxford wingtips that cost more than all of his other shoes and boots combined.) He would put a flower in his lapel. (White carnation.) He would take deep breaths and pray that his knees wouldn’t buckle while standing with the preacher. Finally, he would wait with bated breath as the spectacularly gorgeous Willodean walked down the aisle. The sun would come out from behind a cloud at that moment and cast her in a brilliant beam of light that would reveal her shining black hair (the precise color of the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit) and her glistening red lips (the exact shade of a Swiss Army Victorinox knife, preferably the Handyman version with 24 functions). It would be all good. It would make me happier than a short-legged pony in a tall wheat field!

Self-fulfilling prophecy, Bubba reassured himself. I believe that all will be well. I believe that nothing bad will happen. I believe that there won’t be a dead body appearing at any time today. He took a very deep breath. That’s all there is to it. He thumped himself on the chest like Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, would have done, just to emphasize the point.

The lady in his bed abruptly nipped his elbow which caused Bubba to jump. Pillows fell to the floor because of the abrupt movement. Precious! he protested. She slipped off the bed and padded to the door, pausing to glare over her shoulder at him. Her long brown ears flopped as she jerked her head back around. It hadn’t been a hard bite, but merely a warning nip from the Basset hound. Her collar jingled as she moved down the stairs. She paused to woof softly. He knew what she was thinking. It was something along the lines of Get up and feed me, subhuman slave being. I demand your compliance.

Precious probably believed in the self-fulfilling prophecy. She believed her food bowl would be filled, and thusly it would be. It was theoretical socio-psychology hard at work in a canine fashion.

Bubba sat up and looked around warily. He could see through the part of the curtains covering the window that the sun was about to pop up. The array of colors ranged from orange to pink to a splash of purple. The skies appeared clear through the meager two inch range which was allotted to him. He had checked the weather the day before and nary a thunderstorm was to be had. There was a 0% chance of rain. No one had mentioned anything about tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes. It was an auspicious beginning, to be sure.

Five minutes later and Bubba was feeding his dog. He stared down at her brown and white head as she consumed of the doggy kibble goodness in a way that might suggest that she had been starved for several weeks. Self-fulfilling prophecy, see?

He made himself a pot of coffee and sat in a chair to wait for it to percolate. Precious finished her food, checked to see if any had spilled over the side, snorted when it hadn’t, and wandered to the door, looking at him expectantly. Bubba got up and let her out without comment, but he couldn’t let the moment pass. You’re my favorite dog, little wubsie-bubsie boo-boo.

I shall nip you again, Precious thought and stared intently at his bare, defenseless leg. Bubba was still dressed in boxer shorts with Honey Buns printed over the backside and Hot Stuff on the front. (A gift from Willodean or it would have been used as a shop rag on the soonest occasion.) I shall nip you with great glee and then I shall prance down the lane and find another subhuman slave to

Reviews for Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

[MichelleDuffy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Will Bubba and Willodean get to tie the knot? I hope there will be more Bubba books in the future. The number of deep belly laughs I get from the preposterous situations Bubba finds himself in are priceless. Kudos to CL Bevill for delivering another "thrilla"
Would have loved some chat with Big Momma, otherwise the book is perfect!