Brownie and the Dame (13 page)

“I heard tell that it’s because we need more vitamin D,” another woman said.

“Thou hammer-headed, tongue-dragging pignut,” Thelda added for emphasis.

Brownie cast Thelda his best stinky eye. He’d been disrespected before, and while Thelda’s creatively antique invectives weren’t the subtly veiled pieces of art that Auntie D.’s were, they
were
definitely insults.
What’s a pignut, and can I write it in my notepad without Auntie D. noticing?

Miz Adelia resorted to hands-on behavior and dragged the two children out to Miz Demetrice’s Cadillac, which had been strategically parked around the corner from the Moose Lodge. As she steered them into the oversized sedan, she muttered, “It’s like herding scalded cats.” Brownie looked over Miz Adelia’s shoulder and saw an animal moving in the distance. He said, “Hey, is that Precious?”

Miz Adelia paused. “Put ya’ll’s seatbelts on.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t think that hound is about. Bubba done left her at home today. You saw her this morning, am I right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Dog’s lost her mind lately anyway. She didn’t even want to chase after a treasure hunter earlier. Two fellas with metal detectors and shovels came right up to the back door as bold as the balls on brass monkeys. She dint even lift her head up.”

She took them back to Snoddy Mansion and fed them dinner. There were black beans and rice, fresh collard greens, and corn bread the size of bricks. Dessert was raspberry spoonbread.

Brownie and Janie sat back in their chairs, and he said with feeling, “I feel like a possum stuck in a fence hole.”

They helped Miz Adelia clean up the dishes, and then Brownie tugged Janie back into Miz Demetrice’s office.

“Those women are up to no-good,” Janie muttered.

“Well, they ain’t got much else to do around here,” Brownie said. “What do we do next about the thefts?”

“We get back to the Moose Lodge,” Janie said, “and stick to it like ticks on the back of a blue-speckled pup.”

Brownie stared. “I like the way you think.”

Janie shrugged. “There’s a mystery that needs to be solved.”

They turned to look at the map. All the push pins didn’t tell the story. Nothing jumped out at them and revealed the secret they were searching for.

“We need search warrants,” Janie stated. “Maybe we should talk to Sheriff John again. This time I should talk to him. He’d want to know what those little old ladies are up to.”

“They prolly don’t have a lick of nothing to do with the missing things,” Brownie said. “Auntie D. wouldn’t steal from people like the Boomers or Mrs. McGee. I’m not sure about the cherry tree, but I don’t reckon so. I’m certain about Lissa’s penguin. Neither Miz Adelia nor Auntie D. wouldn’t do that to a little girl.”

Janie’s shoulders slumped. “My mama told me there would be cases like this.”

“Like what?”

“Sometimes you find all the clues you can pick up and carry in a duffle bag, and you still don’t know what happened or who did it.”

“Maybe we need to wait for the next theft to figure it out,” Brownie proposed. He poked a finger at the map. “Ifin not the Moose Lodge, then somewhere right around there.”

Just then, they heard a commotion in the hallway, and they went out to see Bubba stumbling in the front door. His dark brown hair stood straight up in ratted clumps, and he had black smears all over every part of exposed skin. His work shirt hung in shreds, and his jeans appeared scorched. He seemed to have been rolling in coal dust or something equally black.

“Sweet mother of all that is good and holy!” Miz Adelia exclaimed as she beheld the extraordinary sight that was Bubba. “What in seven hells happened to you?”

Bubba blinked tiredly. “I think there was dynamite involved. Possibly plastic explosive or some other kind of explosive. I don’t rightly recollect. My right ear is ringing like a telephone at a bordello, and I cain’t feel the fingers in one hand.” He glanced down to see if his fingers were still attached and functional. He wiggled them as a test. They were.

Brownie said, “Maybe you should go lay down, Bubba.”

“I’ll call Dr. Goodjoint,” Miz Adelia said quickly. “Go put your cousin in the living room, Brownie. I’m plumb shore that couch will support his weight.”

Bubba stared at Brownie. “You weren’t near the garage today, Brownie?”

“I have witnesses,” Brownie avowed. “I dint do it.”

Janie nodded solemnly. “I was with him all day long.”

Bubba shook his head. “Sorry, Brownie. I done saw that book you had the last time you visited. I didn’t know you could do some of those things with only rubbing alcohol and baking soda.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Brownie said arrogantly. He looked at Janie. “Did you know that the Boy Scouts don’t have an improvised munitions patch? It’s positively shameful.”

“I did not know that,” Janie said. “But you should talk to the bomb squad at the DPD.”

“No, no, no,” Bubba protested. “Brownie don’t need to talk to the bomb squad until he’s twenty-one and far away from the Snoddy Estate.” He considered. “Maybe ifin he signs some sort of waiver absolving the Snoddys of all blame, too.”

“Well, we’re kind of busy right now anyway,” Brownie said. He went to Bubba and wrapped the much larger man’s arm around his shoulder. “Just lean on me, Cousin Bubba. You should rest up a bit. Explosions shore take the spit and vinegar out of folks.”

“You would know,” Bubba muttered.

Once Bubba was ensconced on the couch, which was about three feet too short for his six feet four inches, Brownie and Janie backed away and waited. Bubba closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest as if posing for a scene from a vampire movie. Miz Adelia hurried back with a glass of water for him and muttered all kinds of things under her breath.

“Is the hair on his face supposed to be gone?” Janie whispered to Brownie.

“Shh,” Brownie said. “Folks get real upset-like when you mention that to them.”

Janie cast Bubba a look. “I’ll try and remember that,” she mumbled, “in case the situation ever comes up.”

Brownie shrugged. “I reckon we ain’t getting out of here for the rest of the day. Let me show you what you can do with suitable types of household chemicals in the proper proportions.”

Janie grinned. “Sure.”

As they passed the living room where Bubba was being examined by Dr. Goodjoint, they heard Bubba say, “Doc, can you write a note to Willodean saying my head ain’t up there?”

Chapter 9

Brownie and the Perilous Pandemonium

Thursday, April 5th

The very next morning when Brownie got up and attempted to open his door, he realized someone had nailed his bedroom door shut. How they had accomplished this task without waking him up was something he would only question much later. Furthermore, he did not question how he knew the door was nailed shut and not merely stuck. Well, that was the way Brownie thought, and it was thusly so.
Someone
in the Snoddy household was having a good time at Brownie’s expense. It didn’t matter that he had played jokes on them well before that because it was happening to
him
now.

The thing Brownie was most sorry about was that he hadn’t first thought of the jokes played.

However, Brownie had a mystery on his plate already, not that that fact made it any easier to open his bedroom door. At one point in time during his struggle to open the door, he thought he heard stifled giggling coming from nearby. Finally he managed to pry the pins on the hinges loose by wedging the edge of a plastic sword in-between the pin and the hinge and levering them apart. The door was only nailed shut by two nails on the side that opened, so the entire thing fell to one side, and Brownie glared down the hall angrily.

“That ain’t funny!” he yelled. “I could have been trapped in there! For hours! I could have starved to death! I could have peed in my underwear!”

There was muffled thumping that sounded suspiciously like someone hitting the wall to keep themselves from laughing. It was a sound Brownie had heard a time or two before.

Janie yelled up the staircase, “Brownie! Miz Adelia made smiley face omelets and biscuits! DPD’s cafeteria
never
makes food this good!”

Brownie sighed.
What’s a budding private dick to do?

What I need to do is hurry up and get down there before everyone ets all the smiley face omelets and scarfs up all the biscuits. Miz A.’s biscuits are almost as good as her cinnamon rolls.

Wiping drool off his cheek, Brownie hurried.

After breakfast was served, Brownie tried staring down the various occupants of the Snoddy Mansion for clues as to who was the perpetrator of the practical jokes. Staring didn’t work very well with any of them. Miz Demetrice only raised an elegant eyebrow in response.
She’s good at that
, Brownie admitted.
I should practice that. Ma would flip ifin I did that the way Auntie D. does.

Bubba appeared as though he was in a state of shock and didn’t seem to notice that Brownie was staring him down. His hair was still standing up in maddened clumps that had resisted combing or soap and water. There was still black embedded in his skin, but it looked as though it had been scrubbed raw in an attempt to get the substance off. He had a cup of coffee wrapped in both large hands, and there was a twitch in the vein on his forehead.
I reckon I should stay away from Bubba today.

Miz Adelia swept in and out of the kitchen, keeping busy. She didn’t look at anyone in particular and did not notice Brownie’s blatant attempt at intimidation. The phone kept ringing from the hallway where the main unit was connected, and Miz Demetrice was clearly fed up with all of the balderdash.

Janie rubbed her hands together gleefully and tucked into the omelet, not paying any attention to Brownie’s “look-o-doom.” She’d gotten to pick out her own fixings and she was happy. “It’s like one john and four hookers at a police line-up!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

Brownie supposed that was a good thing although he wasn’t sure what a john was, other than a first name. Miz Demetrice winced when Janie said it, but Bubba’s lips quirked into an involuntary smile that quickly vanished when his mother glared at him.

“So it’s Thursday,” Bubba said, as if expecting a certain response.

Miz Demetrice said, “So it is.”

“I like Thursdays,” Miz Adelia remarked as she retrieved a feather duster from the butler’s pantry nearby.

“Thursdays are good, I guess,” Janie said right after she swallowed a gooey lump of egg, cheese, and diced ham. “This omelet is
good
.”

Thursday meant Brownie had only four days to solve the case. Three if he didn’t count Thursday. If he messed around, he’d be gone back to Monroe before he could spit twice and say, “Ain’t no atheists in foxholes,” as his Papa Derryberry liked to proclaim. Brownie had to get out in the field and cadge the crime scene for clues. He had to shake down potential evildoers. He needed to get things done.

When Janie had inhaled the omelet, she nudged his arm. “Come on,” she muttered.

Miz Demetrice made them help clean up, but Brownie didn’t really mind. After that, he and the dame am-scrayed for the office. He only paused to snag the fedora from the counter on the way out.

“Did you get some new lowdown?” he asked, adjusting the fedora on his head. He eyed Janie. She was wearing a new t-shirt with the words “If you run, you’ll only go to jail tired.”

Brownie glanced at his plain blue t-shirt and worn Levi’s. The suit hadn’t been washed again because Miz Adelia had been busy with other things.
Dang. I need some t-shirts with clever things on them. Like “If wishes were fishes, we’d all have a fry.” Naw. That ain’t good. Like a t-shirt covered with fake bullet holes. Yeah. Blood coming from the holes, too. Mebe some brain splatter, too.

“There’s something going down tonight,” Janie whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. “Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia are so nervous they’re shaking like a man on a fifty-cent ladder. Auntie Wills hinted about it. I heard her talking on the cell on the porch. She wants me to stay here tonight and stay here proper. As a matter of fact, she rented two movies for us to watch, and she bought the fixings for hot fudge sundaes. Bubba is supposed to stay home with us and keep us all tucked in.”

Brownie’s forehead twisted into a grimace. “What did they rent?
Wall•E
and
The Smurfs
?” He was disgusted.
How was a sleuth supposed to solve a mystery with all this interference?

“I drew the line at
Cinderella
,” Janie said. “I wanted to get
Police Academy 1 & 2
, but Auntie Wills looked like she might puke so we went with
The Adventures of Tintin
and
Creature from the Black Lagoon
.”

“We need to make a clean sneak from this icehouse,” Brownie murmured, although
Creature from the Black Lagoon
sounded decent. Any title with the words “creature” and “black lagoon” in it had to be something good to watch.

“Back to the Moose Lodge,” Janie agreed.

“You got it, sweetheart,” Brownie said.

“How are we going to ditch Bubba?” Janie asked.