Beetlebottom #17

Bad News Travels Fast in a One Street Town

My original song "Bad News"

 

If all the gossip, harebrained theories and jaw flapping about the three dead men could be harnessed…it would provide heat and light to Beetlebottom for years on end.

Some businesses on Main St. Just closed up, because everyone in town had “ dead guys fever”

Swapping stories about where they were, when they heard the news, dominated most conversations.

Fabricated stories and half baked speculations quickly became more valuable than food or money.

The Beetlebottom townsfolk exchanged tidbits of information and conjured up probabilities and impossibilities with unrestrained glee.

The HazBean Cafe was a buzzing, frantic hub of Three Dead Guys mayhem and hysteria.

At the first hint of the unfolding drama, people greeted each other with ..”Did you hear….?

And once that everyone had heard something, or fragments of something…the exchange started with “ What have you heard…?

And with a few more morsels and kernels of tiny facts and spectacular fictions…the good citizens morphed the conversations into predictions and pronouncements.

“ I heard that….”

 

“ You know what I think…”

In the early stages of the gossip hysteria, the firemen at the field and house fire, only knew about the burned, runned over, shot guy.

It was big news all by itself. Unheard of, unprecedented and down right historic.

It took a couple hours of gossip and horse trading before news of the two dead men at the quarry ran smack into the story of the several times deceased field man.

That's when the chattering went nuclear. Off the charts. Unhinged.

When school got out at 3 pm…all the kids took off to look for more bodies. They scurried about checking all their school age hiding places and hangouts.

After all, it had become fairly obvious that Beetlebottom was sprouting dead people at an alarming rate.

Sheriff Hoodsdigger Fussfutter stood over the charred, run over and shot body.

It didn't take much figuring to realize this was the asshole son of big Mama.

Knowing who this was, didn't help much at all.

Hoodsdigger couldn't figure for the life of him why this wanna be tough guy was so severely and repeatedly…dead.

And…and…this dead loser was several miles from those two dead strangers with the inverted fancy car.

At the dump death scene, Hoodsdigger had not found a gun on either man. So …then, how did Porch Man end up with a bullet hole in his noggin?

For the Sheriff, this is where the space aliens idea unraveled a bit…because that was almost for sure a bullet hole, and not caused by a space laser.

Although, as a helpful bystander pointed out, a space laser or a flying saucer landing could have started the fire.

“ Good point, I'll keep that in mind” Hoodsdigger admitted to the man.

The fire chief came over to stand beside Hoodsdigger.

 The Chief looked at Porch Man's body again and said to the sheriff. 

“ Well, not much of a loss, I guess eh? “ I mean nobody really deserves to go like this, but this asshole comes pretty close”

“ Yeah, I guess” Hoodsdigger offered. “ “ But I'll have to ask questions and investigate some”

Hoodsdigger looked over at the charred old house in the distance.

“ Hey Chief, any signs of Mama and that loser husband of hers?”

“ Nope, we checked the house after we got the fire out.

 It's empty, nobody in there. Kinda odd, their old dog is out there sitting on the road.”

“ Mama's car is gone. Remember that nice new blue car she bought a couple months back?...” Do you think they got kidnapped, Sheriff?...I mean with what you said about the crashed car at the dump…there is something really, really wrong around here.

When Hoodsdigger heard the word, kidnapped”...his thoughts briefly returned to space aliens abduction.

It was only late in the day when Hoodsdigger finally got news about the strange woman that had breakfast at the HazBean Cafe.

Lilli never did get a chance to talk with the sheriff about her concerns with the different looking female stranger. 

One of the looky- loos at the field and house fire, caught Hoodsdigger's attention with…” “Hey Sheriff, did you hear about the scene at the HazBean this morning? Hell of a sight for sure. I'm mean, I wasn't there, but I sure heard all about it” 

“The boys said the woman got Lilli and the customers all stirred up, and then caught the morning bus”

“So we was thinking…you know…all these dead guys …and a bullet in this jerk ( looking over at Porch Man laying under a tarp now)...”Yup, we was thinking that maybe that woman was involved…maybe, you know what…maybe she was a hired killer or something”

“Maybe like one of them “ Fem Fatals”

You know”

“A what .. ?”

Hoodsdigger couldn't quite fit all this news and revelations in at the moment.

“ Like in the detective books ..a Fem Fatal”

A woman that lures men in ..and then kills them”

The fire chief was listening in. “ I think you mean Femme Fatale, there friend .

“Femme Fatale”, shit Chief , what kind of gobblygook is that?” 

“Since when do you speak foreigner?”

The man returned his gaze back to Hoodsdigger.

“Anyways, there Sheriff, that what we was thinking…I don't know how she might killed those two at the dump…maybe she was chasing them or something “

“ Hell, maybe there's others that we ain't found yet…I'm mean ...that you haven't found so far”

Hoodsdigger couldn't fit another idea or thought into his head.

Dead guys, car crashes, bullet holes, fires and two missing bootleggers, plus a mystery woman…the Lanky Pete, Slim Jim and Abe recent events were sliding fast to the back burner….back burner?

 Shit, there was no more room on the stove for that bush league stuff.