It's Murder at the Buy-Right

1

 "Deke! We shoulda' went to church last Sunday! Now, we're gonna die!"

She heard heavy footsteps as Deke rounded the corner of the juice aisle and stopped dead in his tracks. All of the color drained from his face.

"Watch out!" he said. "Look at the shape of the head! It's poisonous!"

Daisy Ann backed up. Her mouth and eyes were perfectly shaped round 'o's. Deke was breathing heavily, and Daisy Ann could hear the hitch in his voice as he whispered,

"Somebody's put a copperhead in the cooler!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Do you think a leviathan like that flattened itself out and crawled under the front door?"

"Crawled under the front door! Merciful saints! I opened the store this morning alone! Alone! With a monster hiding out in the cooler! I'm going to be sick! I'm going to pass out! I'm going to break out in hives and varicose veins!"

Daisy Ann was flapping her arms like a seal just offered a barrel of fish.

"Are you crazy?" Deke said, disappearing and returning a few seconds later to the cooler with a hoe in his hand.

He looked like a combination of many things, falling somewhere between a scarecrow and Old McDonald. Only at a country supermarket could you find hoes and shovels next to the onions, tomatoes, and bread.

Deke peered into the cooler. It really was a giant of a snake. A real whopper, at least four feet long.

"Be careful!" Daisy Ann said. "Be careful! Be careful!"

***

She'd been a staple at the store for twenty years. Dependable and trustworthy, she was a chatter box with the customers at the register. Her easy way with folks made her a natural at putting them at ease when the time came to pay for their groceries and part with their hard-earned cash.

"You think the cold has him sluggish?" Daisy Ann asked. "He ain't moving."

"Maybe. I don't know," said Deke, obviously putting off diving in after the critter. "I hope so. I'll be grateful for any small favors."

Deke still made no moves toward the cooler.

""Geez, Louise! He's as big as my thigh!" Daisy Ann said. "You gonna cut his head off?"

"And do what, Daisy Ann? Serve him up at the deli as exotic meat?"

Daisy Ann frowned. The pseudo scarecrow-farmer was in a snotty mood.

"I don't think the health department would go for that," she said.

"I was joking," Deke said, still trying to figure out just how to go about getting the blasted thing out of the store and back into the woods where it belonged.

He'd give an eye tooth for a fork lift, a crane, or some other piece of heavy-duty equipment with an extra long pincher claw of some type.

Snakes were . . . well, they weren't Deke's favorite things in the world. To say he was afraid of them was like saying the water spilling over Niagara Falls was a tear drop in his mama's metal dishpan.

"You want me to get it out?" asked Daisy Ann. "I guess I could try. Good Lord, that thing gives me the shakes. Can't promise I won't drop him if he hisses or looks like he's going to strike."

"No, I most certainly do not," he said, refusing to be shown up by a woman. "A worker's comp lawsuit is something I need like another hole in the head. I'll take care of this, myself. Just don't rush me. Okay? And give me some room, will ya?