It's Murder at the Buy-Right

13

From that time on, Deke and Daisy Ann were more wary of who came into the store.

"Keep your eyes peeled," Daisy Ann would mutter, just to remind herself to keep her guard up.

Deke made her swear she'd mark every bill that passed through her hands with the marker.

"Even the singles!" she protested. "I'll be here till the cows come home! Our customers ain't gonna like the line being held up while I color all day."

"Alright. Maybe you do have a point. Just the big bills, then."

"The hundreds?"

"Daisy Ann, how many hundred dollar bills pass through the Buy-Right? The twenties. And no lip. If I lose money, I won't be able to make payroll."

"Deke Dewitt! You know you're richer than Midas!"

"Midas McGraw," said Deke. "And what did he leave his widow when he keeled over?"

Daisy Ann smiled. She knew that answer.

"Two dollars and seventeen cents!"

It had been their running joke for years. Each time Daisy Ann asked for a raise she always brought up Midas. Deke always answered in the same vein.

Midas had lived large. Black angus cattle grazed on his sprawling acreage. Everybody thought Midas McGraw was the wealthiest man for miles around, but when he died at the ripe old age of ninety, McGraw left little besides his cows and his land. His widow, well up in years, refused to sell any of the property.

She buried her husband in a pine box in the pauper's cemetery beside the old Poor House, built during the Depression. The land belonged to the county and was still used to bury those who couldn't afford a proper burial.

She died a couple of years later, and her elderly children immediately sold off the farm to hungry land developers looking to build a few housing developments.

Reuben, from the bank, joked that everyone thought Midas was loaded.

"He hadn't left millions," Reuben said.

While refusing to tell the exact amount, Reuben said the old man had left a few cents in his account, just to keep it opened.

Deke embellished the 'few cents' figure.

Two dollars and seventeen cents.

Daisy Ann never knew where he came up with such an odd number, but Deke stuck to the sum and repeated it faithfully thereafter.