It's Murder at the Buy-Right

37

They were going to have a super-stupendous Christmas, even if it killed them. When she pulled the rip chord, and nothing happened, Daisy Ann was sure it would.

Kill them, that is.

"Come on, Deke," she said. "It's Christmas. We need to do something special."

"I got a calendar on my wall, just like you. I know exactly what season it is," he said.

"But don't you want to celebrate?"

"Your definition of celebratin' always costs me money."

Daisy Ann stuck out her bottom lip. Any farther, and she trip over it.

"Don't pull that pouty oh-I'm-so-pitiful-ain't-you-gonna-cry-crocodile-tears-for-me routine, Daisy Ann. I do my part. I celebrate in my own way. Simple. Quiet."

"All them's just fancy words for cheap!"

Deke just looked her.

"Look," she said, "a lot of good people around here have had a terrible year."

"Don't you think I know that? My bottom line is shrinking faster than Willow Creek in a drought."

"We need a little Christmas, Deke."

"You should be a song writer."

"Deke Dewitt!"

"Alright! Alright! What do you have in mind?"

"What makes you think I have anything in mind?"

"Look," he said, "if you didn't have something rattling around between your ears besides lint and earwax, you wouldn't be bugging me like itch and chigger weed."

"Well, you're right, boss man. I do have a few ideas up my sleeve."

"No parades, Daisy Ann."

Daisy Ann's bottom lip trembled and threatened to flop down on her chest again.

Just because she'd persuaded Deke to sponsor the Christmas parade last year, and it hadn't turned out quite like she'd planned, was no reason to be a snot.

***

It came to her like a bolt out of the blue. Deke swore Daisy Ann had been sniffing too much canned whip cream.

"A parade with live animals!" Deke said. "Have you lost your good senses?"

"No," she'd persisted.

Jeremy Plick eagerly agreed to let his herd participate. His sheep were nice and fluffy and plumb full of wool. They looked like cotton balls plopped all over the field the day she visited his farm.

Daisy Ann formed a picture in her head, and it was nice!

There they were, parading down Main Street, right by Tucker's Funeral Parlor with Elwood Tucker dressed in his finest black long coat and string bow tie.

Of course, Elwood would wear his Abe Lincoln stove pipe hat. He was so proud of that thing.

He wore it, weather permitting, to every funeral for the last twenty years. He'd picked it up at a vintage clothing shop when he'd visited his oldest sister in Atlanta.

The hat was magic, at least in the funeral director's mind, and setting it atop his head transformed him into the most somber and respectful and mournful burial agent this side of the Mississippi.

Elwood Tucker was a six-foot eight stick, with a long head and a squeezed facial triangle. He had enormous round eyes that looked wise and sad like an owl's.