In which it's NaNoWriMo, and I'm writing a murder mystery

Claus of Death:  a murder mystery

Nick Frost was surprised to find a dead body in his living room.  He was even more surprised to find that the body looked a lot like him, down to the red tassel cap and gold reindeer buttons on the cuffs.

“Anna!” Nick hollered out the door to his daughter. “Awaayuu*!”

Out on the lawn there arose quite a clatter as Anna balanced groceries on her hip and shoulder and rushed through the door and into the house.  She stopped beside her father when she saw the body.  “Pʾubqliiz!**   

Without stopping to do more than dump the grocery bags on the table, she knelt beside the body of the chubby man in red lying face down on the braided rag rug.  She felt for a pulse and didn’t find one.  Using her hand and her knee for leverage, she flipped the inert form of the man onto his back.  She tipped back his head, swept her finger inside the mouth rimmed by a formidable white mustache and beard, and searched for an airway obstruction.  Finding nothing, Anna looked up at her father.

“Dad, call 911, tell them we’ve got no respiration and no pulse and send the ambulance quick.  Then, call Louise on the radio and get her up here.”

She turned away from him and looked down at the body beneath her hand for only a moment before yanking open the man’s red jacket and shirt to expose his chest and begin CPR compressions. 

And then stopped.

Embedded in the red-clad man’s chest was a tiny silver arrow. 

From the xwiTsʾivsuu dictionary, copyright 2017 by Silii Snow-Anderson

* Awaayuu - (interj) hurry here!  A summoning used for reindeer.
**Pʾubqla -  n old male reindeer (-a, nominalizer) comp. pʾubqliiz reindeer dung!

Comments

  1. I keep dreaming about no brakes on my horse trailertruck, but also somehow, THIS. Hey, this is my new thing, I can do this! (I'm done with roller coasters, cuz they just push me to nightmares about losing control of my horse trailer, which never really happened.)

    I do, sometimes, have other dreams *hug*

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