Curled Petals

The petals of the daisies form a wreath around the neck, blood seeping into those delicate petals. I take one, put it in a bag, and label it. Collecting what I can before the Medical Examiner has to take the body. Which is not much because whoever the killer is has never left any DNA evidence behind. They have made sure of that. And they are damn good at it. 

They’re always deep in the forest, just past the cusp of where kids stop exploring. The trees provide what shade they can, but even they can’t stop the sweltering heat of summer in Oregon. Which means I am trying to get this evidence collected and get back inside as quickly as possible.

This body has the MO of a case I have been working for two months. I have since nicknamed it the Daisy case. because of the most recent flower petals. Which has always been different each time.

As the lead detective on the case, I will give you as much information as I can. There have been a sting of murders around town for the last few months. All with the same MO. Slit throat covered in flower petals. No DNA is ever left on the body, no fingerprint, hair, skin cell nothing. Just those damn flowers. As I previously mentioned they are always a ways into the forest. There have now been twelve murders each with different flowers. Roes, tulip, lily, marigold, peony, daffodil, carnation, iris, sunflower, hibiscus, jasmine and most recently daisy. There have been no suspects or suspicions of who it could be. But I’m determined to find out who is behind all of this.

Taking what little evidence I have I go back to my car to ride back to the station. When I get back surprise, surprise John is there waiting for me.

“Hey Ace,” Ace is the nickname everyone here calls me by don’t ask I don’t know. Nor do I really care. My name is Samara, yet all the detectives call me Ace. The only time I get called my real name is by superiors. And even then, its normally my last name.

John hopped up to sit on my desk. I glared at him, but he wasn’t even looking at me. Sighing I continued to put my stuff away and sit and down.

He finds a pack of gum and lights up, but I swat his hand away and his shoulders slump.

But he perks back up and asks,

“How’s the Daisy case going?”

“Well based on the evidence or lack thereof,” I say flatly, “How do you think.”

“Okay touchy subject,” he says raising his hands in surrender.

“Don’t you have work to be doing?” I ask looking up at him.

“Well yeah but it’s boring,” he whines.

I fix him with a stern look,

“You’re a detective. It doesn’t matter if the work is boring or not it’s important. So, get off my desk and get back to work.”

He frowns but gets off and walks back to his desk. I finish logging the small bit of new evidence we have. But hey something is better than nothing right. Hopefully

Anyway, instead of dwelling on the little amount we have at least we have some new evidence. Although it did come at the cost of someone’s life. But sometimes that’s the price you have to pay.

I glanced at the clock and internally groaned. There were still two hours left of my shift.

I glanced up from my computer and sat up straighter.

“Sargent Anderson,” I said looking up at her.

“Adler, how is the Daisy case going.”

“Good, good,” I said nodding, “We found more evidence so I’m going to try to get a print off of it.”

“Ok, good luck,” She said as she turned and walked away.

What was that about? I don’t know but the only thing I can do is get back to work and maybe finally solve this case. This is the biggest case that I have ever been given and I can’t screw it up.

An hour later I sigh thinking about something to do. I already tested the petal for prints, nothing. And you can only read over evidence and case reports so many times before you start to go insane, and I was about to hit that point. So as a last resort I walked over to John’s desk.

“What are you working on?”

Spinning his chair to look at me he said,

“Burglary case, Callie’s craft corner,” He said recounting the details of the case, “They took mainly oil paints and a few bundles of yarn. All high end stuff.”

“Any suspects?” “Yeah, Blake Collins,” He said handing me a picture.

“Well let’s go catch him,”

He looked at me with a determined smile. I gave him the same determined look. Grabbing my badge and gun we walked outside. John got in the driver’s seat me in the passengers. He parked the car in front of Baylie’s Salon which was where we would be starting. Because It was the shop next to Callie’s.

The salon was playing upbeat hip-hop music. It was a bright purple with neon accents. John walked up to the desk where Mrs. Verity was standing,

“Good evening, Mrs. Verity, were you aware that Callie’s craft corner was robbed last night?”

“Yeah,”

“Have you seen this man around?

“I’m afraid I haven’t,”

“Ok thank you for your time have a good day,”

We walked out of the salon and back onto the street. And to our luck just down the street was our guy.

“john,” I whispered elbowing him.

“Hm,” He said.

“Look straight ahead.”

“Well that makes our day a hell of a lot easier,” He said looking at Blake Collin’s.

We walked over and stood Infront of the table he was sitting at.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Collin’s I’m going to need you to come with us.”

He got up to run only to trip and fall on a chair.

“Ah,” I said.

John walked forward and grabbed Collin’s. Then walked back to the car.

The clock finally hit six. I closed my computer and packed my bag. Clocking out I walk to my car. Turning my car on I throw my playlist on shuffle and start to drive.

My house is at least a half hour away from town, so I get to listen to music for a good long while. My housing and job situation is not desirable but it’s all that was available. You might think living half an hour away from your job is not all that and in other situations it would not be. But the station is in a small and when we get called in on our days off or off hours it takes me the longest to get there. Because everyone else lives in town.

Once I get home, I switch the music off and walk into the kitchen. Walking in the door I set my bag down on the kitchen counter. I just stare at it for a while before walking to my room. I haven’t gone out in a while so why not tonight.

The only problem is that I don’t have many outfits to go out in. So, after rifling through my closet for twenty minutes, finally I found an outfit. It’s a short sleeve purple button up, grey dress pants, white tennis shoes and silver star earrings.

Then I grab my bag back from the counter where I had left it. As I’m about to leave I stop and glance in the hallway mirror. I decided to leave my hair down. It’s just simple mid length brown. The thought of dying it had always been in the back of my mind. But I had never followed through with it.

So, I walk back to my car and start it again to drive back to town. There are never many cars parked. So, I never have any problem finding a parking spot. Because almost no one here owns a car. Everything is within walking distance.

But I park my car and walk along the street to see what restaurants they have. Calicos Coffee is still open. They are open into the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning. There are not many hours that they are closed. And they are simple, cheap and affordable.

I walk in the bell ringing as I do so. The barista looks up from the counter.

“Welcome to Calicos Coffee what can I get for you?” She asked.

“Black coffee and egg and sausage sandwich.”

“Ok that’ll be 12.35,” she said tiredly not looking up from her screen.

I handed her a twenty and she sighed and pulled my change out of the register.

She handed it to me and said,

“I’ll call your order when it’s ready.”

“Thanks’,” I said walking over to a table by the window.

I sit down at the table and look out the window onto the street. As I’m looking, I see a flower cart. Now I’ve walked down this street a dozen times and have never seen a flower cart.Although also I haven’t been in town just for fun in months.Tacking criminals sure. But I guess a flower shop is not where most of the criminal activity is happening.Just wait for valentine’s day it’ll be worse than the apocalypse.

The sky was a mix of pinks, oranges and purples. Then I head someone saying something and they were growing impatient. I looked up to see the barista at the end of the counter with my food and drink,

“Your order’s ready,” she said angrily.

She walked back to the computer, and I grabbed my stuff and sat back down. I quickly ate my sandwich and drank my coffee. Then walked out of the café, the bell dinging as I do so. Who knows when I’m going to be down here next, so might as well see what is new. Starting with that flower shop.

Walking next door, I glanced up at the sign hanging from the shop Dahlias Flowers. Huh. I walked inside the bell dinging and a women at the counter looked up. She had curly blond hair tied up in a ponytail that was falling loose. And bright blue eyes that met mine as I walked inside. She smiled and said with enthusiasm,

“Hi, I’m Dahlia, if you need help finding anything let me know!”

Giving a small smile I said,

“Ok, thanks.”

It was a cozy little shop. It had more flowers than I could name. Now do I know a lot of flowers no, but still. There was an abundance of flowers of all different types. On the back wall there were all different kinds of pots. Obviously, the normal kind, but also different shapes like a duck, a cherry and a Rubik’s cube.

Maybe I’ll get a plant. Now did I kill the last plant I had. Yes, rather quickly and I still don’t know how. But you know what everyone says second times the charm.

So, diverting myself away from the pot’s I went back to flowers. There was a yellow orchid on the counter where Dahlia was. Maybe I’ll pick that up last. Keep the awkward small talk to a minimum. It was going to need a pot, so I went back to the shelf to grab the one I had been eyeing. Which was the duck one. I don’t know what it is about it, but I felt drawn to it. And the yellow orchid would look perfect in it.

So, grabbing it I walked over to the counter and grabbed the orchid. I set it down in the pot and set it down. Dahlia looked at me with that same big smile,

“Ooh these go great together,” she said checking the pricing on them.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Ok so that will be forty dollar’s, cash or card.”

“Uh, cash,” I said as I rummaged around for my wallet.

“Ok,” she said and started humming.

As I handed her the money I asked,

“What was that song you were humming?”

She looked up from the coins she was counting,

“Hm, oh Dream A Little Dream Of Me.My mom used to sing it all the time.”

“Used to?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and said,

“She died when I was eighteen.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said handing me my change, “Do you want a bag with that?”

“No, thank you.”

“Ok, there you go. I hope to see you again.”

“Yeah, have a good night.”

“You too,” she said smiling.

I walked out of the shop into the warm night air. Leave it to me to bring up people’s past traumas.

Opening the car door, I set the orchid in the passenger’s seat and closed the door. Before I started the door I went onto my phone and looked up Dream A Little Dream Of Me. I clicked play and then started my car.