The Kyra Daniels Cases: Bed of Heather

The golden petals of the marigold flower were stained with the crimson blood emanating from Heather DeMaere’s corpse. The notable floral designer had been impaled by a set of garden shears and found in a garden of her namesake flowers outside her house late that morning.

“Multiple entry wounds,” I say to Jeff. “What do you reckon?”

“Crime of passion?” He replies, unsure in his answer. “Maybe a jilted ex?”

I nod slightly.

“What else do you see?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re taking the lead on this one. What else do you see?”

“Oh… umm,” Jeff hesitates. “From the pattern of blood, and the way these flowers look,” he points to a trail of crumpled flowers flowing outward from the corpse, “I would say she was dragged here. But why to the flowers?”

“Poetry, maybe,” I reply. “What else?”

“The garden shears look cheap, and based on her house, probably don’t belong to her.”

“The goal is to be rich,” Anderson chimes in, photographing the wound. “People often confuse that with looking rich.”

“Thanks, Anderson,” Jeff says flatly. “Let’s talk to the housekeeper.”

The housekeeper is a small woman named Ms. Campbell, likely decades older than Heather, trembling with every cell in her body. Jeff and I walk over to her.

“Ms. Campbell,” Jeff begins, “do you know of anyone who would want to hurt Heather?”

“She was famous,” she replies. “You don’t get to be famous without making some enemies.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“There was one person. Heather frequently received emails from Andy McMillian.”

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“A competitor. Always got beaten by her. Some people can’t handle losing.”

“Ms. Campbell. We’re going to need to see those emails? Can you take us to her computer?”

“Of course,” Ms. Campbell says, quietly leading us away. “She usually did everything on her phone, though. But she kept a backup on her computer.”

“Anderson,” I shout. “See if you can find a phone on the victim.”

Anderson gives me a thumbs up.

“Why the phone?” Jeff asks.

“Easier to carry, I suppose,” Ms. Campbell interjects.

“And easier to steal,” I reply.

Jeff gives me a weird look.

-

“‘How are we supposed to make a living, if you won’t give us a chance?’” Jeff quotes from Heather’s emails. “These aren’t terrible: mostly just complaints regarding her being a professional.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Andy seems to be under the impression that, since Heather’s already a professional, she shouldn’t be involved with amateur competitions. But there’s nothing here to suggest malicious intent.”

“Check the last message she received from him.”

Jeff scans the messages. After a solid minute, he replies.

“There’s one here about her time being up and Andy suggests that she just lie in her garden,” Jeff says.

“I guess we should pay Andy a visit.”

-

Andy pours us a cup of tea as we sit down in the living room of his modestly sized apartment. The place is filled with flowers of many sorts, each with a yellow marigold in its pot.

“What can you tell us about your relationship with Heather DeMaere?” Jeff asks.

“Heather?” Andy asks, confused. “She was a professional floral designer. Designed for weddings, banquets, you name it. We were trying to get our own business started, but she would always beat us in competitions.”

An interesting note. I wonder if Jeff noticed the importance of what Andy just revealed to us.

“So, you sent her emails?” I ask. “Even though she had nothing to do with you?”

“I assume you’ve read them?” he asks. We nod and he continues. “When you’re starting out, you enter competitions to gain notoriety and get some small modicum of financing to pursue those dreams. I’ve got nothing against continuing your career, but if you’re a pro standing in the way of amateurs, they won’t get a chance to advance. So, I let her know my displeasure.”

“They don’t really owe you anything, though,” Jeff says.

“I knew it was pointless, but we just wanted to fulfill our dreams.”

“Who’s we?” Jeff finally asks.

“My partner, Jake Neufeldt.”

“Partner?”

“Well… ex. Jake was always more hot-blooded about Heather than I was.”

“When did you break up?”

“Last night.”

“Thank you for your time,” Jeff finishes. “We’ll be in touch.”

“You don’t think he had something to do with this?”

“Too early to tell. Call us if you remember anything else.” Jeff hands him a business card.

“Out of curiosity,” I ask, “why do all your pots have a marigold in them?”

Andy chuckles. “They’re my favourite flower, so Jake made them my signature. His was always a nightshade plant.”

Jeff shoots me a knowing look.

-

“The break-up could’ve been the stressor,” Jeff says as we sit in Lindsay’s office, awaiting her report.

“You figure that it’s Jake?” I ask.

“It makes perfect sense. Andy and Jake both hate Heather, but Jake is the hot-headed one. After getting dumped, he goes to confront her himself. While there, she starts getting freaked out, maybe tries to call the cops so he kills her. The anger comes out, so he keeps stabbing her.”

“Then why drag her out to the garden?” I ask.

“Like you said: poetry,” Jeff remarks. “He’s a floral designer, so he drags her out to the flower bed to make her his latest project. Andy told us that Jake made the marigold their signature, which is why we found one at the scene.”

“A valid theory,” I concur.

“But wrong?”

“We don’t have a lot of concrete evidence.”

“The only perfect crime is one where they don’t get caught.”

“Everyone gets caught. That’s why there are people like us.”

“You mean people like you.”

“Us, Jeff. We both contribute.”

“Is it Jake, though?”

Lindsay opens the door.

“Let’s find out,” I say.

“Hey Kyra,” Lindsay says. She looks at Jeff and her voice raises an octave. “Jeff.”

“What do you have for us?” I ask.

“Nothing that significant,” Lindsay continues. “Cause of death was multiple stab wounds. There’s a bit of nightshade poisoning in her system.”

“Nightshade?” Jeff asks.

She nods.

“Jake’s starting to look better, isn’t he?” Jeff turns to me and asks. He’s searching for validation. I wish I could give it to him.

“Was there a phone among her possessions?”

Lindsay shakes her head.

-

After a brief call to Andy, we got the address to Jake’s parent’s house. On our walk up to the door, we notice a brown car driving away.

Jeff knocks on the door to the parent’s house. Mrs. Neufelt answers the door.

“Good evening Mrs. Neufeldt,” he starts. “May we speak to Jake?”

“He just drove away,” she replies. “He’s going home to Andy.”

“To Andy?” I ask. “I thought they broke up.”

“They broke up? Why didn’t Jake say anything?”

“What did he say?” Jeff asks, visibly shaken.

“Something about finishing up a project.”

“Thank you for your time.” Jeff turns around and heads back to the car.

“Jeff, wait,” I say, stopping him.

“Kyra, if Jeff is the killer, he may hurt her as well. I need to be sure.”

I nod and hop in the car. The sirens start blaring and we drive towards Andy’s place.

-

We knock on Andy’s door, and we hear a gruff voice from behind it.

“Go away. He’s busy.”

“Jake?” Jeff asks. “We are detectives. We have a few questions for you.”

“Get lost!”

“Jake, if you don’t open this door, we will break it down,” I announce.

“HELP!” we hear Andy scream through the door.

In mere seconds, Jeff and I draw our guns, break open the door and aim at Jeff. We can’t get a shot; he’s using Andy as a shield, garden shears to her throat.

“Get out of here, or I will kill her!” He shouts.

“If you kill her, you’ll never get to be with her again,” Jeff shouts.

“Furthermore,” I add, “if you kill her, you’ve lost your bargaining position, and we swill shoot you.”

“You have no incentive to kill Andy, Jake. This doesn’t have to end this way.”

“She was greedy. Heather already had everything.” Jake shouts. “We hated her.”

“Not enough to kill her,” Andy retorts.

“You wanted to do it, too. You just never had the nerve. I did, and now, we can do whatever we want. She caused us to break up.”

“No, Jake, you did. You were obsessed and I couldn’t take it anymore. She did nothing to us. Sometimes people are just better than you are.”

Andy stomps on Jake’s foot. He recoils in pain, loosening his grip enough for Andy to break free. I tackled Jake to the ground, while Jeff attends to Andy. I notice a phone bulge in his back pocket. I take it out.

“I assume this is Heather’s phone?” I ask.

“I tried to break into it to delete the messages incriminating us.”

“Us?” Andy asks.

“I did this for you,” Jake pleads. “I love you.”

Andy looks as though he’s going to vomit. He runs into the other room.

“She took all our business,” Jake continues. “She had to go.”

“You wanted fame. Fortune. She had it. Is that it?” He looks over at me, then back to Jake. “There will always be people who are better than you. You should’ve learned from Heather instead of vilifying her.”

“I don’t care about that,” Jake snaps. “When you’re an artist, you’re always going to find people who are better than you. Fame and fortune are extremely hard to achieve.”

“Then why kill her?” I ask.

“Heather was already a success,” Jake replies as I handcuff him. “Already rich while most of us worked jobs we hate, just so we could choose between bills and eating. Already famous, drawing attention away from amateurs when most of us are there to get noticed to start our real lives. Most of us work ourselves to death to get a taste of what she has. It didn’t seem right or fair that we had to compete against her.”

Jeff stares at Jake to think about this statement. I can see Jeff’s conflicted emotions in his face, especially since he’s been searching for validation this entire case. After a moment, he steps closer to Jake, getting within inches of his face.

“Welcome to the real world,” Jeff whispers.

-

“A full confession?” I ask Jeff as we enter the parking lot, heading for our respective cars.

“Nightshade poisoning to make her wobbly, but when she tried to call the police, he needed something more effective.”

“Kudos. Some people can’t handle losing.”

Jeff stops in his tracks. I stop and turn to him.

“What?” I ask.

“Did you know?” he asks. “What the motive was?”

“I’m not omniscient,” I reply. “Even if I did, it was you who solved the case, not me.”

“But if you knew…”

“I didn’t. Jake was a prime suspect, but it seemed too easy to me. Too simple. It fit too conveniently. You saw it right away and put the pieces together yourself. You’re not some John Watson-esque character who’s wandering around with me while I make brilliant deductions. You’re a real human being with real skills. I have more experience, which means it’s my job to help build you to your full potential, not be jealous or afraid of your talent. Sometimes you’re going to be able to answer the questions that I haven’t even thought of.”

“Is that why you let me take lead?” he asks.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Jeff extends his hand to me. I grab it, and we shake.

“Good night, Kyra,” he smiles. “Thanks.”

“Good night, Jeff.”

As I get into my car, watching Jeff walk away, I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if he hadn’t solved the case. A murderer might’ve gone free.

And, as I take out the photo of Allison Hauser and stare at it, I’m still terrified of the one that is out there.