The Marigold Murder

I must start at the middle, if I am to be fair to my motivations, which, if I'm being honest, I don't entirely remember. Let me explain.

I woke up one day to the sounds of hospital beeping. I was afraid to open my eyes to a white beard on my chin and a doctor informing me that my parents had passed on seven years ago.

"Jamaal?" said the raspy voice of my commissioner, Miranda Williams. It only makes sense that she came to visit her favourite detective. "Who did this?"

"Did what?" I asked before I felt a stabbing pain on the left side my head. "What happened?"

"Someone attacked you. What's do you remember?"

"Going to bed. Saturday night," I said. Turns out it was Monday morning and I had lost all memory of Sunday.

An investigation to find my attacker was started but I wasn't interested in that just yet. I wanted to solve the just discovered murder of Clark Boon, CEO of Boon Dynamics, a top tier manufacturer of military grade ammunition.

"What do we know?!" I shouted to Commissioner Williams as I emerged in between the trees of a countryside forest.

"You shouldn't be here," said Williams, moving away from Clark Boon's corpse.

"Not staying in a hospital. Come on, what do we know?"

She sighed. "This isn't not your case, okay?" She knew I'd make it mine.

Besides the stab wound in his heart, the body was clean. In fact, it was a little decorated. In his right hand, sat a marigold flower. Unless Clark Boon went everywhere with a yellow flower in his hand, then his killer was leaving us a clue. Did he want to be caught?

"What's with the flower?" I asked.

"No idea," confessed Williams. "We're gonna have forensics look for fingerprints. Boon's mansion is a mile away. It's been checked and his cameras show nothing. Street cameras show several cars passing by but it's a country road, people use it. Meaning, you're not needed."

"What about florists?" I asked. "That flower is fresh. As far as I'm aware, marigold's aren't grown anywhere near here."

The Commissioner nodded, not wanting to admit I was right. "I'll get a list of shops in the area."

"I was going to present you with more evidence of this guy's corruption yesterday."

"You did," she said. "In fact... you said me and the entire department were as corrupt as he was. Almost fired you. Guessing you don't remember that?"

"Guessing you didn't agree to arresting him?"

"I'm starting to wish I had," she said.

I was in my office later that day trying to force myself to remember Sunday. Why would somebody attack me? Did my findings on Boon's illegal activities lead to someone targeting me?

"Jamaal!" shouted Williams from her office.

I entered expecting a lecture.

"We have a list of florists," she informed me.

"This my case now?"

"Still mine. You're gonna help."

"Alright then. What do we got?" I asked.

"I'm gonna skip the shops that don't sell marigolds and the one lady who ran out yesterday..."

"Let's talk to her," I stated. Running out of all your marigolds at once sounded interesting to me, even if it didn't help.

"You want to start with the one person that doesn't have marigolds?"

Commissioner Williams might be in charge, but she usually listens to what I want, which is why we ended up at Betty's Flowers and talked to, well, Betty.

"One man bought every single one?" I asked.

"At full price too," said Betty, an elderly woman with a smile that explained everything you needed to know about her.

"Did he say if they were for anything?"

"Said they were for his wife," Betty said, leaning closer in to me. "But it felt like he lied I didn't see no ring."

"Alright detective Betty, would you be able to describe this man?"

"He was tall, black, scruffy beard, in his thirties..."

"We got someone!" Williams said, barging in with pride.

"Who?"

"Guy's fingerprints are on the flower and they found the rest of the marigolds in his car," Cases have been solved quickly, but if the killer wanted to be found, then this felt too quick.

Back at the precinct, I didn't get to do any interrogating since I was off duty. That, or Williams just didn't want me stealing the spotlight. She let investigator Baker, lowest ranked on my list of worst investigators, question the suspect. I had to sit with Commissioner Williams behind the window.

"Why'd you do it?" Baker asked Sean, the suspect, who as the florist described, was tall, scruffy beard, and was black. I'm surprised that description wasn't enough for Baker to put him in jail immediately.

"I didn't do it man. I swear," said Sean, with his arms crossed.

"So you had nothing to do with it?" asked Baker.

"Look, I was hired to pick up flowers, give a ride, run some errands... but I didn't know that it would lead to Boon's death."

"Who hired you?"

"I can't say," said Sean.

"Hang on," I said, recognizing the suspect. "Is that Sean Onsando? He worked for Boon."

"As I found out from the folder you gave me yesterday," said Commissioner Williams. "In fact, you stated that on one occasion, this guy even threatened Boon."

After the interrogation, I spoke with Williams privately, begging her to let me loose. "Baker won't get it done."

"It is done," Williams stated. "Sean's our guy. Only he and the florist's prints were on the flower, more marigolds were in his car, he's threatened Boon, and his red sedan was identified as having went through the road by the mansion."

"So, he purchases the flowers, lures Boon into the forest, stabs him, puts a marigold in his hand for some reason, and then leaves. At the end of it all, he keeps the rest of the flowers in the car? The timing doesn't make sense. Between him being at the flower shop and being on the street by Boon's mansion, he would've..."

"Jamaal," she said to stop my rambling. "I know you want this to be done right, but we're good. If you want something to solve, figure out what happened to your head. We got this, trust us."

I wanted to trust them, but my department wasn't properly funded, and the people there weren't well trained either. The sooner they got someone in jail, the sooner they were congratulated. And though I admired Commissioner Williams, taking extra steps was something only I cared about. The question of what happened to my head did start to ring though.

"Where all was I yesterday?" I asked Williams.

"After you scolded everyone, you left and next I heard, you were found in an alleyway in the middle of the night. Unfortunately there aren't any cameras in the alleyway," she said.

"What about the street?"

She shrugged.

On my way to view the security footage of the streets by the alleyway, I realized that I hadn't checked my phone activity for any clues. Looking through my call logs, I noticed an unfamiliar number called multiple times later at night than I would usually call anyone. Not wanting to forget another day, I held off on calling them.

After spending over an hour skipping through footage of cars, I finally got somewhere. A red sedan had driven towards the alleyway I was attacked in, and about five minutes later, drove away from it. I couldn't see if it stopped by the alleyway, but it shouldn't have taken them a minute to move in any one direction. At first, I thought nothing of the car itself, until I remembered the description of Sean Onsando's car, a red sedan. I immediately called Commissioner Williams.

"I already told you to forget about it," said Williams.

"I did forget about it. This might help solve the mystery of what happened to my poor head."

"I know you're bullshitting me, Jamaal. Anyway, his license plate number is..."

The same exact license plate number of the car in the security footage. Sean was by the alleyway I was attacked in at the same time I was attacked. The case of my head's nemesis and the case to find Boon's killer were connected.

"Could you send me Sean's number?" I asked Williams.

"Why?"

"Just do it," I said.

"You're lucky I'm in charge. His number is..."

The same number I had called multiple times the night before.

"Jesus..."

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think Sean's the one who hit me. Commissioner, I gotta interrogate..."

"Jamaal... Sean just left the precinct with his attorney."

I ran back towards the precinct as fast as I could but the closer I got, the more hope I lost, until one turn of my head revealed Sean walking on a street of stores. Before I could start my run, he noticed me and as if my face was a gun about to be pointed at him, he sprinted away. The chase was on. Shoving every pedestrian in my path, and hurdling through every obstacle, I almost reached for the suspect's shirt, but an alleyway welcomed him in first.

At the end of the alleyway, he was denied by a wall. He turned around ready for a fight before I took out my gun and pointed it at him, causing him to freeze.

"How the hell are you alive?" he asked. "I thought I killed you man."

"Why'd you attack me?

"You would have shot me."

"For what? I'm not a murderer," I claimed.

"So killing Boon doesn't count as murder?" he asked.

That's where I could've stopped. I could've taken him in and closed the case. "What did I have to do with that?"

"What'd that hit do to your memory?"

"Answer me!" I shouted, getting closer with my gun. "What happened last night?"

Between being blamed for a murder and being used for one, he knew what the better option would be.

"You hired me yesterday me to run some errands. Said if I did what you asked, Boon would get what he deserved. So I took the offer. Even did the weird thing with buying all the flowers."

I would have accused him of lying, but at that moment, flashes of the previous day forced themselves on my head. I remembered taking Boon to the forest, stabbing him in the heart, and wearing gloves to lay down one marigold flower in his hand, delivered to me by Sean at the edge of the forest.

"After it was done, you wanted to meet up at an alleyway. But when I got there, and saw the gun in your holster, I got worried. You were a cop and I just helped you murder someone. You killing me would have been where the story ended. So I grabbed a brick off the ground, hit you on the head, and ran. And now they think I killed Boon, but you gotta tell them the truth man." I was quiet from shock. "You're gonna tell them, right?"

"Wanna know my theory?" asked Commissioner Williams in the interrogation room that I was on the wrong side of. "I think you put the marigold there because you were going to frame Sean using the flowers. He was a lost soul, so why not throw away the rest of his life? You were going to take advantage of how quickly we close a case. You were going to take advantage of the flawed system you always complain about. Lucky for us, you forgot enough to be a good man again. Am I right?"

"I don't remember," I said. That was the truth. I still don't remember everything. I've gone back and forth imagining why I would put a marigold in Boon's hand, but I now sit behind bars that ban me from ever knowing. Ironic, considering that chasing the truth is what got me here to begin with.

The End