This time, it was a tweezer. Detective Larry unwrapped a bubble gum and threw it into his mouth, crushing the smooth round ball between his teeth and chewing as hard as he could. It was his means of transferring the anger he felt and could do nothing about to something that couldn't feel it.
Source
He had been asleep when his phone buzzed, bringing the news of Senator Robinson's gruesome murder and all he could find was an exquisitely clean house with an open garden toolbox and a tweezer left carefully just in front of it. Whoever was doing these murders was clearly enjoying himself.
No speck of dust could serve as a trace. No fingerprints, even on the tweezer, nothing. They may as well be dealing with a ghost.
"Detective Larry?" He turned to acknowledge the feminine voice "...
Detective Sara from…." That was all he heard.
She was too pretty to be a detective.
"Detective Larry?"
He cleared his throat as she clapped her hands in front of his face and gave a sneer.
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, detective. It's a pleasure to have you join us."
"How are you efficient when you're easily distracted?" There was a sneer on her face that brought his senses back home. "Give me a rundown of who we're dealing with" she added moving over to inspect the toolbox.
As he spoke, she wrote, nodding her head and only lifting it when he said something really striking or important.
"I think it's some kind of message they're passing, the killer obviously has a motive.
First a judge with a pocket knife in front of the toolbox, then an incapacitated billionaire with a hand rake in front of the toolbox, and now, this."
He rubbed his eyes tiredly and stifled a yawn, the effect of the coffee he had slugged down his throat was beginning to wear off. Detective Sara clucked her tongue.
"This is one big psychopath. I'll be back" Then she headed out, as quickly as she had come in.
It was three months and the killer of three prominent people in the same town within a space of one year had not yet been unraveled. Detective Larry tapped subconsciously at the paper he had been writing on and released a sigh when his phone rang. It was Sara. A gentle smile touched his lips as he took the call, maybe she was going to say she enjoyed the kiss they had shared at the office the night before.
"Uh…hi?" Her silky voice called at the other end
"Hi," there was silence for some minutes before they attempted to talk at the same time and fell silent again. This time, he waited for her to talk.
"I'm sorry, I know you must be really tired from last night's investigation but I really need to see you. I have something to say".
His heart leaped then began thudding as fast as it could. He managed to say he would meet her at the warehouse she had suggested then rose to grab his jacket. He was in love!
It didn't take 30 minutes to get there but the minute he saw her, all the excitement drained from his system, and the alarm began ringing in his head. Her eyes were swollen and she looked like she had been beaten to a pulp.
"Hey…."
She ran into his arms but pulled herself away as quickly as she did.
"Listen to all I have to say and record it, if possible. I don't have much time." He turned his phone recorder on "The toolbox case, I'm involved…"
"Yeah, I know. We're all involved…"
"No! Please listen. There's a gang called the Toolbox, it was formed three years ago and is run by a man called the gardener. We're a set of hurt and broken people who the gardener uses to peddle drugs and bring his opponents down in exchange for granting us the revenge we've always sought against our enemies…."
"You're not making sense Sara…"
"You were right when you said we were passing a message" she went on "That man, the senator, he took my innocence from me, used me, and took me to a hospital where my womb was cut off the second time I took in…"
"And the Judge?" Larry asked beginning to see sense in what she was saying to him.
"She sent an innocent man to be killed. The tweezer's dad was innocent but she was bribed and sent him to be killed while the real culprit walked away. The only offense that man committed was being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Larry ran his hands through his hair, leaving them on his head in utter confusion. He knew the right thing to do; turn this lady who he had fallen helplessly in love with over to the cops and let her pay for all her crimes, but his heart said otherwise.
For someone who had been raped and had her womb removed by a pedophile of high ranking in society, she did what he would have done if she were to be his family. It was the gardener he would hunt down.
"Can you tell me who this gardener is and how to access him? If you do, I promise to let you disappear, without a trace."
There were tears in her eyes as she shook her head.
"I was going to disappear anyways, just get yourself to safety now. You have all the information you need about the gardener. If you look closely, you will see him."
Larry saw the little red dot just as the first tear slipped down her cheek and her chest exploded into tiny irrecoverable pieces.
Ps: This is my entry for this week's Creative Gardeners' prompt.