The Florist

Prologue 

Marilyn Long was sitting at her dinning room table all alone. She was eating a Lean Cuisine dinner. Her cat jumped up on the dinning room table.

“Hey, Puurfect, Don’t give me that look. Okay, so yes this is my second stupid low calorie meal I have had tonight. Dieting sucks. Do you know what, Puurfect? I am a new woman now. I’m not taking any bullshit any longer. I AM A NEW WOMAN NOW!

The door bell rang. “Who the hell could that be, Puurfect? I hope it isn’t another one of those stupid campaign people trying to get me to vote their way. Sucks being registered as an independent. Oh, well I might as well get the door. She stood up and patted Puurfect , placed her on the floor and went to the door.

She opened the door and saw a person wearing a bunny head on top of a brown uniform with white gloves. The person had no shape to their body at all. The person held a bouquet of flowers, Carnations mostly.

“Can I help you?”

“I am your singing telegram”, the strange being said in a high pitched voice that clearly wasn’t real. Marilyn thought, what the fuck why would anybody hire someone who uses this fake voice to sing?

“I give you these flowers from my heart dear, would you take me back please?”

Just great, Marilyn thought, it has to be from my ex-husband, the no good bastard would hire someone crazy like this.

The Telegram singer started to approach very slowly. He or she was getting way to close to Marilyn’s bubble. She or he handed the flowers to Marilyn and then reached into their pocket. The next thing Marilyn felt was a two picks in her neck and a cold liquid was being drained into her veins. The bunny backed away, put the syringes in their pocket and then took off really quickly.

“Hey, “ Marilyn called out. The Bunny kept running faster and darted into her neighbors lawn. Marilyn reached for her cell phone. She felt extremely tired and her heart was killing her. She fell as soon as she got her cell out. The flowers flew everywhere and her cell hit the concrete stairs. Marlyn landed with a loud thud right on her face. Her head cracked wide open on the stairs and blood pooled around her head and down the stairs. Marilyn was dead.

Chapter one

The phone buzzed next to Tracy’s head.  Her sleep had been truncated. Goddamn what time is it? Tracy answered the phone groggily. “Stewart.”

“Good morning, sunshine, I can tell I woke you.” It was Mike Johnson, Tracy’s partner. He has kids so he is always up at the crack of dawn.

“It’s Saturday what time is its?” Tracy asked while rubbing her eyes.

“It’s 5:20, We might actually have a homicide. It’s a suspicious looking death anyway.”

Tracy shot up in bed. “No way, where is it?”

“25 Wilcox St. Meet me here in twenty?”

“I can do that. I’ll need to stop at Cumberland Farms and get a coffee first but I’ll be there ASAP.”

“Later.”

“See ya.”

Tracy disconnected the call and got out of bed. No time for  shower she will just have to take a quick Irish shower and call it good. After she was finished getting her sweet spots she pulled on her uniform and ran a brush through her medium length hair. She grabbed her holster and her gun and headed out the door to her red Toyota Yaris. Within eight minutes she was driving in her car to Cumberland Farms. A record time for her to get out of bed and out the door.

Cindy, the woman behind the counter raised her eyebrows when she saw Tracy walk through the door. ”You are up early this morning,” Cindy said in her always cheerful voice.

“I know it’s work. What time do you even come in you seem like you are always here.”

“I just got in at five. Five to one is my shift I usually see you closer to nine and you are tired then. You actually seem chipper this morning for you.”

Tracy finished pumping the coffee into the large cup. Got to love Cumberland Farms, any sized coffee is just a buck. Tracy started to put sugar and creamer into her coffee and replied, “I might have something exciting at work this morning, that’s why I’m chipper. Believe me I was sleeping peacefully until ten minutes ago.” Tracy put a lid on her coffee and walked over to the counter.

“Well, I guess you are really excited about work can’t say I ever am. So it will be one dollar and seven cents please.”

Tracy handed her a one and a dime. “Put the change into the need a penny tin.” With that Tracy took her coffee and headed back out to the Yaris.

There wasn’t any traffic on the road so it took her no time at all to reach the cal-de-sack  that was 25 Wilcox St.

Andy the medical examiner was already taking pictures of the body. A man was wrapped up in a blanket and he was shaking. He was talking to Mike.

“I told you, I drove by and I saw her on the steps bleeding.”

‘This is a dead end road, the chances aren’t too likely. You are the ex-husband the primary suspect if this turns out to be a homicide.”

“But I loved her. I would never kill her. Didn’t I call the police right away?” Eugene Long was still shaking as he told his excuse.

“According to my records here, Marilyn has a restraining order against you.”

Tracy just stayed off to the side listening to the interaction. During her haste she forgot to smoke so she took several steps away from the scene and lit up her American Spirit..

“Well, Mr. Long, pending an autopsy you will probably be called in for questioning. Do not leave the state and you can go home and get some rest. You look like you were hit by a train.”

Eugene sauntered off to his truck. He was sobbing the whole way.

Mike walked over to Tracy. “Jesus, Tracy, what are you doing smoking again? You quit for what’s her name? The person with a too cute of a name to be a bull dyke,” Mike taunted.

“Trixie, she dumped me a week ago,” Tracy replied.

“Why didn’t you say anything by now? I thought we told each other everything.”

“You didn’t even remember her name we had been dating for two months. I think I hear too much about your wife and kids as it is. Sorry, how are Lynn and the boys?”

“Lynn is going a bit stir crazy with the stay at home parent thing with two toddlers. She needs to get out more. Come on over and look at the body see what Andy has to say about it.”

“I’m still smoking I don’t want to contaminate the scene of a possible murder victim. I see there is a lot of blood gushing out of her skull. I’ll be over in five, get a chance to drink more of my coffee so I can wake up more.”

Tracy finished her cigarette and half of her coffee. She stubbed out the cigarette and put it into the pocket of her khakis. She walked over to the porch steps where the body was laying face down. Mike was already there talking to Andy.

“With the rigor mortis I believe she has been dead for ten to eleven hours. The bleeding of the skull likely happened after she was dead. It was a sudden death. Now whether it was murder or not I won’t be able to tell until I get her on the table. This could have been a heart attack.”

“What’s up with the flowers scattered on the ground. Was it a delivery?”

“It was a delivery,” Mike replied.

“Anyone check the card out?”

“It does not say what flower shop it came from so we have no idea. But it was from her ex-husband.”

“The cracked cell phone?”

“We believe it is hers. She dropped it as she crashed down head first,” Andy replied.

Tracy pulled out a large bag and put on some gloves. She packed the carnations and roses into a bag. She took the card and slipped it into a smaller bag. She got another bag for the cell phone it might have prints on it other than Marilyn’s. This hopefully is evidence, if this is a homicide.”

The ambulance arrived and Marilyn was placed into a large black bag. She was taken off to Maine Medical Center for the autopsy to be performed.

“Well, I hope it was murder and I can actually be a detective,” Tracy told Mike.

“You don’t seem to appreciate how relaxed our job is.”

“It’s too relaxed. It’s almost banal. I don’t even know why they even have detectives in Portland. We might get a few robberies but they are often dead ends. I have so many cold cases because of that.”

“Well, I think this area has been scoped out well enough,” Mike said. “I’ll meet you back at the office, we do have paperwork now even if this turns out to be a natural cause of death.

“Okay, I’ll see you at the office.”

Mike got into his light blue Dodge Caravan and Tracy got into her Yaris. Tracy rolled down her window and lit another cigarette. She slowly pulled out of the cal-de-sac and went back to the Portland Police department.