The Prick of a Red Rose

It was a quiet day in Aragon and Detective Kent Katchum was enjoying a relaxing
Sunday at home. Suddenly he received a phone call. He jumped at the sudden noise. He picked
up the phone reluctantly, knowing his plans of the relaxing day were ruined.

As he picked up the phone, he heard a worried voice telling him to rush over to the
mayor's house because he was murdered. The mayor, a jolly old man who everyone knew and
loved, lived alone and was murdered at 10 in the morning. Who would do such a thing?
Everyone adored the mayor. Who had a motive to kill him?

Once Detective Katchum got at the mayor’s house he was bombarded with policemen,
reporters, and worried citizens. Once he stepped pass the caution tape the chief of police told him
the story. The mayor picked his rose in his personal garden every day at 9, then ate breakfast in
his study. The study, which was always locked, was small and cozy and was where the mayor
did his deep thinking. The mayor was the only one with a key to the study, where he was found
dead. The mayor was hunched forward over the desk with a bloody bullet hole in his chest with a
gun in his right hand. Such a cheerful old man why would he do something like this?

The answer? He wouldn’t. The whole town was in a state of shock as police crawled over
the mayor’s house searching for any clues. As they did that, Detective Katchum interviewed the
maid and the gardener. The mayor took great pride in his flowers and entered them in fairs. The
mayor’s wife died years ago, so left with no one to take care of him he hired the maid. The
maid’s alibi was she always did grocery shopping on Sunday morning to stock up for the week.
She left at 9:30 in the morning and came back at 11. She knew the mayor had an important town
meeting at 11 so when she saw the mayor’s car in the garage, she knew something was up. She
called the police and they found him dead. Detective Katchum knew she was telling the truth
because there were grocery bags on the kitchen counter and the receipt of the groceries told the
time at which they were bought, 10:30.

The gardener’s alibi was that he picked the mayors rose at 9:15 and delivered it to the
mayor but the gardener got pricked by the rose and was getting it out and bandaging the cut
when the maid left. Then he fixed the old tractor that was rattling and bagging around when he
drove it. It sounded like a bomb when it was being used, he said he was fixing it when the police
arrived at the house.

Nobody could find the loophole in the stories. Nobody could tell who did it. They were
starting to think he committed suicide. Well, everybody but Detective Ketchum he knows who
did it. Do you?
 The gardener killed him. The motive? Nobody knows. Was it revenge, hatred, or just
plain cold-blooded murder? How did Detective Ketchum know you may ask? Well it was a
simple slip the gardener made. Every day the mayor picked himself a rose, but the gardener said
he got pricked from the rose he picked for the mayor. After the maid left, he shot the mayor over
the rattling of the mower so nobody would get suspicious. He then planted the mayor in the
office as if it was a suicide.