It was a small town, the type of place where everyone knew everyone, so it was no surprise when Tom was murdered.

He had always been the worst ever since grade school. He would pick on kids at the playground and was openly defiant to teachers. As he got older he leaned towards the views of his deadbeat father becoming misogynistic, racist, and homophobic. No one was sad to see him go. All his family was dead or estranged, they didn’t even hold a funeral.

Of course the town sheriff was intent on finding his murderer if for no other purpose than to prove he could. There had been a string of unsolved murders under this sheriff, people were starting to think he was the murderer. If he wasn’t a murderer he was just dumb, hard to say which he’d prefer to be. His job had been threatened so many times it was hard to say if any of the mayor’s threats were real.

The sheriff started by investigating Tom’s body which was taken by the morgue in the next town over. He had a long journey and would listen to audiobooks and true crime podcasts as he rode on his moped. Of course the autopsy showed nothing except that Tom had been around a number of poisonous plants. Tom being a gardener, this wasn’t surprising.

The sheriff moved onto interviewing anyone who would’ve had a reason to murder Tom. This was everyone in the town even the Jensen’s baby who had once bitten Tom as a result of him trying to hold her. This also got the sheriff no where, if everyone was a suspect then no one could be a suspect.

The sheriff continued to study where the murder occurred wondering if the murderer would just confess. When he settled down for the night he was wrapped in a strange dream. Tom visited him and confessed to his own murder. He was shocked that the sheriff had not figured out already that Tom had committed suicide. He had even left a note on his dresser. In the morning the sheriff went to Tom’s house and looked on his dresser and sure enough, there was a note in Tom’s giant handwriting. The sheriff took it to his station, put it in evidence and called the mayor.

“I am not very good at my job,” he said, “it is time I resign.”