The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  “How well did you know the victim?”

  “We shared a room full of people for just over an hour. We were part of one conversation together, in which I learned he’d shown Jane Duffy some of Roanoke. Either he was a poseur trying to impress Ms. Duffy with local knowledge or a very tacky man. Or maybe he had a bone to pick with Roanoke. He tried to impress her with Mini Graceland.” She rolled her eyes. “But then I snuck off with Rob for a bit.”

  “To goose him…”

  “That squealer! What did he tell you?”

  “To say that and see how you reacted.” Jake grinned.

  Cam raised an eyebrow. “Fine. We snuck under the trellis so I could goose him, and then I heard Jean-Jacques get mad at Samantha. Well… they got mad at each other.”

  “Mad how?”

  “Rob didn’t tell you?”

  “Sometimes women pick up more. They’re more perceptive.”

  Yes, he was smooth. Cam frowned, wanting to be honest but also not wanting to give a bad impression of anyone in the Garden Society. Then she remembered the benefit of a quick resolution and pushed on. “Jean-Jacques said he wasn’t one of her boy toys. It was as if she’d told him what to do, then she answered she did have a say in what he did. That wasn’t like Samantha at all. She’s good-natured when I tell her no. But she sure got mad back at him, like maybe they knew each other.”

  “Huh. And does she… have boy toys?”

  “Not that I’ve ever known. I mean she’s a rich, beautiful, single woman, but I never heard anything like that. I have heard rumors about her, but those involved politicians or businessmen. If she has boy toys, she’s discreet.”

  “And did you talk to him before yesterday at all? Jean-Jacques, I mean.”

  “Jean-Jacques? Not really. When Samantha told me he could do the shoot, I sent him a thank-you letter with an agenda and a list of our most promising features, so he could prepare. That was by email, and he sent a confirmation that said something like, ‘Got it. See you there.’”

  “Samantha made the arrangements?”

  Cam nodded.

  “You mind if we get that email? Both the sent message and the received?”

  “Not at all. Should I forward it?”

  “For now, but it’s possible we’ll need an expert to retrieve it, make sure there was no tampering. I trust you, but if it were needed for evidence or something…”

  “That’s fine. Whatever you need.”

  “If you were guessing, what would you say might have motivated someone to target Jean-Jacques?”

  She described the argument she’d witnessed between Jean-Jacques and Ian, and then the hearsay when she and Rob came inside, mostly related to sexual insults, but that was all she knew. Half consciously, she felt herself suppressing the fact that the first goosing she’d been aware of was the one Jean-Jacques had given her own sister, but she didn’t mention it directly. “I’d guess an angry husband or boyfriend, but that’s totally a guess. I didn’t know anything about him except his photography.”

  Jake nodded grimly. “That’s the main story we’ve been getting, too. We’ll start with that. Did he touch you?”

  “No.” Cam frowned. She hadn’t wanted to be goosed, but now it somehow seemed her goosability was in question.

  “Probably woulda, but you were off with Rob,” Jake offered charitably.

  She wasn’t sure she liked that interpretation any better.

  “Well, I know how to find you, so I better get on with the inquiries.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Jake raised an eyebrow and waited.

  “Did he fall first? Or did he get stabbed first?”

  “The shears killed him. That’s as much as they could tell without the full autopsy.”

  Cam nodded. “Good luck. I hope it’s resolved quickly.”

  “You and me both.” He smiled his charming smile. “Say, that friend of yours, Annie—where is she? Rob said she was here last night.”

  Cam had taken Annie to countless baseball games, but hadn’t realized Jake knew who she was.

  “She was here to help me out a little—Petunia, too. Annie had to be at Sweet Surprise by seven this morning, though. Busy day.”

  “You know when she slows down?”

  “Usually between one and three, then she gets the after-school rush before closing.”

  “Why is she so busy in the morning?”

  “She’s baking. She sells a lot to local markets and hotels, plus works with some caterers like Petunia. Actually, I think she’s baking for the Dogwood Festival, the traitor.”

  “Busy girl.” Jake laughed.

  It sounded like maybe his interest wasn’t strictly professional, and it amused Cam to think of the wayward Annie dating a police officer. She waved as he left to talk to others, and then she went to grab a sandwich.

  Madeline Leclerc found Cam as she was taking her first bite. “There you are! Garden Delights is trying to cancel! Come quickly.” Cam wondered what she could possibly do that the woman hadn’t already tried, but she reluctantly left her sandwich and followed Madeline into Neil Patrick’s library, where another meeting was underway.

  Ian Ellsworth, the senior-ranking magazine staffer present, was explaining the impossibility of staying. “What you have is a visual piece, and with no photographer we can’t do it. Besides, this is a huge scandal associated with the shoot, and the magazine doesn’t need that kind of publicity.”

  “Please, Mr. Ellsworth, the accident didn’t have anything to do with us. Don’t you have a magazine photographer?” Evangeline begged.

  He looked uncomfortable under Evangeline’s pleading gaze.

  “No, as a matter of fact. Our only staff photographer is in Amsterdam for the Tulip Festival. Cam, you remember?”

  Eyes turned to her. “It’s true. That was why Samantha suggested Jean-Jacques in the first place. Though it’s also true that this… ‘scandal’ could sell more magazines, provided it’s handled tastefully and the gardening pictures are still really good.” It was spin, no doubt about it, but she hoped it sounded plausible.

  “Cammi, can you help save this photo shoot?” Neil Patrick begged.

  “We can’t get out until tomorrow morning anyway, so if you find a replacement photographer today, we can stay,” Tom said as Ian scowled. “Otherwise, we’ll need to cancel.”

  It occurred to Cam that Tom might have more clout than it had seemed at first. She also thought Ian was a sanctimonious jerk. Annie’s radar had nailed it. Then an idea occurred to her. It wasn’t the sort of thing she could blurt out, as it might not work. Best friends were worth more than jobs, no matter how much you loved your job. She thought, though, this might be a winning option for everyone.

  “I’ll do my best, sir. I think I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Cam forced herself to breathe. It had been so much work to get Garden Delights to Roanoke in the first place. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing them over something so uncontrollable. If she were honest, which she wasn’t always, Cam had control issues. She believed if you put in the legwork you could will something to happen, and she hated it when life didn’t fall into line. It didn’t just disappoint her. It angered her.

  “I’ll see what I can come up with, Mr. Patrick. I’ll come by later this afternoon to discuss our options. I’ll see y’all then.”

  The Garden Society and magazine staff all waved to her with varying degrees of encouragement, but as she got out the door she realized she had no ride. She felt her blood pressure rising. Cam puzzled at how this hadn’t occurred to her, but when stress welled up like this, the truth was she got a little twitchy. She paced manically. Just leaving wouldn’t do, because though she had a “what to do” solution, the “how to do it” part had yet to come to her. Normally she gardened to meditate, but when things were this stressful, she needed to get on her bike and ride out of town for a while, hit the open roads, and let her self-created breeze wash it all away. Then sh
e would be able to think. To get to her bike, though, she first had to get home.

  She spotted Jake Moreno, also winding up for the time being.

  “Um, Jake? I hate to ask, but I came out here with Rob, and he… left me.”

  “Well, that’s one idiotic boyfriend, leaving you for just anybody to pick up.” He grinned.

  “Like maybe even a handsome cop?”

  “I’ve heard of stranger things. You want to do something to get arrested?”

  “Hitchhiking count?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to take you in for that.”

  “Perfect!” She smiled and climbed into his passenger door.

  “So this probably isn’t very good for that Garden Club of yours, is it?” he said.

  She bit back a comment about how offended the Garden Society would be at being called a “club.”“Not at all. The magazine is threatening to bail if we don’t find another photographer today.”

  “Is that hard to do?”

  “I hope not. Annie’s actually quite talented.”

  “Annie? I thought she baked.” He licked his lips, as if savoring the idea of baked goods.

  “Annie is a virtual ninja of talent. She not only bakes and takes pictures, she sculpts, too. I’ve even seen her paint, though admittedly, that was with food and I was washing it out for weeks.”

  “Sounds kinky.” He raised a hopeful eyebrow.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Cam answered dryly, hoping this appealed to the hot cop. Some part of her hoped to live vicariously through her best friend. She eyed him, imagining how a cop might think. “So any new theories?”

  “No, but I am annoyed you didn’t mention him slapping Petunia’s backside when you first met him.” He eyed Cam, and she dropped her head.

  “Sorry. I think I blocked that. I felt bad for Petunia.”

  “Just make sure to work harder to remember in the future, okay?”

  Cam nodded. To make nice, Jake went on like he hadn’t just lectured her.

  “Pissed-off husband or boyfriend still seems most obvious, like you said, but he wasn’t a popular man.”

  “No kidding. You don’t have any clue yet, do you?”

  “A few ideas, but they are very speculative, and there are a lot of folks still to talk to.” Body language, which Cam had learned to read out of professional necessity, said that was a lie. He didn’t have a clue, speculative or otherwise.

  “Nobody in the Garden Society?” That would be a PR disaster, Cam thought.

  “Cam, we’ll do our best. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

  His condescending dismissal annoyed her. She hated chauvinism. It also missed the point. In some way she was responsible for these people. She knew it wasn’t rational; she didn’t control anybody in the Garden Society, and Jake’s obnoxious comment was just Jake being a cop, but it irritated her. She was relieved when he dropped her off at home.

  Cam donned her biking shorts, T-shirt, and helmet in record time. She knew a route out of town with only three stoplights, and if she rode her fastest from the first, she could make the other two without stopping. Then she was out into the hilly countryside, green and fragrant, with the newly budding rows of corn and tobacco on the farmland, pines on the not-so-distant mountains, and the sporadic trees, glistening with shiny new leaves, interspersed between the fields. Her favorite was a twisting butternut tree halfway through her ride that looked like an old person who had persevered since the beginning of time, regardless of the land around it being taken over by agriculture. She always shouted hello as she passed.

  “Hey, Gramps!”

  Her father and Petunia had had fits when they learned her routine. Not far out of Roanoke the houses became run-down. People were poor, and her family insisted she’d get her bike stolen or get in an accident and not be able to find anyone with a phone. But after living in Chicago, she didn’t feel frightened by this kind of poverty. People got by, and she’d never been bothered. Plus, she carried her own phone.

  Cam didn’t think Rob understood what her biking route was like, or he might have protested with her dad. He got his exercise in a gym, a batting cage, or on a baseball field. His road trips were via interstate, and she doubted he’d been this direction on back roads. She was glad—she didn’t want to have an argument about it, but she wouldn’t give this up for anything. It was heaven and helped her clear her head. Now what she needed was a way to convince Annie about the photography.

  Just after she passed Gramps, a devious plan occurred to her. Annie claimed to be an artist—“above” real photography jobs—and she would most likely protest if Cam suggested she try, but if the Garden Society and magazine saw her portfolio first and wanted her, then she would be unwilling to refuse—her snobbery was in the abstract, not the specific. Cam hurried home to shower, and then she snuck into Annie’s apartment to grab her portfolio.

  She called a cab to head back out to La Fontaine. It was a splurge she didn’t normally indulge in, but she figured it was needed for work, and she could catch a ride back home with Petunia when Petunia dropped off supper.

  The cab smelled strongly of patchouli, and Cam was relieved to reach La Fontaine and step out of the cab to breathe in the lily of the valley that lined the Patricks’ front yard. She was surprised it was blooming already—she thought it almost never did until after Mother’s Day. Neil Patrick was in the yard picking wilted flowers from one of the many bushes. Dressed as he was, in slacks and an oxford shirt, he seemed ill attired for the job. Perhaps he’d just needed some air, Cam thought.

  “Cammi! We’re glad to see you again.”

  “Are the officers still here?” she asked, a bit surprised.

  “We took a break this morning to make some phone calls to other members, but we decided the full board should meet.” He looked at his watch. “In ten minutes. Lazy-head Samantha even arrived!”

  “Oh, well, that’s good.”

  He led Cam into the house.

  “Giselle! Could you bring tea into the library?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. P.” Her attempt at a French accent was gone.

  Mr. Patrick frowned. “I’m afraid being French has lost favor with my staff.”

  “It’s not surprising. Maybe you can suggest she go by Helga.”

  “Oh, no! I had a German nanny as a boy. I want helpers, not commanders.”

  Cam laughed and followed Mr. Patrick into the library.

  She waited as the board gathered and the tea was brought in. People smiled or waved, though it was a timid enthusiasm, some having just learned about the murder. Once everyone was seated, Mr. Patrick asked the loaded question.

  “Well, Cammi. What do you have?”

  She stood and looked at the assembled group, gauging their mood. “For now, I think I have a perfect candidate to replace Jean-Jacques Georges. I hope that tomorrow I can let you know the news is contained, so RGS doesn’t carry a stigma from this.”

  “Isn’t that fiancé of yours a reporter?” Mr. Patrick asked.

  “Boyfriend,” Cam corrected. People were forever assuming engagement. “And yes, he’s a reporter, but a sports reporter.”

  “Can’t he help?”

  “Well of course I’ll ask, but I don’t know how much influence he has.” Chatter began among the board members, making her feel less guilty for not disclosing that Rob would actually be covering the story for the newspaper. She wished the group wasn’t so easily distracted, though; they were like children, really. “Excuse me!” She shouted over the clamor that was escalating. “I will do my best at news containment tonight. In the meantime, we need to let Garden Delights know by this evening whether we have another photographer, or they will leave. I believe I’ve found someone for the job.”

  Clamor broke out again until Samantha stood and shouted, “Enough! Let’s move ahead!” She sat down again, and the board had the decency to look embarrassed as they quieted.

  “Go ahead, Cam.”

  Samantha’s eyes were red
rimmed. She’d been crying, which renewed Cam’s belief there’d been a relationship between Samantha and Jean-Jacques, and she wondered how a class act like Samantha could end up carrying on with a lowlife like Jean-Jacques Georges. Then again, some people were drawn to fame, and that wasn’t exactly counter to what Cam knew of Samantha. She must have stood contemplating too long.

  “Cammi?”

  “Right. Sorry. I’ve found a talented local photographer who I believe is perfect for the shoot. It will save the magazine feature, and I’m hoping you’ll approve suggesting her to Jane Duffy and Ian Ellsworth. They are the Garden Delights decision makers, but, before I approach them, I wanted the buy-in of the board.”

  They all nodded their approval, and Madeline Leclerc beamed. Cam’s tight regard for protocol would avoid future problems for their office, should something go wrong.

  Cam opened the large portfolio and began slowly flipping pages. Occasionally, a painting or drawing was stuck in, but most of the pages held photographs. The board was impressed. Halfway through, she reached a picture of her father in a rose garden. Cam knew the shot had captured a moment of profound grief, but in that, there was a deep, touching beauty. She caught her breath.

  “Cam, who took those?” Samantha asked, clearly moved.

  “My friend Annie.”

  “They’re beautiful. She’s caught both the subject and the floral majesty very well.”

  “I didn’t realize that picture was in there,” Cam said.

  “When was it taken?”

  “Soon after my mother died. He used to wander in our roses to be near her. I didn’t know there were pictures.”

  “Well, I think Annie’s skill is evident, and isn’t your father one of the human subjects for our shoot? They seem to have a rapport.”

  “If you only knew,” Cam muttered, thinking about Annie and her father laughing together and then refusing to reveal the source of fun.

  “I move Cam present Annie’s work to Garden Delights,” Samantha said decisively.