The Begonia Bribe

by Alyse Carlson

  As they stood, a businessman joined them waiting for the elevator, so Cam and Annie got in with their one box apiece, leaving the businessman room to stand without being jostled. Rob and his two boxes waited for the next elevator.

  “Second floor!” Cam called out as the doors closed.

  “Second floor? You aren’t robbing the bank?” the man joked.

  “Making a deposit,” Annie said, holding out her box.

  Cam clarified. “Neil Patrick leased space on the second floor, which he’s kindly lent to the Little Miss Begonia Pageant through the end of July.”

  To her surprise he raised an interested eyebrow. “Are you working with Evangeline?” The elevator had stopped and Annie got out, but the man was holding the door and partially blocking Cam’s way.

  “Yes. Are you a friend of hers?”

  He laughed. “Oh, I’d hardly put it that way. Still, I’d like to run into her.” He finally backed against the wall, allowing Cam room to maneuver out of the elevator. The doors shut behind her.

  “See? Haunted,” Annie said, picking up her box again.

  Cam laughed. “Yeah, I’d go along with that.” She found the heavy glass door, currently unmarked, and unlocked the deadbolt at the bottom. She turned on a light, which spilled out into the dim hallway just as the other elevator door opened. Cam and Annie watched as Rob wrestled his boxes out of the elevator.

  As they brought in the boxes, twice Rob shouted “Boo!” behind Annie, delighted to finally have an advantage on his girlfriend’s best friend. Annie had teased him a lot over the years. They finished and made two more trips, storing the boxes in a side room. Cam left Evangeline a note, and then they were free to get their beer before calling it a night.

  * * *

  Jake actually beat them to Martin’s. For the four of them, Martin’s Downtown Bar had become a sort of tradition.

  Rob sat across from Jake and leaned back. “So tell us about Telly Stevens,” he said.

  “Definitely died of poison,” Jake said. “The initial lab results have identified it as plant matter.”

  “Oh, crap,” Cam said. “Murder?”

  “Suicide is possible, though the M.E. said it was a horrible death. A guy who knew anything about whatever plant it was wouldn’t have picked it.”

  “And Telly did,” Cam said. That had been her concern: knowledge. Plus, anything plant-related pointed to the Roanoke Garden Society as the experts. She worried someone she worked for might be suspected. Again. “What about time of death?”

  “Difficult to say with as warm as it was. Body temperature doesn’t change much when the air outside is so warm. No rigor mortis yet, though, so less than two hours before he was found.”

  “And the men planting didn’t see anything?” Cam asked.

  Jake just looked at her.

  “I just thought . . . they were there all day except their lunch break. You could find out when they took that, and it should help identify when he got to that spot.”

  “That’s not bad, Cam,” he said.

  “Do you have any suspects?” she asked.

  “No fingerprints on that flask except his own. We canvased his coworkers and some of his social connections. Everybody has a theory—they all seemed to know someone who didn’t like him, but all claimed they personally did. It’s a pretty large field of suspects. I think I should leave it at that, though.”

  He clearly didn’t want any more questions. That was okay. Cam didn’t want to get involved, either. Rob was eating up the details, though, and she was sure she would hear about it if there was any reason she should be worried, aside from general damage control.

  * * *

  When Cam got home, she sent out a press release about the unfortunate demise of Telly Stevens.

  “The cause of death is still being investigated.” If it was murder, the word would eventually be out, but there was no reason to hurry it. The only real guilt she felt was not telling Rob about her hunch that Telly’s death had not been accidental. He’d be irritated if he thought she’d hidden it, so she was willing herself to believe it really was accidental. Before they heard otherwise, she hoped the pageant would be over. If he learned it was murder now, he’d report it and the effect on the pageant might be devastating, a possibility she wanted to avoid.

  * * *

  Cam arrived at the Patrick Henry the next morning, found her way to her empty office, and turned on her laptop to organize her day. The first full day of pageant activity was likely to be chaotic, even if they hadn’t had the dead judge to worry about.

  “I’ve been thinking about replacement judges,” Evangeline said.

  Cam started and looked up to see Evangeline in her doorway. “I didn’t know you were here!” She took a minute to catch her breath and then looked back to Evangeline. “We interviewed five, based on the RGS screening. Should we go to the next on the list?” Cam said.

  “Yes and no. If Toni Howe is available, that would be great. She was actually our third choice for a judge until we were blackmailed by WONK. She would have been second on my list. Whatever the case, Vicky Wynan was last on everybody’s list, so if Toni isn’t available, we need to look further.”

  “What’s wrong with Vicky?” Cam asked.

  “She has no manners! She offended every person she talked to. Believe me. She almost needed to try to rank behind Telly Stevens.”

  “Okay . . . We’ll skip Vicky. I will check with Toni, though, and see if she’s available.” Cam looked at Evangeline, who nodded. “Then I guess I will let Benny and company know about these boxes of dogwoods.”

  “They should love that,” Evangeline said.

  Cam had to laugh at Evangeline’s sarcasm; she didn’t stoop to it very often.

  “By the way,” Cam said, remembering their elevator ride the night before, “a man who must live in the building was asking about you.”

  “Really?”

  Cam described him, but Evangeline couldn’t seem to match it with anybody who might be looking for her, and Cam needed to get back to work.

  She went out to fetch the work crew. Only Benny and Dylan had arrived so far, but she wanted to get them started on the dogwoods.

  She retrieved them and had each man grab two boxes from the office where they’d been stashed the night before. She grabbed one, heading for the elevator with as little talk as possible.

  “You’ll need to put these on all the dogwoods that will show behind the stage when the camera is running.”

  “Put what on the dogwoods?” Benny asked, eying the boxes suspiciously.

  “The dogwood flowers. It has to look like they’re in bloom.”

  “Why?” Dylan sounded incredulous.

  “Because the dogwood flower unites all of the Virginia State pageants, and it needs to look authentic.”

  “Dogwoods blooming in July is not authentic. But I guess we’re getting paid and you’re the boss,” Benny said. Dylan just winked.

  They deposited the boxes to the side of the amphitheater and then Cam made both men follow her to a central audience spot so she could point out the most obvious trees to attend to.

  “You can see the whole tree from this angle,” Benny complained.

  “And?”

  “We have to get these up really high.”

  “I’m sure there’s a ladder or something.” She wasn’t, but Cam had never let the truth interfere with telling people what she thought they needed to hear. Plus, if there wasn’t a ladder around, she’d find one, so it was only a small lie.

  “Catch me if I fall?” Dylan asked, looking at the treetops.

  Cam rolled her eyes, more to avoid looking at him than anything else. She wasn’t sure how she could deal with this for the next several days. If she were a free agent, some sort of liaison might be poorly advised, but feasible. The problem was, she was happily attached to Rob.

  No. That wasn’t right. Rob wasn’t the problem. Dylan was the problem. But the fact that she had to keep reminding herself of th
at was also a problem.

  She called Evangeline to clarify about the ladder, then told the boys it was coming soon and to start on the branches they could reach. She couldn’t afford to get sucked into this distraction, so she headed back to her office to finish organizing her day.

  Once her planner was double-checked, she went into Evangeline’s office to see how things were going for her.

  * * *

  In the lower level of the Roanoke Arts Commission was a large room that the pageant had been lent in exchange for including the commission’s name on the program and promotional materials. Michelle would use it to teach the girls three choreographed numbers for the pageant. Cam wondered if she was sufficiently recovered from the trauma of finding Telly the day before.

  Two of the routines the girls would perform were fairly simple: just walking in a certain pattern, but the third was intended to evaluate fitness and coordination, and so would take some effort. Three girls from one of the local high school dance teams had signed up to help Michelle, so they could work in smaller groups to learn faster. Two of them were present already when Cam got to the room. She decided to avoid mentioning what had happened the day before, as she didn’t want to alarm the girls.

  “Hi, girls. Michelle not here yet?”

  “I saw her, but she said she forgot her microphone in her car, so she ran back to get it.”

  “Yeah, I imagine getting the attention of thirty young girls takes some volume,” Cam said.

  “No kidding!” one of them said. Cam thought she was called Chelsea. “I just helped coach a cheerleading camp for middle-schoolers. My word!”

  They all laughed.

  “Should we test the music? It’s all set up, isn’t it?” Cam hoped if they were busy, she could more easily have a quiet word with Michelle.

  The other girl shrugged. Her name tag read Ashley. “I think it’s all on her iPod.” She went over to look, found the iPod, hooked everything together, and looked at the song options. She frowned. “Chel, does this look right?”

  Chelsea joined her, looking at the options. “I’ve never heard of these songs, but maybe she just called them something funny.” She pushed play.

  Cello overtures of a loud, depressing Wagner tune blared.

  “No!” Ashley yelped, hitting stop. She tried another, which was more energetic but just as dark. “It’s all this Wagner guy!” she said it like an American, though Cam knew better.

  Vogner.

  “Maybe you’re just in the wrong folder. A lot of people love Wagner.” Cam pronounced it carefully so the girls might learn, though she was thinking “for mourning” as the most appropriate timing for the tunes.

  The girls had pushed play on one last song when Michelle came in, cringing. “Zoiks! Who’s the morbid one?”

  Cam and the girls turned.

  “It’s not you?” Cam asked.

  “Oh, Cam. I’m aware it’s ignorant, but I’ve made a point of avoiding any classical music that isn’t featured in a game arena or pop song since I was allowed to quit piano at fourteen. No. Not mine. Mine’s the . . .” She stared and pulled the iPod off of the player. “Mine looks just like this, but this is not my music. And my music is gone!”

  “Are you sure you left yours here? Black is a common color,” Cam said.

  “Positive. I left everything I worried I’d forget.” She glanced to the side to check on the props, but then nodded.

  “So someone came in here, but not to steal . . . they just wanted to wreak havoc?” Cam asked.

  “Looks like it,” Michelle answered, running a hand through her hair. She looked frazzled, but given the last twenty-four hours, that was understandable. Cam doubted the iPod switch was related to the probable murder, but it certainly compounded the already unpleasant morning.

  Cam reached into her bag and pulled out her laptop. She touched Michelle’s shoulder and met her eyes to show support, then put the laptop next to the music equipment. “If you connect to your account, you can get it, right?”

  “Not all of it, but most of it—definitely the songs we’re using in the pageant.”

  Cam logged on to her laptop and let Michelle download her songs again. She left her computer there and rushed out. She wanted to double-check with Celeste that nothing had happened at the library.

  Thankfully it hadn’t. Nell Norton was in one room setting up for her side project, and Celeste seemed fine taking in props and supervising the changing room.

  When Cam got back to the Arts Commission, girls were starting to arrive, so she spent the next twenty minutes greeting them. The teens helped, starting some jumping jacks with the girls and then moving on to stretching. By the time Michelle was needed, she had her music back in order and seemed to have calmed down, but Cam was beginning to wonder if their vandal had better connections than they had assumed. Getting inside a locked building meant the person had to have legitimate access. She hoped he wasn’t also the murderer.

  When she left the Arts Commission, Cam spotted her dad’s car through the trees and realized he was working already. She found him under the grand curtain.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hiya, sunshine!” He was measuring the space so he could build his lattice. “Boy, somebody sure doesn’t think much of beauty pageants.”

  “Not to mention they don’t understand this isn’t a beauty pageant.”

  “It’s not?” Her dad looked confused.

  “No, Daddy. This is little girls—seven to ten. It’s far more rounded than that. Talent, intelligence, grace . . .” Cam wasn’t sure she believed what she was saying, but it was what she’d been told. It was almost lunchtime, so she asked her dad to join her.

  “Are you sure you aren’t trying to make me fat?” he asked.

  There were sack lunches for the girls and a vendor selling a handful of options for all the loitering parents. Cam spotted no less than three mothers she wanted to throw pickle slices at because they were making their daughters continue to practice instead of letting them sit down to eat. It was a fast time frame to learn routines, but the poor girls needed their fuel.

  “Cam! There you are!” Cam turned to see Mindy.

  “Oh! Hello.”

  “I just . . . I didn’t mean . . . well, I’m sorry if I was strange yesterday.”

  The fact that Mindy was apologizing was even stranger. In four years of high school together, she didn’t think it had ever happened.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I know these pageants can be stressful,” Cam said. She was sure Mindy didn’t know the half of it.

  Mindy bit her lip.

  “Was there another reason? Something you want to talk about?”

  “Of course not. Though . . . Lizzie has been asking about Annie.”

  “She should be here around three. She owns a cupcake shop, so she works during the day.”

  “Annie has her own business?” Cam was offended at how shocked Mindy sounded but tried to temper her response.

  “Yes. A successful one.”

  “Oh!” Mindy looked confused for a minute. She tried to smile, but failed, then said, “I’m glad it’s successful.” Cam thought the statement lacked conviction.

  “Tell me about yourself, Mindy,” Cam said, trying to change the subject. “Are you a stay-at-home mom?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not very interesting,” Mindy said.

  “Well, that depends. What does your husband do?” Cam asked.

  “Barry’s in real estate.” Mindy’s smile looked strained. “He was just made a regional manager, but Cam, I just wanted to ask about . . .” She looked either way and gave an apologetic gesture, then rushed off. Cam was confused, but didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  * * *

  Cam had to get on with her day. Her first stop was a classroom in the library with all the contestants. Nell Norton was nothing if not a genius. She had requested time with the girls, since most of the week would be taken with physical rehearsals, but they would all need breaks from that. Nell wanted
to present them with a project and had asked that the pageant schedule give each of them a two-hour block at some point each afternoon for “research” and presentation development.

  Cam was curious about what she had in mind, so she joined at the back of the room.

  Nell showed a short, warm, fuzzy video narrated by a team of endangered animals and then talked briefly about what kids could do in their homes and gardens to lower their carbon footprint. She gave handouts on composting and how much better it was for the earth if everybody grew some of their own fruits and vegetables.

  “Now, I happen to know that the very best ideas come from kids. You don’t have a lifetime of people saying something isn’t possible, so you are more creative and more hopeful. On Friday night, to open the competition, each of you will have three minutes to give an idea, and the best idea will earn a separate scholarship of one thousand dollars that has nothing to do with winning the overall pageant.

  “Three minutes isn’t much time, so all you need to prepare is a statement on why you think it’s needed, and then a description of what you would do. Because I know a lot of you may not know very much about the topics, I’m handing out a list of words that I think might give you good ideas to search, and there is a website with videos that will tell you what we know now so that you don’t suggest something that’s already being done. I’ve also got several of my friends from the Roanoke Garden Society who have volunteered to answer questions.”

  Cam was surprised to hear that and looked behind her to see Neil Patrick, Holden Hobbes, and Mrs. Pemberly.

  Evangeline was there, too, but Cam thought her interest was mere curiosity, like Cam’s had been about what Nell planned for the green project. Cam edged closer for confirmation.

  “Oh, of course I was curious. But honestly,” Evangeline whispered, “I had to get away from the phone. Did you know I’ve been getting crank calls all day?”

  “You have? I wonder if it’s our vandal.”

  “That could be. It’s just heavy breathing, but I needed a break.”

  “Understandable,” Cam said, and looked back to the room.

  Several girls and all the moms had perked up at the prize offer. The whole pageant was only worth $2,500 to the winner and $1,000 to the first runner-up. The winner didn’t even earn a semester’s tuition at most colleges. Cam doubted this group was shooting for community colleges when they finished high school.