The Begonia Bribe

by Alyse Carlson

  “I just wish the most logical answer wasn’t somebody I wished it wasn’t.”

  “I’m glad I haven’t had any of my wine yet, or I might not have followed that. No, wait. I still didn’t follow that. You have a suspect?”

  “No! It’s not him. But the motivation looks like him.”

  “Who?”

  Cam felt ashamed for caring, and Annie figured out it was about her crush.

  “Why would Dylan care about Telly Stevens?”

  “Dylan is Telly Stevens’s son.”

  Annie gasped. Her jaw dropped, though she had the decency to then cough briefly into her napkin and take a large drink, as if she’d just had a crumb in her throat. When she recovered, she asked, “Okay, so do they think this is daddy issues?”

  “They seem to be pursuing inheritance.”

  “What was he getting before Telly died?”

  “No clue. Nothing, I think. He didn’t even know who his father was until the police told him. So he had no reason to think he’d get anything from him, dead or alive.”

  “Ouch. That sucks. I’ll have to spank Jake for that. Both telling him rudely and not telling me. A double spanking.”

  Cam smirked. Leave it to Annie to provide the necessary comic relief.

  “So how did you learn about all this?”

  “Benny brought him over the other night because of the questions.”

  “That and the fact that you want him,” Annie said.

  “I do not!”

  Annie raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine! So I want him like I want Sam Winchester from Supernatural—bad boy, good heart, not a good idea—not real, even. I would never cheat on Rob.”

  “I know you wouldn’t, even for Sam Winchester, which is totally insane if you want my opinion—and I like Rob. I just . . . have noticed a certain mood . . . tendencies . . . attitude . . .”

  “Shut up.”

  “See. That’s proof. For you, ‘shut up’ is profanity.” Annie pointed at Cam with her fork.

  “Annie, for the sake of our friendship, can we please drop Dylan.”

  “Fine. Not the wife. Not the son. Who else?”

  “Business might have been likely, but not with the wife dead, too. It seems more personal. Has to be about relationships,” Cam said.

  Annie stared at her like she’d grown a third eye and then downed her last taste of wine.

  “Hater? Mistress? Insane fan?”

  “All possible.” Cam frowned. “There were a few pictures of him in women’s underwear. Jessica Benchly had them . . .”

  “Oh, now that’s an interesting twist. Who could have thought he had that in him? But it doesn’t seem smart to kill someone she was trying to blackmail.”

  “No, but I wonder if there’s a story,” Cam said.

  “There undoubtedly is a story. The question is, will anyone tell it?”

  Cam nodded. There was no disagreeing there. She was sure somebody would talk, but finding who was something that needed careful consideration.

  “The people who know about those pictures are Jessica Benchly and Clancy Huggins. Clancy was mad when Jessica tried to show them to me. And there were arguments between Clancy and both Telly and Judith.”

  “So that looks like Clancy’s responsible,” Annie said.

  “Do either of those men seem like guys who’d get into ladies’ underwear and take pictures together?” Cam asked.

  “No. That’s not what I mean. I mean, maybe Clancy set him up.”

  “But if he had the goods on him, he wouldn’t need to kill him—like you said,” Cam argued.

  “No, but then Jessica got ahold of them and was talking. Heck, maybe it was self-defense!”

  “Self-defense by poison?” Cam sighed. Poison was a plotter’s . . . erm . . . poison. And Judith appeared to have died by poison, too.

  “Okay, switch modes. Who knows plants well enough to poison by oleander?” Cam said.

  Annie frowned. “You’d know better than me, wouldn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Garden Society?” Annie said as if Cam was dim.

  “Well, duh, but no! There’s no motive there!”

  “How do we know that?”

  “Let’s look for somebody else first.”

  “The nursery lady would know.”

  “Nell. That’s true, but I can’t see a motive in any direction . . . but . . .” The suggestion had given Cam an idea.

  She pulled out her laptop. Annie rolled her eyes and flagged the waiter for another glass of wine. As it arrived, Cam finally said, “Yes!”

  “Enlighten me?” Annie asked.

  “The V-SCAMP website has a biography page for past contestants. Almost all the contestants since 2000 are here. Prior to that, it is mostly the top three. But in the bio are interests. I can see who gardens.”

  “Okay, first . . . V-SCAMP? Nice! Next . . . assuming the killer is a past contestant.”

  “Well, it’s not his wife.”

  “It could be a lot of people. Even . . . what’s his name . . . Benny would know this.”

  “Benny wouldn’t commit murder—certainly not for somebody else.”

  “He might have had a hypothetical conversation with somebody about plants that kill.”

  That was true enough. Cam didn’t like the idea at all, because it made it possible both Benny and Dylan had had a role in these murders. She’d believed Dylan about not knowing who his father was until after the murder, but how easy was it to lie?

  “Look, I don’t wanna poop on your party,” Annie said, her serious tone cracking Cam into laughter, “but I have another sixteen-hour day tomorrow.”

  “Why are you open on Saturday?”

  “Downtown art festival. I can’t not be open. I can only be open eleven to three, but there is still the baking that has to get started at eight and then this silly pageant thing in the evening. You need anything that doesn’t require time?”

  “A hug?”

  “Done!” Annie threw herself at Cam. Cam was five inches taller, but the two weighed about the same. This gave Annie an advantage in body slamming, so Cam toppled with Annie over her.

  “Um . . . do you two need anything else? A third, maybe?” the waiter asked.

  Annie sat up laughing and held a hand up for a high five.

  Cam sat up, mortified.

  Annie laughed for another five minutes after the waiter had been sent away, Cam leering at her. Finally through, Annie rose.

  “We have work tomorrow. Are you coming or not?”

  Cam had hoped to hear from Rob, but hadn’t, so she rose and followed Annie out to the car.

  * * *

  It hadn’t meant anything to Annie, so Cam hadn’t pursued it at the table, but when Cam got home, she pulled up the list of past contestants again. One year in particular sounded alarm bells. Jessica Benchly had edged out Olivia Quinn to win the Miss Roanoke pageant among teens in the late ’80s. That same year, Nelly’s Nursery had offered a scholarship very like the one they were currently offering, and Jessica Benchly, pageant winner, had won that, too. That meant at least Jessica had some gardening knowledge.

  Cam wanted to see what Nell remembered. The woman seemed a standard “early to bed, early to rise” sort, so Cam dropped an email to her that she’d like to take her to breakfast. She expected to have her call in the morning, but the woman surprised her by ringing her cell immediately.

  “I heard about how you solved that last murder case,” Nell said without preamble. “Do you think I know something about this one?”

  “Ms. Norton! You’re up!”

  “Who could sleep when a second murder happens at a children’s pageant?”

  That was a fair point, and Cam mumbled something to that effect. “You know, the thing is . . . that last murder . . . I was only able to figure it out because I also collected a lot of information that didn’t end up mattering. You don’t know what’s important until the pattern emerges. So I don’t know if yo
u know anything important or not, but I hoped maybe we could have breakfast together so I could just check out a few things.”

  “I’d rather have a few glasses of wine with you now, if that works. Tomorrow is the only day this week I might sleep in, and it just helps me to think there is no alarm to answer to.”

  “Of course! Should I meet you in the Hotel Roanoke bar?”

  “How about Table 50—fewer prying eyes. The hotel is hosting so many pageant folks . . .”

  Cam understood. It was true; they had a better chance of privacy elsewhere.

  “That sounds perfect. Twenty minutes?”

  * * *

  Cam wished it wasn’t so humid, though the night-blooming jasmine she passed cheered her—a sure sign of a careful gardener, as it really was too fragile for a zone seven. A midnight walk should have woken and refreshed her, but mostly it just made her feel damp. She was relieved to step into the air-conditioning of Table 50.

  Table 50 was a nice restaurant, one of the few favorites she and Annie agreed was cool. Cam loved the artistic presentation and Annie liked that they purchased the majority of ingredients locally, much of it from the farmer’s market practically outside the door. Sadly, the men in their lives didn’t quite appreciate these points because portions were attractive, rather than generous. So it was usually a girls-only splurge. Cam looked around. It was dark colors and low light, but still looked and sounded cheerful, containing a mix of date couples and happy larger groups. It didn’t look like Nell was here yet.

  After about ten minutes, Nell walked in with her husband. He headed to the bar to take a stool as Nell joined Cam at her table.

  “Are you sure he doesn’t want to join us?”

  “Quite sure. We’ve been married forty-three years, and he is prone to unwanted advice, which only creates friction. We’ve learned when a subject is touchy we should approach it on our own, and then share once a decision is made. It’s made thirty-seven of our forty-three years significantly easier. I’m just too hardheaded to want advice, and he is too opinionated not to give it. He does have a fairly peaceful response, though, once a thing is already done.”

  At first Cam thought this dynamic made them sound poorly matched, but the more she thought about it, the more it seemed they’d done well to figure out such a simple solution.

  “That never would have occurred to me.”

  “No. It’s the very desperately arrived at conclusion of two people who love each other but can’t manage to live together. It took quite a while to figure it out. Now, what are these questions you wanted to dig into?”

  The waiter brought over a bottle of wine, even though nobody had checked on their table. Cam and Nell looked to Mr. Norton, and he smiled and waved at them. It was a cabernet sauvignon, drier than Cam would have chosen, but it was probably best if Cam only sipped, and this would ensure she did.

  “How many of these pageants have you done?” Cam asked.

  “Oh, dozens over the years, but not very many Young Misses. I know it’s the first time in Virginia—the other two were in Georgia.”

  “Well, I’m actually only interested in Virginia, but the age of the contestants doesn’t matter. Are there people helping with the pageant this year who you remember—either who have helped before or participated in other pageants?”

  “Oh, honey, I don’t think you’ve met a postmenopausal memory! I recognize a lot of people, but that may not have anything to do with pageants. Can you ask anything more specific?”

  “Okay, let’s start at the supper party, and we can go person by person. The judges—Telly, Clancy, and Barbara—had you met any of them before?”

  “Well, I’d met all of them, though I only consider Clancy a friend. He and Byron were fraternity brothers many years ago, so I’ve known him since I was pinned to Byron in college.”

  Cam definitely wasn’t comfortable following that answer with the ladies’ underwear line of questioning, so she went the other direction. “And Clancy’s date, Jessica Benchly?”

  “Oh, I’ve met Jessica separately on several occasions.”

  “Since she wasn’t formally with the pageant, I wasn’t sure where to find out about her.”

  “Well, to start, she should be formally with the pageant. She was Miss Virginia at some point. It was a year I offered my scholarship and she won that, too!”

  That last piece was one Cam actually knew, but she felt it was important to let Nell establish herself as the expert.

  “And was that . . . stiff competition, or pretty easy to judge?”

  “Easier than today—the age range in these younger girls seems so much bigger, and it’s hard to tell what is judging on merit, what is merit for age, and what is strictly cuteness of presentation.”

  “The toad idea?” Cam asked, without revealing she knew Lizzie.

  “Wasn’t that fantastic?” Nell chuckled and took a drink.

  “So the year Jessica was in, this woman was in, too. Do you remember her?” Cam pushed the picture she’d printed from the pageant website of Olivia Quinn at Nell.

  Nell frowned and pulled a penlight from her purse to look closer. “I do know her. She threw quite a fit, if I remember right, at losing to Jessica, both rounds. In the green scholarship, she lost for a great idea that was already being implemented—before the internet, see—but she may very well have thought she invented it, composting kitchen debris—something I learned about from West Coast gardeners in the mid-’80s—and I think she was third runner-up in the main contest.”

  “She’s also a police officer who has been investigating this murder case . . .” Cam said.

  “Is she? I don’t think I’ve seen her since. I doubt I’d recognize her.”

  Cam didn’t think there was a reason to mention the romance with Barry Blankenship. It didn’t really seem relevant at the moment. She was also a little confused. If Jessica were involved, she would have thought Jessica and Olivia were working together because of Olivia’s apparent role in framing Mindy, but this made it seem more like they would be rivals.

  One thing it meant was that Barry Blankenship had traded his early-thirties wife for an early-forties version, which, based on what Cam had seen of Barry, didn’t seem consistent.

  * * *

  Cam thanked Nell for the conversation and Mr. Norton for the wine and headed out. The moon was bright, so she didn’t worry about her walk home. She was just glad to finally be getting to bed.

  CHAPTER 14

  Cam regretted at least one of the glasses of wine from the night before. It wasn’t that she was hung over, but she’d woken up with a wild hair related to the investigation—several things she felt she needed to look into. It meant a full day, so it magnified the irritation with the dry mouth that plagued her. She wished Annie was giving her a ride, if only because she would have had an excuse for a fatty breakfast. Instead, she ate oatmeal like a good girl, and it didn’t erase any of the pressure in her head.

  She had just rinsed her bowl when her doorbell rang. She answered, confused as to who could be there so early.

  “Dylan!”

  “Quick! I shouldn’t have this. It’s Jessica’s camera. Copy the memory to your computer. I have to get this back.”

  Cam was totally confused, but too curious to refuse, and so turned on her laptop. As soon as it was going, he stuck a memory card in the side. It uploaded, she copied its contents, and then he pulled the card back out and stood. He almost bolted out but stopped long enough to give her a very lingering kiss on her hand. She took a deep breath and by the time she looked up again, he was gone.

  She was way too curious to let this slide, so she sat and opened the file. Clancy Huggins in three different ladies’ dresses.

  “Okay, then. I see a tit for tat,” she said to herself. “No wonder Clancy didn’t want the pictures of Telly getting around . . .”

  She frowned at the screen. That was all it meant to her—that both men cross-dressed, given the chance. But it potentially gave Clancy Huggins
a motive, provided these pictures were older, though they were also a lot milder.

  Cam had to stare at them a while longer before it registered where Dylan must have spent the night to be in possession of Jessica’s camera. He’d been with Jessica Benchly at the end of the night prior, and this morning he was in a hurry to look like he’d not been gone and he had her camera.

  It was smart, as it gave someone else at least a hazy motive to murder Telly Stevens, and lent a story to the earlier facts, but Cam also knew it would never hold up—stolen evidence never did. That wasn’t her real issue with the matter, though. Sure, it was distasteful to have embarrassing stolen pictures on her computer, but she was fighting very hard not to feel jealous about Dylan and Jessica.

  And there was another layer not sitting right with Cam. Clancy Huggins had been nothing but decent, and she didn’t feel right bringing something like this into the case without giving him a chance to explain. She looked up his number on her computer and pushed it into her phone.

  “Hello?” He sounded confused.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you, Mr. Huggins. This is Cam Harris and . . .” She wished she’d rehearsed, but there was no way to make this less awkward. “Somebody anonymous,” she lied, “sent me some pictures. They thought they might be related to the murder investigation, but I’m not so sure. I wondered if you might talk to me.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Of course.” She was hardly likely to go public that one, or rather, two, of the Little Miss Begonia judges liked to wear women’s clothing. She’d either keep quiet, or pass the photos to Jake, and Jake alone.

  “I was headed down for breakfast. I’m at the Hotel Roanoke if you’d like to join me.”

  “Jessica’s not with you?” She kicked herself when it came out, but he seemed nonplussed.

  “Jessica is a notoriously late sleeper. I doubt anyone will see her until noon.” He laughed.

  “I’ll see you in about twenty minutes, then,” Cam said as she hung up.

  She hoped she managed to sort what she wanted to say before she got there. She left a message for Evangeline that she’d be late checking in, and then began walking.