The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  But it was fine. She’d always been able to fall back on her scrappy practicality, no matter how elegant some event was supposed to be. Here, elegant didn’t quite fit anyway—the more personal it seemed, the better.

  Her first step was to make a series of relatively large takeout orders at different places not far from each other for the next afternoon. No one restaurant had the capacity to do it alone, but all of them could do some portion of it, so she split up what they’d need. One place had no trouble at all with the large order for barbeque, but they didn’t sell sides as takeout because they needed them for the “full suppers” that they sold in-house. Another sold beans and slaw sides, and a third sold trays of cornbread. She also made a note to herself to have yet another difficult conversation with Petunia. She might not need Petunia to cook, but she’d need a number of her warming pans if this was to “appear” catered.

  Finally, at nearly four, she set out to find the photography crew again.

  “Remind me to buy that man a tiara,” Annie muttered when Cam asked where Ian was.

  “He said he had some things to look into.” Hannah trembled, unhappy with being messenger, particularly for a coworker who was acting so inappropriately.

  The crew was progressing through the list of outdoor locations well, so Cam, uncomfortable babysitting the crew when Ian was being such a pill, helped for just half an hour before claiming she needed to catch Petunia when she delivered supper. Before heading back to the house, however, she decided to reconfirm the evening’s plans with Annie.

  “We still on for brownies tonight?” she asked Annie.

  “You know we are,” Annie answered without halting her photography, so Cam felt at least her friend was on her game, regardless of how anyone else framed it.

  Back on the patio of La Fontaine, Cam tried to organize the lunch dishes so they were easy for Petunia to retrieve. Softening the blow was in her best interest. She also considered it might not be a blow. Petunia and Nick had been busting their butts for several days now. Maybe they’d welcome the break, or rather the lack of an additional burden. She tried to convince herself that was the case, even if she never began to believe it.

  “You want to what?”

  Cam couldn’t believe how she’d deluded herself—not that she actually had. It had been wishful thinking to expect that her sister would willingly offer her equipment to serve someone else’s food. Petunia appeared to be steaming, though the steam was actually from the tray of chicken cordon bleu behind her. It was still a powerful illusion.

  “I’m sorry, ’Tunia. We’ve served all your styles now and just thought something different was a good idea—and this is… well, what people expect when they come to the South.”

  “We? That’s it! This was that Evangeline’s idea, wasn’t it?”

  Cam couldn’t contain her sputter, so Petunia knew the truth. Cam tried to mention late notice and unfairness, but Petunia was having none of it. Nick stood silently, knowing better than to get between bickering sisters.

  “Right through here, Officer.”

  Cam, Petunia, and Nick all turned together. Neil Patrick guided an unfamiliar police officer out onto the patio.

  “Are you Jonathan Nicholas Conroy?”

  Petunia gasped. Nick squinted and then nodded.

  “You have the right to remain silent…”

  The next few minutes melted together. Petunia shrieked, and Cam caught her as she sank to the ground, fighting off Cam’s efforts to help her. Nick, strangely, was trying to comfort his wife by saying it was okay because he hadn’t done anything, though it didn’t look to Cam like he actually believed in the justice system for which he was advocating. He looked scared, which unnerved her and seemed to unhinge Petunia.

  Garden Society members began peeking outside, and Cam sprang into the house, pleading with the police officer behind her to take Nick around the side. She didn’t care so much about the Garden Society at the moment but was very concerned for Nick’s humiliation, and by default, Petunia’s.

  Cam talked the arriving Garden Society members into the library and managed to track down Giselle to bring in wine.

  “Was that the killer?” Joseph asked hopefully.

  “I really doubt it,” Cam answered. She managed to stop herself from glaring but knew she didn’t have a poker face when she felt strongly. She could lie well only by convincing herself of a degree of truth, and at the moment she was too upset to convince herself of anything.

  “Why, Cam?” Samantha asked.

  “Because I know him. He’s not a killer.”

  “But they wouldn’t arrest him if he wasn’t,” Neil Patrick said. “I can’t believe we’ve had the killer catering!”

  “No, Cam’s right.” Evangeline had stepped forward, taking her husband’s arm. She looked everyone in the eye, speaking slowly. “He’s a kind, gentle man. He wouldn’t hurt anybody—not like this anyway.”

  Confused but recognizing an ally, Cam asked Evangeline to keep everyone there until the spectacle was over. Evangeline was strangely cooperative, and though Cam vowed to find out why later, feeling instinctively suspicious of the rumored friendship between Nick and Evangeline, for the moment, she was extremely grateful.

  She rushed back out to the patio and around the corner of the backyard, where Petunia clung to a handcuffed Nick.

  “Sis, are you okay?” Nick asked her. “They can’t have anything solid. I didn’t do it. And it’s not like I haven’t seen the inside of a jail before.”

  Cam was sure Nick thought he was saying comforting things, but she could see it wasn’t working on Petunia. She wanted to ask him why he’d been in jail, but the police officer urged Nick up the side of the house toward his car. Cam had to hold Petunia back as she cried and tried to keep hold of Nick.

  “’Tunia, stop! Look at me! We’ll make sure they know Nick didn’t do it, okay? I’ll help you; I swear it. No matter what it takes.”

  Petunia focused on her for the first time since the police had shown up. She squinted and looked a little angry, staring into Cam’s eyes with a slightly mad sheen.

  “Swear it?”

  “I swear it! I love Nick, and I love how he treats you. I’ll figure out who really did it if that’s what it takes.”

  “Swear on Dogwood Village?”

  Dogwood Village was a magical place they’d made up when they were little—always beautiful, and the good guys always won. The boundaries had actually been defined by the rows of roses in their backyard, but each spring a fabulous dogwood bloomed and put everything else to shame.

  “I swear on Dogwood Village.”

  Petunia collapsed into her chest, muttering about Evangeline and how she’d framed Nick. Cam doubted that was the case but knew this wasn’t the time to say so.

  Cam excused herself from supper with the camera crew and Garden Society board to help get Petunia home, as she thought Petunia might be too upset to drive. She called Rob but got his voice mail, then remembered he was having burgers with Jake for supper, something Annie had grumbled about when Cam had last seen her. The case gave the two men a lot to talk about. Cam figured, though, she would see both of them later at Sweet Surprise. She helped Petunia into her town house condominium in a newer subdivision of Roanoke and suggested Petunia might need company until it was bedtime.

  Petunia pulled out a bottle of tequila and a lime and slammed them on the table, claiming she had company, but Cam wasn’t sure that was the best idea.

  “Don’t you think you need to be top-notch tomorrow? In case Nick needs you?”

  Petunia looked annoyed, but the raised brows were opening enough for Cam to see she was at least half listening.

  “One shot of tequila for the misery, okay?” Cam conceded. “Maybe a glass or two of wine while you watch a romantic comedy to distract you, then bed?”

  “It’s six o’clock.”

  “All the more reason to start with soft stuff, or commit to bed now.”

  “Nick has some sleepin
g pills.”

  Cam’s neck prickled.

  “He does? Why?”

  “The occasional midnight shifts have messed with his sleep cycle. He doesn’t have to do the late shifts too often, but often enough that when we go to bed around eleven or earlier, he can’t sleep… which we can live with, unless there’s a lunch thing, which means we have to start really early—so he got the sleeping pills.”

  “Geez, Petunia. That sucks. Isn’t there something you could do differently?”

  “Not without a lot of preparing ahead and freezing stuff, and Nick is pretty anal about everything being fresh.”

  It was hard to picture Nick being anal about anything, but she supposed if he was, it would be about his cooking. Then it occurred to Cam that this left Petunia without a cook.

  “Shoot. Are you okay for the next few days? I mean if he’s in jail?”

  Petunia looked up at Cam, her eyes watering.

  “Not really.” Tears filled the corners of Petunia’s eyes. “We got two new lunch orders this afternoon—a hot lunch and then a huge sack lunch order.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, at least we don’t have your thing tomorrow night.” Petunia’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “Seriously? At least is right! Look, I’ll help. Dad will help. If Rob and Annie need to, they’ll help.”

  “Dad.” Petunia paused, a faraway expression on her face. “Dad could probably do most of it.”

  Before the sentence was completed, Cam had speed-dialed their father. He was clearly upset about Nick and expressed the outrage she would have expected, but he rallied at Cam’s plea for help.

  “Well of course I’ll help! I’m no slouch in the kitchen, you know, so long as someone tells me what to do!”

  Cam relayed the message, which got a wet laugh from Petunia, so that was something.

  Shot of tequila taken, arrangements for cooking and catering assistance made, Cam urged Petunia to take the sleeping pill, then took her sister’s catering van. She vowed to return first thing in the morning. First, though, she had to get through the various obligations of the night.

  “Shoot!” she shouted as she started toward home to change for brownie making. She’d forgotten the front that was expected, but now pictured her seedlings, barely peeping above the soil. They were fragile when they were so freshly sprouted. The same thing would be true at the plot she maintained at her dad’s house.

  Cam spent the next couple hours frantically staking the stronger plants and putting tents over the least hardy of the younger ones, in some cases covering the seedlings completely with a tarp, and in others, using a mesh that allowed water through but blocked the pummeling of driving rain. After all her efforts at the two gardens, she was tired and sweaty when she arrived home to shower, but she needed to hurry because she was running late for the brownie party.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Nice of you to make it,” Annie snapped. Rob looked up gratefully from a mixing bowl that appeared to hold the dry ingredients for brownies.

  “Where’s Jake?” Cam asked as she put three wine bottles she’d grabbed from her own stock on the counter. She figured she’d have at least two or three glasses, so for four of them, three bottles might be necessary if she counted what went into the brownies.

  “Couldn’t be bothered,” Annie said, tossing her thick ponytail via head flip. She was clearly pissed.

  Cam looked at Rob. He wore an apron already covered in flour, but he shrugged innocently, as though oblivious to the reason for Annie’s mood. Cam could tell he really knew what was going on.

  Annie went to her back room, and Rob moved closer.

  “He backed out on me, too. I think he really had work to do, but explaining that doesn’t seem to help at all. She was really angry at him when I got here, and what I said only made it worse, so I dropped it.”

  Cam nodded. They’d get to the bottom of it. Nothing like a little baking with wine to get Annie to open up.

  Annie came back and tossed Cam an apron just as Rob pulled the first cork from a wine bottle.

  “Are we allowed to?” Cam asked. “These aren’t actually… for the brownies?”

  Annie didn’t even let her finish before she’d poured three glasses and taken a pull from the fullest one.

  “A little goes in the brownies—half a cup or so. Other than that, have to keep it out of the work space, but between batches, cooks indulge. Though you better not sue me.”

  Rob started to laugh, but Annie’s glare silenced him. He looked at Cam. Annie set the wine bottle on a back counter and put her glass next to it. Cam and Rob nodded agreement, then took much smaller sips and followed Annie to the main work space, washing their hands on the way. The hand washing Cam remembered from helping in the past, but Annie’s leer would have made them aware of the rule anyway.

  Because Cam had helped Annie before, they set Rob at the mixer, while Cam retrieved ingredients and Annie directed. They got the first batch mixed and in the oven, and the second mixed before Annie began swearing at Rob about Jake.

  “Why didn’t you freaking tell me he was married?”

  “What?”

  “I was at Mick or Mack for more cake flour and eggs this afternoon, because this was unexpected.” She paused to leer at Cam. “So I didn’t order for it, and in comes Mr. Two-Timer with his wife and kid!”

  “He’s not! I’m sure he’s not! He doesn’t wear a wedding ring. He’s never said…” Rob was clearly flustered. Cam knew infidelity didn’t sit well with him for personal reasons, and he’d never knowingly enable it.

  “Well, then it had to be a longtime girlfriend—one who does wear a wedding ring! The kid was feeding him—fingers in his mouth and he was doing the loud… munching thing, nom, nom, nom!” Annie’s mimicry would have been comic if she weren’t so upset. “That is not casual friend behavior!”

  Rob sputtered but decided to change topics, in his typical cowardly fashion.

  “You had a hard day, too?” he asked Cam.

  She’d hardly said a word, but being late was clue enough for the two people who were closest to her to know it couldn’t have gone smoothly. Cam was never late.

  “They arrested Nick.”

  Annie dropped her wineglass, sending fragments flying. Cam grabbed paper towels to wipe up the spill and pointed Rob toward the broom. She felt a small sense of relief that Annie was as shaken up by the news as she had been. And maybe a little additional relief that Annie had stepped outside of whatever insanity she was submerged in.

  “Why?”

  “They didn’t say, but I’m pretty sure it was murder. I took Petunia home and got her to bed—she was a wreck.”

  “I bet—poor girl. Poor Nick.” Annie stared around in a daze for a moment and then swore about Jake being stupid as well as a cheater.

  Cam walked over to Annie and hugged her, glad for some solidarity on the Nick front, before she picked up a new wineglass and filled it for Annie.

  “I think I know why,” Rob confessed as he swept the glass into a dustpan.

  Cam rounded on him. “Why?”

  “Well, a couple things—it looks like maybe Jean-Jacques was harassing Evangeline.”

  “Because of the phone call?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “I’m the one who found the phone.”

  “Oh, right. Though I don’t think you were supposed to look,” he smirked. “And there’s more, but I don’t think it’s public yet.”

  “That’s not related to Nick, though.” Cam responded to the issue of the calls, ignoring the fact she shouldn’t have looked for now. She also didn’t mention Petunia blaming Evangeline. It seemed premature and biased. She did want to hear the new information, though.

  “Apparently… Spoons… the loan… was cosigned by Evangeline Patrick.”

  “What?” That threw Cam off balance. It was the last thing she’d expected.

  “There has to be something big there for her to back h
im up on a loan that size. Jake didn’t tell me how large, but restaurant start-up is huge.”

  Cam was about to protest, but the buzzer went off, indicating the first batch of brownies was done. Rob excused himself to pull the pan out, sensing Cam’s annoyance.

  “Did you know there was a connection?” Annie asked. Her face was etched in disgust.

  “No.”

  “That bastard better not have cheated on Petunia!”

  “Annie, I don’t think there was anybody cheating on anybody. There’s an explanation.”

  “Oh, somebody was cheating on somebody,” Annie said. Her dark expression didn’t flatter her.

  Rob returned in time to hear that and opted once again for the coward’s way out, in Cam’s opinion.

  “Hey, did you know Samantha is Jean-Jacques’s aunt?”

  Fortunately for Rob, this new tidbit had the desired effect.

  “What?” Cam and Annie asked in unison.

  “Jake got it from her today.”

  That was a misstep on Rob’s part.

  “Jake! What the hell does he know?” Annie drank the contents of her fresh wineglass, rather a lot for one swig.

  Cam frowned.

  “Why didn’t she just say so?”

  “They’d had an agreement. I guess… he’d borrowed money or something from her when he was first starting out and hadn’t paid it back, so she used it to pressure him to come, but she gave him a place to stay and lent him the car. Admitting they were related, though, would have blown that French artist thing.”

  Annie tutted, letting them both know she hadn’t been fooled.

  “I guess now we know why he called her,” Cam said.

  “Exactly,” Rob replied.

  “But not what he was doing at the Patricks’ so early.”

  “Jake thinks he was there to pester Evangeline.”

  “And what does Evangeline say?”

  Cam felt newly defensive for Evangeline. She’d shown herself to be helpful and sympathetic earlier that day, and Cam wasn’t eager to put her in a negative light.