The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  “So what was this really about?” Evangeline gazed at Cam as she sat.

  “I had a few hints today that gave me the idea Benny might be growing marijuana here… greenhouse three seemed most logical.”

  “Benny? Marijuana? Nonsense!”

  “We have a picture that shows Ian giving him money, but that’s not the only thing.”

  Evangeline suddenly seemed nervous, and Cam knew she was thinking of the photos.

  “Then what?”

  “Benny and Jean-Jacques had debts with the same bookie. Benny wouldn’t need money if he wasn’t in some kind of trouble.”

  “Somebody using him, maybe,” Evangeline said.

  “That may be, and if it’s true, we certainly want to find that out.”

  “Using him for pictures of me?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, too—we did find a spot in greenhouse one where most of the photos I saw must have been taken. But what if someone also had suggested easy money for raising a few plants? Don’t you think he might fall for it?” Cam said.

  Evangeline’s face shifted. “Well now, that makes sense if he’d met the wrong sort of people, and gambling people might indeed suggest something like that if they knew about the greenhouses. Did you find anything, illegal plants, I mean?”

  “A table that had been cleared. We think someone might have tipped him off—got wind we might be looking.”

  “Who would do that?”

  Cam shrugged and shook her head. She really had no idea. Now there was no evidence left except a spot from which pots had been removed.

  “Evangeline, thank you for not ratting us out to Jake.”

  “I trust you, Cam. From our conversation earlier, you seem to be earnest, and I’d love you to solve this.”

  “Good. I do have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “How come you stayed quiet about the loan?”

  Evangeline sighed. “Neil knows. Of course. We are approached often—even by friends. But there are a lot of… old acquaintances of mine who ask—Jean-Jacques even—I’m sure you know. We just have to be careful and quiet. So it’s become a habit.”

  “And when are Benny and Henry here?”

  “Normally four mornings a week, though I’m afraid we’ve monopolized more of Benny’s time since the Garden Delights people arrived. He’s perfectly capable of all the basics, which we couldn’t let fall behind when we had a camera crew here.”

  “Are they here tomorrow?”

  “I expect so, yes.”

  “Thank you,” Cam said as she stood, indicating to the others it was time to go. “We should let you get to bed. Thank you, Evangeline.”

  “Was that weird, or what?” Annie asked when they were finally on their way.

  “Pretty strange. Any chance of you and Jake ever seeing eye to eye again?” Cam asked.

  “I doubt it. I only ever look at his Adam’s apple.”

  Cam rolled her eyes at the literal interpretation based on Annie’s vertical challenges.

  “I saw understanding.” Rob ignored the joking, as usual.

  “Not enough understanding that he could stay and have a conversation.”

  “Did you ask him about the woman?” Rob replied.

  Annie didn’t answer. Cam could tell by her silence she wore a pouting expression in the backseat. Annie hated to be wrong almost as much as Cam did.

  “So maybe tomorrow y’all can work it out?” Cam said.

  Her question was met with more silence; the backseat pout continued.

  “Speaking of understandings with Jake.” Cam turned to Rob. “What was that near confession?”

  “He’s been pretty good to me—shared information. I felt obliged there for a minute.”

  “Except we could have been arrested.”

  “Yeah. There’s that. Thanks for the reminder.”

  Cam nodded, then changed subjects.

  “So how do we catch Benny?” she asked, trying to avoid the awkwardness that now went two directions.

  “I’d say I need to follow him,” Rob said.

  “You? Why you?”

  “I’m the reporter? I have a legitimate reason?”

  “And you have the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I need to do it,” Cam said.

  “Neither of you stands a chance of getting information. You’re way too obvious,” Annie said.

  “And you can do subtle better?” Cam asked.

  “You bet I can! Unfortunately… I can’t. I have to work.”

  “I can do it,” Cam said emphatically, glad Annie was too busy to help so she would have the chance to prove herself.

  “Right,” Annie answered.

  “I didn’t hear where I came in,” Rob said.

  “You didn’t,” Cam and Annie said together.

  CHAPTER 18

  They swung by and picked up Annie’s Bug on the way home. Their adrenaline was still rushing when they reached Cam’s place. Annie insisted she needed to crash, as five in the morning was already too near, and she left, though Cam thought she looked a little disappointed.

  Cam and Rob sat on Cam’s sofa.

  “So you think Benny would kill someone over a couple of pot plants?” Rob asked.

  “It doesn’t make much sense,” Cam admitted. “I mean, it looks like there would have been a pretty steady cash flow set up, so why would he? Especially when we know Ian gave him money—talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Do you think maybe Jean-Jacques was edging in on his territory?”

  “Rob, Benny has a learning disability. He does not have the mentality required to be a drug overlord.”

  “Then who was Benny working for?”

  “You think he was working for someone?” That idea surprised her.

  “Sure. How would he get the idea otherwise? I think anybody doing that who isn’t very bright, and who hasn’t been caught, must be following orders from somebody smarter.”

  Cam nodded. “And that somebody might be a murderer. I still think he might have been protecting Evangeline, though.”

  “By selling pictures of her?”

  “There’s no evidence he sold them. Try to think like Benny for a minute. I know it’s hard with that big brain of yours, but try.”

  “Mocking just might get you handcuffed.”

  “Jake lend you some?” she asked hopefully.

  Rob stared at her. “That appeals to you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t need to. I’m just… surprised.”

  “What? I can be naughty.”

  “Since when?”

  “Try me.”

  He raised his eyebrows, then shook his head as if he were trying to wake up. “Cam! Drugs? Pornography? Benny?”

  “Right.” She was actually shocked he hadn’t taken her up on her offer. She was feeling like a little diversion at the moment, though she wasn’t very serious about the handcuffs. Annie just put ideas in her head sometimes. “I think he worshiped Evangeline from afar, wanted to worship… erm… more of her, and got protective when Jean-Jacques started harassing her. You ask me? That’s our motive. Drugs are coincidental.”

  “Who’s to say Nick didn’t get protective? It sounds like he and Evangeline were close.”

  “Friends. They were friends! Are friends.” The romantic feelings that had sparked with the handcuff conversation were figuratively doused in cold water as Rob brought up the sore subject again.

  “Friends that lend each other a lot of money?”

  “Not lend. Cosign. It just means she thinks he’s trustworthy to pay it back. And who killed Ian, then, smarty-pants?”

  Rob sighed. “I should go. You want me to come with you in the morning?”

  “No, you have work. I’ll figure it out.” She didn’t want him on her mission, reporter skills or not. She had something to prove.

  “You can’t investigate without a car.”

  “Watch me.” Annie
had to do cupcakes all morning. Cam would borrow the Bug, but Rob didn’t need to be in on the secret. She was too annoyed to share at the moment.

  Cam went in her room and shut the door, leaving Rob to show himself out.

  Annie woke up Cam at six.

  “What?” Cam buried her face in her pillow.

  “Well, I was thinking since I have to work today, you could have my car.”

  Cam rolled over and grinned, though she kept her eyes closed for a moment.

  “You’re my fairy god-Annie!”

  She loved it when the best friend mind-meld happened. And it was the only way she’d get to do this investigating alone, something she felt was crucial to a good outcome for this press event, but she needed a car. Rob certainly wouldn’t lend her his for her to go off alone. She struggled to pull herself out of bed, but Annie handed her a cup of coffee. It smelled like it had hazelnut cream in it.

  “Why are you spoiling me?” Cam asked.

  “I need you to solve this puppy. I wish I could help you.”

  Cam yawned. “I’ll cope. But on our way, I want to bounce something off you.”

  Annie nodded.

  Cam headed into the bathroom for a quick shower, after which she forced in her contacts, wincing, and ran a brush through her hair, deciding the day called for a headband. As soon as she was dressed, she and Annie went to Annie’s car. Cam grabbed an energy bar for each of them on the way out.

  As they drove, she abused Rob for a while on his insistence that Nick was still a suspect.

  “He was in jail when murder number two happened,” Annie commented.

  “Thank you! Exactly what I said.”

  “Sheesh, almost sounds like Rob thinks Petunia did the second murder to take Nick off the suspect list.”

  Cam didn’t respond, mostly because she’d had that same thought before, and she wanted the idea to go away. “But his point about somebody else protecting Evangeline…”

  “Why just Evangeline?”

  “There just aren’t many other options.” Though opening the field appealed to Cam.

  “You think Mr. Patrick could bludgeon someone with a camera?” Annie asked.

  “Ew. Though… well… there was that witnessed argument between him and Jean-Jacques, but I still don’t think so.”

  She sighed. She really didn’t want to expand her list. She wanted a magic suspect who had nothing to do with any of them to appear with the proverbial smoking gun, but the shears and camera were in custody, so she knew better than to hope for that.

  “Yeah, well, here’s something else to consider,” Annie said, cutting into her thoughts. “Imagine if it was your eight-hundred-dollar camera that will cost at least twelve hundred to replace—used for murder, then rotting in jail!”

  “Oh, geez, Annie. I didn’t think about that,” Cam said.

  “Never mind. It’s insured, except the first two fifty, and that will be on my bill.”

  Cam rolled her eyes but felt true sympathy.

  “Anyway, getting back to the suspects list, I think it could have been someone protecting Samantha, or… I don’t know… someone else,” Annie said.

  “I guess. I’ll brainstorm with Rob again. It will give me an excuse to stay ahead of him.”

  Annie shook her head at Cam. “There is no need to be so competitive with your boyfriend.”

  “I’m not.”

  Annie pulled up behind her cupcake shop and climbed out, staring at Cam in disbelief.

  “Right. And I’m not the hottest woman in three counties.”

  Cam snorted, scooted over to the driver’s seat, and pulled away. She had a stakeout to get under way or the last several days of work would be for nothing.

  Cam had a two-part plan for the morning. First, she hoped to find Henry Larsson. She thought the parent of a son with some learning issues might keep a close eye, even if the son was now an adult.

  She was in luck. When she got to La Fontaine, Giselle knew Henry was planting annuals on the eastern edge of the huge garden, so Cam was able to find him easily.

  “Well, hello, Camellia. What brings you out this morning?” He kept digging and putting in plants.

  “I hoped you might… have you noticed any… suspicious friends of Benny?”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Suspicious how?”

  “The kind who might ask him to do things maybe he shouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know what you’re suggesting!” He sounded angry.

  Cam decided to brave it anyway. “Like growing pot plants.”

  “No! I watch out for my son! He’s not involved in anything like that!”

  Cam thought he was protesting too much, but she made her excuses about just needing to check and retreated to Annie’s car to regroup and formulate a different approach.

  A stakeout was far more boring than it sounded. Cam could certainly see why police officers turned to doughnuts and coffee. She left La Fontaine, driving around the corner and parking under a tree with low hanging boughs. Then she walked back, crouching down to watch from the bushes. She watched for a long time, all the while craving an old-fashioned doughnut for the first time since age twelve. Her father’s gift of Krispy Kremes yesterday had surely seeded today’s craving. It had been the childhood Saturday morning “let Mom sleep” trick—her dad taking her and Petunia for doughnuts.

  Refocusing on the matter at hand, Cam could see Henry, still on the eastern border, and Benny, who didn’t seem to be up to anything suspicious. He deadheaded, trimmed, and swept debris from the pavement slowly but steadily. After a while, though, he went to greenhouse three and when he came out, he looked around, scratching his head. It seemed to confirm the pot plants, or whatever mystery plants they’d been, were his. But it looked as though Benny thought Henry had gotten rid of them. She watched as Benny found and confronted his father, and Henry’s annoyed, angry response to Benny’s shouting did nothing to lessen the idea. She was too far away to hear why Benny had jumped to his conclusion, though she was annoyed Henry seemed to have lied to her. Henry clearly knew more than he was telling.

  Benny left in a hurry, and Cam had to sprint to get back to Annie’s car in time to follow him. She didn’t know what kind of vehicle to watch for, but she was sure Benny was leaving the premises and there was only one logical way to go, so she started Annie’s car and waited.

  A few minutes later a small, dark-colored pickup truck that had been in the Patricks’ driveway rounded the corner, going at least ten miles an hour over the speed limit. Cam thought it was one of Henry’s work trucks. She waited briefly, then followed.

  Following at a reasonable distance was hard, even outside of town. Cam feared for what would happen when Benny got into the city where they would be at the mercy of stoplights, but fortunately, he veered north, bypassing most of town.

  He headed into a poor suburb of clapboard houses and duplexes, many with broken-down vehicles in the yards. He wove through narrow streets. Cam avoided getting too close but then remembered that given his learning issues, Benny was unlikely to realize he was being followed so long as she stayed back at least a little. Besides, she doubted he’d recognize Annie’s car, and even if he did, he had even less reason to suspect Annie would follow him than Cam.

  When he finally pulled over, she drove past and continued three-quarters of the way around the block. She parked on a side street that led to the one Benny had parked on, and thought she could see through backyards to the pair of houses he’d parked in front of. She was glad the nearer one was yellow. It stood out among the tans, whites, and grays.

  She got out of Annie’s car and debated walking on the sidewalk versus hiding in the bushes. Initially, she took the sidewalk, thinking it was less conspicuous, so she strolled slowly up the block, trying to take in every observation she could.

  The last house on the block looked empty, so Cam walked up the front walk as if she planned to ring the doorbell, then ducked behind a shrub and went around to the back of the house. She
stood in the deserted expanse of backyards and evaluated the terrain. It wasn’t a neighborhood with formidable fences, though there were a couple she’d have to climb.

  The biggest obstacle would be the Rottweiler currently sleeping two yards away; his nose periodically twitched, obvious even from this distance. She wondered how much of a watchdog he was and how well contained he was in his yard. His fence clearly wasn’t the type that was meant to hold in an animal that large. She would have gone around, but the yard behind the one the dog was in had a six-foot chain-link fence with plastic slats woven through to block prying eyes. It seemed like a sign of no tolerance where trespassing was concerned.

  She guessed the house Benny had gone into was the fifth or sixth away from her.

  She eased across the first yard and into the second. As she stepped over the short fence, a stick popped up and snapped, giving her an idea. She picked it up and crossed the yard toward the dog.

  He heard her, twitching at first, then emitting a low growl.

  “Hey, boy. Do you like to fetch?”

  His ears pricked and his tail stub twitched, though the growl continued and he didn’t lift his head.

  “You wanna get the stick? You like a stick?”

  She ran toward the fence, stopping back from it a good five feet so the dog didn’t feel threatened. She didn’t think the fence stood a chance if that dog was determined. She threw the stick over the fence, and he shot after it.

  She spotted the chain tethering him, a good sign. He retrieved the stick and brought it back toward her as far as the chain would reach. He dropped the stick and whined, cocking his head.

  “Good boy! Aren’t you smart?”

  He whined again, panting with what looked like a dopey smile, so she climbed over the fence and retrieved the stick, throwing it again.

  He fetched it and brought it back before she was across the yard, so she threw it once more in the other direction. He chased after it, and she climbed the fence on the far side of the yard.

  When he brought the stick as far toward her as he could and saw that she was out of reach, he whined three or four times. She didn’t return, so he began to bark. Once the barking began, there was no mistake that a neighborhood dog was distressed about something, so she threw herself under a half-withered rhododendron and waited.