The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  A sliding glass door whirred open.

  “Cujo! Shush!”

  Cujo barked three more times.

  “You stop that! Do I need to make you come in?”

  Cujo whined and sat, still looking in Cam’s direction, but done barking. The woman who’d yelled had accomplished what she wanted. The door whirred again and she was gone.

  Cam was glad she hadn’t known earlier that the dog was named Cujo. She liked him and wasn’t sure she could have if she’d known the name. She waited awhile longer, until the dog went back to the patio and laid down.

  When she finally moved on, she felt as though she hadn’t breathed for ages. Cujo continued to whine until she was too far to hear, and Cam felt guilty.

  A healthy stand of raspberries, not yet bearing fruit but full of thorns, was the only other obstacle she had to skirt before arriving at the pair of small houses. She could see Benny’s pickup in front, resting right on the property line. She held back to watch, but from this distance, she couldn’t tell which house Benny had gone into. Both houses had closed shades or drawn curtains on the main floor. She decided to creep into the bushes between the houses and try to listen to both, hoping she would hear where Benny was.

  She managed to not be spotted, and found her way to the shrubs on the side of one of the houses. She leaned her ear against the wall, then a window, but heard nothing coming from inside. A wait of ten minutes brought no change, so she darted across to the other house, though the cover wasn’t as good. She was standing in a mass of daylilies that hadn’t bloomed yet and only reached her thigh.

  She carefully moved farther toward the front of the house to see if she could see anybody coming or going, and was shocked as she peeked around the corner to have her arm grabbed by a balding man with graying stubble on his chin.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Cam tried to smile, but knew it looked bad. There was no mistaking that she was trespassing and sneaking around.

  “I’m sorry. I followed a friend of mine. Someone told me it was his birthday, and I wanted to… you know… wish him happy birthday. But I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “What’s this friend named?” He smiled now, as if he were being friendly, but he was a bad actor. He was definitely suspicious, and possibly evil, Cam thought.

  Her split-second, panicked logic told her it was better to give a real name than a false one. She hoped it wouldn’t get Benny in trouble for allowing her to follow him.

  “Benny Larsson.”

  “Benny?” He sneered, and didn’t sound like he believed her overly much. Then he let out an ugly laugh. “Chick like you wants to wish Benny a happy birthday?”

  Cam nodded, trying to don an innocent face.

  “When his birthday is the end of December?”

  Her heart sank. The man’s incredulous expression frightened Cam.

  “I thought…” She was scrambling for the right words but kept coming up empty. She fought her face, knowing it was trying to give too much away.

  He laughed again. “I’m kidding, princess! I have no clue when the kid’s birthday is. He’s more of a ladies’ man than I thought if a pretty lady like you is looking for him. I don’t think it’s his birthday, though. Had a party last winter.”

  “But…”

  “Should I set him straight? About lying to pretty ladies, I mean?”

  “Not if it means hurting him!”

  “So, you like him?”

  “Of course I do! He’s a nice boy!”

  To Cam’s surprise, the man broke into real laughter, not the mocking kind of a moment ago. “Feel protective, then?”

  “Any decent person would.”

  He laughed even harder. “Okay, princess. Well, how about this? I promise not to hurt Benny. Would that help?” His chuckling had grown annoying, but Cam continued to play dumb.

  “A lot. You really promise?” She didn’t believe him, and Benny’s safety hadn’t been her original concern, but acting protective seemed to be working, having been caught and all, and in case this man was sincere, it couldn’t hurt. At the moment, she wanted to get out of there in one piece. “Should I just go, then? Since I have your word, I mean?”

  The man laughed again, but he was back to the menacing demeanor of a few minutes earlier.

  “I can tell you’re harmless. I can also tell you are very naïve. But I don’t have that authority, so you’ll just have to wait a bit.”

  Cam sighed and allowed herself be led by the arm into the small, poorly made, even more poorly kept, house. Half a dozen people alternately stared at and ignored her; a few more were milling about less attentively. It seemed a lot of activity for a house of that size. The bald man led her to an upstairs bedroom, and for a minute she panicked, but he just pushed her in.

  “Hey! Watch this one, will you?”

  A chiseled silhouette of a man looked in, eyebrows raised, and nodded before shutting the door.

  When she finally calmed down, she thought the room had been picked as “easy to guard.” There was only one window, which was above the patio in the backyard, so an attempt to jump meant certain injury, and the only door led back to the hallway, where the rather-too-handsome thug had been instructed not to let her leave. Cam pretended for all of twenty seconds that he was permitted to come enjoy her company, but in her vulnerable circumstances, it made her feel way too exposed. All future fantasies of captivity abandoned her forever.

  She paced, going over her options. She thought about lowering herself out the window, but there were no sheets on the bed—in fact, it was only a mattress on the floor, topped by a sleeping bag. Unless she was kept here for days, which she doubted was the intention, it was not worth the risk, any more so than trying to break a hole in the walls or fight the muscular man in the hall. It was only in her fantasy that she was the type of girl who could break out of imprisonment anyway. She didn’t have any illusions that she was actually that tough. Annie was tougher, and she was five-two. Cam’s best skill had always been negotiation. She would have to talk her way out. That option, though, held promise.

  She hoped appearing worried about Benny would continue to work, though she would have to be careful not to accuse anybody of anything dastardly. And clearly what she’d said so far hadn’t been considered cause for concern, or somebody would have tried to talk to her already. Then it occurred to her that the pictures of Evangeline, or rather, the existence of them—not the real pictures—would serve as the best motive for her chasing down the “boy” and expressing her “worry” as to what he had gotten himself into. She tried to keep her thoughts in terms of “boy” as it was the only way to make the transgression sound both innocent and undesirable. She approached the door and shouted.

  “Please! Can I just talk to Benny?”

  “You’re just supposed to sit tight,” the thug said. His voice was handsome, too, deep and melodic, Cam noted with irritation.

  “Pretty please.” She hoped acting girly might help. “I just want to make sure he doesn’t publish those pictures!”

  To her surprise the man guarding the door opened it. Bright blue eyes flashed at her from an olive-toned face. He looked at her, rather intrigued, and gave a shout.

  “Benny? Have you been a bad boy?” He sounded terribly amused. Cam panicked as she realized it sounded like the pictures were of her.

  Benny arrived a few minutes later, looking unsure.

  “Ms. Harris, I don’t know what you want.”

  “She wants to make sure those girlie pictures of her don’t go public!” The man chuckled, delightedly. His teeth were straight, too! Drat!

  Cam glared at him, and Benny just looked confused. Then in a strategic moment, Cam decided to go with it. She figured she’d never see this man again, and it made for a more coherent case.

  “Just to make sure none of those pictures you took are released to the public!”

  “What?”

  “You!” Cam pointed at the handsome thug. “What’s your
name?”

  “That’s Dylan,” Benny said.

  “Dylan, can Benny and I have a minute?”

  Dylan shrugged, still laughing, but he wouldn’t go, so Cam went on.

  “We found the camera—you know the one I’m talking about—it had your fingerprints on it.”

  Dylan frowned at that, and Cam cursed herself. Fingerprinting was a police activity. Benny, of course, didn’t seem to catch the implication, but she thought Dylan had. Benny did realize, though, he had trouble. He stepped into the room and shut the door on Dylan. He looked stricken.

  “I’d never release those! Those…” But he trailed off.

  “But might you protect her? If someone else had pictures like that to release?”

  “Nobody would do that. Nobody who knows Evangeline, anyway.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Look. Mr. Patrick is okay. He’s nice enough. I wasn’t unhappy before they got married. It’s a job, ya know? But Evangeline has… well, he’s more generous now with bonuses, and thinks of all of us more… as people. All the help likes her.”

  Something seemed off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it at the moment.

  “Why would you take those pictures if you like her so much?”

  Benny looked down, embarrassed.

  “She’s beautiful. I guess… I maybe fantasized she was mine. I didn’t mean anything.”

  Cam gave a scolding look. “I guess I’ll go, then.”

  “You followed me here about that?”

  “I didn’t want to talk to you about it at the Patricks’. I was worried Mr. Patrick would overhear.”

  “I guess that’s all right, then. But it’s not very smart to follow me. I know some… rough people.” He looked at the door. Cam didn’t want to think of Dylan as rough—rogue, maybe, not rough. She looked back at Benny.

  She almost blurted a question about the bookie, but decided it was stupid, given where she was and that she’d already gotten caught.

  “Okay. I’m glad you won’t do anything with the pictures. You know the police have them, though?” she whispered.

  He shrugged. She wasn’t sure whether he didn’t care or was just acting tough.

  Cam followed Benny back down the stairs, and they had nearly reached the front door when someone started yelling at Benny.

  “Larsson, you idiot! What’s this supposed to be?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute!” Benny shouted, trying to shoo Cam out the door, but Cam was acting stupid, moving at a snail’s pace. She wanted to hear what this was about.

  “This is only a quarter what you promised!”

  “I ran into some trouble. I’ll get the rest!”

  Benny pulled the door open and practically shoved Cam out, but with the open windows at the front of the house, she still heard.

  “I have enough for the races this afternoon, and I’ll fix the problem tonight.”

  “You better!”

  The missing product was no mystery. The pot plants. And races. That probably meant stock cars, as Benny didn’t really seem a horse-racing sort. Roanoke’s track was north of town. Roanoke’s love for stock cars had a relatively long history, and the Roanoke home of Curtis Turner, a local racing legend, had been turned into a museum dedicated to the early days of the sport. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track down times for the afternoon’s races. As all this registered, though, the one thing that seemed off finally slid into place: Benny Larsson didn’t seem nearly as dim as he had let everybody believe.

  CHAPTER 19

  When Cam arrived back at her car, she called Rob. She felt sheepish about having followed Benny, but more so about having gotten caught. That was nothing, though, compared to her heart pounding in fright, so she confessed. Rob wasn’t at all happy, but as his voice calmed her, the feeling of triumph at having new information soon trumped any negativity. She gloated a little about how smooth she’d been in making it out of there.

  “Fine. You were fabulous. So now you need to give me a chance to do something.” She heard his sarcasm, but ignored it. “You can’t show me up like that and not give me a chance to catch up!”

  Cam snorted. “Fine, macho man. What’s your plan?”

  “To go to the Patricks’, talk to the help. See if anybody else knows anything about those plants, maybe look for a printer? I won’t tell anyone anything—I can be vague, but anyone who knows will get what I’m asking about. Then I’m on racetrack duty.”

  “But that gives you two things.”

  “One has an excuse—as a reporter. The other—those people already caught you once today. They won’t be nice to you if they catch you again!”

  “Okay, fine.” Cam sighed and pretended to pout. He was right on both counts, though she was largely agreeing to avoid an argument.

  “Listen. How about some other interesting news?”

  “Okay.”

  “That money from Hannah caused a search though the bank accounts of all the suspects. We should know if the money came from any of them this afternoon.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  After she hung up, she thought more about what Rob was doing; she realized the killer was the one most likely to understand Rob’s questions and know what they were up to. She tried to call him back, but he’d turned off his phone. She cursed herself for letting him get ahead of her.

  Cam went to Spoons to help Petunia with lunches again. Petunia was on a cloud. Apparently whoever had posted bail for Annie had also posted it for Nick, and they’d been told the charges would likely be dropped due to lack of evidence. Cam knew it was her dad who had paid the bail, but Petunia seemed to prefer to think of this as a matter of karmic rightness, so Cam wasn’t going to burst her bubble, at least not while it was so freshly inflated.

  She helped with lunch anyway, hoping to give the couple a break in the afternoon to share a little alone time. They seemed appreciative. Nick, in particular, kept shooting her sheepish looks that said, “You’re the best.”

  Cam viewed Nick a little differently now, knowing his history. He’d never been a guy without a past, but the punk band seemed more tangible now, and Evangeline’s involvement made it all the more colorful. Jean-Jacques’s betrayal had, in Cam’s mind at least, transformed Nick into a tragic antihero, though Cam had to hold her tongue, as Petunia wouldn’t find any of this amusing.

  Nick knew his wife, so seemed to grasp the need to not talk openly about it, but Cam was less secretive when she explained Benny Larsson was her current favorite suspect.

  “I think he has a huge crush on Evangeline and thought it was a way to protect her. He has some learning issues, so he may not even have known it was wrong.” Though as Cam said it, she realized she didn’t think this was true anymore. If Benny had committed the crime, he’d known full well what he was doing.

  Petunia scowled. “That woman could get any man to act against his own common sense!” She glared at her husband but wouldn’t say any more.

  “Sorry. I thought she’d be pleased that there’s another suspect,” Cam whispered when she and Nick were alone for a minute.

  “She’s never really understood my friendship with Vange. Any guy who claimed to be Petunia’s friend tried to sleep with her—and who could blame them, really?”

  “TMI, Nick.” Not only TMI, but confusing. Petunia was all bony limbs as far as Cam could see. Evangeline was shapely and gorgeous.

  “Sorry, I just mean I never felt tempted with Vange. She was always more like a sister or something—like you, Cam. But Petunia doesn’t believe me.”

  Cam started to pat his arm, but Petunia came back, so she made an odd gesture instead.

  “Last lunch! What are you waiting for?” Petunia bellowed.

  “Sorry! Just dropped something, and I had to make sure it was okay, but it is. You packed it well.” Cam lied.

  Petunia and Nick thanked Cam profusely when they were done, and Cam drove Annie’s car back to the cupcake shop just in time for the afternoon lull.
r />   Cam sank to the floor against the wall opposite where Annie was frosting cupcakes behind the counter.

  “What? You don’t want to play with frosting?” Annie asked.

  “I might. First I need a computer.”

  “You know where it is.”

  Cam rose. She was too curious about the details not to look up the races. She logged on and typed in “Caution Flag stock car races.”

  “Shoot!”

  “Bang!” Annie said. A normal response to Cam’s non-swearing.

  “There’s nothing there!”

  “Where?”

  “Caution Flag—the place stock cars are usually raced in Roanoke. There’s nothing listed, but Benny said there were races this afternoon.”

  “Call them.”

  Cam frowned but obeyed, then clicked her phone shut. “Crap!”

  Annie raised an eyebrow.

  “They’re now!”

  “What are now?”

  “Stock car races—only it’s not races. It’s time trials—preliminary stuff. I bet Rob doesn’t even know. He would have looked online and decided I misunderstood. We have to get out there!”

  Annie shrugged, wiped her hands, and said, “I’m in. I couldn’t go this morning, but you need backup. I can finish frosting when I get back—buttercream stays nice for hours.”

  They raced out to the Bug and dove in, Cam reading directions from Annie’s laptop, which she held in a death grip. Annie’s driving had her normal urgency.

  Cam relayed her morning adventures, and Annie called her “idiot” in all the right places, reiterating Cam’s need for supervision, then she proceeded to call Rob an idiot, which was a little more gratifying. She was intrigued, though, that this drug avenue might prove promising.

  “Who knew we hung out with hoodlums?”

  Cam’s leg vibrated. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and answered it.

  “Rob? What’s up?”

  “Got some interesting stuff. Henry admitted having moved the plants, but catch this—orchids. Benny was mad because they’re a special project of his, and he thought it was too early in the year to have them outside.”