The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

Jake looked contrite. “I don’t think anyone did. A detective with automotive expertise will be here with a tow truck and will look, and then we’ll take your Jeep in if foul play was involved.” He stopped to check his watch. “Ten, fifteen minutes. Rob, why don’t you continue this little tale Cam started, if you think this incident with your Jeep is connected to the… investigation you aren’t supposed to be doing…”

  Rob obviously thought they were connected. He explained, but with less enthusiasm for Jake than he’d had in the past. He filled Jake in about the printer he’d been looking at, suggesting it was currently their best lead, but skipped the puzzle solving he and Cam had been doing.

  Jake looked at Annie. “And what were you doing?”

  Cam felt a gasket blow. “She was at work all morning. I joined her there after my little trip, and she’d obviously been there all day, with dozens of customers and hundreds of cupcakes to back her up. Then, when I realized I had to do this track thing without Rob, because it wasn’t official and I didn’t think he’d call to find out there was still something there, Annie came with me to make sure I didn’t get in trouble, but she didn’t do anything! And if you think Annie and I had a plot to kill Rob, it would be pretty stupid of us to bang up her car just to save him!”

  Jake looked at the back of the Bug and then at Annie.

  “Ouch. Sorry about that. I know how you love your car.”

  Annie scowled. “I wish you knew how much I didn’t kill people!”

  “Okay, I’ve been a jerk, but I was a jerk because you were a jerk first,” Jake admitted.

  “I was a jerk because I saw you with… with…”

  “My sister and Hernando?”

  “Hernando? That’s too cute!” Annie sounded like she didn’t want to like the name, but couldn’t resist.

  “He’s too cute. He’s my first nephew, though my other sister is pregnant, so you might, at some point, see me with her and a baby, too. I understand, though, now that Cam finally shared the story… why your mind might have gone to the wrong place… Just… ask me next time. I won’t lie to you.”

  Cam leaned into Rob. It was surreal to watch the tension dissolving between Annie and the cop so quickly, and she felt a microscopic betrayal that Annie had forgiven him too easily, as Jake still didn’t seem to be taking Cam quite seriously. It was obviously better, though, to all be on the same side again.

  The yellow lights of the tow truck appeared, and they all took places expectantly around the nose of the Jeep. They needed to know whether Rob’s brakes had been deliberately tampered with, though Cam thought Jake was delusional to think otherwise.

  After what seemed an awfully long time examining the brake lines, the detective who’d arrived with the tow truck announced, “Punctured. Not cut. Though it looks like it was done with a cutting tool that couldn’t quite sever the line. Scissors wouldn’t get this far, but maybe…”

  “Pruning shears?” Cam offered.

  The man frowned. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” The detective, introduced as Jaimison, eyed Cam carefully.

  “We think it’s the same person who killed Jean-Jacques Georges, and that was done with pruning shears, too,” Cam said.

  ““So you’re sure it was foul play?” Jake asked.

  “Positive,” Jaimison replied.

  “Okay. Tow it in for the forensic workup. I’m sure Rob can’t be without his car for too long.”

  The man nodded and began to hook the tail of the Jeep to the tow truck. Jake came over to where Cam, Rob, and Annie stood.

  “Okay, so let’s say now I might buy your theory. What do you want to do?”

  “Drink margaritas,” Annie suggested.

  Rob and Cam nodded.

  Jake shook his head. “That will help?”

  “Look at Rob. He’s a mess,” Annie pointed out helpfully. “He almost died. We saved his life.” She blinked, an expression Cam recognized as Annie playing ingénue. She was bad at it, but that was mostly intentional. Annie didn’t have goals of innocence.

  “I have about an hour of paperwork, but I can meet you at six.”

  They told Jake they’d be at El Palenque, then Cam crawled into the microscopic backseat of Annie’s Bug, so Rob, with his longer legs, could have the front seat. Thankfully, the car started—something that was not a given, since it had taken a real beating.

  “I’ll reimburse you for the damage to your car,” Rob offered.

  “Please… It gives me street cred,” Annie said, flexing her bicep.

  Cam snorted.

  “Okay, you can help me pay the deductible if we don’t nail this bastard and get it from him,” Annie conceded.

  “Deal!”

  CHAPTER 20

  The trio stopped off at Sweet Surprise first, so Annie could properly store the cupcakes and frosting she’d left out earlier. Then they headed to El Palenque. Cam would prefer to be outraged to find that margaritas didn’t clarify everything, but she knew it was hardly time to expect a first. At least the salty, sweet, sour tequila treat, along with a few baskets of chips and the spicy house salsa, helped the three of them relax.

  Rob kept thanking Annie for saving his life, and Annie kept suggesting outrageous shows of gratitude, streaking up Campbell Avenue being only the most recent. Cam, though, had a nagging feeling the answer to the murders was right under her nose. This was amplified when Rob reminded them of the dot-matrix-printed note that had been found at the La Fontaine servant’s house.

  Cam slowed her drinking significantly well before Annie or Rob, and was relieved when Jake arrived and somebody less intent on tequila was there to bounce ideas off of.

  Cam whispered to Jake about the dot matrix printer, Annie’s printer, and the threat. He scolded her briefly for knowing too much, but then allowed her to express her frustration that Rob and Annie seemed tequila bound. Jake saw how intent Annie and Rob were on getting drunk and sighed.

  He sat and took a few sips of the margarita Annie pushed in front of him, but Cam could see his heart wasn’t in it.

  “We had some news this afternoon about those bank accounts,” Jake said.

  Rob perked up briefly, and Cam turned with full attention. She hoped for progress. “And?”

  “Those guys sure move money around a lot.”

  “Those guys? Which guys?” she asked.

  “Not just guys. The women, too.”

  “So what can you tell?”

  “Well, the first big news is that Ian had deposited forty thousand.”

  Annie choked, though it might have been on a tortilla chip.

  “No way! With the five thousand he had in the cigar box and the five thousand he gave Benny, that’s… just… wow.” The assessment felt incompetent, but that was sort of what Cam had to offer at the moment.

  “So who did it, then?” Rob asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “I mean who gave him all that money?”

  “Don’t know,” Jake repeated. “There were four other accounts with significant bank activity.”

  “That significant?”

  “Well, in three cases there were large withdrawals, though in the fourth, there was a deposit.” Jake looked at Rob meaningfully.

  “No.”

  Jake nodded.

  “What?” Cam asked, angry to be out of the loop.

  “It’s Nick, Cam. Jake’s saying Nick was the recipient of a large cash deposit. They knew he got one, but this is the first hint where it came from. That money is why they held him so long.”

  Cam hit Rob’s arm. She was angry he hadn’t told her, but figured there’d been some threat to cut off information if he shared.

  She felt sick and pushed her margarita away. “It’s got to be a mistake.”

  “The amount is different. He got thirty thousand. We’ve requested all the paperwork, so we will know where it came from soon.”

  “Who are the other three?”

  “Samantha, the Patricks, and Joseph. All had withdrawals of at least fifty
thousand dollars last week, though for Joseph, the money went both in and out, so I’m not sure what that is about.”

  “So Samantha or one of the Patricks is the killer?”

  “Maybe not—that kind of money, maybe they hired somebody.”

  “I know what you’re thinking—somebody like Nick, but it’s not true!” Cam shouted.

  “Calm down, Cam. We know it’s not Nick. We’re proving it, right?” Annie patted Cam’s leg. Although she was saying the words Cam wanted to hear, Annie was quickly approaching drunk. Rob didn’t look far behind.

  “We can’t stop here,” Cam said to Jake.

  He winked at her and then turned to the others. “Sadly, I’m not quite done for the day. I have some questions for Cam. We’ll be back in an hour. In the meantime, eat something!”

  To make sure their friends would obey, they ordered Rob and Annie a large plate of nachos as they left.

  “It’s not so unusual to need to escape, Cam. Don’t be too upset. Though I know why you’re intent on figuring out the rest, too. You’re like me.”

  They got to his police car.

  “So you trust these people?” Jake turned to Cam and asked. “It sounds like the brake cutting had to have happened at the Patricks’ and they’re on that money list. But you trust the Patricks?”

  “Is that where we’re going? The Patricks’?”

  Jake nodded. “It’s where the brakes were cut, and now we have a second question to get answered.”

  “And the note—Rob said the printer that printed that note framing Annie is probably the one there. But I do trust the Patricks mostly, or I thought I did. Evangeline is more savvy and intelligent, so she can probably help us more, because she observes more, but Mr. Patrick has my ninety percent trust, as opposed to eighty percent for Evangeline.”

  “Got it.”

  They arrived and rang the bell. Giselle answered, and they asked for Mr. Patrick. Giselle showed them into the library and offered coffee while they waited.

  “Oh, no thank you,” Cam said.

  Just then Mr. Patrick came in. Cam let Jake do the talking.

  “Mr. Patrick, I don’t mean to alarm you, but another crime seems to have occurred at your residence. A reporter was out here today who had his brakes cut. We think it must have happened while he was here, though we may be mistaken. We don’t have any idea if it was staff, a visitor, or even a stranger who had followed him, but I thought… well, a lot of these nice houses have sophisticated security. I hoped you might run a camera on your driveway.”

  “Oho! We do!”

  “You do? May we see?”

  “Well, of course.”

  He puttered down the hallway. He seemed to be trying to run, but he wasn’t very fast. He led Cam and Jake to a laundry room and opened a closet with a lot of gadgets.

  “I don’t really know how it all works. Evangeline usually does it.”

  “Would you mind getting her?” Jake asked.

  “Of course.” Mr. Patrick shuffled off.

  Jake began fiddling.

  “I thought we needed Evangeline,” Cam said.

  “We needed Mr. Patrick to fetch Evangeline to get Mr. Patrick out of the way.” Jake pressed a few buttons and watched the feed, then exclaimed,

  “Damn!”

  “What?”

  “It’s been written over, which, if I’m reading this right, is against the instructions they’ve coded. Someone manually recorded over this afternoon.”

  Evangeline arrived in a swimsuit and robe. Mr. Patrick had clearly retrieved her from the hot tub.

  “I’m really sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Patrick, but do you ever record over something on this camera? Intentionally, I mean?”

  “Intentionally? I wouldn’t have a clue how. I can turn it on and off—every once in a while it’s nice to reassure guests there is no security watching. Some people we know are very intent on their privacy. But I don’t know how to record over.”

  “Somebody recorded over this afternoon’s footage. Can you tell me who was here this afternoon?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Please, Mrs. Patrick. We can tell you more after you answer.”

  Cam lost her patience. “Evangeline, somebody cut Rob’s brakes!”

  Jake glared at Cam, but it kicked Evangeline into action.

  “Oh no! Okay, Henry was here all day. Benny stopped by briefly this morning but hasn’t been back. He certainly wasn’t here when Rob was. Those kids who stayed in the servant’s house dropped by, but I wouldn’t tell any of them if I had hiccups. They don’t even know we have security, let alone where it is. Regular staff was here, mostly. Joseph, Samantha—here separately. I think we had a kitchen delivery, but those boys are attended the whole time.”

  Cam wondered if anyone among them had failed somewhere along the way to keep track of visitors. That certainly seemed more likely than a resident or one of the staff having done it, especially since Benny was gone by the time Rob arrived, something to which she could testify.

  “Okay. Henry and Benny. Both unlikely but possible. Tom and Hannah—unlikely. How long were they here?” Jake asked.

  “Ten or fifteen minutes,” Evangeline said. “One of them forgot something, I think.”

  “Okay, Henry, Benny, Tom, Hannah, all unlikely. Joseph and Samantha. Were any of them here when Rob was?”

  “I don’t remember—I don’t know of anybody here while I talked to him, but he spent more time with Giselle and Henry.”

  “Do any of those people ever use the computer or printer?” Jake asked.

  “Anyone who’s here and needs a computer: staff, guests. Cam, haven’t you used it?” Evangeline asked.

  “I guess I have, though I usually bring my laptop with me. If I need to print something, I plug the cable from your laser printer into it,” Cam explained, adding, “I never considered the other printer, because it looked sort of old.”

  “Do you know if Joseph or Samantha are technically savvy?” Jake asked next, but before Evangeline could answer, his cell phone sounded. He looked at the display.

  “Could you excuse me a minute? I should take this.” He stepped out the front door and let it close most of the way.

  Cam smiled at Evangeline. “We really appreciate you being so nice about this. I’m just trying to figure out—”

  “Oh, honey. If Neil had been threatened, I’d do the same thing. I’d certainly do anything I could to put the culprit in jail!”

  Cam appreciated that.

  Jake came back in and apologized. “Now where were we?”

  “How savvy with the tech stuff,” Cam reminded him. “Joseph is, at least somewhat. All his historical information is in a complicated computer program. I’ve used it, and I don’t think an amateur would have chosen it.”

  “They both have security at their homes,” Evangeline added. “They would know at least what I do, if not more. In fact, Samantha’s system is almost like ours—she advised us when we were updating and recommended the company.”

  Jake wrote something in his notebook, then looked at Evangeline. “One more, possibly sensitive item. You made a very large withdrawal last week. Can you tell me what that was for?”

  “Of course. Neil and I are part of a foundation to lend money to local businesses—in fact, Cam, your brother-in-law got one of the grants we awarded. He said Spoons could make a better profit with an upgraded walk-in refrigerator, and he proved his case well.”

  Cam looked at Jake with some satisfaction.

  “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Jake asked.

  “Nobody asked about our foundation. It didn’t occur to me.”

  Jake nodded. He didn’t look like he entirely believed the story. Cam did, though. She felt they’d just narrowed the suspect list and crossed off the person she was most concerned about.

  “And how much was the grant for?”

  “We gave twenty-five thousand dollars to Spoons, though I think Neil donated the same amount to a ch
arity. That’s how we do it—we each pick a cause we want to support, then donate as we like. Why?”

  “Just trying to keep everything straight.”

  Jake seemed ready to go, but Cam remembered that Rob had seen a document sitting in the dot matrix printer, and wondered if it had been left by one of the people who’d been there that day.

  “Evangeline? Can we see the printer Rob looked at?” she asked.

  Evangeline frowned. “I don’t know which he looked at, but they’re both in the same room.” She lead them toward the office.

  “And who have you seen in here recently?” Jake asked.

  “Giselle uses the computer here pretty regularly to email—her kids are away. One is in college, and the other is a nanny in Europe.”

  “Right.” Jake nodded. Evangeline was giving a lot more information than was necessary. “Unlikely she is very savvy if she doesn’t have a computer at home,” he said for Cam’s benefit.

  “Rob said he saw something printed on a dot matrix printer. Could we look at what that was?” Cam was growing impatient with Jake’s disinterest in the printer. She wondered if he had even taken the note clue seriously.

  “Of course.” They reached the study, and Cam and Jake followed Evangeline in and began looking around.

  Evangeline pointed at a late-model printer, “This one is hooked to the new computer, which requires a password.” Guests use the other, at least if they don’t ask for help logging on.”

  “Who has access to the new computer?” Jake asked.

  “Just Neil and me.”

  Cam reached toward the dot matrix printer, but the page was blank. She shivered, sure someone had removed the document that had been there earlier.

  With their list of questions exhausted, Cam and Jake returned to the police car, Jake hurrying and Cam wondering why.

  “Who called you, and what did they say?” Cam asked.

  “I can’t really talk about it, Cam.”

  “Then why’d you bring me out here, if you didn’t think I could help? Those interviews are the key. Somebody thought Rob was too close or they would not have tried to kill him.”

  “Okay,” Jake said, giving in, “another pretty important clue. Did Rob tell you about that address? The cabin in the mountains?”