The Azalea Assault (28 page)

“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.

W
hen 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.

C
am 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.

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.”

“What? Do you believe him?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. And then I talked to Giselle, who didn’t have anything new, really, but she did let me use the office. It has an old dot matrix printer. I’m not even sure where they find ink for that dinosaur. That note had to be printed here. There was a document on it, but Giselle didn’t want me to touch it in case it was something of the Patricks, and she was sort of hovering, so I cooperated.”

“Good work on the printer! Did you see anybody… suspectwise?”

“Not other than Evangeline, but I was talking to people most of the time and could only be in one place at a time.”

“I’m helping Annie right now.” She wasn’t sure why she was lying, except that he would try to stop her if he knew where she was headed. “We’ll head for her darkroom afterward, so just call, okay?”

“You got it! Love you!”

“Love you, too.”

Cam had been thrown off by the orchid stuff. She shared it with Annie but then pushed it to the back of her mind with all the other tidbits she’d gathered, because when she looked up, they were at the track.

S
he wasn’t sure what she’d expected from stock car races, but this was about six tiers down. She’d imagined an arena full of excited people drinking beer and cheering. This arena was big all right. There were stands on either side topped by VIP boxes, but there were only maybe three dozen people watching. If Cam were guessing, she would bet all the people present had some connection with one of the drivers. So qualifiers must not be that big of a deal.

It wasn’t hard to spot Benny. He stood on the first
landing in the stands talking to four others, including Dylan, who elbowed Benny when he spotted Cam.

“Why does that guy know who you are?” Annie asked.

“Room guard,” Cam said.

“Then why the heck would you ever leave? He can guard my room any time!”

Cam gave Annie her mock evil eye as Benny walked toward them. He was laughing, but his tone was annoyed.

“Miss Harris, have you fallen in love with me?”

Cam was trying hard not to look at his face, knowing it would only make her own grow embarrassingly red. Her forced restraint meant she noticed the stack of papers in his hands.

“What are those?”

“You gonna report me?”

“Why would I report you?”

Annie sighed. “Because betting is illegal, my naïve friend. Tell me, Benny, did you have trouble with your supplier for these?”

“Yeah, his machine’s down. How’d you know?”

“Cam, I think we’ve misinterpreted. A lot.”

“This is the supply you were short on, the one the guy at the house yelled at you about?” Cam asked.

“Yeah?”

“And what did you used to have growing in greenhouse three that got moved?”

His disbelief couldn’t quite hide his embarrassment.

“None of your business.”

“Not pot?”

“At the Patricks’? With my dad everywhere? Are you kidding me?”

“Orchids?”

“Well, if you knew already, why are you asking?”

“Why are you embarrassed about growing orchids? You’re a gardener.”

He sputtered a bit but then finally confessed, “Because I did it to impress Evangeline, okay? Everybody thinks I’m
an idiot, and ‘Oh, isn’t that sweet?’ But her birthday is in July and I wanted blooming orchids to show her.”

“And did Jean-Jacques have anything to do with those?” She gestured at the betting forms.

“Not that I know. Not these, anyway.”

“Does your bookie cover other gambling?”

“Of course he does. Sports betting mostly, but sometimes there’s some high-stakes card game or something.”

“And why did Ian give you money?”

“He didn’t.” Benny shifted uncomfortably. He was a bad liar.

“Benny, I have it on film.”

Benny’s eyes opened wide. “Geez! What, have you been following me?”

“No—you were just behind the people the pictures were supposed to be of. Now answer straight or I take all this to the cops.”

“Okay, sheesh. The morning Jean-Jacques died, I was doing my thing and just before I found him, I saw Ian standing on the porch of the servant’s house, staring toward the big house. It looked like he’d been there awhile—like he was almost in a trance or something. Then, when I found the body, he was gone.”

“So Ian did do it!”

“No. I don’t think so. I went and found him later and asked him if he did it. He swore he didn’t. But he said he saw something, and was getting a lot of money to keep quiet, and if I’d just keep quiet about him, he’d cut me in.”