The Azalea Assault Read online

  PARADISE LOST

  Her chest knotted painfully. There was a body sprawled facedown across the azaleas. Her brain kept arguing that one didn’t die jumping out a second-story window but, by all accounts, it looked like that was what had happened.

  She looked more carefully at the sprawled body, noting the slightly rumpled clothes. They seemed so familiar.

  Jean-Jacques Georges.

  Rob moved in closer. “When the medical examiner flipped the body over, it had a set of pruning shears through the abdomen.”

  “Murder?” Cam whispered to Rob once the deadweight she was helping with had found a home and Neil had knelt to attend to his wife.

  Rob nodded like the cat that ate the canary, or at least the catnip.

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE AZALEA ASSAULT

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Excerpt from The Begonia Bribe by Alyse Carlson copyright © 2012

  by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Cover illustration by Catherine Deeter.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58092-9

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Elizabeth Spann Craig:

  Thank you for holding the door.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a book always requires a ton of eyes and a lot of help, but a first book is especially challenging. There was a steep learning curve—crossing all the Ts, dotting the Is, and learning the ropes. So I have a list of people I’d like to thank for their help at various stages of this project. I will surely miss somebody who helped me out, and for that I apologize. But for feedback at various stages of this manuscript, I want to thank: Stacy Gail, Shaharizan Perez, Leanne Rabesa, Natasha Ramarathnam, Mari Salberg, and Stefanie Winter.

  And I especially want to thank the trio I think of as the three Es. Ellen, Emily, and Elizabeth. Ellen Pepus is my fabulous agent who connected me with this opportunity and has been wonderfully patient with this newbie. Emily Rapoport is my amazing editor who has taught me so much and has been so kind through a variety of challenges, all of my making. And in particular, Elizabeth Spann Craig, my friend who first recognized in me the “Cozy Voice” and pointed me at all the resources I needed to make this journey.

  TO: Roanoke Tribune, Living Section

  FROM: Roanoke Garden Society

  RE: PRESS RELEASE: National Media Event in Roanoke

  This Thursday afternoon, the Roanoke Garden Society welcomes Garden Delights, America’s premiere magazine for gardening enthusiasts. The magazine’s staff will be in Roanoke to prepare an eight-page feature on the city’s most spectacular garden, for the June issue. Central to the feature will be the photography of world-renowned photographer Jean-Jacques Georges, who has won several international awards and captured noteworthy spreads ranging from international swimsuit models to African wildlife.

  Mr. Georges is scheduled to conduct a three-day photography shoot at the historically registered gardens of La Fontaine off of Blue Ridge Parkway. He and the Garden Delights staff will be hosted by Samantha Hollister, Roanoke Garden Society president, and Neil Patrick, RGS founder and owner of La Fontaine.

  The magazine release is slated for June 3.

  CONTACT: Camellia Harris

  camharris@rgs.­org

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  The Begonia Bribe

  CHAPTER 1

  “Incoming!”

  Cam Harris pushed off her kitchen floor, propelling the wheeled kitchen chair she was sitting in to the sliding panel that hid the dumbwaiter. She opened it a hair and yelled to the kitchen upstairs, “Ready!” and shut it again, knocking off the “Over the hill” magnet her sister had recently given her. She heard her neighbor and best friend, Annie Schulz, lowering her treasure, which was how Annie referred to anything she lowered via dumbwaiter, then tramping down the back stairs to Cam’s apartment.

  The turn-of-the-century house, gifted to Annie when her grandmother had moved to a retirement home, was split into two apartments, upper and lower. The living arrangement was a perfect compromise for the yin-yang best friends. The two had tried to live together before, but Annie’s free-form approach to order drove Cam crazy; she’d grown tired of photos drying over the bathtub and finding every bowl in the house dirty because Annie had a wild hair
and tried out four new cupcake recipes at once. In the current living situation, they got all the bonding time they wanted, but with absolute boundaries about whose space was whose.

  Annie let herself in, as was her habit, and plopped into a chair opposite Cam.

  “Caffeine?” she asked, blowing a stray curl out of her face.

  Cam rolled her eyes, stood, and poured coffee into a travel cup for Annie, then walked over and opened the dumbwaiter to inspect the goods. “Frazzled morning?”

  “Just a little wrestling with the juicer Petunia left. First batch was too pulpy, and I had to take apart the stupid thing to clean it.”

  “I thought all you had to do was bake and deliver,” Cam said.

  “Yes, but juice squeezed yesterday would not be fresh-squeezed, would it? No cream?”

  “Do I ever have cream? I’ve got that nonfat hazelnut stuff.”

  Annie made a face. “You, my friend, are missing the point of cream. It’s about texture.” They had an ongoing disagreement about coffee supplements. “Are you ready?”

  “I am. Just one more load?”

  Annie nodded and stood. “But let’s get this to the car first.” She went to the dumbwaiter and grabbed the first of the food.

  Annie was helping Cam, albeit indirectly. Cam’s sister, Petunia, was catering a several-day event Cam was coordinating for her employer, the Roanoke Garden Society. Petunia’s restaurant, Spoons, bought sweets from Annie’s cupcake store, Sweet Surprise, and Petunia had convinced Annie to trade delivery assignments. Petunia would transport the desserts that went with lunches and suppers if Annie would deliver breakfast, since a baker needed to begin work early anyway.

  Cam would have done it, but she needed delivering herself. She was saving for a new Mustang, but purchase was at least six months away. Normally she rode her bicycle, except when she needed to look professional, which was the case with this painstakingly orchestrated feature for Garden Delights magazine. For the next several days, she’d be begging rides from Annie, Petunia, and her boyfriend, Rob.

  Cam helped Annie load the breakfast goods into Annie’s Volkswagen. The car was not really suited to catering, since all Annie normally delivered were cupcakes, cookies, and special fancy desserts. After Annie’s return upstairs for the rest of the food, they finally accommodated the juice, coffee, fruit, and bagels, but the only spot for the tray of spreads was Cam’s lap. She wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about the garlic and green onion or the salmon, but she was fairly sure she’d be wearing one of them, given Annie’s driving.

  As Annie pulled out of their neighborhood, Cam spotted the giant neon star atop Mill Mountain, just visible through a sea of blooming dogwoods. She breathed in the scent of honeysuckle, laid her head against the headrest, and smiled. The dogwoods always made her happy. There was nothing better than pink trees.

  She had never been sorry to return to Roanoke, “America’s Most Livable City,” according to her PR peers at the chamber of commerce. Cam couldn’t have agreed more. She’d lived here twenty-seven of her thirty-two years, leaving only to attend graduate school at Northwestern and then work at a public relations firm in Chicago for a couple of years. When her mother died, Cam returned because she worried about her father. She was glad she had.

  Cam had to use a towelette to dab a spot of cream cheese from her gray linen slacks when they arrived. The Ann Taylor silk blouse, though, would have been far less salvageable, and it had survived unscathed. Cam felt it was a victory.

  “Cammi! There you are! You look lovely!” Neil Patrick stepped onto the porch to greet her. He was host of this event, founding member of the Roanoke Garden Society, and a perfect blue-blooded Southern gentleman. Cam adored him in all ways but one: he insisted on calling her Cammi. She would have thought, given his love for flowers, he would prefer Camellia, her full name. She preferred that to Cammi herself, though she liked Cam best. She chastised herself. Most men her father’s age got a free pass, but Neil’s young wife, Evangeline, had changed her charitable attitude. A man married to someone born in the same decade as Cam should be more attentive to her preferences, but, as usual, she bit her tongue.

  “Mr. Patrick, it’s wonderful to see you. Have you met my friend Annie? She’s helping Petunia with some of the catering.”

  “Oho!”

  Mr. Patrick looked as if he’d never seen anything quite as outrageous as Annie. Cam felt a little defensive, though Annie probably should have known the nose ring wouldn’t fly with this crowd. Her clothes were actually rather conservative, so far as Annie went—a gypsy skirt, Birkenstocks, and a peasant blouse.

  Fortunately, Annie was unfazed by anyone else’s judgment. She’d decided as a teen she didn’t care for anyone’s approval who judged on first impressions.

  “Where would you like me to set up breakfast, Mr. Patrick?” Her smile was straight and sincere, and it had the effect it always did. Mr. Patrick’s short white mustache twitched in a smile.

  “There’s a tent off the patio, just through there.” He gestured and Annie began to carry the various trays through the house, leaving Cam to Mr. Patrick.

  “You have a lovely home, Mr. Patrick.” It was true—classic Georgian architecture, perfectly decorated. “The magazine crew should be here in an hour. I hoped we could make a list of ‘can’t miss’ features before they get here. Does that sound good?”

  He nodded, smiling, less shy than usual, probably because there was no media spy pestering him about his marriage to the youthful former Miss Virginia.

  “Let me show you something.”

  He looked like a boy with his hand in the cookie jar. His blue eyes twinkled as he held out his elbow for Cam. She allowed him to guide her up the stairs, realizing halfway up how it might be misinterpreted if a photo were snapped. When she reached the top of the stairs and saw all the natural lighting through the French doors, though, she pushed ahead of her host into a room with a full wall of windows. It was a drawing room of sorts, but the focus was obviously the natural beauty behind the glass; the garden below spanned an acre, at least. When Cam threw open the other set of French doors and gasped, Mr. Patrick chuckled.

  She looked down on his property and the majestic background.

  “I’ve never seen such a thing. It’s amazing!”

  Mr. Patrick led Cam onto the balcony.

  At the center of his garden was a fountain with streams of water shooting up like stamen; the yellow water lilies floating in the fountain’s pool looked, from a distance, like the pollen at the center of a flower. The arrangement radiated outward, a pattern of flowers that, from this height, created a perfect mural of a stargazer lily. Whites, reds, and pinks were perfectly distributed, allowing the bushes and smaller plants to create a breathtaking illusion.

  Cam was surprised, then, when Mr. Patrick leaned forward over the rail, pointing to a near corner, not part of the magnificence at all. “That trellis over the sundeck was built by none other than your daddy.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you knew my father.” Now that she’d noticed the trellis through the lush wisteria, she could see the beautiful craftsmanship; it had just been humbled by the extravagant floral display.

  “I don’t, really, not well. He built it when my father lived here.”

  Cam admired it a moment and then focused on the main garden again.

  “We’re lucky it’s been an early spring. This is a lot more advanced than normal for April, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “We’ll definitely need shots from here, probably at several times of day, as I’m sure that view changes with the sun.”

  “Oh, that’s true. It’s spectacular at sunrise. You don’t suppose that fancy photographer would come for sunrise, do you?”

  He looked so hopeful that Cam couldn’t bring herself to answer honestly. “I’m sure he’d be delighted.”

  The truth was, it was a huge coup for the Roanoke Garden Society to have lured Jean-Jacques Georges to do the photography shoot. It w
as an effort somehow managed by Samantha Hollister, the current RGS president, but Cam had heard he could be a bit difficult.

  Garden Delights was the premiere national magazine for garden lovers, and Cam had been courting them for seven months. Jean-Jacques was exactly the enticement they had needed to believe RGS had a package worth presenting. A famous photographer would do nothing to hurt their circulation, so they agreed to come to Roanoke for the feature. Cam was sure it would be worth it.

  “Show me ‘Summer.’” She smiled at Mr. Patrick. One of the reasons the Patrick estate, La Fontaine, had been chosen for the shoot was a row of three greenhouses kept in specific conditions to display the region’s finest foliage of all four seasons, with the fourth displayed outside—a full year of Virginia’s glory on any given day.

  He led her down the stairway at the side of the balcony that allowed access to the gardens directly from the upper level. The house had definitely been adorned with all the details to allow maximum garden enjoyment.

  As they approached, Cam could see none of the greenhouses had a spot of discoloration, though the “Summer” house did have the telling haze of humidity gathered on the roof. The greenhouses always held samples of in-bloom flowers for each season. It was labor-intensive, but Neil Patrick had a fabulous gardener. Mr. Patrick also helped maintain the grounds. He loved gardening, and he spent time pruning and preening almost every day. Cam doubted he spent much time weeding, though. His nails looked too well manicured for that.

  After the greenhouse tour, a woman approached them. “Monsieur, the magazine staff have arrived.”

  “Thank you, Giselle.”

  Cam frowned as Giselle walked away. The woman’s Southern drawl was not French, whatever pretending she tried. “She’s not really a Giselle, is she?”

  “No. Sally, I think. I find the staff is more content if they feel they’re playing a role.” He smiled indulgently. “It was Evangeline who taught me that,” he said as he led her in.

  Cam smirked at how adoring Mr. Patrick was of his young wife. She supposed she was happy for them, no matter how odd the age difference seemed to her.