The Azalea Assault (33 page)

“You little brat! Get out of here if you know what’s good for you!”

“We’re leaving, Cam! Run!” Rob’s voice was sweet relief—she could stop fighting Joseph, because he couldn’t hurt Annie or Rob anymore. She turned to sprint out, just clearing the doorway out of the barn when Joseph caught her ankle. She fell spectacularly but flipped onto her back and kicked. She was pretty sure she broke his nose as she backed the rest of the way out of the barn, trying to regain her footing.

Joseph rose, his face bloodied, and came toward her. She rolled, tried to run, then rolled again. Unfortunately, Joseph was like a madman, intent on taking her down. She scrambled for what she thought was her last time, and Joseph lunged at her. What happened next seemed in slow motion.

Just as Joseph reached her, a body flew toward them from the side of the barn at lightning speed, tackling Joseph. The knife spun away into the tall grass. It was only then Cam remembered how fast Rob could round bases. She gasped for breath, and Annie, following Rob from around the barn, reached her side, limping. She toppled down and pulled Cam into a hug.

Cam hugged back momentarily and then found her second wind and ran to the Volvo, fetching the duct tape. Rob had Joseph in a choke hold, and Cam and Annie finished binding his wrists and ankles just as they heard the sirens of arriving police cars.

J
ake arrested Joseph and then proceeded to scold Cam and Rob on their recklessness.

“Annie would have been a roasted marshmallow if we hadn’t been here!” Rob complained.

Jake sighed. “Okay, I get why you did what you did, but you also could have all three been roasted marshmallows. Wouldn’t that have been worse?”

“No!” Rob and Cam shouted together, and Jake rolled his eyes. Apparently they were a bad influence.

“Fine. You don’t believe me. Law enforcement needs to play its role. Rob, you should have called me when you first realized where Joseph was.”

“We thought it was a long shot.”

“Uh-huh. But don’t you think this would have been a whole lot easier with police?”

Cam was growing more irritable. “Actually, we rocked. Rob saved Annie, and I took down the bad guy.”

“I took down the bad guy,” Rob argued.

“Only after I did.”

Jake looked up at the sky, praying for patience. Cam winked at Rob, who grabbed her into a tight hug and laughed.

“Three-love!” Annie shouted, leaping at them, one-footed.

“We’re a good team,” Cam said.

“We are,” Rob agreed.

“We still only have him for kidnapping Annie at this point,” Jake said.

“And miles and miles of circumstantial stuff on the murders!” Cam protested.

“Cam, circumstantial is circumstantial.”

“And drugging Samantha. Say, I bet Samantha can get the truth out of him!”

C
am drove Annie and Rob to the hospital, insisting they be checked for smoke inhalation. The accelerant had caused the flames and smoke to rise upward, rather than filling the space Cam and Joseph had tussled, so Cam felt okay, but worried for her friends. While they were waiting, Cam found her way to Samantha. Samantha came around about a half hour after Cam arrived and, after calling for
something to stop her head from pounding, listened as Cam explained what had happened during the last several hours. Samantha was mortified with the facts of the day, not least because Joseph had apparently changed her clothes and set her up as a prisoner.

Midway through their conversation, a nurse came to administer ibuprofen. “A headache is pretty common after the large dose of ether you had.” She smiled reassuringly and left.

Cam continued talking. “We are sure Joseph committed the murders, too. Can’t you help us get him to admit it?”

Samantha looked at Cam curiously. “I think I can get him to confess.” She sounded not only deeply angry but also so confident, Cam believed her.

It was only after leaving Samantha’s room that the nurse’s ether comment registered with Cam. She wondered why Joseph hadn’t used the sleeping pills he had used the first time.

The next day, Jake initially refused to allow Cam to watch Samantha’s meeting with Joseph from behind the interrogation room’s one-way window, but given multiple reminders of all the help she, Rob, and Annie had provided, Jake finally yielded.

Now, peering through the glass, Cam watched as Samantha entered the interrogation room. She looked stately as she stepped toward the lone table at which Joseph sat, and seated herself purposefully at the chair across from him. “Hello, Joseph,” she said icily.

Joseph seemed oblivious to her tone. “Samantha, darling! You came!”

Straight from the hospital, Cam mentally added, though she looked good, considering.

“You’ve never called me darling before.” Samantha held herself stiffly, and Cam wondered if she would be able to coax anything out of Joseph when she looked so hostile.

“But you know I’ve always adored you!” Joseph was manic, twitchy and sweating. Samantha kept evading as
Joseph reached for her hand, but she did so subtly, so as not to tip him off.

“I suppose I knew. You were only protecting me, then?”

Joseph looked thoroughly confused for a moment, the sheen of sweat Cam had seen in the photographs once again dampening his forehead and intensifying the unhealthy pallor created by the room’s florescent lights. “Of course I was! I will always protect you!”

“So why did you kill Ian?”

“Who’s Ian?”

“The man you hit with the camera.”

“That was unfortunate.”

“Joseph, look at me. What was unfortunate about killing Ian?”

“Samantha! I had to—you know why, don’t you?”

“Of course not, Joseph. Can you tell me?” Her glare was menacing.

“He saw! And then… well… when they thought it was him. That senator’s daughter was accusing him! I worried he’d break and tell them everything, even after all the money…”

Joseph leaned close to Samantha, whispering. But Samantha refused to stay close enough to hear if he didn’t speak up.

“Why did you frame Annie?”

“They were
talking about you
! If it was Annie… don’t you see?”

“No, and you’re in trouble for taking her and doing what you did. You need to admit what you did, Joseph. They can see how upset you are.”

“But…”

“Joseph, you need to admit to killing Ian… and Johnnie.”

“Johnnie?”

“Yes, Joseph. You killed my nephew to protect me. You must have.”

“What?” Joseph started to whimper. “But darling, you—”

Samantha cut him off. “But you did kill him.” The statement held a sort of finality.

Joseph frowned. “Did I?” He stared around, upset at this news.

“It’s okay, Joseph. I know.”

He nodded but without admitting anything, then said,

“I love you, darling! Do you love me?”

Samantha leaned over the table and whispered something, and then kissed Joseph’s cheek.

“You really want me to confess?”

“All this to protect me?”

Joseph nodded, resigned.

When Samantha came out, Jake went in and explained he still had a right to a lawyer.

“I know you wanted to speak with Ms. Hollister first, but it is still your right. Would you like to have an attorney present?”

“No. I know what I need to do,” Joseph said.

Jake pulled out a notepad and began giving instructions to Joseph.

“Thank you, Samantha. You were amazing,” Cam said.

“I just know how to handle him. Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel rather violated and I’d like to go home and shower.”

Samantha left, and Cam went out to the precinct room to see Rob. He hugged her, and they held each other until Jake came out of the interrogation room.

“You need to go let your nutty friend know she’s in the clear,” he said.

“So you like her?” Cam teased.

He grinned helplessly. “Yes, I like her. I just think maybe she has some things to work through.”

“Well, who doesn’t?”

“Touché, Cam. Touché.”

C
am’s dad had said a friendly good-bye to Jane Duffy. They exchanged addresses and promises to stay in touch. Hannah and Tom also finally got to leave town. Cam thought they were glad their fiasco of a visit was finally over.

Cam had had mixed feelings about attending Jean-Jacques’s funeral given all the trouble his life and death had caused, but she wanted to support Samantha and couldn’t seem to help herself anyway. Joseph’s confession had sat with her funny. There were some details that kept nagging at her, and this seemed a better place than any other to try to find answers.

She’d spent the fifteen minutes in the pews before the service trying to avoid Madeline’s eye. Her boss wasn’t happy, though Cam thought she appreciated Cam’s efforts to spin the news so Joseph looked tragic rather than deranged, and the Roanoke Garden Society looked heroic for having included him in spite of his eccentricities.

Rob’s article about the murders in the
Roanoke Tribune
had only helped matters. Several Roanoke Garden Society members had come across as either sweet or smart for their
compassion in the first case and their assistance in the second. None of it, though, had particularly flattered the dead men.

Rob was by her side, gripping her hand and rubbing her shoulders as necessary. She was grateful. Annie had declared plainly that she’d “had enough of those nuts,” so Cam had worried she’d have to come alone.

She sat respectfully and listened, eyes scanning, but trying not to be too obvious. Most of the audience seemed to be part of Samantha’s social network, but Samantha sat off to a side next to a poised woman with auburn curls. The woman appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, and Cam thought it was most likely Margo, Jean-Jacques’s sister.

Until she spotted Margo, Cam had planned to leave as soon as she’d paid her respects to Samantha, but now she felt that a few more puzzle pieces were begging to be slid into place. Samantha was clearly very fond of Margo. This woman seemed like she might be able to shed some light on where exactly those pieces fit.

Cam was thankful the service was not overly long and didn’t dwell on any unbelievable saintly traits, because Cam knew better. Jean-Jacques was a user and a con artist. He’d not merited any real caring that she could tell.

Halfway through, another woman—about Samantha’s age, but employing far more showgirl techniques with her makeup—arrived and stumbled up to the front of the church, throwing her body over the coffin and weeping. Cam quickly made the connection: the distraught woman was Margaret, Margo and Jean-Jacques’s mother.

Margo rose, helped her mother to stand up, and returned to the pew with her.

The older woman’s red hair was a shade too bright, making her daughter’s look dull, and she continued sobbing loudly.

After the service, Cam approached Margo.

“Can I help you? I mean… I’m sorry; my name is Cam. I work with the Garden Society. I—”

“You figured out who killed my brother—thank you.”

“Yes. I mean, though… with your mother.”

“Oh, that’s just Mother—ever the actress, looking for a few tears on her behalf and hoping somebody is carrying a flask to slip her a shot of bourbon.”

“Oh dear. Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

Cam was uncomfortable in the silence, so she looked for a safer topic.

“Samantha thinks quite a lot of you.”

“Oh, she’s wonderful! She’s always been good to me. In fact”—Margo leaned in to whisper—“I almost worried she’d been the killer, after what Johnnie did to me!”

“What did he do?” Cam knew some portion of this but hoped Margo would share more.

“He embezzled a bunch of money from our dad, put it in my account, then blew the whistle. Dad was furious. Wouldn’t listen to reason, and he wrote me out of the will.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It was sort of Johnnie’s style—him and Mom.”

“Why would you think Samantha killed him over that?”

“Just silliness on my part. Timing, I guess. I called her the night before the murder. I was a wreck when I told her about the will and how it had happened. Then when Johnnie was dead, I worried even more what I might have set in motion. I’m so glad it wasn’t… you know…”

“I completely understand. The first person the police investigated was my brother-in-law. It’s horrible to consider a loved one doing such a thing.”

“Exactly. You know, Cam, you’ve made me feel so much better.”

Cam wondered, though, if Margo hadn’t had quite the opposite effect on her.

Outside the church, she approached Rob and announced matter-of-factly, “I think there’s something fishy.”

“Fishy, how?”

“Call Jake. I’ll call Annie. We need to put our heads
together.” She walked away from him, pulling her cell phone out of her clutch purse.

T
hey met at Martin’s again. It seemed to bode better for them than some of the other places they’d been.

“What’s this about, Cam?” Jake asked.

Cam felt Rob shrug next to her.

“Pieces that don’t fit.”

“It’s a closed case,” Jake said, but in response to her glare, frowned and said, “Like what?”

She relayed Margo’s story, then mentioned the different drugs used to sedate Samantha and the phrasing in Joseph’s conversations with Samantha. “Why would Joseph use something sloppy like ether when the sleeping pills had worked so well?”

Jake frowned. “Forensics thinks the sleeping pills were not drunk from the cup at all. There was no residue on the sides of the cup, so they’ve concluded that somebody added the drug to the dregs rather than to the full cup before it was drunk.”

“Shoot! I
did
give her that idea!”

When the others stared at her blankly, Cam elaborated. “Samantha wasn’t drugged at all! She needed an alibi, and I gave her the idea!”

“So you think Samantha did all this?” Annie asked, her nose wrinkled in disbelief.

“Not all. Listen. Let’s say you are a devoted aunt, and have a niece who is grateful and reciprocates your affection. And then a nephew who is a horrible ingrate.”

“Jean-Jacques,” Annie supplied, as if it weren’t obvious.