The Azalea Assault by Alyse Carlson Read Free Book Online Page B

strategically convincing a witness it was in her own best interest to cooperate—in a single line? She’d clearly underestimated him. And he was right. Solving this fast would be damage control. There was nothing she liked better than damage control, except maybe damage prevention.
    “How well did you know the victim?”
    “We shared a room full of people for just over an hour. We were part of one conversation together, in which I learned he’d shown Jane Duffy some of Roanoke. Either he was a poseur trying to impress Ms. Duffy with local knowledge or a very tacky man. Or maybe he had a bone to pick with Roanoke. He tried to impress her with Mini Graceland.” She rolled her eyes. “But then I snuck off with Rob for a bit.”
    “To goose him…”
    “That squealer! What did he tell you?”
    “To say that and see how you reacted.” Jake grinned.
    Cam raised an eyebrow. “Fine. We snuck under the trellis so I could goose him, and then I heard Jean-Jacques get mad at Samantha. Well… they got mad at each other.”
    “Mad how?”
    “Rob didn’t tell you?”
    “Sometimes women pick up more. They’re more perceptive.”
    Yes, he was smooth. Cam frowned, wanting to be honest but also not wanting to give a bad impression of anyone in the Garden Society. Then she remembered the benefit of a quick resolution and pushed on. “Jean-Jacques said he wasn’t one of her boy toys. It was as if she’d told him what to do, then she answered she
did
have a say in what he did. That wasn’t like Samantha at all. She’s good-natured when I tell her no. But she sure got mad back at him, like maybe they knew each other.”
    “Huh. And does she… have boy toys?”
    “Not that I’ve ever known. I mean she’s a rich, beautiful, single woman, but I never heard anything like that. I have heard rumors about her, but those involved politicians or businessmen. If she has boy toys, she’s discreet.”
    “And did you talk to him before yesterday at all? Jean-Jacques, I mean.”
    “Jean-Jacques? Not really. When Samantha told me he could do the shoot, I sent him a thank-you letter with an agenda and a list of our most promising features, so he could prepare. That was by email, and he sent a confirmation that said something like, ‘Got it. See you there.’”
    “Samantha made the arrangements?”
    Cam nodded.
    “You mind if we get that email? Both the sent message and the received?”
    “Not at all. Should I forward it?”
    “For now, but it’s possible we’ll need an expert to retrieveit, make sure there was no tampering. I trust you, but if it were needed for evidence or something…”
    “That’s fine. Whatever you need.”
    “If you were guessing, what would you say might have motivated someone to target Jean-Jacques?”
    She described the argument she’d witnessed between Jean-Jacques and Ian, and then the hearsay when she and Rob came inside, mostly related to sexual insults, but that was all she knew. Half consciously, she felt herself suppressing the fact that the first goosing she’d been aware of was the one Jean-Jacques had given her own sister, but she didn’t mention it directly. “I’d guess an angry husband or boyfriend, but that’s totally a guess. I didn’t know anything about him except his photography.”
    Jake nodded grimly. “That’s the main story we’ve been getting, too. We’ll start with that. Did he touch you?”
    “No.” Cam frowned. She hadn’t wanted to be goosed, but now it somehow seemed her goosability was in question.
    “Probably woulda, but you were off with Rob,” Jake offered charitably.
    She wasn’t sure she liked that interpretation any better.
    “Well, I know how to find you, so I better get on with the inquiries.”
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    Jake raised an eyebrow and waited.
    “Did he fall first? Or did he get stabbed first?”
    “The shears killed him. That’s as much as they could tell without the full autopsy.”
    Cam nodded. “Good luck. I hope