Keeping Mum (A Garden Society Mystery) (11 page)

“Is it bad to love it when you’re stressed out?” Cam asked.

“Yes. Yes it is,” Annie said, then she stuck her finger in Cam’s mouth. It was coated in guacamole. “That okay?”

“Could maybe use a little more heat,” Cam said.

“Little more heat? From you? That bland, eh?”

“No. It’s good. Maybe you’re just making progress with my taste buds.” Annie had always teased her about preferring bland food.

“We can only hope.”

Cam rolled her eyes, set the bottle of wine she’d brought on the counter, and got out the corkscrew. “Are the boys coming?”

“No. Mine’s not anyway. Haven’t talked to yours.”

Cam’s phone buzzed and she wondered if Rob’s ears had been burning, but it was Petunia.

“Cam! They found . . . it’s a . . . something matching!”

“Whoa, slow down, Petunia. Who found what?”

“The police! A DNA match. But it’s not a match. It’s . . . something related to the senator in our van!”

“I don’t get it. He was never . . . wait a minute. Oh, geez. Why didn’t we think of this? Petunia, calm down. It’s Annie. They found DNA from Annie in your van. We can go down and prove it and you’ll be in the clear.”

“Really?”

“Really. I promise we’ll take care of it tonight.”

“Thank goodness! Why do all these people you work with always cause us trouble?”

“I’m sorry, Tunia. Really I am. I’m sure that’s what it’s about, though.”

She hung up.

“Let me guess,” Annie said. “Partial DNA match for my dad in the Spoons van?”

“That’s what it sounds like. Petunia’s not the world’s most articulate person when she panics.”

“This can rest for half an hour after I pull it out. We’ll go then.”

Cam nodded and called Jake to give him a heads-up as to what they were doing and why.

“Those idiots. I told them they would probably get something like that,” he said. “Len Sullivan can be the densest detective on the planet sometimes.”

“Sullivan?”

“You know him?”

“No. I haven’t known a Sullivan since college, but suddenly they’re popping up everywhere.”

“Yeah, they’re like a bad penny—keep turning up to annoy you,” Jake said. “He’s the kidnapping pro, though, so we need him.”

They hung up and Cam looked at Annie.

“Are we having a Sullivan infestation?” she asked.

“We seem to be.” Cam told Annie about the overheard conversation the night before, and their interest in someone named Sully. “Maybe we just don’t normally notice them, but now, since we have a Sullivan to find, they’re going to appear all over the place.”

“Sounds like how it works,” Annie said. “You know, I can hear Elle in my head, a memory, shouting at someone called Sully, but for the life of me, I can’t remember when. I think there were a lot of people around.”

She took the pan out of the oven, and the two headed for the police station.

• • •

• • •

T
he man in the lab looked at Cam funny when she introduced herself and she wondered if this was Rob’s contact. He had Annie swish a giant cotton swab around the inside of her mouth and put it in a tube and then told them they were good.

“That should match what you found in the Spoons van—a full match, not a partial,” Cam said.

“And why were you in there?” he asked.

Cam rolled her eyes. “Spoons is owned by my sister and brother-in-law, and sometimes they are nice enough to lend us the van, which they did only recently.”

“Okay, don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Cam was glad it was Rob, and not her, who worked with this man. Annie put it in perspective as they left. She turned back toward him from a distance and found his head between her thumb and forefinger.

“Squish the head!” she said.

Cam laughed.

• • •

• • •

B
ack at Annie’s and well into dinner, Cam finally finished relaying her day to Annie.

“So that Windermere guy was a real piece of work,” Annie said.

“Sounds like it to me—sleazy. And good at stealing, if I’m piecing this together right. I mean, I know investments are risky, but this is too much. I’m thinking Melvin Entwhistle had the biggest motive,” Cam said, following it with a sip of wine.

“But that doesn’t tie to my dad at all; well, other than annoying him.”

“Might Melvin have sold your dad that investment?”

“I doubt it. Remember, Dad doesn’t like him.”

“So maybe he hired someone to take out Derrick, and your dad saw.”

“I wish I could see my dad’s phone records,” Annie said. “Your dad said he saw him on the phone. If we knew who he talked to, it might help. They might have even tempted him to a part of the grounds where he could be taken.”

“Wait. What if someone texted him and he thought it was part of the game? He’d go where he needed to for that.”

“They would have had to know the whole setup,” Annie said.

“Which is you, me, and who else?” Cam asked. “Joel Jaimeson?”

Annie actually snorted. “As much as I’d love it to be that incompetent fool, I can’t see a motive.”

“Fame? Glory? Feeling important?”

“Yeah, okay, maybe. But I don’t think he’s smart enough.”

“Or maybe he’s so much of an idiot he could be tricked out of his phone and a few game details. The kidnapper wouldn’t have to know much—just that we were texting instructions to the players,” Cam said.

“Oh! Now that seems likely!”

“I’ll call him tomorrow and see if he’ll let me see his phone.”

“Short of real progress, I guess that’s a plan,” Annie agreed.

There was silence for a moment, and Cam decided to let Annie hear an idea she really preferred debunked. “You know . . . Derrick was sponsoring Toni Howe’s television program.”

“Toni from the pageant?”

“Yeah. She didn’t seem very happy about it.”

“Can’t say I blame her.”

“You don’t think she’d . . .”

“Off him without securing another sponsor? Heck, no.”

Cam breathed easier. It was what she’d hoped to hear. “For my next two ideas, I need your help,” she said.

“Okay?”

“First, we thought maybe that message from Elle sounded like the guy was a little desperate to see her—not just like . . . for love, but desperate maybe for money, too. Like maybe there’s a gambling issue?” She still wasn’t comfortable sharing it, but putting the thoughts into words for Annie was safer than it would have been with Rob.

“Okay.”

“And we happen to know a couple of people in town who are involved in that gambling circuit.” Cam couldn’t believe she hadn’t talked herself out of pursuing this route.

“You’re afraid to talk to Dylan by yourself.”

“A little.”

“Probably wise. You can’t be trusted.”

Cam rolled her eyes, but it was only habit. She was a little worried that where Dylan was concerned, it might be true.

Cam opened her phone and felt guilty to still have him on speed dial from when she’d worked with him during the summer. It was good she had the number now, of course, but nothing about Dylan and her having contact was actually good. Except maybe the steamy kiss he’d given her when he’d been pumped up on pain pills, but she tried to think about that as little as possible.

“Miss Harris? I’m surprised to hear from you,” he answered the phone.

“I’m surprised to be calling,” she said. “But I’m involved in another investigation, and it turns out I could use your knowledge of the local gambling community.”

“And here I thought you missed me.”

She didn’t respond to that. Couldn’t respond. Everything about him made her blush, and Annie was watching her carefully.

“Do you know anything about someone called Sully?”

“I might. What’s in it for me?”

“Look, Annie’s dad has been kidnapped, and this Sully character might be involved.”

“Annie’s? You coulda just said so. I like Annie. Yeah, listen. I don’t want to get into it here. I could stop by later and tell you, though.”

That was the last thing Cam wanted, but she could hear enough noise in the background to tell he was someplace he probably didn’t feel comfortable talking, so she agreed and then begged Annie not to leave her side until it was done.

“You’re a big chicken,” Annie said.

“I am not. I have no intention of . . . anything . . . I’m just attracted . . . I don’t want to be alone with him!”

Annie sighed. “Poor Cam.”

• • •

• • •

D
ylan knocked just after ten. Cam was wondering where Rob was, as he usually called or dropped in. Annie had been grumbling about bakers having early hours and had just threatened to leave, so Cam was feeling lucky that Annie was still there and Rob wasn’t.

“Come in. Thank you.”

His look burned her face. Something about him had always made her feel like a middle school girl.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t say no to a beer.”

“Wine okay?”

He shrugged, so Cam got him a glass from the second bottle she and Annie had opened, but barely dented.

“So you know a Sully, in the gambling circle?” Cam said as she handed Dylan his wine. Dylan sprawled across her futon and seemed impossibly long. Arms went one way and legs another to take over the room. Annie was on her only other chair, so Cam retrieved her own wine and stood.

“Yeah. Odd guy, really. Well, not odd. Big teddy bear. But sometimes he acts like he’s rolling. Sometimes he’s broke. But the fat part—when he has a lot of cash—doesn’t seem to have anything to do with winning. I’ve never heard of him winning more than a few hands, but he loves to gamble. Always comes back.”

“Might that be because his wife is loaded, but doesn’t give him access all the time?” Cam asked.

“That would make sense, actually, but I don’t know him that well.”

“Do you know his whole name?”

“No, but Sullivan is the last name.”

“Mike?”

“Maybe.”

“But he’s not a cop?”

“Geez, I hope not! Not that I ever have the kind of money to gamble with that crowd—it’s the high-end group. But some of them also gamble with my group, so I tend bar for the big games. That would be bad to have a cop around.”

“Jake said there was an Officer Sullivan investigating Annie’s dad’s disappearance. We just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a conflict of interest.”

“They could always be cousins or something,” Dylan said.

Cam had thought the same thing, but was relieved to get some doubt that the Sully they were worried about might be a cop—a dirty cop in charge of this investigation would be hard to deal with. It seemed much more likely he was just a gambler and the son-in-law of the murder victim.

“Do you . . . have a physical description?” Cam asked.

“Sure. Sully is sorta thick—in the shoulders, I mean. Black hair, or almost. Gray eyes, I think—not dark, anyway. Wears suits, but sloppy—open shirt, no tie.”

“Wait. C’mere,” Annie said, crooking her finger at Dylan to follow.

She went over to Cam’s laptop and pulled up a program, then gave Dylan a lot of choices that reminded Cam strangely of an eye exam. “Is this closer, or is this?”

In the end, they had a picture Dylan said wasn’t quite right, but someone who saw both the photo and the man would think they looked similar.

Dylan stood and walked toward the door, Cam following him. On a table where she kept her mail in a basket was a newspaper.

“Hey, I know that guy, too.”

It was the political section and the article was the announcement that Chad Phillips intended to run in the primaries against Jared Koontz. The picture was of Chad, a man Cam hadn’t ever actually met.

“Do you? How?”

“Well, he’s way out of my league. High-stakes card games and stuff. But he’s got a sort of reputation. Golden fingers.”

“Gold finger? Seriously?”

“Not like the James Bond thing—it’s not a nickname. Just something they say about him.”

“But he’s a serious player in the gambling circles?”

“Yeah. I’ve bartended at some of those. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t know. Like I said. Way out of my league.”

“That helps,” Annie said, picking up the paper. “Thank you!”

“Hey, I did this for you,” Dylan said to Annie. “I was going to trade a favor to Cam for it, but for you, free of charge.”

Annie grinned. “Right.”

Cam wanted to elbow her, but it would have been too obvious. It was best that Dylan just leave, which thankfully, he did.

“I’ve seen him,” Annie said after Dylan left. She was pointing at the computer composite.

“Of course. He was at the fund-raiser. You said he was at your dad’s wedding?”