Free Keeping Mum (A Garden Society Mystery) by Alyse Carlson Page B

and had been gray-haired even in those days, got a dark look. “She won’t go anywhere. It’s like she’s afraid I’ll toss her things on the street,” she whispered.
    “Would you?” Annie whispered back with a playful grin.
    “I’d like to some days, but it’s not worth my job.” Then, more loudly, she said, “Ms. Elle is up in the home gym if you need to see her. Can I get you girls some tea?”
    “Oh, no thank you. We won’t be long. I’m not sure if what I need would be in dad’s study or up in the library. Cam, why don’t you check the study?”
    Cam nodded. She thought she knew what she needed to do. Annie climbed the stairs and Cam entered the big study near the front door, where Alden handled some portion of his local business when he wasn’t in Richmond. Since his last term had ended a few years earlier, that had been often. Cam sat in his big leather chair and took off the piece of the phone she needed to remove in order to install the bug and fiddled the little thing into place.
    “What do you think you’re doing?”
    Cam looked up to see Elle.
    “Oh. Annie had some paperwork she thought her dad might have filed for her. I’m trying to figure out where he might have put it in here, and Annie is up checking the library.”
    “I mean to the phone.”
    “When we were little, he used to tape his combinations and stuff on the phone in different locations,” she lied. “I just thought . . . in case it was in the file drawer.”
    “It has a key. And we keep the keys in the bedroom. What kind of papers are you looking for?”
    “Her birth certificate. Annie has to renew her passport, so she needs it.” It was a stupid answer, but Cam had to think on her feet, so it was all she could manage.
    “And
she
doesn’t have it? She’s a big girl.”
    Elle looked disgusted, like Annie was an irresponsible child, which was stupid. Elle was probably only three years older than they were and had never supported herself a day in her life. Was it more irresponsible to store a document at a parent’s home or to marry for money so you didn’t have to get a job?
    “Well what do you need it for besides getting a passport or driver’s license? The last time Annie did those things, she was living at home.” Cam knew her smile was sour.
    “I’ll be right back,” Elle said.
    Cam heard her climbing the stairs and let out a breath. On a whim, she darted across the entry to a similar “hers” study and tucked the other bug behind a gadget on a high shelf, then returned to the senator’s study and noticed Louise watching her curiously.
    “And what was that about, Miss Camellia?” she asked, her frame stiff.
    Cam sighed. “Senator Schulz. We don’t want to think Elle had anything to do with it, but we have to be sure.”
    Cam was surprised when Louise seemed to find merit in that and nodded then left.
    Annie and Elle returned together, and Elle opened a drawer for them. Strangely, in a file marked “Birth Certificates” was their alibi. Elle handed the page to Annie, locked the drawer again, and stood. Cam was glad Annie could maintain a poker face, because she was sure she was confused.
    “You two need anything else?”
    “We should be asking you. Are you okay?” Cam asked.
    “A little scared. I manage, though.”
    Cam couldn’t help comparing Elle to Evangeline Patrick, the other trophy wife she knew. Evangeline was leagues ahead of Elle. For one thing, Evangeline was a sincerely nice person, and Cam thought she loved her husband a lot more than Elle seemed to. Elle was barely upset, or at least she wasn’t showing it.
    • • •
    • • •
    W hen they reached Annie’s Beetle, Annie thrust the birth certificate at her. “Now you’re stuck with it.”
    “What?”
    “You know me. It would be lost forever at my place. I left it
there
so I knew where it was.”
    “It was the only thing I could think of. Elle was grilling me.”
    “Okay. It wasn’t bad thinking, especially as it was