Clearing his throat, he turned the conversation to more practical matters. “Did you get anything from the other campers?”
“Glampers.” Reluctantly, Josie released him and returned to her seat at the table. “And no, nothing of any use. Someone in the tent next to them thought she heard some weird noises, like a loud rustling and some thumps, grunting and possibly a man’svoice around two in the morning. She said he sounded angry but couldn’t make out his words. She just figured someone in another tent was arguing. No one saw anyone who raised any alarms during the night. We went through the list of all the other glampers. No criminal records. There are twenty-four tents and all occupants were interviewed. Nothing.”
“Cameras?”
“Not in any of the camping areas. Only at the entrances and exits of the festival grounds. We found video of Haven and Maxine leaving around ten thirty, just as the witness, Alvarado, said. No one followed them. An initial perusal of their phones didn’t turn anything up besides weeks of angry, combative text messages from Maxine’s husband, Charles. They were separated. It wasn’t amicable.”
It also explained the strained look on Maxine Barnes’s face in some of the photos her daughter had taken. Perhaps glamping at the festival instead of driving back and forth each day had served as an opportunity for them to leave their tense home situation behind. A fun little mother–daughter escape.
“Does Charles Barnes have an alibi?” asked Noah.
“Don’t know. We didn’t get that far. Anya said she’ll have the autopsies done tomorrow. When Charles moved out, he rented a place in Fauset County. Anya will reach out to the ME’s office there so they can give the death notification. Once that’s done, we’ll talk with him.”
Noah turned the heat down under the chicken and then the vegetables. “Did you get anywhere with the flowers?”
“We had a couple of guys canvass vendors at the festival but no one there is selling camellias. Nobody recognized the flower.” Josie’s gaze dropped to her laptop screen. “That’s what I’ve been researching. I think Hummel was right, they’re camellias, but this is easily one of the deepest internet rabbit holes I’ve everbeen in. There is an actual International Camellia Society. It has a registry. A registry!”
Maybe this was common with flowers. Josie had no idea, but the amount of information was overwhelming to say the least.
“A registry for what?” asked Noah.
“All the different kinds of camellias. There are over two thousand of them. People apparently come up with new kinds all the time. They have different names and some of them are trademarked.”
“Who knew?” He turned the heat under the pot all the way off and fished the bag of rice from it. “Did you find the kind left at the scene?”
She shook her head, clicking through more photos of camellias. “No. I tried several reverse image searches, but none came up that look exactly like them. There are a few that are as dark as the ones found at the scene, but they’re not shaped the same and they definitely don’t have the white edges. Also, camellias don’t bloom in the summer. Never have until recently. There are a few hybrids where they were crossbred with azaleas and peonies to be able to bloom in summer.”
“So they’re rare. If you narrow those summer-blooming camellia hybrids down, who grows them, where they’re sold, maybe you can find this guy that way.”
“If I can find the damn flower and its name then yeah, I’ll do that. In the meantime, Conlen and Brennan are visiting every nursery in the city limits and within ten miles out, showing photographs of the flowers to see if anyone sells them or at least recognizes them. Anyway, pretty much every red flower symbolizes love, devotion, passion, romance, those sorts of things.”
Noah dumped the rice into a bowl, yanking a hand back as the steam shot into the air. “Kind of a weird message to leave with motheranddaughter.”
“Exactly.” Josie entered camellia symbolism into her browser. After skimming five different websites, she blew out a lengthy sigh. “It looks like pink camellias mean longing or yearning. The white ones can mean purity or just that the person you’re giving it to is adorable. The red ones are for passion and can also mean—oh wow—‘you’re a flame in my heart.’”
Noah quirked a brow. “Is it an internet decree that we must all abide by that symbolism?”
Josie laughed. “No. There’s this whole Victorian language of flowers thing where people used flowers to send secret messages to one another. Floriography.”
“That’s an -ography I’ve never heard before,” Noah remarked. “Are floriographists a thing, or do we need to talk to a professor of Victorian literature? A historian? Botanist? Maybe a horticulturist?”
Josie groaned. She was sick of reading about flowers and their symbology. What she needed was actual evidence. “I don’t know. All of them? Definitely a camellia expert who might be able to identify the type. I just have to find one. I’m also going to enter this into NCIC to see if any matches come up.”
The National Crime Information Center was a database maintained by the FBI that indexed criminal information nationwide. If someone else had left flowers at a crime scene similar to theirs, her search would turn it up. Assuming that all agencies who’d processed such a scene entered the case evidence into the NCIC. Entering information into it was voluntary.
As Noah found three plates in one of the cabinets, both their cell phones rang with notifications from the security camera at their front door. Before either of them had time to check the footage, they heard the front door open. Trout’s nails clicked along the hardwood floors that led from the foyer to the kitchen. His tail was little more than a stub, so when he got excited his whole ass wagged, like it did the moment he crossed thethreshold and found Josie and Noah in the kitchen. It was like he couldn’t decide what to focus on first—Mom, Dad, or the all-important smell of food.
Wren breezed in while Trout ran back and forth between Josie and Noah for pets and kisses. “You’re up,” she said to Noah, giving him a smile and a mock salute.
“I told you I’d cook.”
Wren walked over to the stove and peered down into the pan of chicken with a frown. “You said you were making chicken cutlets.”
“I am,” he replied.
Josie watched the exchange with far more interest than she’d like to admit. She enjoyed the way Wren was becoming increasingly comfortable with them. Enough to let more of her personality come out.
Slowly, Wren scanned the countertops, stopping on a can of breadcrumbs, an empty bowl, and a carton of eggs Noah had left out what felt like hours ago.
