Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce

by A. L. Herbert

  “No, I said she didn’t like people taking attention away from her. You can be prettier than she is . . . or younger . . . thinner . . . just don’t outshine her . . . don’t try to snuff out her star. It’s only when you mess with Monique’s sparkle . . . with her glitz . . . that you get into trouble.”

  I think of how Odessa tried to do just that tonight—how she tried, and perhaps succeeded, in out-glittering the self-proclaimed queen of glitter, when I see Wavonne emerge from the dining room and stagger toward me. Clearly, the abundance of champagne she has consumed is taking its toll.

  “That Treena’s stickin’ to her man like glue,” she says to Maurice and me. “Which confirms that they are on the skids, and she thinks he has a wanderin’ eye. I just need to get him away from her, lay on a little sugar, and, who knows, I may get me a spa in Bowie. If you’re nice to me, Halia, maybe I’ll let you get a facial or a massage at a discount.”

  I catch Maurice looking at his watch for the second time this evening. “Much as I’d love to get the scoop on whoever Treena is and what the deal is with ‘her man,’ I’m afraid I need to excuse myself, ladies,” he says. “Things to do . . . people to see.”

  “Sure. No worries. It was nice to see you and thanks again for your help today.”

  “Yeah . . . thank you, Maurice,” Wavonne says, her words slurring together. “I’m diggin’ my jumpsuit.”

  “You’re quite welcome . . . just remember what we talked about, Wavonne . . . about the tight clothing—only shopping bags and bank accounts should be bursting at the seams.”

  Maurice withdraws from our little trio, and Wavonne starts laughing way more heartily than his little “bursting at the seams” quip calls for.

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  “I don’t know, Halia. A few glasses of champagne here . . . a gin and tonic there. Who can keep track.” Wavonne reaches for a champagne glass. “Yo! What is your problem?” she asks when I take the glass from her and set it back on the table.

  “You’ve had enough, Wavonne. Take a break for a little while. Let’s get you a glass of water.”

  “Halia, sometimes you sure do know how to put the poop in party pooper.”

  “I do try my best.” I nudge her toward the dining room, sneaking a peek into the living room on our way. There’s a parting in the crowd, and I catch a glimpse of Nathan on the sofa. One of Odessa’s stylists-turned-cater-waiters is sitting on his lap.

  “Am I drunker than I think I am or is that leggy blond white chick all up in Nathan’s bidness?”

  “Yes and yes. You are drunker than you think, and that young lady is sitting on Nathan’s lap.”

  “And there’s another ho-bag curled up next to him.” Wavonne takes note of a woman sitting inappropriately close to Nathan. She’s also a server for the party and, much like the woman on his lap, is quite beautiful.

  “How come I never get to sit on the sofa and mingle with guests when I work parties for you?”

  “Because I’d fire you,” I say, even though we both know that if I was going to fire Wavonne, I would have done it many years ago on numerous occasions on which it was warranted. “Come on, let’s get you a big glass of water . . . and maybe a cup of coffee.”

  As I lead Wavonne back to the dining room to try to sober her up, another exodus from the living room begins, and guests start to pass by only to disappear through a doorway down the hall.

  “Where’s everyone goin’?” Wavonne asks no one in particular.

  “The dancing is starting in the basement. Monique has flown in James DeShawn to DJ,” a random guest says to Wavonne.

  “James DeShawn?!” Wavonne says. “Come on, Halia. Let’s go downstairs and shake a tail feather.”

  “Is there water downstairs?” I ask the same woman who told us about the dancing.

  “I’m sure there’s a full bar, including bottled water.”

  “Full bar,” Wavonne says. “Nice. I can get me another gin and tonic.”

  “Fine . . . fine,” I say, and move with Wavonne and the rest of the crowd toward the basement. I have no intention of letting Wavonne indulge in another cocktail, but I figure we can tackle that issue once we get downstairs.

  RECIPE FROM HALIA’S KITCHEN

  Halia’s Smothered Pork Chops

  Ingredients

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon black pepper

  1 tablespoon onion powder

  1 tablespoon garlic powder

  1 teaspoon paprika

  ½ teaspoon allspice

  ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

  ½ cup all-purpose flour

  4 one-inch-thick pork chops

  ⅔ cup olive oil

  1 large onion sliced into thin rings

  1 clove minced garlic

  ¼ cup butter

  1 cup water

  2 cups chicken broth

  ½ cup sour cream

  • Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Combine dry ingredients (salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, allspice, cayenne pepper, and flour). Set aside.

  • Heat oil in a 12-inch pan over medium-high heat until it begins to lightly smoke. Pat pork chops dry and lightly salt them. Dredge each chop in flour and seasoning mixture. Add to pan and fry until golden brown (about 2 minutes on first side, 1 minute on second side). Remove chops from pan and place in glass or other oven-safe 12-inch casserole dish.

  • Reduce heat slightly. Add onions to pan and cook until tender (about 6 minutes). Remove onions and set aside.

  • Add minced garlic to oil, cooking until fragrant (about 30 seconds).

  • Add butter and remaining flour mixture to pan. Stir constantly until bubbly and slightly pasty. Add water and chicken broth. Continue stirring until a gravy consistency is attained. Remove from heat and add sour cream. Stir well.

  • Pour gravy over chops. Cover casserole dish with foil and place in preheated oven. Bake for 1.5 hours. Remove from oven, uncover and place sautéed onions over pork chops, recover with foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

  Chapter 15

  Once we descend to the basement and stroll past a home theater, an enclave with a pool table, and an actual in-home bowling alley, we reach a large open area with a mirrored disco ball spinning overhead and colored spotlights beaming in random order from the corners of the ceiling. I have no idea who James DeShawn is, but when I hear the dance remix version of Whitney Houston’s “Heartbreak Hotel” blaring from the speakers, I decide I like him.

  Wavonne is so inebriated that when I return from the bar and hand her a plain glass of tonic water with a lime and tell her it’s a gin and tonic, she doesn’t notice it’s devoid of any alcohol. Over the next several minutes, I bring her two more and, even in her current intoxicated state, I find it odd that it doesn’t occur to her how out of character it is for me to be plying her with cocktails.

  Pleased with my ability to get a little liquor-free hydration into Wavonne, I agree when she suggests we hit the dance floor. The DJ is playing a mix of pop and R & B music, much of it from the eighties and nineties. Wavonne is always telling me I’m too uptight and conservative, but when the music is good, I can shake my groove thing with the best of them—by good, I mean music with words and a beat you can move to as opposed to that pulsing electronic devoid-of-vocals nonsense they play at many of the clubs these days, or so I’m told.

  I’m doing my usual fairly basic dance moves while Wavonne, much like Suzanne Somers in Three’s Company, is the “jiggle in the show.” We’re both having a good time on our little piece of dance floor real estate, bopping around to some oldies from Janet Jackson and Salt-N-Pepa . . . and some more current tunes from Rihanna and Drake and The Weeknd . . . when Wavonne catches sight of Tim and Treena Simms dancing next to her. It’s not long before I see her give Tim a seductive smile and shimmy her shoulders in his direction to Mary J’s “Family Affair.” Then she brazenly starts mouthing the words at him . . . something
about “a dancery,” and “I’mma make it feel all right.”

  It’s not long before Wavonne begins inching farther away from me and closer to Tim and Treena. She dances near them for a few minutes before completely invading their space. Despite Treena’s looks of extreme displeasure, Wavonne holds her ground and eventually manages to maneuver herself in between the two of them. At some point she turns around and presses her body against Tim’s, something he does not seem to mind at all. Treena, however, clearly minds—her eyes expand with anger before she stomps off the dance floor in disgust. My guess is that she expects Tim to chase after her with a profuse apology, but Tim, who appears to be as drunk as Wavonne, stays put.

  “I guess Felicia’s goin’ bye,” I hear Wavonne say to Tim over the loud music.

  My first instinct is to intervene and try to pull Wavonne away from Tim, but she’s drunk and he’s drunk, and I don’t feel like causing a scene. And, seeing how I’ve lost Wavonne as my dance partner, I figure I may as well go back upstairs and see if Alex needs any help before the evening starts to wind down. Neither Wavonne nor Tim notices when I depart the dance floor for the main level of the house.

  I’m almost to the top of the steps when I hear Monique and Odessa talking in low voices . . . arguing, really. They are to the left of the doorway that leads to the basement, so they are unaware that I’m within earshot.

  “I told you, our little arrangement is over, Odessa! I’m not the only one with secrets,” Monique says, somehow managing to yell and whisper at the same time. “I don’t know which one of your multiple personalities thought it would be okay to show up at my house and try to upstage me, but you will pay for that little stunt. How dare you come all up in my house looking like some dollar-store hooker in that tacky red dress . . . dropping cheap feathers all over my house. And then you think you can continue to wheel and deal with me—you’ve bled me of the last penny you’ll get from me.”

  “We’ll see about that, Monique. And you think my dress is tacky? What look were you going for in that gaudy blue number? Ghetto Smurf?” Odessa retorts. “I didn’t realize Five Below was selling evening wear these days.”

  Oddly, I hear Monique laugh at Odessa’s quip rather than respond.

  “And as long as we are talking about discount stores, is that where you got that sad necklace?” Odessa asks. “I think my cleaning lady wears one like that when she’s scrubbing my toilet.”

  “Yeah, like you can afford a cleaning lady,” Monique sneers.

  This time it’s Odessa who laughs. “I’d say something about my cleaning lady being your momma, but I like your momma too much. How is she doing, by the way?”

  “She’s good. I can’t get her out of that crap house I grew up in. I want to move her into someplace nice in a better neighborhood, but she won’t hear of it,” Monique responds, the anger in her voice a few moments earlier mostly gone.

  “Well, tell her I said hi and will come by for a visit sometime soon.” Odessa, too, seems to have lapsed from insult mode into casual conversation. “Would be great for her to move somewhere nicer, but I’d hate to see her sell that house. Boy, did we have some times within those walls.”

  “Girl, you ain’t kiddin’,” Monique replies. “I remember a house party or two back in the day . . . when Momma and Daddy were out of town . . . beer kegs in the backyard, bongs in the basement, Lydia Kingston dancing on the coffee table flashing her boobies to everyone. Kid ’N Play had nothing on us.”

  “Remember our motto? ‘As long as no one got killed or pregnant it was a good party.’”

  They both erupt in laughter.

  Bemused by the dichotomy of their interaction, I’m contemplating how they went from the terse belittling of each other to friendly conversation and shared laughter over the course of about a minute, when I see some guests starting up the staircase behind me. This forces me to climb the last two steps to the hallway on the main level and make myself known to the ladies.

  I offer a quick smile as I walk past the pair, giving the necklace Odessa mentioned a brief look. It’s a fairly simple piece—a silver chain with a large stone that matches the bright blue of Monique’s dress. It’s not as flashy as I’d expect from Monique, but it looks nice enough to me.

  Monique and Odessa return my smile but don’t attempt to engage me as I stride by them.

  * * *

  “How’s it going?” I ask Alex, stepping into the kitchen. He’s at the sink with his back toward me.

  “Good.” He turns around. “Although I must say that I’m feeling a little slighted. We are clean out of every morsel of food you brought, but some of my chafing trays are still half full.”

  I chuckle. “I think we may have started with larger quantities of your food.”

  “Maybe so.” He puts down the tray he was wiping when I came in the room. “Are you having a good time?”

  “I am, but I think it’s almost time to call it a night. Wavonne’s overindulged in all the free-flowing liquor. She’s stirring up trouble downstairs.”

  “Stirring up trouble?”

  I’m about to explain when Monique swaggers into the kitchen. She’s all smiles and appears to have regained her affable demeanor, which was clearly absent when I heard her arguing with Odessa in the hallway.

  “Everything was lovely. Thanks so much . . . to both of you,” she says to us, before looking at Alex. “I think you can start taking down the buffet in a few minutes. Nathan and Maurice are trying to move folks upstairs, so we can cut the cake, and then send everyone on their way. I’ve got a big day tomorrow with the tour launching and need to be up early. I want everyone out of here by ten.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m happy to help before I leave.”

  “Please don’t, Halia. You’re a guest.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m sort of partied out . . . it will give me something to do.”

  “Have it your way,” she says. “I’m going to go upstairs and freshen up a bit. Don’t cut the cake without me.”

  “As if that would ever happen,” Alex jibes as Monique leaves the kitchen, and he and I make our way toward the dining room to begin clearing the buffet.

  I’ve barely grabbed a few items from the table when I hear Wavonne’s voice coming from the foyer. “Like it’s my fault when a sista can’t keep a man,” she croons.

  I can’t see her, but it’s clearly her voice booming from the right of the dining room entrance. Afraid that she’s talking to Treena, I scurry into the next room to rein her in before the situation escalates. To my surprise, she’s not talking to Treena . . . or any human.

  “We were only dancin’. There was no need for her to get so salty,” Wavonne continues. She’s sitting on a chaise lounge using one hand to hold a half-full martini glass and the other to pet Monique’s little froufrou dog that has hopped up on the lounge with her to, apparently, receive a play-by-play account of what happened in the basement since I came upstairs.

  “I think it’s time to hit the road, Wavonne.”

  She looks away from the little dog and up at me. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’ve had too much to drink, you’re causing strife among the guests . . . and, currently, you’re having a one-way conversation with a Pomeranian.”

  “I was just telling little Rover here about Treena. When Tim didn’t go after her, that heifer came back to the dance floor and gave it to him good.” She looks back at the dog and starts talking to him again. “And then she started throwin’ me all sorts of shade . . . actin’ like she’s all better than me. Well, I told her,” Wavonne says, lifting the dog from under his front legs so his eyes are level with hers. “You know what I said?” She seems to be giving the pup a moment to respond to her question. When he doesn’t, she continues. “I said, ‘Stop talkin’ like you all high and mighty . . . just cause you got hot sauce in your bag, don’t make you Beyoncé. ’ Then she got her weave all in a tangle and—”

  “Give him to me,” I say, cutting her off. I rea
ch for the dog and gently place him down on the floor before returning my attention to Wavonne. “You stay here while I go settle things with Monique. Then we’re going home.”

  “Home? But I heard there’s cake.”

  “Maybe we’ll get you a slice to go,” I offer before strengthening my tone. “And I mean what I said—stay here and out of trouble.”

  As I walk up the steps, I see that damn dog jump up on the lounge with Wavonne again and pick up my pace. I’d like to collect payment from Monique as quickly as possible and minimize the amount of people being treated to Wavonne conversing with a canine as they come upstairs for cake.

  I wouldn’t normally approach a client in her bedroom, but through years of catering experience, I’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t get paid before you leave an event, you may very well never get paid at all. It’s always nice when a customer simply hands you a check or a credit card without your even having to ask. And maybe Monique intended to do just that later in the evening, but Wavonne’s already causing mayhem, and I’d like to get her home before more chaos ensues, so up the stairs to Monique’s lair I go.

  Chapter 16

  I head down the long hallway on the second floor of Monique’s home. Most of the doors I walk past are closed, which, I admit, disappoints me. I’m up here to collect my catering fee, but getting a sneak peek at a few more rooms of this fabulous house would have been a nice bonus.

  At the far end of the hallway, I see a trace of light sneaking past a barely ajar door. I figure it’s my best bet for finding Monique, so I stride in that direction. Before knocking on the door, I look through the small space and see Monique seated in front of a dressing table removing her makeup. I watch as she thoroughly wipes her face before placing the cleansing pad on the table and giving herself a long look in the mirror. Maybe it’s just the lighting coming from little bulbs surrounding the reflecting glass, but from where I’m standing, she appears to have some bruising under one of her eyes.