Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce

by A. L. Herbert

  “She ran a corporation . . . all sorts of antics go on in big business. Maybe she got into some shady dealings or something,” Momma says.

  “Maybe,” I respond. “She seemed too smart for that though.”

  “I don’t know.” Wavonne chimes in. “Maurice didn’t seem to think she was so smart when it came to pickin’ men.”

  “That’s right. He did imply that Nathan was not good to Monique . . . and said something about him gambling away her money and being involved with some shifty people,” I reply. “And Nathan is just plain creepy.”

  “Yeah, I got that, too,” Latasha says.

  “Me three,” comes from Momma. “I did not like the way he talked to us at Latasha’s salon.”

  “And did you see the way he was hanging all over some of the women at the party last night?” I ask.

  “He was all up in the bidness of every woman at the party,” Wavonne says, “except his wife’s. I don’t think I saw the two of them together all night.”

  “He does seem like an ass . . . and sort of a bully, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who would kill his wife.”

  I take in what Latasha just said, but I’m not sure I agree. I think of how I felt vaguely threatened when he cleared just enough space to let me walk past him while he lurked in the doorway of his and Monique’s bedroom. “I don’t know. That man definitely has a dark side and some seriously bad energy.”

  “So maybe it was her scrub husband that did her in,” Wavonne says. “But she and Odessa could go at it, too. I heard the two of them fighting with each other in the bathroom the night they were here. But if I’d been placing bets on who might have ended up dead anytime soon, my money would have been on Odessa for showin’ up to Monique’s party like she was Diana Ross instead of just one of the Supremes. Ms. Ross did not put up with that foolishness from Mary or Flo, and I doubt Monique was gonna let Odessa get away with her little stunt. You heard her as well as I did,” Wavonne says to me. “She told Odessa she was gonna ‘get her’ when she gave her that phony hug.”

  “I guess I did, but as we all know, Odessa is not the one who’s dead,” I reply, recalling what I heard on my way up the basement stairs last night. “But you’re right about Odessa having a price to pay for trying to outshine Monique. They didn’t just argue here. I heard the two of them quarreling last night at the party as well . . . something about Monique telling Odessa that she was not getting any more money from her. I heard her say . . .” I let my voice trail off as I catch sight of Momma’s eyes on me, her brows raised ever so slightly. Even though she’s not saying a word, her message is coming through loud and clear. But I play dumb as if I don’t know exactly what she’s thinking. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You know exactly why. I see your wheels spinning . . . your antennas going up . . . gearing yourself up for a challenge.” Momma takes a breath. “This is not your murder to solve, Halia. Stay out of it.”

  I give what Momma said some thought. I have a “two for two” track record of solving murders, but what she said is true—there’s no reason for me to get involved in this one. “You’re right.” I can see a look of surprise come across Momma’s face—she’s not used to me being so agreeable. “There’s no reason for me to get involved. I’ll leave the investigating to the police.”

  Wavonne laughs. “Leave it to the police? Yeah, right, Halia,” she says. “Remember when we first came in this morning, and Tacy was pulling those orange cranberry muffins out of the oven, and he asked my hungover carb-craving self if I wanted one. I tried to resist—with you and Maurice forcing me into a size sixteen and all, I figure a sista’s gotta get some self-control. But we all know how that little willpower test ended up . . . and we all know how this whole Monique murder thing is gonna play out. I’ve still got muffin crumbs in my cleavage, and it won’t be long before you have your nose all up in this Monique mess. You may as well skip the resistance stage, Halia, and make like Daphne and Velma and start lookin’ for clues.”

  Chapter 19

  “I’m only going to pick up my trays,” I say. I’m in the van on my way to Monique’s house talking to Momma while mentally scolding myself for hitting the answer button on my steering wheel when I saw her name come up on the dashboard screen.

  “Mahalia Watkins.” It’s never good when she uses my full name. Suddenly I’m back in middle school, and she just found my book report with the C–on it hidden under my bed. “Do you think I just fell off the turnip greens truck? Don’t give me that ‘picking up trays’ nonsense. You’re going over there to snoop around and meddle in business that is none of your concern.”

  “I told you, Momma, Wavonne overindulged in the cocktails and was making a fool of herself last night. I wanted to get her out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t have time to collect my catering items. I’m just going to grab them and go.” I know she knows I’m lying . . . and she knows I know she knows I’m lying, but this is what we do. I think it’s a bit of a hobby or nervous habit for both of us.

  “Oh yes . . . that’s the first thing people do when they hear about a murder.” I can almost see the sarcasm coming out of the car speakers. “They think ‘I must immediately go to the murder scene, step over any pesky corpses, and fetch my party supplies.’”

  “All right, all right.” I give up on hiding the true intentions for my visit to Monique’s house. “What’s it hurt for me to poke around a little bit? See what I can find out.”

  “Because it’s not safe, and there are other things you should be focused on.”

  “Like what?” Another one of my hobbies or nervous habits: asking Momma questions that I already know the answer to.

  “You’re not getting any younger, Halia. That young man that cooked for Monique must have some time on his hands now . . . you know, with the person he cooked for dead and all. Why don’t you go over and see him . . . offer your condolences. . . take him a Bundt cake.”

  “I don’t even know where he lives,” I lie, remembering that he said something on Friday about living at Iverson Towers.

  “You want to go solve a murder, but you can’t find out where an eligible man lives?”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Momma. You get off my back, and, while I’m at Monique’s, I’ll see if I can find out where Alex lives and consider paying him a visit. But you need to make the Bundt cake.”

  Momma sighs. “Fine.” She’s only agreeing to my terms because she knows my stubborn self is going to do whatever I want anyway.

  “I’m pulling in. I’ll call you later.”

  I disconnect the call while I turn onto Monique’s property. I stop halfway up the driveway as two police cars are blocking the rest of the way. I turn the car off and take in the scene as I get out and start walking up the drive. There are more squad cars and other official-looking vehicles on the lawn, yellow police tape around the home’s front steps, and a couple of news crews packing up their vans.

  “Ma’am,” an officer calls in my direction. “You can’t be here.”

  “Excuse me?” I say even though I heard him.

  “This is a crime scene, ma’am.”

  I put my hand to my ear, still pretending I can’t hear him, and keep walking.

  “I’m sorry. What?” I ask when I reach the officer.

  “I said this is a crime scene. Authorized personnel only.”

  “A crime scene?” I feign ignorance. “What happened? I catered a party here last night. I only came to pick up my supplies.”

  “You’ll need to do that some other time. Now please step back to your vehicle and exit the premises.”

  I ignore his request. “What happened?” I ask again.

  “Have you not seen a TV or heard a radio since you got out of bed? Monique Dupree was murdered last night.”

  “Murdered? What?”

  “Ma’am, I have to ask you to leave. I’m sure arrangements can be made to retrieve your belongings another day.”

  “Okay . . . sure,�
� I say, stalling. “But what happened? How was she murdered?”

  “She was shot.” He points toward the damaged window. “Bullet went right through that window. Now, Ms. . . .”

  “Watkins. Halia Watkins.”

  “Ms. Watkins. I need for you to be on your way.”

  I’m about to ask more questions, when I see the front door of the house swing open. Nathan steps outside with a tall gentleman I recognize as Detective Hutchins, from the police force. The detective and I have a bit of history. I’ve helped him solve two local murder cases and he . . . well, he hasn’t really helped me do anything. He mostly regards me as a busybody who’s had some dumb luck with crime solving, but I think he has some level of respect for me; otherwise, he wouldn’t have followed up on some of the leads I’ve given him in the past.

  “Ms. Watkins!” Detective Hutchins catches sight of me and simultaneously groans and rolls his eyes toward the sky. “What are you doing here?” he asks as if I’ve just shown up to a party without an invitation. “I know you fancy yourself PG County’s answer to Jessica Fletcher, but this is a real crime scene, not a television set.”

  “I only came to pick up a few things. I had no idea Monique had been murdered.”

  Much like Momma, he is able to let me know he doesn’t believe me with only his eyes. “Why do you have things to pick up from here?”

  “She says she catered a party here last night,” the police officer says.

  “Yes, I did. Ms. Dupree told me I could come back today to pick up my chafing dishes and whatnot.”

  “That’s true,” Nathan says quietly, his eyes sort of vacant and blank. He looks more toward the ground than at any one of us. I’m not getting the intimidating, almost oppressive vibe from him that was so apparent during our last few meetings. He appears to really be in a state of quasi-shock following the death of his wife . . . or he’s a very good actor. “She helped with the . . . um”—he stumbles as if too much is going through his mind to recall details—“the buffet . . . she helped with the buffet last night.”

  “Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you were here last night . . . anything suspicious?”

  I want to say that the only odd thing I saw was Nathan cavorting with a bunch of women who were not his wife, but given that Nathan is standing right in front of me, I say, “No. Not really.”

  “Okay. Well, an officer may be in touch—”

  “Wait,” I interrupt. “I guess I did hear Monique quarreling with Odessa before I left, but it didn’t sound like anything someone would get killed over.”

  “What were they quarreling about?”

  “I’m not sure. I happened to overhear a little of their argument when I was coming up the stairs from the basement.” I fail to mention that I would have eavesdropped longer if other guests hadn’t started coming up the steps behind me. “Monique said something about how she was not going to pay Odessa any more . . . or give her any more money . . . or something like that.”

  “Odessa!” Nathan says, his voice swelling. He looks up from the ground and at Detective Hutchins. “I saw her . . . after the party last night . . . I saw her coming back toward our house on my way to the convention center.”

  “Why were you going to the convention center after the party?” I ask.

  Nathan looks at me as if he’s irritated by the question, but decides to answer anyway. “Monique got a call from the company that manages the building. One of the sprinklers in our display room, Monique’s House of Style, went off. Monique was exhausted, but we were having a press conference there in the morning to launch her tour, so I went downtown to see how bad the damage was and what fixes were needed to be ready for the cameras in the morning. Shortly after I left the house, about ten thirty, I saw Odessa headed back this way. I recognized her car, mostly because of the personalized license plate. It says ‘good hair.’”

  “‘Good hair’?”

  “Well . . . G-D H-A-I-R,” Nathan says, spelling out the letters, more focused than when he and the detective stepped outside. “This road dead ends. There is no reason for her to be on it headed east if she wasn’t coming back to our house.”

  “You think she came back here and shot Monique?” I ask.

  “You can leave the questioning to me, Ms. Watkins,” Detective Hutchins scolds. “It’s really time that you leave. I’m sure Mr. Tucker will see to it that you get your plates or trays . . . or whatever it is you pretended to come over here for.” He turns toward Nathan. “Let’s go back inside and discuss this further.” He gestures for Nathan to follow him, and they both turn back toward the house. When they reach the front step, Detective Hutchins flips his neck around and flings a “What are you still doing here?” look in my direction. I decide not to test the detective’s patience any further, figuring I can question Nathan when I come back at a later date to get my supplies.

  As I watch the detective and Nathan enter the house and close the door behind them, the police officer who’s been standing next to me the whole time angles his head toward me. Clearly, he’s about to tell me to skedaddle, too, but I don’t give him the chance.

  “I’m going . . . I’m going,” I say, but as I walk back to my van, quietly, under my breath . . . in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, I add, “I’ll be back.”

  Chapter 20

  I heade d over to Monique’s house when the brunch rush was slowing down and am just getting back to the restaurant now. When I swing open the door, I see that we’re still pretty busy. I smile and wave to a few regulars before I step behind the bar and check in with Melissa, one of my bartenders, to make sure we have enough liquor stocked for the dinner crowd that will be filtering in soon. For the most part, I have a great staff and try to hire carefully, but I’ve had some issues with employees stealing alcohol in the past, so I keep limited amounts behind the bar. The rest is in a locked closet, which can only be opened by me and my assistant manager, Laura.

  I’m about to retrieve some vodka reinforcements when I see Wavonne hurrying toward me with a look on her face that I recognize as her “Girl, I’ve got some gossip!” expression.

  “Sista girl had a ’fro!” she declares when she reaches the bar.

  “What? What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “Monique Dupree. The queen of all things straight hair . . . she had an Afro.”

  I just look at her with my eyebrows furrowed. What she’s saying isn’t registering with me.

  “Apparently, it wasn’t a big poufy Foxy Brown type of thing . . . or like that dude in the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon that used to pull all sorts of gadgets outta his Afro.” She’s excited, so she’s talking quickly. I feel like her words are buzzing past me. “It was more Lupita Nyong’o . . . or Viola Davis at the Oscars the year she lost. A TWA . . . that’s what it was . . . a TWA.”

  “TWA?” Nothing she’s saying is making any sense. The only thing coming to mind when she says TWA is an airline that went bust almost twenty years ago.

  “Teeny-weeny Afro.”

  “Sit down, Wavonne.” I pull out a barstool. “Now, take a breath and tell me, slowly, what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “It’s all over the news.” She grabs the remote control that was sitting on the bar and turns up the volume. “Turns out ‘Becky with the Good Hair’ was actually ‘Becky with the Nappy Afro.’”

  “Why is the television set to a news station?” I ask, annoyed. I have a strict policy about only showing sports on the bar TV during open hours. There’s never anything good coming from the cable news networks—it’s all politics and disasters and scandal. I don’t want that kind of energy in my restaurant. I resisted having a TV in Sweet Tea at all for years—I wanted my guests to focus on my food and one another rather than whatever was beaming from a squawk box. But I recently relented and put one, and only one, flat screen behind the bar for my customers who apparently would rather die than miss a Redskins game.

  “I’m sorry, Halia,” Melissa says. “We all wanted t
o keep an eye on the Monique story. I thought it might be okay in this case, so I left it on the news today.”

  “Shhh . . . would both of you shut it.” Wavonne points toward the television.

  “There has been a new development in today’s lead story about the apparent murder of hair care products maven Monique Dupree, who was found dead from a gunshot wound in the early morning hours,” says the same talking head who was on the screen this morning. “According to a source at the crime scene, Ms. Dupree, who made her fortune selling hair care products and was most famous for her straightening cream—and often used her own lustrous tresses as a key marketing tool—was found to actually have closely cropped short curly hair.”

  “Oh Lawd . . . the white lady is afraid to use the word ‘Afro,’” Wavonne bemoans.

  “What’s wrong with the word ‘Afro’?” I ask.

  “Nothin’, but she don’t know that. She’s probably afraid to say ‘kinky,’ too.”

  The woman on the news does seem to be handling the subject matter a bit awkwardly, and maybe rightfully so. People are uncomfortable with things they don’t understand. And trying to get a white woman to understand the black hair experience is like trying to get a man to understand what it’s like to have breasts.

  “The source, who wishes to remain unnamed, as he is not authorized to speak to the press, said that when Ms. Dupree was discovered, slumped on the sofa with a gunshot wound in the back of her head, she did not have the flowing long hair for which she was famous. Instead she was found with a short Afro.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Wavonne says. “Someone must’ve told her through her earpiece that she can say ‘Afro.’ ”

  “Shhh.” Now it’s me doing the shushing.

  “A search of the house found an entire closet off the master bedroom filled with wigs. There was an extensive—”

  The anchor puts her hand to her earpiece and is quiet for a second or two. “We are getting word that Jenna Summers has caught up with Ms. Dupree’s hairdresser. Let’s go live to Jenna in Washington, DC.”