“No formal training!?” Maurice says, more riled by this question than any having to do with Monique’s murder. “I’ve been working with wigs since I was old enough to reach the one on my momma’s dresser.”
He pulls a wig from a foam head on his dressing table, lowers it on his head, and begins to describe how he learned to make “truly exquisite” wigs and adhere them in a way that makes them undetectable through years of trial and error as a performer. He explains concealers and lace fronts and wig clips . . . and knot bleaching . . . and edge control . . . and the creative use of a toothbrush for baby hairs . . . and eyelash glue to hold things in place. By the time he’s done with his spiel, and Wavonne is finished taking notes on her phone, I’m more than convinced of his talent and understand why Monique entrusted him with something so important to her. But I’m still wondering about his new line of wigs, and if it translates to a motive for wanting Monique dead.
“It does look pretty amazing,” I compliment, eyeing his wig as he dabs some concealer along the part near his forehead.
“Thank you,” he says. “One never wants one’s wig to look . . . well, wiggy.”
I chuckle. “May I ask you about one more thing, Maurice? Then we’ll—”
“Get out of your hair,” Wavonne says, and laughs and laughs, quite pleased with herself, but also annoyed that neither Maurice nor I found her quip as amusing as she did. It’s one of those things that must be funnier after two gin and tonics.
“What?” he asks, touching up his wig with a big plastic comb.
“Triple M Wigs,” I say. “We came upon the new website for it this afternoon.”
“What did you think? I’ve been working on it for months.”
“So it was in the works before Monique died?”
“You’re a business owner, Halia. You, of all people, should know you can’t launch a business, especially one with an interactive website, in a week.”
“So Monique knew about the business?”
“Yes. It took some serious negotiating, but she eventually gave me her blessing as long as I stayed behind the scenes and didn’t market my wigs under my name or in any way that would publicly connect them to her.”
“But the business has your name all over it . . . and Monique’s, too.”
“Yes. Yes, it does, but only now that Monique has passed on.” He stands up from the table and reaches for a garment bag hanging from a hook on the wall. “I had not planned to launch the business for several months and, I swear, it was only after Monique died that I hurried to get the business online and use my history with her as a marketing tool.” Maurice unzips the bag and pulls out a short yellow dress made of layered chiffon. “Yes, it’s ill-mannered to use Monique’s death to promote a new business venture. I admit I was . . . am trying to profit from her death, but I never would have betrayed her like that when she was alive. I only tried to benefit from her secret once it was . . . well, no longer a secret. I’d like to think Monique would approve. She was clearly one to take advantage of every opportunity to market her products. I don’t think she’d have had a problem with me doing the same.” He holds the dress against his body and looks at himself in the mirror. “It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?” he asks. “I really do need to get into it.”
“Of course,” I say. “We’ll go.”
“Before you do, let me be the one to ask a question,” he says. “At first, I thought you were here to see if I could help you identify any suspects other than Nathan, and maybe Odessa, but I’m starting to think you might actually have me on your list. Is that true?”
I swallow. “I wouldn’t say you are exactly on my list, but—”
“From what I’ve heard on the news Monique was most definitively shot between eleven forty-five p.m. and twelve fifteen a.m.,” Maurice says, interrupting me. “I go onstage every Saturday at twelve thirty.” He lays the dress on the chair and turns to look at us. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to go from Maurice Masson to Brightina Glow? Do you? Any idea at all?”
Before my “no fuss/no muss” self can answer that, in fact, I do not, Wavonne looks in his mirror and adjusts her own wig. “Oh . . . I think I have some idea.”
Maurice turns back toward the mirror and looks at Wavonne’s reflection. “Then you know there is no way I could have been at Monique’s house at the time she was killed. I’m always here by eleven thirty. It takes a full hour to pluck, tuck, and glitter all of this,” he says, pointing from his feet up to his wig, “to be ready to go onstage, which is where I was at twelve thirty last Saturday night. An entire club full of people can verify that I was here.”
“Glad to hear it. I guess you’re in the clear then,” I say. “The dress and the wig . . . they really are quite nice. Thank you for your time, Maurice.” I turn to Wavonne. “Come on, Bubbles, let’s go.”
“Oh ladies,” Maurice calls right before we reach the door. “I may be a shameless opportunist when it comes to making money, but I really did care about Monique. I’m hosting a sort of memorial for her next Saturday. I can send you the details if you’d like to attend. Nothing somber or morbid. I want it to be upbeat like Monique . . . a gathering . . . a party, even . . . to celebrate her life and her memory.”
“Yes, please,” I respond. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it, but we would appreciate the information.”
As Wavonne and I step out into the main club and try to make our way to the exit, my mind attempts to put a few pieces of the Monique murder puzzle together. Maurice has a solid alibi, so unless any other persons of interest make themselves known, my suspect list, aside from Nathan, is down to Odessa and Alex. Did Odessa really just mix up the name of the club she supposedly went to after the white party? And, if she didn’t kill Monique, how did a piece of her dress end up on the front lawn? But at the same time, if Alex didn’t kill her, why did he skip town immediately after her death?
I’m trying to sort it all out in my head, when I hear Mable Devine introduce Brightina.
“We gotta stay for this,” Wavonne says.
I’m exhausted and really want to go home, but I guess I’m also a little curious about Maurice’s showmanship and, I must say, he does not disappoint. As Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas” blares from the speakers, Maurice emerges onto the stage looking like a Vegas showgirl—albeit an unusually plump Vegas showgirl, but a showgirl nonetheless. The yellow dress we saw backstage is nice, but his real pièce de résistance is an intricate feather headdress constructed from a mix of yellow and white feathers.
“Girl,” Wavonne says as she and I hover near the exit on the upper level, looking over the crowd as Maurice jaunts about the stage. “I bet he’s got some Spanx working overtime under all that.”
“Maybe so.” I laugh. And then it happens . . . a moment of insight when I notice some feathers that have fallen off his headdress onto the floor of the stage.
“What?” Wavonne asks me. “Why do you have that look on your face . . . like someone just shouted bingo and you’ve got the winnin’ card?”
“Oh . . . nothing . . . enjoying the show,” I lie as I carefully consider what I’ve just realized.
Chapter 31
“We need to leave for the restaurant a little early tomorrow. I want to go by and see Odessa beforehand, assuming she’s open on Sunday mornings.”
We’re back in the van a few miles from home. The clock on the dash reads 1:10 a.m.
“Huh?” Wavonne says, distracted by some flyers and newspapers she grabbed on the way out of the club.
“Are you listening to me?” I ask as she lifts a slick piece of paper from the pile in her lap. “What’s all that?”
“Nothin’ . . . a couple of news rags . . . some promo stuff from Enigma . . . looks like they’re havin’ an amateur drag contest next week . . . maybe we should go back and watch,” Wavonne suggests, before stuffing the flyer between the seat and the armrest and starting to flip through a copy of the Washington City Paper.
“It was
fun,” I admit. “But I think I’ve had my fill of drag queen bars for a while.”
“Well, at least the visit wasn’t for nothin’. You got to scratch Maurice off that suspect list I know you got goin’ in your head.”
“I guess I did,” I say as we start to pass the shopping center that houses Odessa’s salon. It stands out from the other merchants as it’s the only storefront that still has lights on inside. “Look. The lights are on in the salon. Do you think she leaves them on all night as a security measure or something?”
“I dunno. You want to pull in and take a closer look?” Wavonne asks as we pull up to a traffic light and stop the van. “There’s someone coming out,” she adds, keeping watch on the building as a man, carrying a plastic bag, exits Salon Soleil.
“What the . . . ?” I say more to myself than to Wavonne and steer the van into the lane that turns into the shopping center. When the light changes, we drive into the lot and park the car in front of the salon.
“Should we call the police?” Wavonne asks. “You think it’s a robbery?”
“The man leaving a minute ago didn’t seem like he was stealing anything. He only had the one bag on him.”
“Maybe he’s the janitor or something.”
“Maybe. But he didn’t lock the door behind him when he left.” I sigh, turn off the ignition, and open the car door. “There’s only one way to find out what’s going on.”
When we reach the main door, I give it a little tug. It’s unlocked, so I pull it all the way open and see Odessa. She’s grabbing some women’s hair care products from the shelves and handing them to a gentleman, whom I assume is a customer.
“What are you doing here?!” she asks, startled.
“We were driving by and saw the lights on . . . and a man leaving the premises. Seemed odd for so late at night. We thought we should check it out.”
“Everything is fine.” She walks the man over to the register and begins ringing up his purchases. She’s clearly still unnerved by our intrusion and seems at a loss for more words. “We’re . . . um . . . open late some days . . . for customers, like this young man, who can’t make it in during regular hours.”
She catches me looking inquisitively at the products she selected for the man as she puts them in a bag. He’s a white man with short straight hair, and Odessa is bagging three boxes of Sleek, Monique’s hair relaxing cream, and a large container of edge-controlling gel. “For his wife,” she says.
“Seems to be a lot of men buying products for their wives here,” I say with a raised brow as the man pays for his items and moves to exit the salon. He opens the door to leave only to hold it for yet another man on his way in.
“Hello,” the newest arrival, who is much older than the one who just left, says to Monique.
“Hello, Jim,” Odessa says. “Janelle is ready for you in room three.”
Wavonne and I watch the man head toward the referenced treatment room and exchange knowing looks with each other as it becomes clear what is going on here.
“I don’t know what sort of . . . um . . . business enterprise you really have going here, Odessa . . . with men meeting women in ‘treatment rooms’ well after midnight.” I do the air quote thing with my fingers when saying “treatment rooms.” “But I suspect—”
“Well, I know,” Wavonne says. “Sista girl is runnin’ a whorehouse.”
I shift my eyes to Wavonne in a way that tells her to “shut up” and then move them back to Odessa. “Like I said, I don’t know what you have going on here, and honestly, I really don’t care. But what I do know is that you went back to Monique’s home after the white party. Nathan was telling the truth when he said he saw you driving back to the house on his way to the convention center.”
Odessa neither confirms nor denies my accusation. She just quietly returns my gaze and waits for me to elaborate.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, but Wavonne and I just came from seeing a . . . I guess you’d call it a show . . . and it involved a feathered headdress . . . it was yellow . . . not red, but it made me think of your red dress with all the feathers at the bottom of it. Did I mention last time I was here that I found one of the feathers from your dress in the little den where Monique was shot?”
“No, but what does that have to do with anything? Why wouldn’t you find some feathers that may have fallen off my dress? I was a guest in the house . . . I was at that party for hours.”
“True . . . true . . . but I found this particular feather in a room no one was socializing in during the party. Aside from the TV, there wasn’t much more than a sofa and a couple of chairs in there . . . all of which were covered with coats and wraps. The only reason anyone went into Monique’s den during the party was to either drop off or retrieve their jacket.”
“Okay. So what?”
“I remember you making a grand entrance into Monique’s foyer when you arrived at the party. I remember your beautifully styled hair, and that stunning red dress . . . and the strappy black heels. But you know what I don’t remember, Odessa?” I question. “A coat. Your entrance would have been way less dramatic with one covering that dress.”
“Which means girlfriend had no business being in that little room durin’ the party,” Wavonne says.
“It also means,” I say to Wavonne before fixing my eyes on Odessa, “that she likely came back to the house in that sequined feathered red dress after the party and had words with Monique in the den. Could those words have gotten so heated that they made you want to kill her?”
Odessa’s eyes go wide, and she takes in a long, deep breath. “For goodness’ sake,” she says, and lowers herself down on the stool behind the counter. “You’ve worn me down, Halia,” she adds, looking tired and just sort of over it. “I may as well tell you the truth.”
Chapter 32
“Yes, if you must know, I did go back to Monique’s house after I’d left the party. I wanted to have it out with her,” Odessa says. She looks tired, like the last week has really taken its toll on her. “I thought perhaps I had taken things too far by showing up at her house in a flashy gown, and that maybe this time she was serious about ending our little discounted pricing arrangement.”
“What do you mean, ‘too far’?” I ask.
“It’s hard to explain. Let me give you some backstory,” Odessa responds. “Since Monique and I met in high school and became friends, we’ve had a kind of unspoken agreement.” Odessa looks up at the ceiling. “How should I put this?” she ponders. “Monique was not unattractive, but she was always a big-boned girl who was, shall we say, ‘prettier from a distance.’ I was always, if I do say so myself, better looking than her. It may sound arrogant, but it’s true. We all know that Monique was highly competitive, and she dealt with me being the ‘pretty one’ by defining herself as the ‘glittery, flamboyant one’ . . . the one with the big personality. And it was understood that I was not to compete with her on that level. Of course, we jabbed at each other all the time and had our share of blowouts—we’ve been doing that since high school—but I respected our little pact for decades. That all went south the night of the white party.”
“What made you let it go after so many years?”
“You know what, Halia . . . I’d just sort of had it. The green-eyed monster got the best of me. Monique had arrived at my salon the day before in her own tour bus . . . her own freaking tour bus! Then, at your restaurant, I had to listen to her talk about her Bentley and Nathan’s Tesla . . . and her apartment in New York. Do you know how much apartments in New York cost? She was there with her own personal stylist and her own personal chef. And she only added fuel to the fire when she, once again, threatened to end our business arrangement. But do you know what really pushed me over the edge?”
“What?” Wavonne asks. “Let it out, girl.”
“That damn purse . . . that Fendi Aubusson-Print Chain Shoulder Bag. I’m still on a waiting list for it, and she had it! She had it right there next to me . . . in
her possession. Suddenly, being prettier than her was not enough.” Odessa rearranges herself on the stool, and it’s almost as if I can see her body relaxing . . . like holding on to all this information had tightened her muscles for days, and now that she’s telling her story, the tension is finally starting to dissolve. “I’d had a white dress picked out for the party. It was very nice: form-fitting. . . taffeta . . . floor-length . . . lovely, really, but . . . I don’t know . . . it was ordinary, and the night before at Sweet Tea I was so over ordinary. Unbeknownst to her, as I was sitting right next to Monique while she gobbled up her banana pudding, was surfing the Neiman Marcus and Lord & Taylor websites for the most ostentatious dress I could find. That’s when I came across the red gown—it had everything: a bold color, sequins, feathers . . . any more glitz, and I would have needed to connect it to an extension cord. I went to the mall the next day and bought it.”
“So the dress . . . the dress is what you think you may have taken too far?”
“Yes. I thought that maybe this time she was serious about cutting me off and taking away the discounts she gave me on her products. My entire business model depends on those discounts, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if I didn’t get the whole thing resolved and make sure our arrangement was intact.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I say. “Monique had given you preferred pricing on her products to reward you for carrying her line for years. She had been threatening to end the arrangement for almost as long, although she never did. But this time, you thought she really meant it?”
“That’s mostly true.”
“Mostly?”
“Monique was giving me discounts, but not to reward me for anything. Truth is I blackmailed her for those discounts.”
“Ooh . . . this is gettin’ good now,” Wavonne cackles. “Like some Wendy Williams Hot Topics.”
“I was not completely honest . . . well, honest at all about my knowledge of Monique’s hair situation. With a murder investigation going on, I figured the less I admitted to knowing about anything related to Monique the better, but I knew she was wearing wigs, and I threatened to tell the world about it if she didn’t make a deal with me. Besides, she owed me. We invented the cream she eventually marketed as Sleek, the product that put her on the map, together.”
Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce Page 20