Wavonne stares at me waiting for me to answer my own question.
“Another drag queen.” I hand the flyer to her. “Look. It says the club manager is meeting with amateur drag queens who want to enter the Ladies of Illusions contest tomorrow afternoon. What if we went down there—”
“So what are you getting at, Halia. Are you going to go down there as a woman, dressed like a man, dressed like a woman to try and question Maurice’s friends?”
“No.” I straighten myself in the chair and lock eyes with Wavonne. “I’m not going to go down there dressed like a man dressed like a woman, but . . .”
“So what’s your plan then?” she asks.
I don’t answer her immediately, but it doesn’t take her long to detect the wicked twinkle in my eyes. And once she does, her response is swift and resolute. But by the time I hear the words “Oh HAIL no!” come out of her mouth, I’ve already figured out how I’m going to convince her to do it.
Chapter 35
“Ican’t believe you made me do this,” Wavonne says as she totters along on heels that are obscenely high even by her standards.
“I didn’t make you do anything. You agreed,” I correct.
While I could have, I didn’t want to tell Wavonne that half of what she has in her closet would pass for drag queen wear without any alterations, so, in an effort to make it look more drag-queenish, Wavonne and I spent much of last night glue-gunning little sparkly plastic gems from the crafts store all over one of my old prom dresses. She’s wearing our creation as we speak. She’s a bit thicker around the middle than I was in high school, so we couldn’t get the back of the gown fully zipped, which is why she’s also wearing a velvet cape we dug out of a box of Halloween costumes to cover the back of the dress . . . we glue-gunned that sucker with plastic gems, too. And leave it to Wavonne to have a pair of six-inch metallic gold platform shoes in her closet—she’s teetering on those babies at this very moment as we walk from the car toward Enigma.
“Only because I thought I might get some boss wigs out of the deal.”
“And maybe you will. If it turns out that Maurice killed Monique, and Nathan gets off, I’m sure he’ll let you have whatever wigs you want when I tell him the role you played in solving the case,” I say, reminding her of the bargaining chip I used when I got her to agree to this little stunt. “Besides, you didn’t seem to have a problem pretending to be a drag queen the last time we were here.”
“That was me havin’ a lil fun,” Wavonne replies when we reach the club. It’s closed as it’s only three thirty in the afternoon, but the door is unlocked, so we let ourselves in. “And it was dark . . . and everyone in here was drunk as a skunk. It’s goin’ to be much harder to pass as a drag queen to a sober manager in the middle of day with all these lights on.” Wavonne looks up at the light fixtures that are going at full blast at the moment. “So that’s why I really teased this wig up good and laid my makeup on real heavy.”
I refrain from telling her that I hadn’t noticed she had done either any more than usual. Instead, I just say, “It’s amazing how much different the place looks when the only sources of light are not sparkling disco balls.”
“May I help you?” asks a short bald man with a lit cigarette in his hand. He looks to be about sixty, but he’s one of those people whom you sense is younger than he looks . . . like he’s lived hard, and it’s showing on his face.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Halia. It may have been you I spoke with on the phone earlier . . . about the amateur drag contest this Saturday night.”
“Yeah, it was me. I’m Lou . . . Lou Hodge,” he responds in a raspy voice, switching the cigarette to his left hand, so he can shake mine with his right. “I’m the manager.” He takes a drag on his cigarette.
“Isn’t it illegal to smoke in here?” I ask.
“Who ya going to tell,” he replies, more of a statement than a question. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asks Wavonne.
“Bubbles Champagne,” she says in a deep voice, and extends her hand for Lou to kiss.
“Hmph,” he says, ignoring her extended hand, stepping back, and taking a look at her. “So what have we got here?” He walks a circle around Wavonne like Maurice did when she and I were trying on clothes at Nordstrom. “Not diggin’ the dress—looks like Hobby Lobby meets low-budget bridesmaid’s dress.” Another puff on the cigarette. “The cape’s not so bad. You should have left it alone though . . . the plastic gems make it look like a grade-school art project.”
“This is only one of my costumes. I have others.”
“Sweetheart,” he says. “I have to be honest. I don’t think you’re a good fit for Enigma.” He inhales the cigarette again, turns his head away from us to exhale the smoke, and then swings it back around and looks at Wavonne. “The wig is okay and clearly you know how to beat a mug, but—”
“Beat a mug?” I ask.
“Her face . . . her makeup . . . it’s not bad,” he replies to me before looking back at Wavonne. “But the boobs . . . they’re a bit ridiculous . . . you’re trying too hard there. Whatcha got in there . . . sacks of birdseed?”
“Excuse me?!” Wavonne asks. I can see she’s starting to get riled up. First he pans the dress we spent several hours decorating last night, and now he’s insulting her breasts, which are all hers . . . no chicken cutlets, no falsies . . . no bags of birdseed.
“They’re just too much.” He lifts the side of Wavonne’s cape and holds it up like he’s pulling back a curtain to a bay window, and, from his facial expression, you can tell he does not care for the view. “It may be an amateur drag contest, but it’s a big deal . . . and Enigma is for serious drag queens . . . true Ladies of Illusion.” He lets the cape go, and it falls back in place against Wavonne’s dress. “Your drag . . . with the teased wig and makeshift gown . . . and the overstuffed bazoombas . . . it’s more comical . . . even cartoonish. Maybe you can try for a waitressing job at one of those touristy drag brunch places.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, before Wavonne can respond. I lightly rub her arm up and down, trying to soothe her and keep her from going all Naomi Campbell and throwing a phone at Lou. “That’s great feedback . . . great feedback.”
“Great feedback my ass!” Wavonne dramatically tilts her head to one side and unfastens an earring. “You best take back what you said about my—”
“Just chill, Wavonne . . . um I mean, Bubbles.” I grab her by the elbow and pull her a few feet away from Lou. “Calm down,” I say quietly. “Remember the real reason we are here. Now take a breath.”
Wavonne takes in a long inhale.
“Let it out . . . slowly . . . slowly.”
Wavonne does like I tell her, and we repeat this exercise a few more times until I think it’s safe for her to be near Lou again.
“Now, come on. Help me out here . . . play along,” I say as we move closer to him.
“Bubbles can be a little sensitive to criticism, but we really do appreciate your candor, and your taking the time to meet with us,” I say to him. “We were here the other night and saw Brightina Glow. She was wonderful. That’s who Bubbles ultimately wants to be like. Right, Bubbles?”
“Yeah, I so want to be just like Glowtina Bright,” Wavonne mumbles with an utter lack of enthusiasm, clearly still harping on Lou’s earlier comments.
“Brightina Glow,” I correct, and direct my attention back to Lou. “We were talking on the way over here about how fabulous she looked and how long it probably takes her to get ready for a show. Does the performer who portrays Brightina usually get ready here or does he arrive at the club all ready to perform?”
“He gets ready here . . . they all get ready here. We have a communal dressing room backstage.”
“Really?” I say. “The reason I ask is I can almost swear I saw Brightina coming into the club . . . not this past Saturday, but the Saturday before, already in full dress,” I lie, seeing if Lou bites.
“Huh,” Lou says, lighting another cigarette
. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I’ve never known him to come to Enigma in costume, but he may have.”
“Do you happen to remember what he wore for his performance that night . . . about a week and a half ago? It wasn’t, by chance, a dress with red sequins, was it?”
“Oh hell . . . couldn’t tell you what Maurice wore yesterday. I’ve got five performers onstage every Saturday night. It’s all a blur of glitter, and ruffles, and spandex.”
I’d like to say, “Well, you’re no help at all,” but instead I ask, “Are any of the other Ladies of Illusions here at the moment? Maybe Bubbles can get a little advice from them before we go.”
“I don’t need no more advice,” Wavonne says.
“No, not at the moment. But some of them work the crowd between shows, so you can come back after we open and talk with some of them.”
“Okay,” I say. “Then I guess we’ll be going. Have a good day, Mr. Hodge.”
“Said my drag was comical,” Wavonne says as we clear the front door. “What would be comical is me punchin’ him in his fat face.”
“There will be no punching of anyone,” I say. “Let’s just go.”
“Fine, but let me take these things off. They’re killin’ my feet.”
“Very classy, Wavonne,” I say to her as she leans against the building and pulls off a shoe.
As she pries off the other one and unties her cape, I see a sinewy black man approaching the club. He’s holding a garment bag in one hand and a wig box in the other.
“That’s the guy who was getting ready next to Maurice the other night,” I say to Wavonne, who’s now standing next to me a few inches shorter than she was a second ago. “Dominique Deveraux.”
“Excuse me, sir,” I say, approaching him as Wavonne hangs back and starts looking at her phone. I suspect she may be afraid he’ll critique her look like Lou did, so she’s keeping her distance. “You work here, right?”
“I prefer the term ‘perform,’ but yes,” he says. “You two were here the other night . . . asking Maurice all sorts of questions.”
“Yes. That was us,” I say. “My name is Halia.”
“Nice to meet you,” he replies. “Jeffrey.”
I recall Wavonne and I talking about how the other drag queens could have spoken up last time we were here if Maurice had been lying to us about his whereabouts the night Monique was killed. But I figure this gentleman may be willing to talk truthfully with Maurice out of earshot, and decide to ask him a few questions. “I guess you overheard us asking him about Monique Dupree.”
“I did,” he says. “The way you were talking to him . . . it was like you thought he might have actually killed the woman.”
“I was just doing some investigating. I’ve been asking a lot of people close to Monique questions. Maurice was one of many. Besides, it sounds like he has an ironclad alibi.” I look the man in the eye. “He was telling the truth, wasn’t he? He was here . . . at Enigma getting ready for his show from eleven thirty to twelve thirty the night Monique was murdered, right?”
“I think so. I don’t really pay that much attention to his comings and goings.”
“So the Saturday before last, you don’t remember him showing up to the club already clad in a red-sequined dress, do you?” I reach in my purse, grab the drag contest flyer with Brightina’s photo, and show it to Jeffrey. “This dress.”
He lets out a quick laugh.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“The idea of Maurice in that getup . . . that’s what’s funny.” He looks down at the photo with a smirk still on his face. “I can assure you he did not arrive at Enigma in that dress anytime in the recent past.”
“Because?”
“Because his fat ass couldn’t fit in it.” Jeffrey points toward the photo. “Look how much thinner he was in that picture. That photo is from a couple of years, and if I may say, a few too many plates of biscuits and gravy ago.”
“What’s this about biscuits and gravy?” Wavonne asks, looking up from her phone and moving closer to us.
“Nothing,” I say. “But talk of them reminds me that we need to get back to the restaurant.” I turn my attention back to Jeffrey. “Thank you for the information.”
“You’re welcome,” he replies, and gives Wavonne a once-over. “You got potential, kid . . . keep at it,” he adds, and makes his way to the door.
“Come on, Bubbles,” I say to Wavonne. “Let’s go.”
“I think Bubbles is dead,” Wavonne replies as she catches sight of her reflection on the glass side panel of a covered bus stop. In the broad daylight, the dress really does look like what it actually is—an old prom dress with some cheap sparkly titbits glued to it. She stares at herself, flat-footed with her cape in one hand and her shoes in the other . . . and I think one of her false eyelashes has fallen off. “Maybe that Lou guy was right,” she says. “I look like a quinceañera on crack.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t quite say that. It’s not that bad. Maybe you can repurpose it as a Glinda the Good Witch costume for Halloween,” I advise. As we approach the van, I can’t help but think how only Wavonne could get praised as a drag queen when she’s not trying to look like one and ridiculed as a drag queen when she is trying to look like one.
Chapter 36
“Ithink I have to let it go at this point. I’ve got a restaurant to run, and I haven’t found any smoking guns for any of them . . . Odessa, Maurice, Alex. They all have alibis. The only one without a solid alibi is Nathan, and a man like him should be in jail anyway.”
“True dat,” Wavonne says.
She’s sitting at the bar with me halfheartedly marrying ketchup bottles while I figure out the specials for next week and what ingredients we’ll need on hand to make them.
“Good,” Momma says. “Now you can put the moves on that handsome Alex fellow.”
“We saw him the other day, Aunt Celia,” Wavonne says. “He admitted to having a thing for old hens like Halia, so she’s got a shot.”
“Is he going to be at the service tomorrow?”
“It’s not really a service, Momma. I think it’s more of a get-together. We’re just going to swing by and say hello. Maybe it will give me one last chance to find any new leads. As soon as I . . .” I let my voice trail off as I catch sight of the television behind the bar and see a photo of Monique on the screen. I reach for the remote and turn up the volume. A narrator on one of those midmorning tabloid shows is speaking about Monique’s rise from a local Maryland hairdresser to a national hair care products guru as various photos, some going back to her childhood, appear like a slideshow on the screen. Then the broadcast goes back to the show’s host, who further introduces the program.
“Today we’ll explore the salacious details of Monique Dupree’s rise to fame and fortune . . . her years as the reigning Coiffeur Queen . . . and her untimely and scandalous death,” the host says. “We’ll delve into the crushing secret she hid from the world that could have taken down her entire beauty empire and her rumored tumultuous relationship with husband Nathan Tucker, who is currently behind bars awaiting trial for her murder.”
“My God, the woman has not even been dead for two weeks, and they’re already producing this kind of garbage about her?” Momma says.
“Honestly,” I reply. “I’m surprised it took this long.”
“Oh yeah . . . like the two of you ain’t gonna watch every minute of it,” Wavonne says.
“I didn’t say anything about that.” I turn up the volume a bit more, and the three us can’t help but give our full attention to the show. For the most part, it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know already. We hear about her growing up in District Heights and graduating from Suitland High School, a little about her time working at the local HairPair, and how she got her company off the ground with a homemade relaxer called Sleek, eventually parlaying the success of that product into a multimillion-dollar business.
I’m actually starting to get bored when the show moves
on to talk about Nathan. While the host speaks of him, the program shows what appears to be cell phone camera footage of Nathan being cuffed in front of his house while I was there last week. It looks like the video was filmed from inside the window, which makes me think that Lena, Monique’s maid, may have taken it, and sold it to the tabloid show for a few bucks.
“Halia’s on TV!” Wavonne calls out when she catches a glimpse of me in the background watching Nathan being escorted to a police car as the host continues to speak of his gambling debts and the allegations of his abuse toward Monique.
“Eeh,” I moan, hating the way I look on the screen.
“Don’t worry . . . the camera really does add ten pounds,” Wavonne says. “But I got nothin’ when it comes to your hair or your clothes. That’s all on you.”
“I’m always telling her she needs to wear more makeup and pay more attention to her hair,” Momma says to Wavonne as if I’m not in the room.
“Shhh . . . both of you. I’m trying to hear this.”
In addition to the amateurish cell phone video that aired earlier, the television producers have gotten their hands on some of the footage Monique’s camera team had been taking for her infomercials or the documentary she may have had in the works . . . or whatever she was planning to do with all the video clips she was having made while she was still alive. There’s video of her getting her hair—well, her wig—done by Maurice . . . of her showing off her new tour bus . . . of her visiting both Latasha’s and Odessa’s salons. But it’s when they show some footage of Monique hamming it up as the grande dame within Monique’s House of Style at the hair convention that I grab the remote and press rewind and then pause.
Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce Page 23