Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce

by A. L. Herbert

  Alex is visibly shaking at this point. “That’s all speculation. Why would I kill Monique?”

  “Because she dumped you!” Wavonne says. “Odessa said she overheard her telling you that she was ‘done’ . . . that it was ‘over.’ ”

  “She didn’t dump me!” Alex calls. “She wasn’t telling me that we were done . . . or that we were over. She was talking about something else.” He looks directly at me. “You yourself said we were in love. If I loved her the way you said I did, why . . . why would I want to kill her?”

  I see the distress in his eyes, and I can’t help but feel a smidgen of compassion for him.

  “I never said you wanted to kill her, Alex. I only said that you did.” Surrounded by inquisitive eyes, I continue. “Back to the television program I saw earlier today . . . it included video from the hair convention . . . from Monique’s House of Style. You’re in that footage talking in Spanish to one of the maintenance workers the day of Monique’s big reception. As the camera zoomed out, I recognized the worker as the same gentleman who was supposedly having a drink with you at the time Monique was killed—your alibi. Funny, how he was also someone who could make the sprinkler system ‘accidentally’ go off in the ballroom used to showcase Monique’s product line.”

  “What does the sprinkler system at the convention center have to do with Monique being murdered?” Maurice asks.

  “Alex wanted Monique out of the house and out of harm’s way. He wrongfully assumed that she would be the one to go and check on the damage and salvage whatever was left of her displays for the conference in the morning.”

  “What are you getting at?” Detective Hutchins asks, trying to make sense of what I’m saying.

  “Monique mentioned that Nathan’s car—his Tesla—was in the shop the weekend that she was killed. My guess is that, not only did Alex assume Monique would be the one to handle the sprinkler system fiasco, but he was thoroughly assured that she had left the house when he saw her Bentley pulling out of the garage . . . even though Nathan—not Monique—was driving it.”

  Alex is now leaning forward in his chair with one foot swiftly twitching. He seems to be scanning the room for a possible getaway.

  “It all became very clear to me when that tasteless TV show digitally altered an image of Monique to show what she would have looked like with short hair . . . an image of her with a closely cropped Afro standing next to her husband, who also has a closely cropped Afro.” I take a breath before I turn to Alex and continue. “So this is how I think it went down: You arranged for the sprinkler system to go off to get Monique out of the house. You saw her car pull out of the driveway and assumed she was out of harm’s way. You then saw the back of an individual with a . . . a . . . what did you call it, Wavonne?”

  “A teeny-weeny Afro. TWA.”

  “Yes. You came back and saw a person with a TWA sitting on the sofa. You assumed that person was Nathan. You raised the gun, aimed, and fired . . . thinking you were putting a bullet in Monique’s husband. Only it wasn’t Nathan. It was—”

  “Monique!” Alex shouts, and hops up from his chair. “It was Monique. I never meant to kill her! I swear. It was supposed to be Nathan. Nathan should be dead. Not Monique.” He quiets himself for a moment as he looks around the room at everyone staring at him. Then he begins speaking again through quick breaths. “Earlier in the evening when she said that ‘it was over,’ that she ‘was done,’ she was telling me that her plan to leave Nathan was over . . . was done. He had threatened to kill her if she left him, and we all know he had purchased a gun, and was regularly practicing his shooting skills at the range. He hit Monique . . . he beat her . . . he’d bought a gun for Christ’s sake. If she stayed, she was in danger. . . if she left, she was in danger . . . she was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. The only way out was for him to die. It was supposed to be quick and easy. Everyone knew Nathan had gotten involved with Rodney Morrissey. Once he was found dead, the cops would’ve assumed that Mr. Morrissey’s goons had done him in. The case would have gone cold when, like always, they couldn’t get enough evidence to arrest Rodney, and Nathan wouldn’t be able to hurt Monique anymore.”

  Alex plops down in his chair. He doesn’t appear to be looking for an exit anymore. The tension that he’s been carrying around for weeks appears to have left his body as he slumps into the chair and stares straight ahead and nowhere at the same time.

  “But it all went very wrong,” I say to him. “When you moved in for a closer look after releasing the trigger and realized what you did, you panicked, dropped the gun in the woods, and left town. The cops may have linked Nathan’s death to his shady gambling habits, but Monique had no such habits. You knew they’d investigate everyone with a connection to Monique. That’s why you left town . . . not because you are in the country illegally. I wanted to kick myself for not figuring that out sooner.”

  “How would you have known?” Wavonne asks me.

  “From the photos he showed me of his recent visit to the DR . . . when he likely purchased the necklace for Monique. If he had been in the US illegally, he never would have risked going back there for a vacation. He wouldn’t have been able to get back in the US.” I turn from Wavonne to Alex. “You’re as legal a citizen as I am, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure he’s much of a legal anything at the moment,” Detective Hutchins says, and pulls his badge from his pocket, lifts the side of his blazer to reveal his gun, and walks over to Alex, who stands up and does not resist as the detective signals for him to turn around and put his hands behind his back. Detective Hutchins cuffs Alex and leads him toward the door. We can faintly hear him reading Alex his rights once they are through the threshold and outside.

  Everyone in the room is silent for a moment or two until Maurice speaks up. “Well, that was a bit of a buzzkill,” he says. “Who would have thought such a pretty man could do such an ugly thing. Not that Nathan didn’t have it coming.”

  “I guess Nathan will go free now,” Odessa says.

  “Maybe,” I say. “But maybe not. I’d like to talk to Maurice about that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think I have an idea.”

  Epilogue

  “That had better not be Sleek,” Wavonne jokes, as Latasha applies the relaxer to her roots.

  Latasha laughs. “It’s not. I don’t even carry Sleek anymore. I stopped ordering it after you two filled me in on the backstory.”

  It’s been over a month since Monique was killed, and Wavonne and I are back where it all started—Illusions, getting our hair done.

  “I wonder what will happen with the whole Hair by Monique line, now that its founder and the face of the product is gone,” I say.

  “My guess is that one of the biggies—L’Oréal, Unilever, Estée Lauder—one of them will snatch it up. I read in some of the trade magazines that Nathan is trying to keep it going and wants to take the company public, but he can’t line up any investors with Monique no longer in the picture,” Latasha replies.

  “With any luck, Nathan won’t be ‘in the picture’ much longer, either,” Wavonne says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if all goes well, he’ll go back to the slammer where he belongs.”

  “For what? I thought Alex had confessed to the murder.”

  “He did,” I interject. “And the cops had to release Nathan. But Maurice and I went to see Detective Hutchins the next day. Maurice told him about the abuse Nathan perpetrated against Monique. He was sympathetic, but said there was little point in pressing any charges given that Monique had never contacted the police about Nathan’s abuse and the fact that she’s no longer alive to testify against him. It wasn’t until after I told him that there might actually be evidence of Nathan’s abuse on video that he referred us to the department’s domestic violence detective and things got rolling.”

  “Might be evidence on video? So was there?”

  “Yes, indeed there was,” I say. “When I
finally determined that Alex killed Monique, I was glad to have the case solved and know that he would be brought to justice, but it bothered me that Nathan would go scot-free after all he’d done to Monique . . . and have the chance to abuse other women. I played the stories of her abuse over and over in my head trying to figure out if anything I heard could provide enough evidence for an arrest. This got me to thinking about something Maurice told me when he had lunch at Sweet Tea. He said that she’d told him that Nathan had gotten a little ‘handsy’ with her in the elevator of their apartment building in New York a few days before the white party. Per Maurice, ‘handsy’ was Monique’s way of downplaying Nathan beating the crap out of her. It occurred to me that there may be surveillance cameras in that elevator, and, sure enough, there are. It took a few days for the detective here to coordinate with the police in New York and get the footage into police custody, but they eventually acquired and reviewed it. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve been told that Nathan was caught on tape hitting Monique in the elevator . . . apparently the scene was pretty gruesome.”

  “I bet the tape is leaked to TMZ before the end of week,” Wavonne says.

  “Probably so,” I respond. “Apparently, whatever was on the video was enough evidence for the New York District Attorney’s office to file charges.”

  “So what happens from here?” Latasha asks.

  “Nathan was arrested and released. He’ll go to trial sometime over the next few months. Between the camera footage and testimony from people who were in the know about the abuse, they are hoping to make third-degree aggravated assault charges stick. If they do, Nathan could go to jail for years.”

  “So Maurice is testifying?”

  “Yes, and Lena, Monique’s housekeeper, has agreed to be involved. She apparently witnessed some of the abuse.”

  “It’s funny how you think someone like Monique has it all,” Latasha says. “Then you find out what’s going on behind closed doors, and you realize that you have no idea what’s going on with anyone.”

  I’m about to agree, when we’re interrupted by an older white woman with curlers in her hair. “Excuse me,” she says from the chair next to me. She’s been very quiet while one of Latasha’s stylists has been cutting her hair and has likely heard every word exchanged between us. “Are you ladies talking about Monique Dupree?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’ve been following that story in the news . . . well, not the news really . . . Access Hollywood.”

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “Yes. And something about the whole thing just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “On TV they said that her lover, that Alex guy, killed her when he was really trying to kill her husband, Nathan something or other . . . that when he saw someone in the house with short hair, he thought it was Nathan and that’s why he pulled the trigger.”

  “Yes. I believe that’s how it went down.”

  “Shouldn’t it have occurred to Alex that the person with short hair could have been Monique? If he had been intimate with her, how would he not know that she was wearing a wig most of the time?”

  “Says the white lady,” Wavonne calls next to me with a laugh. Latasha and I start laughing as well.

  “What?” the woman says. “What’s funny?”

  “I’m sure you don’t know this,” Wavonne replies. “And why would you? But any brotha worth his salt . . . any man that has ever slept with a black woman knows you do not touch a sista’s hair without permission. If you do and live to tell about it, believe me, it’s not a mistake you make twice.”

  “Oh,” the woman says, but still looks perplexed.

  “Let me break it down for you. Sometimes we got complex sit-u-ations goin’ on up here,” Wavonne says, using both index fingers to point to her hair. “Wigs, weaves, tracks, extensions, clip-ons, sew-ins . . . any man with half a clue knows better than to start rummaging around all up in this bidness.”

  “Oh,” the woman says again, but this time it’s in a more “okay, now I get it” sort of way.

  As the woman’s stylist clicks on the dryer and begins to blow out her hair, Latasha finishes applying the relaxer to Wavonne’s head and slides over to start on my cut. It takes about an hour for her to finish up with both of us and lead us to the counter to check out.

  “Were you at all thinkin’ what I was thinkin’ while we were in there?” Wavonne asks after we’ve exited the salon and are walking to the van, so we can run a quick errand before going to Sweet Tea for the day.

  “I don’t know. What were you thinking?” I ask.

  “About how much nicer Odessa’s salon is than Latasha’s. I mean Illusions is okay, but it’s like stayin’ at a Holiday Inn when you know there’s a Ritz-Carlton just up the road.”

  “Salon Soleil is nice, but it also has Ritz-Carlton-like prices. And, call me crazy, but I really don’t want to get my hair cut at a salon that doubles as a brothel. And Latasha’s been a friend for years,” I say. “I don’t see us switching salons anytime soon.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Wavonne replies. “I wonder what will happen to Odessa’s little side business now that Monique is gone. I guess she’ll have to find another sparring partner, too. She and Monique could really go at it.”

  “Those two did have a strange relationship,” I agree as we climb into the van. “One minute they were trading insults, and the next, they were talking like best friends. Very odd.”

  “Yeah, it was weird,” Wavonne agrees, buckling her seat belt. “Your hair looks nice, by the way,” she compliments.

  “Thank you,” I reply as I start the car and the radio comes on. It’s set to a station out of Baltimore that plays a mix of everything . . . oldies, R & B, pop, rock . . . you name it.

  “Listen, Halia,” Wavonne cackles. “They’re playin’ your song.”

  When I realize what song is coming from the speakers, I laugh, and it occurs to me that maybe Odessa and Monique’s relationship wasn’t that strange after all. Their case was a bit extreme, but I guess they are not the only two who go from trading compliments to trading barbs without batting an eye. Then I turn up the radio, back out of the space, and Wavonne and I sing along to Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” as we drive out of the parking lot.