“Halia Watkins and this is my mother, Celia.”
“You own a restaurant, you say?”
“Yes. Sweet Tea.”
“I think I’ve heard of that. I don’t really eat out. I’m on a tight budget.”
“You’ll have to come as my guest sometime,” I say. “And you can sample some of my cooking right now.”
She eyes us for a moment longer, her head bent upward and twisted a bit to the left. Then she opens the door all the way and gestures for us to come in. We step past her, and she closes the door behind us.
“Please. Have a seat.”
Momma sets the food on the coffee table, and we sit down on a well-kept, but dated sofa and take in the surroundings. The inside of Mrs. Whitlock’s home is exactly as you would expect—it’s very “grandma’s house.” There’s old wallpaper on the walls, wood floors that could use refinishing, two high-back chairs across from the sofa, and a CRT television in the corner . . . you know, the ones Goodwill and the Salvation Army won’t take anymore as even poor people want flat screens.
We look at her family photos and bric-a-brac displayed on the table next to us as she makes her way to one of the chairs. She moves slowly, but without assistance from the walker I see by the window—she must only use that when she leaves the house.
She gradually lowers herself in a chair across from us.
“Thank you again for inviting us in.”
“You’re welcome. What is it you think I can help you with?”
“We wanted to talk to you about Marcus—”
Momma cuts me off. “No need to get into that just yet. Why don’t we have some of this lovely food?”
“Let me get some plates,” Mrs. Whitlock says.
“Why don’t you let me do that?” I ask, getting up from the sofa. I can see the kitchen to my right and head in that direction. “You just tell me where to look for plates and silverware.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Momma says and follows me.
“Dishes are in the cabinet to the left of the sink, and the silverware is in the top drawer by the oven.”
“What were you thinking? Just diving in to asking her about Marcus? If you’re going to stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong and get us caught up in this mess, at least do it right,” Momma whispers to me as I reach for the plates, and she gets some knives and forks from the drawer.
My first instinct is to protest and defend myself. I guess because that’s what I’m so used to doing with Momma, but when I take a moment to think about it, I realize she’s right. The cops didn’t get any useful information from Mrs. Whitlock, and if we start questioning her immediately, we probably won’t, either.
“You’re right. We should—”
“What? What did you just say?”
“I said you’re right, Momma.”
“Well, write this day down in the record books, Saint Peter. Mahalia Watkins just told her momma she was right.”
“Right about what?” Mrs. Whitlock asks when we come in the living room. Momma was so flustered by my words she forgot to speak in a whisper.
“She was right about us digging into this food,” I say, set the plates on the coffee table, and lift the foil from the tray of fried chicken. “What can I get for you, Mrs. Whitlock? White or dark meat?”
“I think I’d like a breast.”
I lift a breast from the tray and spoon some coleslaw and macaroni and cheese on the plate and hand it to her.
“Thank you, dear,” she says. “I have a pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator, and some glasses are in the cabinet above the dishwasher.”
“I’ll be right back,” I say and return to the kitchen. By the time I get back in the living room with three glasses of ice and a pitcher of iced tea, Momma and Mrs. Whitlock are talking like old friends. I might have been wrong about questioning Mrs. Whitlock too soon, but I was right about bringing Momma along.
“Halia’s been cooking since she was a little girl,” Momma says as I pour three glasses of tea and fix a plate of food for myself.
“Is that right?”
“Yes. I used to help my grandmother prepare big Sunday dinners.”
“Sunday dinners after church,” Mrs. Whitlock says. “Now, there’s a tradition worth keeping. Families don’t stick together like they used to . . . or go to church like they used to. When I was a girl, church was a big deal. They didn’t let us into the fine restaurants back in the day, not that we could afford them if they did. So church was the only place for us to get all gussied up for. If you bought a new dress or a new hat, you just couldn’t wait for Sunday to roll around so you had somewhere to wear it. My mother loved hats. She had some the size of a large pizza. I still have some of them upstairs in the closet. I even pull out one or two of them and wear them to church myself every now and then.”
“Where do you go to church?” Momma asks.
“First Christian Methodist.”
“Is it close by?”
“No, but volunteers pick up old people like me and take us to service. They have volunteers for everything—they teach Sunday school, and clean the church . . . some even came to spruce up my house months ago. That’s how I met that Marcus fellow.”
“Really?”
“He came here . . . oh . . . almost a year ago with a group of other volunteers from the church. They did some cleanup in my yard . . . painted the trim . . . things like that. I invited the group in for some refreshments. That Marcus fellow, he was very chatty . . . seemed so nice. He even stayed after the others left and helped me wash dishes and put them away. I guess, at some point during the evening, I mentioned I had a lot of medical bills. You know, Medicare only covers so much. Well, then this Marcus fellow starts telling me about this program. . . this mortgage program. My house . . . you see, my house has been paid off for years. My husband, God rest his soul, and I barely paid thirty thousand dollars for it back in seventy-one.”
I nod and think about how that amount barely covers the cost of my van outside.
“But I’ve been sick, and I’ve had four surgeries . . . a hip replacement and both knees . . . and a disc . . . a disc in my back. And the medical bills . . . oh Lord . . . the medical bills. They just kept coming in and coming in. And this house is nearly as old as I am. Just like me, it requires a lot of upkeep and repairs. The furnace went a few months ago. You can’t replace furnaces on Social Security.”
I swallow hard as I listen to her. Her story must be the story of so many elderly people.
“So, Marcus . . . you see, Marcus told me about his program. He said I could take a new mortgage out on the house. Then I could use some of the money to pay off my bills and the rest to invest in the program that was supposed to help me make the mortgage payments and pay the bank back in no time.”
“The Reverie Homes program.”
“Yes . . . yes, that’s what it was called. Marcus picked me up and took me to a seminar about it. It was at some fancy hotel in the city. People there said how the program had worked so well for them . . . and that Marcus . . . he seemed like such a nice young man . . . a churchgoing man.”
“So you took out a mortgage and bought into the program.”
“Yes.”
“But it didn’t help you with the mortgage payments?”
“It did. At first. I got checks just as I was promised for the first few months, but then they stopped coming, and I started getting letters and phone calls from the mortgage company. I don’t even answer the phone anymore.”
“When was the last time you made a payment?”
“It’s been months. I’m not sure how much longer it will be before they foreclose on me. I’ve been in this house for forty years. I raised my kids in this house. My husband died in the bedroom upstairs.” She says this in a way typical of women of her generation. She doesn’t cry, but you know she wants to. She’s been raised to be strong, and strong she will be.
“I wish there was something we could do.” I look at her—a proud wo
men in her golden years wondering how much longer she is going to be able to keep a roof over her head. I begin to think that if Marcus weren’t dead, I might have killed him myself. I also think about Charles, the ringleader of this charade, and how he and his wife are living the high life while Mrs. Whitlock may end up homeless. If Charles is willing to hustle old ladies for the sake of the almighty dollar, then it’s not such a stretch to think that he might have knocked off Marcus if he thought Marcus was a threat to his income.
“Thank you, but I’m not sure what anyone can do at this point. And I’m not really sure there is much else I can tell you that would be of any help to your investigation.”
“That’s okay. We won’t bother you with any more questions,” I say.
We chat some more and enjoy the food before I get up from the sofa. “Can we help you clean up?”
“You’re leaving already? Stay and have a slice of pie. I have some in the refrigerator.”
“Yeah. Stay and have a slice of pie,” Momma says, and gestures for me to sit down. “She’s always in such a hurry.”
“Of course,” I say. “Let me get the pie.”
“It’s lemon meringue. It’s on the bottom shelf. It’s from the grocery store, so I’m sure it’s not as good as the pies you make at your restaurant, but it’s not bad.”
“Actually, Momma makes the pies at Sweet Tea.” I head toward the kitchen again and keep an ear out for their conversation as I slice the pie and put it on plates. I thought Momma might ask some more questions about Marcus, but no such luck.
“Can you believe she’s over forty and still doesn’t have a man?”
“No? A girl who can cook like she does?”
“I know, right. That church you mentioned . . . you don’t know of any single men there for her, do you?”
CHAPTER 41
“Sweet Tea. How may I help you?” I say into the phone. I’ve only been back from Mrs. Whitlock’s for a few minutes and was reviewing our reservations for the evening when the phone rang.
“Hello. I was there last night with my husband, and I think he left his jacket on the back of the chair.”
“I’m happy to check for you.” I walk with the portable phone toward the break room. We have a locker in there that we use for a makeshift lost and found. “What does it look like?”
“It’s a gray fleece jacket. It’s not much to look at, but my husband likes it.”
“Yes, it’s here. We’ll hold it for you. May I ask your name?”
“Pamela. Pamela Pritchett.”
“Oh yes. Hi, Pamela. It’s Halia,” I say. “I’m so glad you came to the restaurant. I hope you had a nice evening.” I try to hide my disdain for the woman.
“We did. Thank you.”
“You know,” I say, an idea coming to me. “I have an appointment downtown later today. Didn’t you say you lived in D.C.? I might be able to drop the jacket off if you’d like.”
“We’re on Capitol Hill. Not far from Eastern Market. Will you be in this neighborhood?”
“I won’t be far from there,” I lie, but then I don’t have an appointment in the city at all so what does it matter? I just think I might be able to have a more productive conversation with Pamela in her own home away from the noise and prying ears at Sweet Tea. “I’d be happy to swing by. It will save you a trip.”
Pamela proceeds to give me the address, and I hang up the phone and grab my purse. We just started our midday closure. If I leave now, I might be able to be back before we reopen for dinner at five.
As I leave the break room, for no real reason other than curiosity, I unzip one of the pockets of Charles’s jacket and feel around inside. I don’t find anything in the first pocket, but when I reach in the second, I feel something and pull it out. It’s a glossy book of matches with the words ODYSSEY LOUNGE printed on the cover in raised letters. When I flip the package over, I see an address in Cheverly printed on the back, but there’s no phone number.
I pull my one foot that was out of the break room door back inside, drop the jacket and my purse on the table, and walk over to my desk and sit down. I type Odyssey-Lounge-Cheverly into Google. I get some results in other areas of the country, but nothing comes up in Cheverly. Since I’ll pass through Cheverly on my way to Capitol Hill, I decide to swing by this Odyssey Lounge before heading to the Pritchetts’ house to return the jacket.
I poke my head in the kitchen and tell Laura I’ll be back in a couple of hours and make my way out to my van. Traffic is light on the Southeast Freeway, so it doesn’t take me long to reach the exit for Cheverly. With the help of my navigation system, I make a few turns after I get off the highway and find that the address on the back of the matchbook belongs to a run-down auto repair shop in a pretty sketchy-looking neighborhood. The sign on the building looks like it used to say Radcliff’s Garage, but the d and one of the fs are missing.
I look at the address on the book of matches again just to make sure I have the right place, and it appears that I do. I’d consider popping inside and asking someone if they had any information, but this repair shop looks like it’s long been out of business. There’s not a single car in the parking lot, so I decide to drive on.
I get back on the highway toward the city, and it’s not long before I am maneuvering through the quaint tree-lined streets of the Capitol Hill neighborhood of D.C. When I pull up in front of the Pritchetts’ house, I see a sizable three-story brick row house—not huge by suburban standards, but considering it’s in a highly sought-after D.C. neighborhood near the Capitol Building, it could be, depending on the condition of the inside, worth well over a million dollars.
“Hello. This is so nice of you,” Pamela says. She must have seen me pull up because she’s already opened the door, and I’m not even up the front steps yet.
“No problem. I was in the neighborhood anyway.” I hand her the jacket.
“Thanks again,” she says. “I really appreciate you saving me a trip to come pick it up. But I do hope to come back to Sweet Tea sometime soon. We really enjoyed the food.”
“I hope so, too.”
She smiles at me and starts to back into the house as if she’s trying to wrap things up and send me on my way—well, I’m having none of that.
“Such a nice home. I’d love to see the inside.” I’d generally never be so forward, but I didn’t drive all the way to Capitol Hill to drop off a jacket. I’m here seeking information, and I’m not leaving until I get some.
“Um . . .” She stumbles for a moment. “Please . . . come in.” She steps farther back inside and opens the door nice and wide.
“Don’t mind if I do.” I walk through the door she’s holding open onto sparkling marble floors lit from above by a mammoth crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling—yes, well over a million dollars.
“I only have a few moments, but why don’t we take a seat in the parlor.”
I follow her to the adjoining room and realize that “parlor” is just a fancy word for living room.
“Please. Have a seat.” She’s polite, but I sense that she’s not thrilled about having to associate with someone she probably considers to be the help.
“Would you like something to drink? I can ask Roberta to prepare some tea.”
“No. Thank you,” I say. “Honestly, Pamela, I just wanted a few moments of your time, so we could chat.”
Pamela audibly sighs. “Is this about Marcus Rand? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Have you? Really?”
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Now I really do have some things that require my attention. If there’s nothing else . . . I do appreciate you dropping off the jacket.”
I don’t know what to say, and I have no idea if this Odyssey Lounge has anything to do with Marcus but, on a whim, I decide to throw it out there and see what happens. “I know all about the Odyssey Lounge, Pamela.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open. “That’s my husband’s endeavor. I have nothing to do with it
.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. You seem too classy to be involved in something like that.” I have no idea what I’m talking about, but it seems prudent to play off her reaction.
“Of course I am,” she says, lifting her head slightly higher. “I wish he’d never gotten involved in such a thing—nearly naked women dancing around for men in abandoned buildings turned into makeshift nightclubs. It’s disgusting.”
I try not to show my surprise as she reveals what the Odyssey Lounge is. It shouldn’t surprise me. Charles was already involved in one sleazy business—why not two?
“Are you planning to tell anyone about this?”
“I’m not sure,” I respond. “Perhaps if you tell me the truth about what you know about Marcus’s death, I won’t need to.”
“Charles has told you . . . I’ve told you . . . my husband had nothing to do with Marcus’s murder.”
“Maybe not, but I suspect he did not come straight home after leaving Sweet Tea the night Marcus was killed. Perhaps he went to the Radcliff’s Garage to check on things at his go-go club.”
Pamela diverts her eyes from me.
“Did you not tell the police because the club is illegal?” I ask.
“It’s not exactly illegal. Charles manages to keep the club going through some sort of loophole in the county ordinances, but the police and civic groups are still always looking for ways to shut it down. Charles manages to stay one step ahead of them, though. For now, it’s the Odyssey Lounge at Radcliff’s Garage in Cheverly. In a few weeks the name will change, and it may move to an abandoned strip mall in District Heights or a shuttered restaurant in Hillcrest.”
“If it’s lawful, then why did you lie about where Charles was?”
“Halia, I’m a woman of certain standing in the community. We tell everyone that Charles works in finance. What would the neighbors think if they knew my husband was running a barely legal strip bar that moves from location to location like a traveling circus? If the ladies at the country club found out about it, I’d just die. How could I ever look any one of them in the eye again?”
“Um . . . I don’t know,” I say, unsure how to respond. I’m almost sad for her. She has this beautiful home, fabulous clothes, and apparently someone named Roberta to do her bidding, but it all has been obtained through businesses that may or may not be operating within the law. I want to ask her if it’s worth it—if all the wealth and privilege is worth the look of shame I see on her face, but, instead, I decide I’d rather just relieve myself of her company.
Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery) Page 21