“Well... if it isn’t Prince George’s County’s answer to Miss Marple. What are you doing here, Ms. Watkins?!” Detective Hutchins, who arrived at the inn about an hour ago, says to me. The detective and I have a bit of history—even though I have helped him solve more than one murder case, he still seems to mostly think of me as a busybody who just gets lucky... when I’m not getting in his way. When he got here, a barrage of squad cars and crime scene vans in tow, he offered a few cross words to Mitchell for letting anyone in the room and then instructed all of us to get out of the way and wait in the concierge lounge until further notice. For the last several minutes Russell, Cynthia, Trey, Wavonne, and I... and the lounge attendant, whose name is apparently Jerome, have been sitting in the lounge watching police officers and men and women in white jumpsuits with cameras and masks over their mouths and noses hurry past the door. Some coming, some going, some coming back again. Moments ago, we saw Sherry’s body being wheeled out in a zipped black bag.
“It’s a long story.”
“What’s the short version?” the detective asks.
“I was hired the last minute to be on Mr. Mellinger’s show, Elite Chef, as a guest judge. We were filming here . . . over in the restaurant earlier in the evening. He kindly let Wavonne and I stay overnight as we were supposed to film another segment in the morning. I was in bed about to fall asleep when the shots were fired. Wavonne was watching TV. It must have been about eleven thirty. We hurried out of the room to see what was going on and—”
“There may have been an active shooter in the building and instead of immediately calling the police and barricading yourself in your room, you essentially sprinted into harm’s way? That seemed like the smart thing to do?”
“Well, when you put it that way, not so much.” I feel like I’m six years old and Momma just caught me writing on the wall with a permanent marker. “But I didn’t think the noise came from gunshots. This place is so... so...”
“Bougie,” Wavonne says.
“It’s just not the kind of place that makes gun violence come to mind when loud popping noises go off. But, you’re right, we should have stayed put and called the police.”
“What’s done is done at this point, I guess,” the detective says. “Did you see or hear anything unusual before the shots were fired?”
“No, not a thing.”
“You didn’t hear any commotion or Ms. Ashbury scream . . . anything like that?”
“No, it was perfectly quiet and then boom... two booms actually... just a second or two apart.”
“What happened when you left your room?”
“Trey said the shots came from Sherry’s room. He had just stepped into the hall when I opened the door to our room. We joined him and the others outside Sherry’s door.”
“The others?”
“Cynthia and Jerome, the bartender or attendant or whatever, were there.... They were in here when Sherry was killed and scurried down the hall just ahead of me and Wavonne. And Mitchell... he passed by our room and ran ahead of us as well. Russell showed up a few minutes later.”
“How many minutes?”
“I don’t know... two or three maybe.”
“Mitchell told me that you and Mr. McIntyre”—Detective Hutchins looks in Trey’s direction—“entered the room before we got here.”
“Um . . . yes.”
“Because?”
I refrain from saying that I wanted to get a firsthand look at the crime scene and search for clues. Instead I offer, “I guess curiosity got the best of me.” I rock back and forth on my feet nervously. I know my questions and comments will annoy him, but I decide to go ahead with them anyway. “The brief time I was in there I saw her eyes were shut. I thought people’s eyes typically opened when they died.”
“Not always,” he says. “Often if people die in their sleep their eyes remain shut.”
“Yeah... I figured that meant she was asleep when she died. She had wounds to the chest and stomach, right? You saw the sliding glass door was ajar, right? The killer must’ve entered from there, don’t you think?”
“We are not doing this, Ms. Watkins.”
Wavonne laughs. “Not doin’ this?” She’s still laughing. “Because you’ve been so successful at keepin’ Halia out of your bidness in the past? You know when TV One remakes Bewitched with an all-black cast, Halia is on the short list to play Gladys Kravitz and nose around and nose around and nose around.”
“Who?” the detective asks.
“No one,” I say. “I was just asking a few questions, thinking I might be able to offer some help since I was here when the gun went off and got a firsthand look at the crime scene right after.” I look around the room. “And know a thing or two about everyone in here.”
“My officers and I will be interviewing everyone, but I think I’ve gotten all I need from you.” He hesitates for a moment. “Well, almost everything. That woman sitting down over there”—he nods his head in Vera’s direction—“Ms. Ward. My understanding is that she’s the only one who remained in her room after Sherry was killed. Is that correct?”
“Yes. As far as I know.”
He looks at Vera and then back at me. “Okay. Well . . . thank you. Unless either one of you has anything to add, you’re free to go.”
“Okay . . . but maybe we’ll stick around for a bit and—”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I should rephrase that,” he says. “Please go now.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay and...” I let my voice fade as the look on his face tells me he absolutely minds. “Okay, we’re going.”
I usher Wavonne out of the concierge lounge, annoyed that I won’t be able to hear Cynthia, Russell, Trey, and Vera answer the detective’s questions.
“Let’s pack up our stuff and get out of here. The Willow Oak Inn has sort of lost its luster.”
“Yeah... a dead body will do that to a place,” Wavonne says, and the two of us head down the hall to gather our things and go home.
Chapter 23
“Stop eating the marshmallows,” Momma says to Wavonne. “They go in the cakes. Not in your mouth.”
Momma removed a few of her chocolate butter cakes from the oven a few minutes ago, and Wavonne is helping her finagle some marshmallows into them—you have to poke little holes and insert them after the cakes are baked, or they will just melt into the batter in the oven. Once they get some marshmallows dotted throughout the cakes, Momma will frost them with a milk chocolate icing and dust them with graham cracker crumbs... and voilà, we’ll have a supply of s’more cakes for the dinner service.
“I’m just eatin’ one here and there... makin’ sure they’re fresh,” Wavonne replies, and I must say it’s a nice change of pace to hear someone talking about marshmallows instead of murder. It’s been a day and a half since Sherry was killed, and it’s all anyone—me, Wavonne, Momma, my customers, the people on the news—has been talking about.
“You keep tasting food for freshness, you’re going to burst out of those pants,” Momma says, and looks in my direction. “Wouldn’t kill you to drop a few pounds either, Halia.”
“How did this become about me?” I’m at the other end of the kitchen, organizing some utensils, minding my own business... and now, wondering if it’s time to go back to talking about Sherry’s murder. At least it would move the conversation away from my weight.
“I met this new pharmacist over at the CVS when I was filling one of my prescriptions. He was so nice and handsome . . . and didn’t have a wedding band on.” She says this as if this should somehow answer my question. “Bet he makes well into the six figures... good benefits, too. He’s about your age, but he’s a small fellow . . . almost petite. He might look like a little munchkin next to you. But, if you lose a little weight, it might work.”
“What might work?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“You and him... that’s what might work. Lord knows I could use a family discount at the drugstore. Let’s make
you up an illness so you can go to the doctor and get a prescription for something. Then, when you fill it, and the clerk asks if you have any questions for the pharmacist—”
“I can ask him for some psych meds for my looney mother?”
“She don’t need a prescription, Aunt Celia,” Wavonne offers. “She can just go over there and ask him where they keep the over the counter menopause supplements... like Estro-ven or whatever. Good way to start a conversation as any.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a basic antibiotic or high dose vitamin D... something benign that won’t scare him off.”
“I should take the two of you along... tell him I’m a package deal... that Heckle and Jeckle come with me. That would scare him off.” I hop up from the stool I was sitting on. “I’ve got a few things in the dining room to take care of... one of which is getting away from the two of you.”
Momma and Wavonne laugh. “Oooh... I think Aretha needs a Snickers bar,” Wavonne cackles.
“Maybe we can get her a script for some Paula Abdul–happy pills, so she’s not so testy,”
I roll my eyes at the two of them and exit the kitchen. We just opened for dinner a few minutes ago, so there’s only a handful of people in the restaurant when the kitchen door swings closed behind me. I’m about to say hi to some regulars when I’m sidetracked by a familiar face standing at the hostess station.
“Hey there,” I say to Vera when I reach the counter. “Are you okay?” Throughout most of the competition, at least until the cheese and baking powder mishaps and... well . . . the murder of course, Vera always looked, for lack of a better word, “pleasant.” She smiled a lot and exuded positive energy. She had a face and an aura that made people feel comfortable. But, at the moment, those looks and feels are nowhere to be seen—she looks distraught and frightened.
“No . . . not really.”
“Come over here and have a seat.” I put my hand on her shoulder and lead her to a small booth along the wall. She sits down on one side of the table, and I take a seat on the other. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve been at the police station in Landover all morning. They had me in one of those windowless rooms like you see on the TV crime shows and were asking all sorts of questions. They honestly think I may have shot Sherry.”
“Why?”
“I was the only one who didn’t come out of my room immediately after she was killed. They kept asking me where I was over and over again. And I kept repeating the truth, that I was in the bathtub waiting for an all clear. From the questions they were asking I could tell what they were thinking. They asked me if I owned a gun... if I knew how to shoot a gun... if I had changed clothes or showered after the gunshots went off. They think I snuck into her room and killed her. And, while everyone was hovering around the crime scene, I was ditching the gun and changing clothes and showering to get any gunshot residue off me. I can’t prove I was in my room the whole time, and the police know I had it in for Sherry after her so-called mistakes ruined my entry for the competition. They have no one else with a motive.”
“Aren’t there some security cameras around that would have shown you leaving your room or entering Sherry’s room?”
“I asked the same thing. They said there are cameras in the hallway and lobby and even the concierge lounge . . . and the restaurant, but they have not been installed yet around the pool.”
“Geez... It feels like we’re under surveillance 24/7 these days, but when you really need a camera there isn’t one.”
“You don’t think I killed her, do you?”
“Of course not,” I say, and I guess I mean it. Vera hardly seems the murdering kind, and I know people have killed for more ridiculous reasons, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to risk life in prison to settle a grudge over cheese and baking powder.
“Of course, I was upset that Sherry messed up my entry for the competition, but the idea that I would kill someone over losing a cooking contest is absurd. When they finally let me go, with instructions to not leave town without permission, I sat in the car and started Googling everyone at the hotel—I wanted to see if anyone else might have a beef with Sherry. I came across some information about you solving some previous murders. I’m hoping you might be willing to look into this one. I’m afraid if they don’t line up another suspect, it’s only a matter of time before they arrest me.”
“Oh sweetie, I don’t know. I’m not sure there is much I can do, and Detective Hutchins gets a little irritable when I start poking around in his cases.” I see Vera’s face, which I didn’t think could go any lower, drop even more, so I try to soothe her. “They can’t pin a murder on you that you didn’t commit. Clearly, they don’t have enough evidence to charge you with anything, or they wouldn’t have let you go.”
“I guess,” she agrees, but she’s still clearly troubled.
“They must be looking for other suspects,” I reassure. “You said you were poking around online about some of the others at the inn. Did you find anything interesting?”
“No... nothing that made me think anyone would want Sherry dead.”
“Sherry had good relationships with everyone on the show as far as you know?”
“Yeah... possibly one very good relationship.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There was some gossip going around that Sherry had a thing going with Russell.”
“Really? He’s a good forty years older than her.”
“And a few million dollars richer than her if you want to talk numbers. She wouldn’t be the first young woman to go after a rich older man.”
“True.”
“I never really saw anything, but there was talk... talk that someone saw them canoodling in the pantry... that someone saw him stroking her hair or patting her behind when he thought no one was looking. It was just rumor mill stuff.”
“It wasn’t just rumor mill stuff. Of course, Russell and Sherry were doin’ it,” Wavonne says, suddenly appearing at the table.
“Where did you come from? And how do you know?”
“I was gettin’ some tea, and I saw you with Vera, so I came over to say hey. And I know because there was just a certain way they were lookin’ at each other all day at the museum . . . or not lookin’ at each other. They were both starin’ at one another a lot throughout the day, but if their eyes actually met they would immediately look away—they didn’t want anyone to catch them makin’ eye contact. He also smelled of her perfume when he sat down next to us at the judgin’ table. Not to mention he had a couple strands of long brown hair on his suit jacket . . . way longer than Cynthia’s hair.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, annoyed that I, amateur sleuth that I am, didn’t notice all the things she mentioned.
“Tell you what? That some hot young thang was bangin’ some old troll for his money? It’s not like that’s anything new or interestin’. Besides, I thought it was obvious. You want me to also tell you the next time the sky’s blue or the pope’s Catholic? You do know there are seven days in a week, right?”
“All right, all right,” I say. “If Russell and Sherry were having a fling, that opens a whole world of motives. The affair could have gone south and been a motive for Russell to kill Sherry. Cynthia could also have found out about the two of them, which would have given her a motive, too. And, if you think about it, as long as we’re throwing out hypotheticals, even Trey could’ve done it just to eliminate his final competitor. He and Cynthia had the same opportunity you did,” I say to Vera. “All of our rooms were on the same side of the inn—we all had doors leading to the pool area. Both of them could have exited from their patios, entered Sherry’s room from her outside door, and killed her. If they were fast enough, they both would have had time to shoot her, run back to their rooms, and act like they’d been there all along.”
“But Cynthia wasn’t in her room, right?” Vera says. “She was in the lounge when the shots were fired, and the police said there was a camera i
n there. They would know if she was lying.”
“Hmmm... I guess you’re right,” I agree. “And then, of course, there’s Russell. Do you know where he was when Sherry was shot? He didn’t appear in plain sight for several minutes after the gun was fired.”
“I don’t, but I’m sure he had to tell the police. He’s a rich, powerful guy, but I think the police would have taken him in if he hadn’t been able to account for himself, don’t you?”
“I would hope so,” I say. “Well, you’ve given me a few things to think about,” I add, and realize the inevitable is happening—I’m dipping my toes into this investigation.
“Does this mean you’ll help me?”
“Yes... a little at least. I think we need to find out for sure if anything was going on between Russell and Sherry . . . and what Trey and Russell were doing when Sherry was killed.”
“I already told you that Russell and Sherry were gettin’ busy.”
“I know, Wavonne, but it is possible that there are other explanations for him smelling like her perfume and having strands of hair on his person.” I turn back to Vera. “Is there anything else... anything else you’re aware of... any thoughts or ideas that might be helpful?”
“I guess I have more of a question than a thought or idea.” Vera shifts around in her chair. “The cops said I was the only one who didn’t emerge from my room right after the gunshots, but it just occurred to me that when I did finally come out and went to the concierge lounge like the detective told me, I didn’t see Twyla. Where was she?”
“She wasn’t there. She didn’t have a room at the inn. She said she had something to take care of at Dauphine, so she didn’t stay over.”
“Really? You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“Why?”
“I saw Twyla milling about by the pool about forty-five minutes or so before the shots went off. I figured she was just cutting across the courtyard from the lobby to her room. But you’re saying she didn’t have a room?”
“No... I mean yes, she didn’t have a room. I actually saw her drive off after we finished filming. You can’t miss her in that big white Cadillac.”
Murder with Honey Ham Biscuits Page 13
