Murder with Honey Ham Biscuits

by A. L. Herbert

  “I’m sure Russell knows everything there is to know about what happens before, during, and after tapings.”

  “You’re probably right.” I look down at the listening device. “So, if this pen was in the room when Sherry was killed, it should have picked up any voices or other sounds that happened just before Sherry was shot, right?”

  “I’ve already listened to it. If there was anything that would actually help the police identify the killer, I swear, I would turn it into them, but there’s nothing useful on it.”

  “Can you play it for me?”

  Trey flips open the laptop on his desk and extends his hand, gesturing for me to return the pen. I give it back to him and he connects one end of a thin cable to the top of the pen and the other to his computer. He does some pointing and clicking with the mouse, an audio file appears on the screen, and he uses the mouse to drag the cursor or whatever to a certain time on the recording.

  “This is about five minutes before she was shot. All you hear is the TV running in the background, and at one point, Sherry sneezes a couple of times.”

  I try to listen carefully, and like he said, I hear the television running in the background. Then, also just like he said, I hear Sherry sneezing. For a few more minutes there is nothing but background TV noise. Then Trey makes a dramatic pointing gesture toward the screen, and that’s when you hear the first gunshot and then the second.

  “And that’s it,” Trey says. “You don’t hear anything after the gunshots until you hear Mitchell calling for Sherry from the hallway.”

  I’m about to ask him to play it again when there’s a knock on the door. “What are you doin’ in there, Halia? I’m startin to think Twyla isn’t the only old maid that’s got a thing for Trey.”

  Trey gets up and opens the door. “Hi, Wavonne.”

  “Hey,” Wavonne says, and looks past Trey at me. “How much longer you gonna be? Angela stopped cryin’ about ten minutes ago, and now she won’t stop talkin’ about what she calls her ‘career.’ If she wasn’t in mournin’ I’d explain to her that ‘scented candle consultant’ is not a career. We need to get outta here before I have to buy some vanilla-scented nonsense. She’s been—”

  “I think I’m about ready to go. Does Angela need a ride back to her hotel?”

  “Nah, she said she’d take an Uber,” Wavonne says. “So, did you find out anything new?”

  I look at Trey and remember my promise to keep his secret if he could convince me he didn’t kill Sherry. Then I look back at Wavonne. “Sadly, no.”

  “Well, let’s go then,” Wavonne says. “I’m supposed to meet Marvin at Oyamel for Hora Feliz in an hour... two-dollar tacos and free chips and salsa.”

  “Okay.” I turn back to Trey. “But one more thing. Twyla?”

  “What about her?”

  “Her sneaking in your room via the patio door is all over the Internet. Why didn’t you mention that to me the last time I came around asking questions?”

  “Twyla told me earlier that night that she was going to come by my room after the competition. She said she had some intel she wanted to share with me that might help me win this thing. I have no idea why she used the patio door instead of coming through the hallway. But, when she got here, all she did was give me a few recipes for some of the tired dishes she serves at her restaurant. I wasn’t interested in them, but I thanked her for them anyway, and then I hinted for her to leave. But she just kept lingering, making small talk. Eventually, I told her that I needed to go to bed, and that she should go. She finally left about fifteen minutes before the gunshots went off.”

  “I appreciate the backstory, but that doesn’t really answer my question about why you didn’t share anything about her visit with me earlier.”

  “I had let her paw me all day. I figured it was harmless enough and that letting her flirt with me might help with any judging she was going to do. But I didn’t want anyone to know she was in my hotel room. I had a... a one-night thing with a forty-something woman I met at a club a few years ago. To this day, my friends still call me Giggo... short for Gigolo. And they ask me, ‘How’s Maude?’ ‘Are you going to bed Maude again?’ ‘Don’t you have to go pick Maude up from her hip replacement?’ Her name wasn’t even Maude. That was just the best old lady name they could come up with. Twyla has to be sixty-something. If I’ve yet to live down a hookup with some forty-year-old lady, I can’t imagine the repercussions of people thinking I was getting it on with Twyla. No offense.”

  “Why are you looking at me when you say, ‘no offense’?” I ask, slightly horrified. “Twyla’s got almost twenty years on me.”

  “Oh . . . no reason.” Trey stumbles for words. “Some women... no matter how old... or young... don’t like it when guys talk about age.”

  “Nice try,” Wavonne says to Trey before turning to me. “Come on, Maude. Let’s go before all the tacos are gone.”

  Chapter 34

  “So, nothing from Trey? Really?” Wavonne asks as we head down the hall toward the lobby.

  “Not exactly. But I agreed to keep what he told me quiet.”

  “Not from me though, right?”

  I laugh. “He mostly just wants me to keep it from the police, I guess. I’ll fill you in, but the short of it is I don’t think Trey is our killer.” I’m about to tell Wavonne about the listening device when I see the back of a police officer in the lobby. “Jack?”

  “Halia,” Jack says with a smile. “Why do you always seem to appear when there’s trouble? What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “I’m here with Hutchins. He’s in the back office talking with Russell and Cynthia.”

  “Really? Has there been a new development?”

  “You might say that.” Jack looks around before he says anything further. “The pool guys found a gun under one of the lounge chair cushions—it was a match for the gun used to kill Ms. Ashbury.”

  “Really?”

  “And that’s not all.” Jack lowers his voice even more. “It’s registered to Cynthia and we found some prints on it.”

  “Cynthia’s?”

  “Russell’s.”

  “Wow. That would be some pretty damning evidence if Russell didn’t have a solid alibi at the time of the shooting.”

  Jack is about to respond when Cynthia emerges from the back office with Detective Hutchins. I see Russell still in the back room on his phone.

  “Yes,” I hear Cynthia say. “Russell put the gun in the desk drawer by the sofa. I wasn’t sure, but I figured we would not be able to take it into the museum the next day, so I asked him to put it away. That was the last time I saw it.”

  “And no one other than the two of you knew where it was?”

  “I suppose one of the maids could have opened the drawer....” Cynthia lets her voice trail off. “Wait a minute. You know what? Vera and Twyla were in line with us at museum Security, and I remember saying something to Russell about how it was a good thing we put the gun in the desk as we clearly would not have been able to enter the museum with it.”

  “Did they have access to your room?”

  “Vera came by later that evening,” Cynthia says. “She was alone in the living area for a few minutes while I was taking a call in the bedroom. I suppose she could have taken it then.”

  “Okay, we’ll follow up on that,” Detective Hutchins says. So far, he has not seen Wavonne and me, and I suspect it might be best if we keep it that way.

  “I think Wavonne and I are going to skedaddle,” I say quietly to Jack. “It was good to see you.”

  He nods at me and Wavonne, and we head toward the door.

  “So I guess Cynthia’s story about going into the city to buy drugs, rather than a gun, checks out. Why would she have gone to Brentwood Manors for a gun when she already had one?” I ask Wavonne once we’ve stepped outside.

  “Beats me,” Wavonne replies as we approach the car. “Do you think Vera may have taken Cynthia’s gun?”r />
  “I guess she could have, but I just don’t peg her as a murderer. I think I’ll try to get to her before the police... warn her that they’ll be asking questions about what she was doing in the living area of Cynthia’s suite when Cynthia was in the bedroom.”

  “Okay, but drop me off at home first. I’m already running late,” Wavonne says. We’re in the car now and she’s got the visor down, using the mirror to put on some blush and mascara.

  “Let me give Vera a call. If she’s nearby, maybe you can just come with me, and then I’ll take you home.” I see Wavonne pull a little glass bottle from her purse. “Can you not spray that perfume in here? It gives me a headache and makes me sneeze.” The word “sneeze” is barely out of my mouth when something occurs to me. “You know what?” I ask Wavonne as she puts the perfume back in her purse and reaches for some lip liner. “Sherry had to have been asleep when she was killed. Or we would have heard screams when the murderer came into her room, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “I don’t think people sneeze when they’re asleep. Do they?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “So, it probably wasn’t Sherry who I heard sneezing on the recording Trey shared with me. It was probably the killer.”

  “What recording?”

  “It’s a long story, but Trey had a recording device in Sherry’s room when she was killed, and someone can be heard sneezing a few minutes before the shots went off.”

  “And Vera had been sneezing all day.”

  “And, as we now know, she both knew where Cynthia’s gun was and had time to take it.” I lean back in the car seat and run a possible scenario through my head. “What if she snuck in through the sliding glass doors, sneezed a couple of times while she poked around for a bit, looking for something perhaps or maybe just getting up the nerve to pull the trigger, before she killed Sherry?” I let out a long, cheerless exhale. “Maybe I misjudged Vera. Maybe she is, in fact, a murderer.”

  Chapter 35

  Wavonne and I step inside Dauphine and I’m a bit shocked by what we encounter: noise. I hear voices and the clanking of dishes... and the patter of feet. The restaurant has been so desolate the last two times I’ve been here, it’s surprising to see it busy. It’s still dark and dated, but it’s decidedly less gloomy with actual people at the tables eating and chatting and laughing.

  We take a few steps forward, and my eyes catch sight of Vera at a table near the infamous salad bar. I called her as we were leaving the inn. She said Twyla had invited her to try the restaurant, and she was on her way there when I called.

  “Hey,” I say when I reach her table. She stands up and gives me a hug. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. Though the bar for ‘okay’ is a bit low these days. Any day someone isn’t murdered down the hall from me or I’m not brought into the police station for questioning is a good day at the moment.”

  “No more Bigfoot sightings, I hope?” Wavonne asks.

  Vera tries to smile. “Thankfully, no. How are you guys?”

  “We’re fine. We were just over at the inn snooping around a little. I had a good chat with Trey, and I’m pretty sure he’s in the clear, but I got word of a new development in the case just before I left, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “Detective Hutchins and one of his officers, Jack Spruce, were there as well, and Jack told me they found the gun used to kill Sherry.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. The killer shoved it under the cushion of one of the loungers by the pool,” Wavonne says.

  “Does finding the gun bring the police any closer to determining who killed Sherry?”

  “Maybe. That’s what I want to talk to you about.” I pull my chair in closer to the table and lean toward Vera. “They traced the gun back to Cynthia but just as the owner. Her prints were not on the gun. But, get this, Russell’s were.”

  “But Russell was in the restaurant when Sherry was killed, right?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, that’s where you come in. While the gun belonged to Cynthia and Russell’s prints were on it, neither one of them could have been the one to actually use it on Sherry. And... well... I’m afraid, because of that, you might find yourself being taken in for questioning again.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Apparently, you had both knowledge of where the gun was and an opportunity to take it.”

  “I did?”

  “Cynthia said you were in line with them at museum Security, and she mentioned the gun being in the desk drawer. She also said you were in her room before everyone met for your little send-off party in the lounge, and while you were in there you had some alone time in the living area and could have taken the gun.”

  “Oh my God! I didn’t take anyone’s gun, and I sure as hell didn’t kill anyone. But they are going to arrest me, aren’t they?!”

  “No,” I say. “I’m sure they will want to ask you more questions, but they have nowhere near enough evidence against you to make an arrest.”

  “This is unbelievable. Yes, I only now have a vague memory of Cynthia mentioning the gun before we went into the museum, and I did go to Russell and Cynthia’s room, but Cynthia’s gun was the last thing on my mind. I went to their room to convince Cynthia to let me have a redo... a second chance, which I thought I deserved... which I still think I deserve.” Vera puts her hand to her head and looks down at the table. “I can’t believe it. I stay in my room instead of venturing out into the hallway when an active shooter could be on the loose, and it ends up making me a prime suspect for murder.”

  “So, take me through it,” I say, really wanting Vera to not be the killer. “What were you doing exactly when the shots went off?”

  “I was just trying to relax after a bad day. Everything had been comped for us at the inn, even the minibar, so most nights I’d been treating myself to some pricey chocolate before bed. Some nights it was a Toblerone... other nights it was a Hershey’s bar. The night Sherry died, it was a KitKat. I’d barely gotten it unwrapped when I heard the gunshots. As soon as—”

  “Wait . . . wait,” I interrupt. “Let’s be more precise here—how long was it after you took the candy out of the minibar that you heard the gun? Minutes? Seconds?”

  “Definitely seconds. Less than ten I would guess.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I opened the minibar, grabbed the KitKat, and sat down on the bed. Like I said, I had barely gotten it unwrapped when the shots went off.”

  “Then I think you have an alibi.”

  “What? How so?”

  “I’m guessing you have the same type of high-tech minibar in your room that Wavonne and I had in ours. If so, it records when something is taken out of it. If the system at the inn has a record of you removing something from the minibar a few seconds before Sherry was killed, there is no way you could have shot her. You couldn’t have taken something from the bar and then gotten out of your room, past Trey’s room, and into Sherry’s to shoot her in ten seconds.”

  “No... no, I couldn’t have done that,” Vera says, and her mouth upends into something resembling a smile. “Oh, Halia, I could kiss you!”

  I laugh. “I’m glad I could help. And even happier that we can prove you had nothing to do with Sherry’s murder. But now, I’m still no closer to knowing who actually did kill Sherry.” And I don’t say it out loud, but I wonder who was sneezing on Trey’s recording. Maybe people really do sneeze in their sleep?

  “When Cynthia said I was in line with them at Security when they mentioned the gun, did she say Twyla was there, too?”

  “Yes. She did mention Twyla being in line with you, but it sounds like Twyla didn’t have access to the gun. She was never in Russell and Cynthia’s suite,” I say, before having a sudden recollection. “Or was she?” I turn to Wavonne. “When we first got to the inn after filming at the museum, we ran into Twyla in the lobby, remember?”

  “Yeah. She h
ad come from the hallway where all the rooms are. She said she had just changed her clothes and retouched her makeup.”

  “Right. At the time I assumed she had a room at the inn like the rest of us and freshened up in there. I only later learned that she had never taken a room.”

  I’ve seen Twyla puttering around the restaurant since I got here, but up until now, I have purposely managed to stay off her radar. I really didn’t want to talk to her, but I’m now finding myself with some questions for her. I start waving in her direction and finally catch her attention when she looks up from wiping a table.

  “You’re becoming one of my regulars, Halia,” she says.

  I smile. “Yes, it does appear I just can’t stay away.”

  “Shall I get you and Wavonne menus?”

  “No thank you. We just came by to chat with Vera, but while we’re here can I ask you something?”

  “Somehow, I suspect you’re going to ask me something regardless of my answer.”

  I smile again, this time a little more uncomfortably. “The day we were filming Elite Chef, when Wavonne and I ran into you in the lobby, you said you had just changed clothes and redone your makeup.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “Where were you coming from? Where did you change clothes and what not? You didn’t have a room at the inn, right?”

  “Russell gave me the key to his room. He let me use it to get ready for the rest of the taping.”

  Vera’s eyes meet mine in a “Well, isn’t that interesting?” sort of way. I’m about to ask Twyla a few more questions now that I know that Vera was not the only one who had both knowledge of where the gun was and access to it, when the kitchen door behind Twyla swings open and a large man walks out into the dining room. Large is actually an understatement. He’s massive—probably about six feet, seven inches tall with a big beefy build, long shaggy curls, and a beard that could give Grizzly Adams a run for his money. He’s wearing what must be the uniform of Twyla’s kitchen staff—black pants and a button-up purple shirt—the shirt is Mardi Gras– themed with big flowers, jester masks, and beads all over it, but I can see how, from a distance, it could look like a Hawaiian shirt.