Murder with Collard Greens and Hot Sauce

by A. L. Herbert

  “Is that so?” And, just like that, my investigation wheels start spinning again. “May I ask you one more favor?”

  Before Tanesha can respond Wavonne sidles beside me, stopping off on her way to another table with a pitcher of tea in her hand. “Did I hear someone say Rico Suave is back in town?”

  Tanesha and her tablemate laugh. “He is indeed.” Tanesha looks up at me. “What’s the favor?”

  “When you get back to the apartment building, can you look up Alex’s phone number and e-mail it to me?”

  “I don’t need to go back to work to do that.” Tanesha pulls her phone from her purse, taps on the screen a few times, and hands it to me. “I confess. Sometimes I press star six seven and dial his number just to hear him say hello or listen to his voice mail greeting. That deep voice and that Dominican accent send me over the edge.”

  “That is some serious stalker stuff right there,” Wavonne says to me under her breath as I step back from the table, holding Tanesha’s phone in one hand and typing Alex’s number into my own with the other. “Girlfriend is cray cray.”

  “Probably so,” I agree before I inch back toward Tanesha and return her phone. “Thanks. I want to call and check in on him.” I spin around toward Wavonne. “Can you take care of these lovely ladies once they’ve had a chance to review the menu?” I ask. “I’ve got a phone call to make.”

  * * *

  “What did you tell him?” Wavonne asks me as we walk toward Iverson Towers. We’ve made a quick trip over to Alex’s building during Sweet Tea’s midday closure.

  “I told him I wanted to see how he was doing since Monique died. I didn’t let on that I knew he’d left town for several days. I asked if we could come by to say hi and check on him. When he hesitated, I promised to bring him some treats from Sweet Tea and offered to give him a few leads on restaurant jobs—something that should be a welcome gesture, given that one of his two employers is dead and the other is in jail.”

  Now that we know his apartment number, I look it up on the console and press the appropriate button that sends a call to Alex’s phone. He answers and immediately buzzes us in without saying anything.

  “Hi there,” I say when he opens the door.

  “Hi, Halia,” he responds. “Good to see you, Wavonne.”

  “Back at ya,” Wavonne says, shamelessly admiring Alex’s physique in a tight white T-shirt and basketball shorts as we enter this apartment.

  “We brought you a little something.” I hand him a bag filled with Sweet Tea takeout containers.

  “It looks like more than ‘a little something.’ ”

  “Yeah . . . it’s a whole spread . . . fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens, and some cornbread. Oh, and a slice of Momma’s chocolate marshmallow cake.”

  “Sounds wonderful. That’s so nice of you.” He walks over to the dining area and places the bag on the table. “Please. Have a seat.”

  Wavonne and I move toward the sofa and sit down.

  “Are you looking for something?” he asks, taking notice of me slowly turning my head to search the room.

  “No. Just checking out your place. It’s very nice.” In reality I’m trying to see what’s different from the last time we were here. I come upon several things—there’s a TV back on the wall where one was obviously missing earlier, the legs of two end tables are filling the little depressions in the carpet they left behind when they were likely hastily removed last week, and there’s a couple of boxes in one corner of the living room, probably full of stuff he brought back yesterday and hasn’t had a chance to unpack.

  “Thank you. I’ve only been here a few months. Can I get you anything? Some coffee or water?”

  “No, thank you,” I respond, and settle into the sofa. “So how are you doing? I’m sure Monique’s death must be hard on you.”

  “It is. She was a nice lady. I’ll miss her.” He sounds somewhat unaffected by her death, but I feel like he’s acting . . . like he’s holding back. “She was a good friend and a good employer. I had planned to be touring the country with her . . . and Nathan and Maurice at this time.”

  “That would have been quite an experience. How long was the tour supposed to last?”

  “We had planned to be gone for five weeks. We were supposed to hit thirty-seven different cities . . . more than one hundred salons.”

  “Wow. You would have gotten to know each other really well.”

  “Assuming you didn’t know each other really well already,” Wavonne says.

  “What do you mean?” Alex asks.

  “Do you want to ask him or shall I?” Wavonne says.

  “Ask me what?”

  “So it’s a bit of an awkward question, but . . .” I inhale deeply and cross my legs. “Did you and Monique have more than . . . more than just an employer/employee relationship?”

  “I’m still not quite sure what you mean?”

  “She means, were you and Monique gettin’ freaky?”

  “What? No! Of course not,” he says. “Why would you ask that?”

  “To be honest, Alex, more than one person in Monique’s circle has floated around the idea of the two of you having an affair. I probably shouldn’t say who, but someone actually heard the two of you arguing the night of the white party.”

  “When? I barely saw Monique that night. She was busy mingling with guests.”

  “It was at the end of the evening after Wavonne and I had left. Apparently, she was overheard telling you ‘it’ was over. What exactly was she telling you was over?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember everything she said to me that night. At some point after everyone left, she came into the kitchen while I was cleaning up and putting things away. I have a vague memory of her sitting at the table and pulling her heels off. I think she did say something like ‘it’s over, I can’t do it anymore’ when she was taking off her shoes. She was talking about the party being over and how she could no longer stand to walk around in five-inch heels.”

  “And you never stormed out of the kitchen and left the house?”

  “I left the house when my work was done. I was late meeting a friend for a drink, so I may have been moving quickly, but I certainly didn’t storm out of the house.” Alex looks directly at me. “Why do I feel like I’m being interrogated?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I certainly don’t mean for you to feel that way. It’s just that when you combine the idea of you and Monique having an affair with the fact that you skipped town the day after she was murdered, it raises some questions.”

  He looks at me curiously.

  “Yes. We know you left town . . . or at least this apartment. We came by here last week and saw all your stuff was gone.”

  “How did you get up here . . . and in my apartment?”

  Wavonne and I look at each other trying to figure out how to respond.

  “I bet it was that busybody at the front desk who keeps calling my phone and hanging up. Did she help you somehow? Tamara? Tameeka?”

  “Tanesha,” Wavonne says. “I’d watch out for her if I were you,” she adds. “Not that I’m sayin’ she helped us, but girlfriend’s a little whacked.”

  “Never mind about that,” I say. “Where did you go, Alex?”

  “Oh my God! This is all so ridiculous. Where I went doesn’t matter. I was not having an affair with Monique,” he declares before taking a breath and calming himself. “Look. I like to flirt and have some fun with women . . . and maybe I have a fondness for older women like Monique and . . .” He lets his voice drop, but it’s pretty clear from the way his eyes veered in my direction that he was about to refer to me.

  “So that’s why you were all up in Halia’s bidness. You’ve got a thing for cougars.”

  “Maybe I do,” Alex replies. “But I’m not interested in getting involved with married women . . . especially one married to Nathan, who is clearly dangerous . . . and now we know just how dangerous. I have no idea what someone overheard between Monique and me
, but I assure you there was nothing going on between us beyond friendship. And even if there were . . . even if I had some motive for wanting to kill Monique, I was nowhere near her house after the party.”

  “Oh?”

  “It had been a long day. I met my friend Javier for a couple of beers. Look,” he says fumbling with his phone and handing it to me. “He posted a photo.”

  I look at his phone and see a photo of Alex with his friend on Facebook or Instagram or one of those sites. They are both smiling with beers in their hands.

  “That’s awfully convenient that the photo is date- and timestamped about the time Monique bit the dust,” Wavonne says. “It could’ve been taken six months ago.”

  “I guess,” Alex says. “But Javier will vouch for me.”

  “So if the photo is legit, and your friend can give you an alibi, then why did you skip town after Monique was killed?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Which are?”

  “I’d really rather not say, but they have nothing to do with Monique.”

  “Let me give you some advice, Alex. Halia here can be a big fat pain in the behind when she wants to be. And if you don’t tell her why you left town, she’s gonna nose around until she finds out anyway, so you may as well tell us,” Wavonne advises. “Besides, if you have nothin’ to hide, what’s the problem?”

  “I didn’t kill Monique, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to hide.” Alex looks down at the floor and then back in our direction. “I didn’t . . . don’t want the police nosing around . . . because . . . well, I’m not exactly in the country legally. When I heard Monique was killed, I was afraid they’d be reaching out to people close to her, looking for information to find the killer. Even if I can prove I didn’t kill Monique, if they run a check on me, I’ll be in a mess of trouble for overstaying my visa. That’s why I left town.”

  “So why did you come back now? I’m assuming your immigration status is just as tenuous today as it was when you left.”

  “I saw on the news that they arrested Nathan. I figured it was safe to come back . . . for a little while at least . . . enough time for me to get the rest of my things and settle some affairs. I doubt the police will be digging into my business now that they have identified Nathan as the killer.”

  The three of us are quiet for a moment until Alex breaks the silence. “You seem like nice people. If I hang around for a few days, can I assume you will not turn me in to immigration?”

  “Your immigration status is the least of my worries, Alex.”

  “Oh, please!” Wavonne says, giving me the eye. “Girlfriend’s got a kitchen full of illegal immigrants workin’ for her.”

  “I do not!” I respond. “I have Social Security numbers and copies of every employee’s driver’s license on file.”

  “Whateva, Halia . . . let’s swing by the 7-Eleven on Branch Avenue on the way back to Sweet Tea, and we can get a few more ‘driver’s licenses’ for you to keep on file. Some guy named Hector that hangs out in the parking lot sells them out of his trunk for fifty bucks.”

  Chapter 34

  “I’d marry his fine self and make him legal,” Wavonne says as we get back in the car. “But given his proclivity toward women of a certain age, it seems he’d prefer you do the honors. Go on, Halia,” Wavonne jibes. “Get yourself a lil boy toy.”

  “Maybe I’ll consider it once I’ve cleared him of murder,” I joke.

  “He’s got an alibi, just like Odessa and Maurice. Seems he’s in the clear, too.”

  “I guess. Which means there is no one left on my list. I suppose I could ask around and see if anyone knows of who else might have a motive for killing Monique, but at the moment, I guess Nathan stays in jail until he goes to trial. I saw on the news that the judge wouldn’t grant him bail. Not that I’m crying any tears for him. The man belongs in jail whether he killed Monique or not.”

  “Got that right,” Wavonne says before she turns up the radio and starts rifling through the papers that she left in my van the night we went to Enigma. She flips through the news rags, which are mostly just ads for bars and restaurants, occasionally mentioning something about a happy hour she wants to keep in mind.

  On the way back to Sweet Tea, I half listen to the radio and half listen to her talk about how Bar Charley’s happy hour offers six-dollar cocktails and two bucks off any glass of wine . . . or how Colada Shop has two-dollar empanadas from four to seven on weeknights . . . and something about DC Reynolds having a BOGO special. Before I know it, we’re almost back to the restaurant.

  “Take all that stuff in with you, would you?” I ask, pointing to the newspapers and magazines she has in her lap. “They’ve been cluttering up my car for days.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah,” Wavonne responds, organizing the papers in her lap and reaching for the flyer she picked up at the club and had stuffed down past the armrest. “Girl, these men have better wardrobes than I do.” She eyes the shiny piece of paper advertising Enigma’s amateur drag contest. “I love this green dress,” she says, and flips the flyer toward me.

  I turn my head from the road for a quick second—long enough to see that the promo sheet gives some details about the contest and includes some photos of Enigma’s current lineup of drag queens.

  “What about this black one . . . with all the fringe?”

  As I turn into the parking lot in front of Sweet Tea, I turn my head toward her for another quick second to sneak a peek. That’s when my eyes immediately stray from the black gown Wavonne is referring to and land on Maurice . . . or should I say, Brightina Glow. “Whoa, whoa . . . wait a minute.” I pull the van into a parking space. “Give me that.” I grab the flyer from Wavonne and give the photo of Maurice—and his dress, in particular—a closer look. It’s a long gown with thick straps and a low neckline cinched at the waist with a wide belt . . . and the entire thing . . . the entire dress is adorned from top to bottom in red sequins.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that Maurice had a red-sequined dress,” I say to Wavonne as we walk through the front door of the restaurant.

  “What’s this about a sequined dress?” Momma asks. She’s sitting at the bar with a cup of coffee.

  “We were talkin’ about Maurice, Monique Dupree’s stylist . . . and his sequined red dress,” Wavonne says. “He moonlights as a drag queen. We went to see him—”

  “Went to see him?” Momma asks. “Good grief, Halia.” She glares at me. “A few billion men in the world, and you’re going to see the only one who owns more makeup and pantyhose than Wavonne? That is not how you land a husband!”

  “Don’t nobody wear hose anymore, Aunt Celia,” Wavonne says. “Even drag queens.”

  “Oh, I think drag queens still wear hose,” Momma says.

  “Nope. None of the drag queens we saw last Saturday night had hose on.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up my hose. In style or not, I like the way they make my legs look. And at my age, I need all the help I can get. I think—”

  “Oh my God! Would you two stop talking about pantyhose,” I snap at both of them, before looking at Wavonne. “Again, why didn’t you tell me about the dress Maurice is wearing in the photo on the flyer?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Wavonne says. “I didn’t look at it that closely. I liked the green dress that Dominique Deveraux was wearin’ better. What’s it matter anyway? Maurice was clearly at the drag club when Monique was shot.”

  “But was he?” I question.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He said he couldn’t have possibly shot Monique as he has to be at the club by eleven thirty to be ready to go on stage by twelve thirty. But what if he ‘Brightina’d’ himself earlier in the evening, crept back to Monique’s in full red-sequined regalia, murdered her, and then went to the club. If he was already dolled up when he killed Monique, he could have gotten back into the city in time for his performance . . . and that would explain the red sequin I found on the front lawn. If traff
ic isn’t bad, it’s probably just over a half hour from Monique’s house to Enigma . . . and how much traffic could there have been at midnight?”

  “Well, I’ve heard enough about drag queens and men wearing sequined gowns . . . neither one of them is going to get me any grandbabies,” Momma says, stepping off the stool. “I just came by to check on supplies for my baking tomorrow. I’m going home.” She steps behind the bar, drops her empty coffee mug in a little tub underneath the counter, and grabs her purse.

  “Bye, Momma,” I say as she walks past Wavonne and me on the way to the door.

  “So now we’re back to Maurice bein’ a suspect?” Wavonne asks as the door closes behind Momma.

  “Looks like it. When you think about it, it makes sense. Even if he was being truthful about having Monique’s blessing for his wig line, how successful could it have really been without his name . . . or her name attached to it? It would have simply been another wig website in a sea of wig websites. The publicity he’s gotten for his business because of his relationship with Monique would have cost him millions of dollars. I mean, I hate to believe that Maurice would have killed Monique to make a buck, but crazier things have happened.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Wavonne says. “There was somethin’ on TV last night about that lady in Texas that wanted to kill the cheerleader’s mom so her kid could make the squad. People are nuts soup.”

  “That they are,” I agree. “Now we only have to find out if Maurice got ready at the club just prior to his performance the night Monique was killed . . . or if he showed up to Enigma all gussied up and ready to go.”

  “How you gonna do that?”

  “The other men . . . the other drag queens who were backstage prepping for their performances while we were there . . . they would know.”

  “They must’ve heard him last Saturday night when he was talking to us about his alibi. If he was lyin’ then, and they didn’t speak up, what makes you think they will now?”

  “Good point,” I reply, which is not something I say very often after Wavonne speaks. “I would imagine they’re a pretty tightknit group—they may be willing to lie for one another. If we really want candor from them, we’ll have to play it like we’re not snooping or looking to implicate Maurice.” I sit down at the table where Wavonne and I laid the papers we brought in from the car. The flyer about the amateur drag contest is on the top of the pile. I give it a look, and it gives me an idea. “Who would a drag queen be more open to . . . more willing to talk to than anyone else?”