Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery)

by Herbert, A. L.

  “Oh Halia, it was so good! I grabbed a few pieces and was in and out of the restaurant in a flash. I didn’t think anyone would know. I should have waited until I got home, but I couldn’t help myself. I started chowing down right there in my car in the parking lot under cover of night.”

  “So what I’m hearing is that you went back to the restaurant to get some chicken?”

  Jacqueline looks down at her lap, hiding the shame on her face.

  “So you didn’t kill Marcus?”

  “Kill Marcus!?” she says, quickly lifting her head. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Quite possibly,” I say. “You really just went back to Sweet Tea to get some chicken? Really?” I ask, and it occurs to me that Jacqueline’s story is too ridiculous to not be true. No one could make that up.

  “Isn’t that how you knew I was there? You noticed the chicken missing?”

  “Um . . . no.” Does she think I go around inventorying pieces of fried chicken and, even if I did, I had told Marcus to wrap some for his guests, so it would have made sense that some had gone missing. “Let’s just say someone saw your car in the parking lot.”

  “Curse that damn car Marcus bought me. It’s impossible to be inconspicuous in that thing.”

  “Yeah, really . . . how’s a girl supposed to pilfer covert fried chicken in a flashy car? You need to get yourself a Chevrolet,” I say with a laugh.

  Jacqueline looks at me sternly, not even cracking a smile.

  “Oh, come on, Jacqueline. It’s funny.”

  A slight grin comes across her face, and I can’t help but start to snicker at the thought of her, probably still dressed in her designer pantsuit, holding a fried chicken wing to her mouth with perfectly manicured fingers, and gnawing the meat off the bone like a beaver collecting wood for his dam.

  “It’s not that funny, Halia,” she says, rolling her eyes, her smile widening.

  “Are you kidding? It’s a riot,” I say, not even trying to keep it in anymore.

  Jacqueline starts laughing with me. “Oh girl, I was like a pig in shit . . . one wing after another, and when I was done I wanted more,” she says, sounding less and less like the perpetually dignified woman I’m so used to. “I got a grease stain on my Lafayette jacket, and I didn’t even care.”

  We’re both laughing, and I’m enjoying a side of Jacqueline that I’ve never seen before.

  “That was a real moment of weakness for me.” She wipes her eyes. “I pride myself on discipline and healthy living, but every now and then, a girl’s gotta eat.” She pauses for a moment. “Did you really think I killed Marcus?”

  “No, no. Of course, not,” I say and think about how Jacqueline must have been scurrying around my kitchen, wrangling pieces of fried chicken, completely unaware of the fact that her brother had been killed in that very spot moments earlier. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened. I guess, as a next of kin, some people might assume that you stand to inherit much of Marcus’s estate. That might cause some people to wonder if—”

  “Marcus’s estate? Oh, now, that’s funny, Halia. What estate ?”

  I look around me. “This house, for instance. Rumor has it you co-owned it with him.”

  “This house,” Jacqueline says, looking around her the same way I just did, “will be in foreclosure any day now. Marcus tied it up in that asinine mortgage program and, just like for Josh and Heather, the payments from Reverie stopped some time ago.”

  “So Marcus actually thought the program was legit? He must have if he invested in it himself.”

  “I’m sure he knew what he was getting into. Marcus was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. I’m certain he knew it was a scam, but figured he’d be able to recruit enough new chumps to keep the whole thing going long enough to get this place paid off.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Marcus’s elaborate lifestyle was mostly a façade trailed by calls from creditors and overdrawn accounts. He was always just keeping his head above water . . . making minimum payments here and there to keep the repo man away. About the only smart investment he made, Halia, was in your restaurant. But he insisted on keeping up appearances. I guess we both did. I like nice things as much as he did. We were both living beyond our means . . . and it’s finally caught up with us . . . or me, at this point. I’m sure I’ll have to be out of here in a matter of months. Even that damn gold car will probably have to go.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh well. It will be a fresh start—a start without Marcus. I almost can’t imagine it,” she says, looking away from me. “He got on my nerves to no end, and it’s no secret that he was a pain in my ass, but he was my big brother. He always took care of me. He gave me a job to supplement my fitness business, a place to live . . . even a car. He was slick and always scheming, but he wasn’t all bad. I’ll miss him. I’m a bit lost without him . . . so much to figure out.”

  I reach for her hand and see just a hint of tears forming in her eyes. “You’ll be okay, Jacqueline. Time is the best medicine in these situations. Just take as much of it as you need to sort things out.”

  “Thank you, Halia.” She sits up straighter and grabs a tissue from the coffee table. “I’ll be fine. Like you said, it will take some time. I think I’ll feel better once the police find out who actually did kill Marcus.”

  “I think we’ll all feel better when that happens. I’ve been chatting with the others at the table that Saturday night. Régine has a rock-solid alibi, and I’m quite certain Josh and Heather are innocent. So if they didn’t do it, and you didn’t do it, assuming it was someone at Sweet Tea that night, Charles is the only suspect left, but he didn’t have a motive.”

  “Oh yes, he did,” Jacqueline says.

  CHAPTER 38

  “What do you mean? What motive?” I ask Jacqueline.

  “Well . . .” Jacqueline pauses. “You know what? Before I get into it all, how about a glass of wine? I feel like I need one.”

  “That would be lovely.”

  “Red or white?”

  “Either.”

  “Okay, let me go pick out a nice bottle before it gets repossessed with everything else.”

  Jacqueline gets up from the sofa and leaves the room while I remain seated and take in the vast living room—slick hardwood floors covered just so much with handmade rugs, oil paintings on the walls, recessed lighting, and a grand fireplace with a granite mantle set between floor-to-ceiling windows. Marcus could put on a show in so many ways. I guess this house was just another piece in the façade that was his life. From what Jacqueline has said, he couldn’t afford any of it—not the cars, not the clothes, and certainly not this monstrosity of a house.

  “You’re supposed to let it breathe, but whatever,” Jacqueline says as she sets two thinly lipped wineglasses on the coffee table. She sits back down on the sofa and fills the glasses with a Domaine Maillard Pinot Noir. I recognize the bottle immediately as it’s one of the more expensive bottle of red on my wine list at Sweet Tea. Most of my wines run in the neighborhood of thirty dollars a bottle, but we sell the Domaine Maillard for sixty-seven.

  “So, as I was saying, Charles hired Marcus months ago. They met at one of Charles’s seminars. You know Marcus . . . always trying to get something for nothing, so he went to the one of Reverie Homes presentations to see if it was legit . . . if the stories he’d heard about people paying their houses off so quickly were actually true.”

  “And what did he find out?”

  “Marcus was no fool. He asked several questions during the seminar and then stayed behind and questioned Charles even more. The way I understand it, the more Marcus began to figure out the business model, and that they were selling nothing more than a house of cards, his questions became less about buying in to the program and more about what Charles’s role was and how he was compensated.”

  “No one could wheel and deal quite like our Marcus.”

  “You’ve got that right. Marcus smelled an opportunit
y. He and Charles went out to dinner that night, and it wasn’t long before Marcus was recruiting for Reverie himself. At first he was only recruiting people to come to the seminars and would get a small commission if any of the people he referred to the seminars actually signed up and made an investment. More recently he started actually signing up clients for the program himself and getting much bigger commissions.”

  “So how does this relate to Charles having a reason to kill Marcus? When I talked to him, he said that Marcus worked as his underling, so he got a piece of Marcus’s commissions. Seems like Marcus served him better alive than dead.”

  “Yes. He got a piece of Marcus’s commissions as long as he remained employed with Reverie. I’ve been rooting through Marcus’s e-mails and, from what I can tell, the Reverie program in this area has been on a downward spiral for months. The higher-ups at corporate were not happy with Charles—he wasn’t bringing in enough new recruits or doing a good job at keeping the current investors reassured that the program was sound. They liked Marcus and were impressed with his moxy. Plus, he had contacts all over town through his financial planning business and all the religious and social groups he belonged to.”

  “Exactly how many religious groups was Marcus affiliated with?” I ask, already knowing that he had been on the prowl at two local churches at least.

  “Who knows? Several. Marcus would have pretended to be a Hasidic Jew or donned a Sikh turban if he thought it would make him some money. I think Reverie liked that about him—his ‘do whatever it takes’ attitude. Apparently, they were grooming him to take the reins from Charles.”

  “So Marcus was in and Charles was out?”

  “From Marcus’s notes, and what I’ve been able to piece together from his e-mails, yes, it appears that way. What I don’t know is whether or not Charles knew this. If he did, indeed, know that Reverie was planning to fire him and replace him with Marcus, and that he stood to lose huge amounts of money, then he certainly had reason to take Marcus out of the equation. Reverie is not likely to fire him now that a suitable replacement is not waiting in the wings.”

  “True. I guess I need to put Charles back on the suspect list.”

  “You? Shouldn’t the police be handling this?”

  “Yes, of course. I hope you’ll let them know about this and encourage them to take a second look at Charles. I’m just sort of playing it out in my head, trying to make sense of it all.” It was the best I could come up with. I certainly couldn’t tell her that I know for a fact that the cops are heading down a dead-end path in their quest to find a woman fitting Wavonne’s description.

  “I will,” Jacqueline says.

  I take a last sip of my wine. “I guess I should get going. It really was nice to chat with you, Jacqueline.”

  “You, too,” she says.

  She follows me out of the room toward the front door.

  “Please come by the restaurant anytime. I’ll slip you some fried chicken to go. I’ll hide it under some salad greens or something,” I say with a laugh.

  She smiles. “In that case, I’d better get back to my workout.”

  “Better you than me,” I respond. I’m about to trot off to my van, but I take a moment and turn around. “And really, Jacqueline. Call me if you need anything or just want someone to talk to.”

  “I will, Halia. Thank you.”

  I can tell she appreciates the offer as she gives me a final wave and closes the door.

  CHAPTER 39

  “We’ve been over this before, Wavonne,” I say. We’re behind the bar, and I’m whipping up a pitcher of Sweet Tea’s signature cocktail.

  “I’m tellin’ you, it would sell.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not serving Kool-Aid in my restaurant.”

  “Just red flavored. That’s all you need.”

  “Red is a flavor now?” I ask without giving her a chance to respond. “The answer is no.”

  “Fine. Just tryin’ to help you make some mo’ money, so I can get me some trickle down.”

  “If you want to make more money, you could take on a few extra tables and put a little more pep in your step around here.”

  Wavonne looks as if she’s considering my recommendation for a moment, concludes it would be far too taxing, and decides to change the subject.

  “So Jacqueline really said Marcus didn’t have no money? He’d been frontin’ all along?”

  “Yep. It sounds like she might even lose the house.”

  “Damn shame.” Wavonne shakes her head. “What else did she say? Did she give you some scoop on that Charles fella? Is that why you have him comin’ over? What kinda deets do you think you’re gonna get outta him?”

  “I don’t know. He’s about my last lead at the moment. I’m hoping that if I get a few cocktails in him, he’ll drop his guard and give me some useful information . . . or maybe even implicate himself.”

  “You really think he coulda done it?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I say as I catch some activity out of the corner of my eye. I turn and see Charles and a sharply dressed younger woman next to him. I called him yesterday after I left Jacqueline’s, but I suspect he saw my number come up on his phone and declined to answer my multiple attempts to reach him. I eventually looked up his home phone number (yes, some people do still have landlines these days) and ended up reaching his wife. I was afraid if I left a message with her, Charles would ignore it, so I explained my situation to his wife, told her I was only interested in any information Charles could give me about the others at the table the night Marcus was killed, and invited her and Charles to come to the restaurant as my guests. She mentioned that she’d heard good things about Sweet Tea and happily committed both of them.

  “Hello, Charles,” I say. “How are you?”

  “Good . . . good,” he replies. “This is my wife, Pamela.”

  “So nice of you to come.”

  “Are you kidding? All I’ve heard are raves about this place. I’ve always wanted to try it, but we live in the city and don’t think to come out to PG County for dinner . . . it’s not exactly a mecca of fine dining.”

  “Well, I hope we’ll change your mind about that tonight.” I smile at her remark, even though it irritates me. Not that what she said is exactly untrue—aside from Sweet Tea and the restaurants at National Harbor, there really is little fine dining in the County, but it was her tone more than her words that put me off. “Please. Follow me, and we’ll get you seated.”

  I lead them to a cozy booth along the wall, and they take their seats.

  “Let me get you some menus. I’ll be right back.” I try to quickly size them up while I say this. I’ve met Charles a couple of times now, and much like Marcus, he is smooth but in a different way. Marcus was “Rico Suave” smooth . . . he was all muscles, and ultra-white teeth, and designer suits smooth. Charles is as fast-talking as Marcus but has more of a “nice man next door” way about him. He’s probably in his fifties with a middle-age belly, wears expensive but casual clothes, and has a more honest face than Marcus. Despite the Ralph Lauren shirt and expensive watch he’s wearing, he’s the type of guy you’d look at and think that he probably cuts the grass of the elderly woman next door just to be neighborly, which makes him more dangerous than Marcus. We’re taught to be wary of people like Marcus, but we’re not as suspicious of people like Charles.

  His wife is easy to figure out. She’s significantly younger than Charles, and with her bitchy comment about Prince George’s County being a restaurant wasteland, high-maintenance looks, and designer clothes, she’s what Wavonne would call “bougie.” Swindling decent people out of their savings is probably the only way Charles can afford her upkeep. She was clearly not genetically blessed but has gone to great lengths to make the most of what God has given her. From a distance I bet she appears to be a knockout, but as you look closer you can tell that her large breasts do not match her petite frame and are clearly of the silicone variety, the bulk of her hair is not her own, and
the tip of her nose is just a little bit off, likely from rhinoplasty that didn’t go as well as one might have hoped.

  “Some menus,” I say and set them down on the table. “And I took the liberty of whipping up a pitcher of our house cocktail.” I set the pitcher and two glasses of ice on the table. I fill the glasses and wait for them to take a sip.

  “That’s very nice,” Pamela says. “What’s in it?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’ve have to kill you,” I joke. “It’s a mix of grapefruit-flavored vodka, triple sec, Sprite, lemon juice, and a berry syrup we make ourselves. Why don’t you look at the menus, and I’ll send Darius over shortly to take your order. He’ll take great care of you. Please enjoy a nice meal on me this evening, and we’ll talk over dessert.”

  They nod and smile before I head toward the kitchen to check on things. It’s a Tuesday, so we are busy, but it’s not quite as hectic as it is on Friday and Saturday nights. When I push on the kitchen door, I hope to see a well-oiled machine in motion catering to the dinner rush, but when I walk through the threshold, I see Wavonne grasping one of the stainless steel counters. She’s bent over, gyrating her hips back and forth.

  “Work it,” I hear Darius say from behind her as Tacy and the rest of the kitchen staff look on.

  “What are you doing, Wavonne?” I ask, and everyone freezes as if the school principal just barged into the detention room.

  “Tacy axed me what it meant to twerk. I was just givin’ him a demo.”

  “Give Tacy twerking demos on your own time, Wavonne. We have a dining room full of customers.”

  “Oh, come on, Halia, twerk with me,” she says and bends over again and starts bumping the side of her hip into mine. “Come on, Halia. Get your twerk on, girl!”

  Some song by honorary brother Robin Thicke is playing on whoever’s iPod is docked in the kitchen speaker. Generally, you can barely hear it with all the kitchen commotion going on, but things are suddenly quiet with all eyes on me. I see my staff watching me, waiting for me to reprimand Wavonne. And you know what? I decide to surprise them.