“The program lured more than six hundred participants (forty-three in the Washington, D.C., metro area), who invested a total of more than eighteen million dollars. When Reverie began to have trouble recruiting enough new investors to cover the payments of current program participants, Pritchett and his coconspirators stopped making the promised mortgage payments, and the affected home owners were left to fend for themselves. Mr. Pritchett—”
“Does it say anything about Marcus?” Wavonne asks, interrupting me.
I scan the rest of the article and see no mention of him. “It doesn’t look like it,” I say, relieved. The more Marcus Rand and his murder stay out of the press, the better. The day after Denise and Cherise were escorted from the premises, we did receive calls from the newspaper and local television stations for comment. Some of my patrons must have given them a tip about two young ladies being led away from Sweet Tea in handcuffs. Of course, I declined to comment and instructed my entire staff to do the same.
The next day there was a brief story about Denise and Cherise’s arrest on the local TV news, and there was a little snippet about it in the newspaper. Fortunately, my restaurant wasn’t specifically named in either, but I’m guessing that as the juicy details of Marcus’s murder begin to emerge, perhaps when the case goes to trial, interest, and therefore news coverage, will increase. One way or another, it seems as though the fact that Marcus was murdered in my restaurant is going to become public knowledge, which makes me wonder if Wavonne and I going to such lengths to get Marcus’s dead body out of Sweet Tea was worth it. But when I think of the circus Sweet Tea would have been become if the police had been alerted to Marcus’s body on my kitchen floor, I wonder a bit less. For all I know, my restaurant might have been shut down for days. What kind of notice do you post on the door in that case? Closed due to a murder in the kitchen? Sweet Tea would have been the epicenter of the tragedy, and rather than a news crew filming at Wellington Lake, they would have been filming in front of my restaurant. The idea of Sweet Tea being featured on the news with yellow police tape across the front door or the chalk outline of a dead body on my kitchen floor accompanying a newspaper article sends chills down my spine. At least now, when and if word gets out, there’s some distance . . . some time between the event and the press. Either way, I’m just thankful it’s over.
I set the newspaper down, and as I get up from the table, I see Jack Spruce at the front door. I walk over and let him in.
“Good morning, Jack. Looking for a cup of coffee?”
“You read my mind,” he says and walks with me toward the coffee station.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I say as I pour him a cup.
“I’ve been on vacation. I just got back yesterday and heard the news about Régine . . . or Denise and her sister.”
“Yes, we definitely had some excitement around here while you were gone. Honestly, I’m just glad the whole thing is resolved. Do you have any more news about the girls?”
“They’re still being held at a local facility. They’ve been arraigned. Cherise was granted bail and may be able to leave the detention center if she comes up with the money. Denise was deemed as a flight risk as her charges are much more serious, and she has not been granted bail. She will have to stay in jail until her trial, and who knows when that will be.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” I say to Jack, “but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for the girls. They were only trying to keep their mother in her home, and the whole thing got out of control so quickly.”
“Denise will probably plead temporary insanity. When a jury gets the details of the situation, she might stand a chance of an innocent verdict. Pounding someone over the head with a cast-iron frying pan hardly sounds like premeditated murder. I guess only time will tell.”
“I guess so.”
“And you know, Halia, while I think Detective Hutchins has pretty much closed the case, word is that Denise swears up and down that she hit Marcus over the head with a pan in the kitchen of this very restaurant, then left and never came back. At this point there doesn’t seem to be any reason for her to lie, so we still have no idea how Marcus’s body got from here to Wellington Lake.”
“That’s interesting, but I do recall Régine saying that everything that happened after she popped Marcus was a blur. Perhaps she really doesn’t remember what happened or blocked the memory of her disturbing Marcus’s body. Who knows.”
“It’s plausible, I guess,” Jack says. “And true or not, it might be the best reason we have to explain how Marcus got from here to Wellington Lake.”
Jack looks at me while he sips his coffee as if he’s checking for my reaction to everything he’s shared with me. At this point, I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding my angst and keeping a poker face. In a relaxed manner I just respond with, “When Denise was here last week, she said she left the scene of the crime so quickly that she didn’t even know if Marcus was alive or dead. For all we know, he got up and walked away and somehow ended up in the lake. So many things could have happened.”
“True. I guess the reality of the situation is that we may never know.” Jack takes a sip from his mug. “I guess I should get going. Thanks for the coffee, Halia. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
I walk Jack to the door and go ahead and leave it unlocked after he exits since it’s almost eleven o’clock anyway. As I walk toward the kitchen, I’m thankful that finding out how Marcus’s body got from my kitchen floor to Wellington Lake doesn’t seem to be a priority for the police. I’m even more grateful that the whole messy situation seems to have come to a close.
“Hey there, Tacy,” I say as I walk through the kitchen door. “What do you say we get these waffle irons fired up? We’re going to have a lot of hungry customers in here in just a few minutes.”
I grab an apron from a hook on the wall and slip it over my head. Yes, an apron is a much better fit than the detective hat I’ve been wearing recently, I think to myself as I tie the apron around my waist. And with that, I get back to doing what I do best and join Tacy in mixing up the waffle batter.
“I’m sure you have more important things to do, Miss Watkins. I can handle making the waffles.”
“You know what, Tacy?” I respond. “For some reason, right now at this moment, there is nothing I’d rather be doing.”
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by A. L. Herbert
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-175-4
eISBN-10: 1-61773-175-7
First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2015
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3174-7
First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: March 2015
Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery) Page 24
