Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery) (15 page)

 

I
’ve just stepped out of the hair salon, and I’m looking at myself in the rearview mirror. And let me tell you, it ain’t pretty. It may be the worst haircut I’ve ever gotten. My bangs generally flow in a tapered fashion toward the side of my head, but Régine cut them in a straight line across my forehead, and she seems to have left one side of my hair fuller than the other, as if she were going for a more subtle version of an eighties asymmetrical ’shroom. The look makes me think of high school and neon clothes, and the old station wagon I drove back then.

My high school is now almost exclusively black, but when I was there it was still fairly racially mixed. Despite this, the black students still mostly hung with each other and the white students did the same. I think of the black girls grooving to Salt-N-Pepa with our Jheri curls, and the white girls rocking out to Def Leppard with their bangs teased up to the ceiling. It strikes me as ironic how such an effort was made to integrate schools, and the students ended up self-segregating within the school anyway.

A few years ago, I started an annual tradition of inviting the entire senior class of my alma mater to Sweet Tea for lunch— generally around two hundred students each year. I host them in two groups over two days when Sweet Tea is closed between our regular lunch and dinner hours. I fill them up with cornbread and spare ribs and fried chicken. Over dessert, I give a brief talk about my path to opening my own business and the work involved in running a restaurant. I encourage them to think big and ask the ones going off to college to consider coming back to Prince George’s County when they graduate. I suggest they all get involved in the community or even think about opening their own businesses to provide needed services and create jobs. I just want them to know that anything is possible if you work hard enough and show them what a fellow graduate accomplished. Of course, I invite the young men, but my heart is with the girls. I want them to aim high, and while they have so many positive African American female role models these days, they’re still bombarded with images of women whose greatest claim to fame is that they managed to find successful men to pay their bills or happened to land a reality show based only on their talent for behaving badly and creating drama in their lives.

I make a mental note to call Latasha and schedule an appointment to salvage my hair as best she can. I’d phone her right now, but I have another call to make. I find the number in my contacts list and put the phone to my ear.

“Charles. Hi. It’s Halia Watkins from Sweet Tea. Remember? We chatted the other day at your seminar.”

“Yes. What can I do for you, Halia?” He doesn’t sound too happy to hear from me.

“I’m just dotting some i’s and crossing some t’s over here and wondering if you can help me?”

“Does this have to do with Marcus’s murder, Halia? I’ve told the police everything I know.”

“Can I just ask you a few quick questions? I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”

He’s quiet on the other end of the phone, which I figure is better than a no.

“You were one of the last of Marcus’s guests to leave the restaurant the night he disappeared, right?”

He’s still silent.

“I’m not asking because I think you have anything to do with Marcus’s death. I’m asking because I’d like to know what time Régine left?”

“Régine?” he asks. “I don’t remember the exact time.” His tone is friendlier now that I’m not asking questions about him. “But I do remember she left very shortly after you did.”

“Would you say five or ten minutes after Wavonne and I left?”

“Probably fifteen minutes. She said she had a headache and was bored with our business talk.”

“How long after that did you leave?”

“I thought you just had a
few
questions.”

“That’s my last one, I promise.”

“I stayed maybe twenty minutes longer. Heather and Josh left before I did. Jacqueline was the only one with Marcus when I left.”

“Thank you, Charles. You’ve been very helpful.”

“If you have any further questions, Halia, I suggest you talk to the police.”

“I will. You have a good afternoon.”

I toss the phone onto the passenger seat and start the van. As I drive to Sweet Tea, I make some calculations in my head. I know it was about eleven forty-five when Wavonne and I left the restaurant on that fateful night. So if Régine left fifteen minutes after us, that put her departure at about midnight. Now I need to make the drive from Sweet Tea to the Madison, see how long it takes to get there, and determine if I can get my hands on the building’s security camera footage. I don’t know if Régine had a motive to kill Marcus, but Wavonne did say she thought Marcus was cheating on her. Women have certainly killed men for lesser reasons.

When I get back to the restaurant, it’s almost time to open for the day. I say hi to my staff in the front of the house and make my way back to the kitchen. I had gotten Tacy started on our lunch special for the day, chicken potpies, before I left to get my hair cut. The crusts have been prepared, and he’s now pouring the filling into the individual casserole dishes, laying the crusts on top, and letting it fall over the edges. He tops the whole thing with a small piece of dough in the shape of chicken (we use a cookie cutter).

“They look lovely, Tacy. Nice work,” I compliment. “Isn’t Wavonne supposed to be helping you?”

Before Tacy has a chance to say anything, I hear Momma’s voice. “Good Lord, Halia! What happened to your hair? You’re far too old to be trying those weird, trendy hairdos.”

“I’m not trying a new, trendy hairdo. Is it that bad?”

“Oh my,” Momma says instead of answering my question. “Stan is here with some deliveries. He just went back out to the truck. You can’t let him see you like this.”

Momma grabs me by the arm and drags me into the break room, where we find Wavonne seated at the table, thumbing the keys on her phone.

“You stay here until he’s gone,” Momma says.

“Fine, Momma. I need to talk to Wavonne anyway.”

“Maybe she’ll loan you one of her wigs. Lord knows, she has more than that busty girl who used to be on
The View
.”

Wavonne doesn’t respond as Momma goes back into the kitchen, and that’s when I realize she has her headphones in. Rather than say anything, I decide to just stand there and wait for her to notice me. When she finally looks up, I expect her to start going on about how she’s getting back to work right this minute, and just needed to return a quick text, but, instead, she narrows her eyebrows and lets her jaw drop.

“Halia! Why your hair all jacked up?”

“Don’t you worry about my hair. I need you to run an errand with me.”

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’ ’til you tell me what alley cat your hair got in a fight with.”

“I went to see Régine. I thought I—”

“Régine?! You let Régine cut your hair? Have you lost your mind?”

“I was trying to get some information out of her.”

“Well, I hope you got it now that you have to walk around lookin’ like a swamp rat,” she says before softening her demeanor and looking at me with a concerned expression on her face. “Ooh, girl, you okay? I can loan you a wig or some of my snap-and-go extensions. What do you say we go to Red Lobster and get you some crab legs? Make you feel better.”

“I’ll go see Latasha as soon as I get a chance. She can clean it up and even it out. Enough about my hair already. I need you go to the Madison, Régine’s building, with me.”

“What for?”

“I may need your . . . your powers of persuasion.”

“Really? You’ve got me curious now, Halia. What’s this about?”

“I’ll explain on the way. We need to get over there and back quickly. Laura and the gang can handle the place until things really pick up at noon.”

“Fine. But just so you know, my powers of persuasion may cost you time and a half.”

 

I
look at my watch after we get in the van and buckle up. I make a mental note of the time. I know where the Madison is. I have a friend who lived there years ago. It’s not a total dump, but it’s an older high-rise . . . maybe twelve stories with a worn lobby and creaky, slow elevators. I figure we can get there in roughly twenty minutes, but I want to clock it to be sure.

“What’s goin’ down at the Madison?”

“Nothing is going down at the Madison. I just want to see how long it takes to get there from here, so we know how much time Régine had on her hands when she left the restaurant the night Marcus was killed.”

“Why?”

“Régine said her building had security cameras at the entrance. She told the cops to check them if they didn’t believe she was home safe and sound on the night in question. I figure if Régine left Sweet Tea about midnight, and she went straight home, she would have gotten there about twelve twenty, which means she was probably home before Charles and Jacqueline even left the restaurant. If that’s the case, I can cross her off my suspect list.

“How do you know she didn’t sneak back out later?”

“Another reason I want to pay the Madison a visit. There must be back or side exits. We need to know if those are monitored on camera, as well.”

“Even if they are monitored, how you plan on gettin’ the camera footage?”

“I thought you might help me with that.”

“How so?”

“You tell me, Wavonne. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that if you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it.”

We continue the drive, and it takes us exactly nineteen minutes to reach the Madison. As I pull into the parking lot, I begin to circle the building looking for entryways and exits. I see the main entrance covered by a torn gray awning, and there are metal doors on each end of the front side of the building that likely lead to stairwells. There are two similar doors on the rear side of the building. I have Wavonne hop out and check each of the metal doors. All four of them are locked—clearly they are for exiting the building only. If Régine wanted to enter the building through one of these doors, she’d need to leave it ajar with something, and hope no one disturbed it until she got back . . . or have an accomplice let her in. But as Wavonne is checking to see if the side doors are locked, I notice that they are monitored by cameras just like the main entrance, so Régine would have been seen on camera entering or leaving via those doors, as well.

Following our drive around the perimeter of the building, I park the car. Then Wavonne and I make our way to the main entrance. We press a buzzer, and a very bored-looking young fellow sitting at the reception desk lets us in. He’s tall and lanky and probably only a year or two out of high school. His dress shirt is two sizes too big for him, and his tie has a stain on it.

Once we’re in the building, I linger by the door for a moment trying think of what I’m going to say to him and attempt to come up with an excuse to get him to show me some security camera footage. I’m contemplating making up a story about looking for a lost loved one or even posing as a police detective when Wavonne unfastens a few buttons on her top and scoots ahead of me toward the clerk.

“Hi, Jeffrey,” she says, reading his nameplate on the counter.

“Hello.”

“Aren’t you a handsome thing . . . all dapper in your dress shirt and tie,” she adds, plunking her voluptuous breasts on the counter like she’s setting two mugs of coffee on a table at the local diner.

Jeffrey grins and looks at Wavonne with wide eyes as I step closer to them.

“May I help you?” he asks, clearly struggling to keep his eyes off the cleavage displayed before him.

“Oh honey, a strappin’ man like you, you could help me with all sortsa things.”

Jeffrey lets out a nervous laugh.

“You probably work a lot of hours here, don’t you?”

“Eight hours a day. Five days a week.”

“You poor thing. I bet those tight executive types who own this joint don’t pay you near what you’re worth.”

The poor kid doesn’t know what to make of Wavonne and just lifts his eyebrows and shrugs his shoulders at us.

“How’d you like to make a little extra money, Jeffrey?”

“I’d love to.”

“I’m Kadesha, and this here is my mother, Sinclair.”

Mother?!
I’m going to get her for that one.

“You see, it’s all very complicated. I’d love to explain, but we’re in a hurry. The bones of it, Jeffrey, is that we need to see your security camera footage from Saturday night.” As she’s talking, Wavonne pulls my purse off my arm, lays it on the counter, and takes out my wallet.

“Let’s see. How much do we have here? Twenty, forty, sixty . . . eighty dollars,” she says, counting the bills she pulled from my wallet. “That’s all we have. What do you say, Jeffrey? For a quick eighty bucks, can we get a peek at the tapes?”

Jeffrey takes a quick look around and then snatches the money out of Wavonne’s hand. He then gestures for us to come behind the counter and follow him into the back room.

“The cops have already viewed all the footage. This is about that guy that was found in Wellington Lake, right?”

Wavonne looks at me, unsure how to respond.

“Yes,” I say. “Wav . . . Kadesha and I are doing a little investigating of our own. Trying to make sure the cops didn’t miss anything. What exactly did you show the cops?”

“My boss, Mr. Maxell, worked with them, but I was here when they came. They wanted to see footage from the same night. They were looking for Ms. Alva in apartment 431. They wanted to see what time she came in to the building, and then they wanted to see hours of footage from every door to see if she left again before morning. They made copies of everything. You looking for Ms. Alva, too?”

“Yes. Régine Alva.”

“Here, look,” he says, sitting down in front of the computer screen and putting his hand on the mouse. “This is from that Saturday.”

“There she is,” Wavonne says. The film is in black and white and a bit grainy but, indeed, that is Régine coming through the front door. We get a quick look at her opening the front door and entering the lobby. She’s got her phone out, and she’s texting or surfing on the Internet while she’s walking.

“That’s the time at the bottom of the screen?”

“Yes. She came in at twelve twenty-one.”

“And you said the cops already reviewed the camera footage from the exits. She never left the building that night?”

“Nope. They viewed the feed from every camera at every entrance and exit, and she wasn’t seen leaving until nine a.m. the next morning.”

“We ain’t gonna sit here and watch hours of tape from all the exits, are we? ’Cause that’s gonna cost a hell of a lot more than time and a half.”

Jeffrey looks at us curiously, probably wondering why my
daughter
is expecting me to pay her.

“No. I’m sure the cops reviewed the tapes thoroughly, and we really have to get back. Thank you very much, Jeffrey,” I say.

“Don’t mention it,” he says and puts his hand in his pocket as if he’s making sure the eighty dollars is still there.

“So I guess you can cross Régine off your list, Sherlock,” Wavonne says as we walk across the parking lot.

“I guess,” I say, putting my key in the door of my van. “Oh, and by the way?
Your mother?!
You’ll pay for that one.”

Wavonne laughs.

“And Kadesha and Sinclair? Really? Someone has been watching too many
Living Single
reruns on TVONE.”

“I had to come up with some names quickly. And, after all, we were there looking for information about
Régine
.”

On the way back to the restaurant, Wavonne reaches for my purse, which I’ve set on the floor next to me.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She digs for my wallet and pulls it out. “You know you had like two or three hundred dollars in here. I only pulled out eighty, and told Jeffrey that’s all we had. So I figure I saved you more than a hundred bucks. I’m just takin’ my commission for services rendered.”

I divert my eyes from the road for a moment toward Wavonne. “Twenty dollars, Wavonne. You can take twenty dollars. The rest of your commission will be staying out of jail for stealing someone’s wallet.”

“You stop talkin’ about me stealin’. He was
dead,
Halia. It ain’t stealin’ if he was dead.”

“Let’s hope we never have to find out if a jury agrees with you.”

“I ain’t goin’ before no jury. The police will find out who offed Marcus.” She gives me a long look. “If you don’t beat ’em to it.”