Murder with Macaroni and Cheese (6 page)

CHAPTER 11

“T
hose look divine,” I say to Momma as she starts popping chocolate cakes out of their pans. She's been at Sweet Tea since five this morning. It's eight now, which is actually early for me to be at the restaurant. I'm generally here until well after we close, so I try not to start my workday too early. Coming in during the late morning also allows very little overlap between Momma's time in the Sweet Tea kitchen baking all of her delicious goodies and my time in the Sweet Tea kitchen supervising the rest of our creations, which, believe me, helps keep the peace around here. Momma usually starts her baking at six a.m. and wraps about four hours later, but like me, she came in early today to get a jump on the catering order for the reunion.

Raynell's husband (at least Raynell said it was her husband) loved Momma's chocolate marshmallow cake so much that Raynell asked . . . well, more like insisted, that we serve it as the featured dessert for the reunion.

Momma has twelve layers of chocolate cake cooling on the counter—enough for four cakes. As the smell of rich cocoa reaches my nose, I have to fight the urge to press my hands on them just to feel their warm velvety texture.

As there's always an occasional freak . . . yeah, I said it . . . an occasional “freak” who doesn't like chocolate, to supplement the chocolate marshmallow cakes, we'll also be serving sour cream coconut cakes. And that's just the desserts. We'll be starting the affair with mini corn muffins and fried chicken salad tartlets during the cocktail hour. These will be followed by a full dinner buffet of herb baked chicken, salmon cakes, and host of yummy sides. Of course, this spread is way beyond the budget of the reunion committee, but I agreed to offer a substantial discount. I'll barely break even with this job, but I guess it's okay considering it's for my alma mater.

“Let me get started on the frosting while they cool. Wavonne, start opening those jars of marshmallow cream, would you?” Momma calls over to Wavonne, who couldn't have been any less helpful since she arrived with me a few hours ago. She's currently sitting on a stool with her head against the wall and her eyes shut.

“Wavonne!” I call to wake her up.

“Huh?” She slowly opens her eyes.

“Help Momma with the frosting, please.”

“I'm so tired.” She sluggishly lifts herself from the stool. “Why'd we have to come in so early? I was up late watchin' a
Basketball Wives
marathon. Those sistas live the life, Halia. They got it all—money, big houses, cars, clothes, jew-reys . . . everything. That's the life I was meant to have . . . not being up at no damn six a.m. to make cakes. Now I just need Raynell's husband to hook me up with a football player, and it will be me on TV covered in bling when they launch a show about football wives.”

“You know, Wavonne. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you could earn your
own
money and have your
own
career to pay for all those big houses and big cars . . . and all that other stuff?”

Wavonne looks at me like I have horns. “What kind of fool would work when she can land a man to pay her bills?”

“The kind that knows she might not ever find that rich brother.”

“Oh, I'll find me a rich brotha all right.”

“Well, until such time, you need to earn your keep around here.” I nod toward the jars Momma asked her to open.

“She doesn't have it
all
wrong, Halia,” Momma chimes in, and I'm reminded of why I prefer not to share the kitchen with her. “A little less career and a little more husband hunting isn't the worst idea in the world.”

I sigh. “Yes, Momma.”

“Don't moan at me. This reunion is a perfect opportunity for you to get out there. There must be an old high school flame . . . or someone who's recently divorced . . . or someone. . .
anyone
for you to connect with.”

“Halia had a flame in high school?” Wavonne looks up from the jars toward me. “Ooh girl, gimme the deets.”

“There are no old flames, Wavonne. Other than the occasional homecoming or prom date with guys who were usually more friends than boyfriends, my high school years were pretty devoid of romance.”

“So, in other words, your love life was as borin' then as it is now.”

“My love life is not that bad,” I protest. “I date.”

Momma lets out a loud dramatic laugh. “Since when?”

“I went out with Jeremy Hughes just . . . well, okay . . . it was like a year ago. And there was Timothy Jenkins.”

“That was even before Jeremy, and we all know that was more a bidness meetin' than a date. You just wanted to get a discount on some kitchen equipment,” Wavonne says. “And as for Jeremy . . . any man who wears more foundation and concealer than I do . . . and who takes you to a freakin'
Sound of Music
sing-along at Wolf Trap is hardly husband material.”

“I tried to set her up with Stan, the UPS driver,” Momma says to Wavonne as if I'm not in the room. “But she didn't move fast enough, and now he's dating that mousey little thing who manages the Walgreens.”

“Martha Brennen? That tiny lil' rodent?” Wavonne, who is always combing the aisles of the Walgreens next door for cheap makeup or accessories, asks. “That ho-bag follows me around whenever I go in there like I'm gonna steal somethin'. I don't know what that little Polly Pocket thinks she would do if I did take anything—she barely comes up to my rack. Even Halia could take her in a fight,” she adds, turning to me. “Run down there and fight for your man, Halia. Go on.”

“Stan is hardly my man.” I laugh. “Why don't you both focus on your own love lives, which, if I recall correctly, are no more existent than mine.”

“That may be, but I'm gonna get that Raynell to set me up with a Redskin. Then I won't have to be all up in here at the butt crack of dawn makin' cakes.”

Momma takes the jars from Wavonne and scoops their contents in a large metal bowl she's already filled with softened butter, secures the bowl into one of my favorite kitchen gadgets, my five-quart stainless steel Hobart N50 mixer. I just upgraded to it a few months ago. It cost a mint, but it works beautifully. Some people get excited over the Audi A6 and the BMW 500 . . . or Versace and Ferragamo. But if you want to see me light up, let's talk about the Hobart N50 mixer or the Kolpak P7-068-CT Walk-In Cooler . . . or the Duke E102-G Double Full Size Gas Convection Oven. Some girls dream of fancy cars and jewelry—for me, a freshly sharpened Misono 440 Molybdenum Santoku knife makes me positively giddy. I'm a sucker for a freshly seasoned Tomlinson cast-iron skillet. . . and don't get me started on the Manitowoc QM-30 Series Self-Contained Cube Ice Machine that's been on my wish list for a couple of years now.

Momma starts the mixer and begins to whip the frosting. As the butter and marshmallow cream blend together she slowly adds powdered sugar to the whirling bowl. When the icing has creamed together nicely, she adds a touch of vanilla, gives it a final mix, and
voilà
, we have Momma's famous marshmallow frosting.

“Yeah . . . good luck with that, Wavonne. From what I know about Raynell, she isn't keen on helping anyone but Raynell. Not to mention she doesn't seem to be terribly fond of you in particular.”

I grab two serrated knifes from the knife block, hand one to Wavonne, and we both help Momma slice the small domes off of the tops of the cake layers, so they will lay smoothly on top of each other.

“My knees are not what they used to be. Give them an eye-level look and make sure they are even,” Momma asks me.

“Let me do that for you two old hens,” Wavonne offers. “Drop it like it's hot,” she says as she squats down to get her face level with the cakes. “Perfect.”

We've helped Momma enough with her baking to know the drill from here. We take four circular pieces of plywood that I've already covered with decorative purple foil and lay them on the counter. These will function as the serving platters. We place four strips of parchment paper on each platter, so they lie just underneath the edges of the cakes to keep icing off the foil while we work. We then place a dollop of frosting on the center of the boards to anchor the cakes before we flip a moist chocolate layer onto it.

“Now, you girls be careful,” Momma says as she goes down the line with a pastry brush and sweeps away any loose crumbs so they don't get in the frosting.

“That's too much, Wavonne!” Momma calls as she watches Wavonne haphazardly plop a glob of frosting onto one of the layers. “These are for Halia's former classmates. We want them to be perfect.”

Wavonne removes some of the icing with her spatula and starts to spread it around. “I wanna slice up one of these for breakfast, Aunt Celia,” she says as we begin on the second layer. “Girl, hook me up with a slice of this cake and maybe a caramel flan latte, and I'd be like a pig in—”

“Don't even think about it, Wavonne. We need four for the reunion, and that's all Momma's made.”

“ ‘Bring me those jars.' ‘Too much icing.' ‘No cake for you,' ” Wavonne mutters under her breath, mimicking Momma and me. “That Russian woman who runs the prison kitchen on TV barks fewer orders.”

Momma and I ignore her as we continue to pull the cakes together. When we finally get all three layers assembled and frosted, Momma, ever the perfectionist, slips a thin spatula in hot water, quickly dries it, and uses the heated tool to carefully smooth out the cakes.

“You can tell people you made them, Halia,” Momma says as we stand back and admire our finished work. “If these cakes can't land you a man, nothing can.”

CHAPTER 12

I
can't believe I'm pulling up in front of Raynell's house to pick up the desk she's donated to the silent auction like I'm some sort of moving service. I'm already catering the reunion at zero profit. You'd think that would be enough. I guess I could have just said no and told Raynell to make other arrangements, but she's a hard person to say no to. Besides, I did want to see her house, which I now see I correctly assumed would be quite impressive. And yes, I thought of asking Wavonne to make this run, but my understanding is that this desk is an antique and might be fragile. Wavonne can be careless, and I'm sure I'd never hear the end of it from Raynell if the desk ended up being scratched or otherwise damaged in transit.

Oh well . . . I guess it's for a good cause—at least I hope the Raynell Rollins Foundation is a good cause and not one of those charities with operating expenses sucking up all the donations before they get to the people they are actually supposed to help. For all I know, the donations go to subsidize Raynell's salon appointments and first-class vacations.

I step out of my van and take in the sheer size of Raynell's home. My first thought is
damn, that's a lot of windows
. I start counting them—fifteen windows along just the front of the house and three more in the rooftop dormers overlooking the expertly landscaped yard. Most of houses in newer suburban neighborhoods have brick facades in the front, but the sides and rear are generally covered in siding to save on cost. But this is not the case for the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Terrence Rollins. I can't see the back, but both sides are brick from the roof to the ground.

I walk toward the double front doors, and, based on my experience shopping for wooden tables and chairs for the restaurant, I suspect they are mahogany.

I press the doorbell and hear it chime inside the house. A moment later I'm surprised to see Raynell open the door. I was sure it would be a housekeeper.

“Halia. Hello.” Her eyes veer past me toward the driveway. “Gosh. The neighbors are going to wonder who's here in that ramshackle thing,” she says of my van, which I'll admit is no Mercedes, but it's only five years old with a few minor nicks on it. “Come in.”

I step inside onto gleaming hardwood floors and look up at the foyer ceiling that goes clear to the top of the house. A large window above the front doors carries beams of light onto a mammoth contemporary chandelier dripping with a few hundred thin rectangular crystals. To the left I see a formal dining room with yet another smaller, but no less exquisite, chandelier hanging over a shiny dark wood table (also mahogany I believe) that seats ten people. To the right is a formal sitting room with lush carpet and contemporary furniture.

“The desk is in the family room.”

I follow Raynell as we walk alongside the staircase to the kitchen, which opens into a two-story family room with exposed beams and a stone fireplace. The entire wall along the back of the kitchen and the family room consists of floor-to-ceiling windows. I remind myself to lift my jaw back up as I examine the kitchen. It's better equipped than some of the commercial kitchens I worked in earlier in my career. It's a regular utopia of rich wooden cabinets offset with metal hardware, stainless-steel appliances, and glossy granite countertops. There's a large island in the middle and a long glass-top table in the dining area in front of the windows. I guess you might call the area with the table “the breakfast nook,” but that term doesn't seem to do it justice.

“I love your kitchen.”

“We never use it,” Raynell says with zero enthusiasm, and continues walking toward the adjoining family room.

I want to shout what a crime that is—to let such a lovely well-appointed kitchen go to waste—but I keep my mouth shut and follow Raynell.

“Here it is.”

I look down and see an ornate piece of furniture . . . what you might call a “period piece.” While quite handsome, it is decidedly out of place among all the modern furnishings in Raynell's home. It hosts a bunch of cubbies and drawers and stands on thin legs that descend into claws—I think they are called ball-and-claw Chippendale legs. It's adorned with metal pulls and outlined with a trim that looks like a detailed wooden rope.

“It's lovely,” I say. “How old is it?”

“I had it appraised a few weeks ago. The appraiser thought it was at least two hundred years old. I gave Christy the paperwork with the details. She put together a description that we can display with the desk at the auction. It's valued at more than a thousand dollars, so I've suggested twelve hundred as the minimum bid. We'll see who of the trifling fools we went to high school with has that kind of money.”

“That's nice of you to donate it,” I say, wondering what her angle is. Raynell is not the kind of person who does things out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe she's tried to sell it and can't, or maybe she's lying about its worth . . . who knows.

“It's nothing. And honestly I'll be glad to have it out of my house. I'm all about clean lines and modern furniture. This thing just clashes with my whole decorating theme.”

“What made you buy it if it's so dissimilar to the rest of your décor?”

“Oh, I'm always picking up things that I think might have value—not necessarily to keep. One of the perks of being a real estate agent is I often get first dibs on the possessions divorcing couples are trying to get rid of. They put their house on the market after the divorce papers are filed. Often one of the spouses will sell me things below market value just to be spiteful—the stories I could tell. There's less drama on an episode of
Scandal
than in some of my business dealings with couples who've decided to separate.” She looks to the right of the desk. “I bought that painting from the same client who sold me the desk.” Raynell points to what can only be described as a stunning portrait of a young black woman in a lovely one-shoulder evening gown. She's poised in front of an old-fashioned microphone. The painting manages to capture her both singing and smiling at the same time. It immediately makes me think of the 1940s . . . or maybe the early fifties.

“Wow,” I say. “What a beautiful painting . . .” My voice trails off as I realize that beautiful doesn't really do it justice. “Exquisite . . . it's truly exquisite,” I add as I think about what a shame it is to see it just sitting on the floor leaning against a bookcase rather than being displayed on the wall.

“Meh,” Raynell says, unimpressed. “It's worthless, and I overpaid for it. I'm not sure if I'll keep it.”

“Who is the painting of? She looks familiar.”

“Sarah Vaughan. Apparently, she was a jazz singer or something back in the day.”

“Sarah Vaughan!” I exclaim. “My mother played her version of ‘Send in the Clowns' when I was a kid. She had an amazing voice. I remember Momma referring to her as ‘The Divine One.' ”

“I thought her heyday was more in the forties and fifties.”

“Her career spanned decades. I only know because Momma is a big fan. ‘If You Could See Me Now' was another big song of hers—that's a really old one I think . . . from the forties, maybe.”

“Well, apparently she's dead.”

“She must be dead for more than twenty years now.”

“You'd think that would make the painting worth something—even if it isn't a Keckley.”

“Keckley?”

“I thought the painting might be an original Keckley. Arthur Keckley was a well-known black artist who painted portraits of performers at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street in D.C. during its prime. He painted all the greats: Duke Ellington, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday . . . and I was hoping that this one was the rendition he did of Sarah Vaughan.”

“It's not, I take it?”

“No. I had Christy find me an appraiser. He evaluated the desk as well. I was actually more excited about the painting, but it turns out only the desk has any real value. And even that is only worth a couple of thousand dollars. The painting is just one of many copies of the Lincoln Theater portraits that were done by unknowns. I could probably sell the painting for a few hundred bucks. But, really, I guess it's not half bad. I'm thinking of switching it out of the antique-looking gold frame into something more modern. Maybe then I'll hang it and see if I want to keep it.

“You should keep it. It's rich with history even if it's not an original.”

“History shmistory. Show me the money.”

I'm about to offer to buy it from her, thinking that Momma would love it, or that it might be a nice addition to the artwork at Sweet Tea, when there's a faint knock on the front door.

“Hello?” we hear Christy call out.

“In here,” Raynell responds.

Christy walks into the family room. “Hi,” she says to me.

I'm about to say hi back, but Raynell starts running her mouth before I have a chance. “Christy's here to help you move the desk. I would lend a hand, but I just had my manicure done. Doesn't it look nice? OPI's Vampsterdam.” Raynell holds up one hand with nails done in a deep reddish brown polish.

“Yes.” Somehow the color fits her—much like Raynell, it's sort of dark and witchy.

“Christy will also help you transport it and unload it at the hotel. I need to stay back and get ready.”

I guess she assumes I don't need any time to get ready, or that I'm planning on showing up to the reunion in a garbage bag and a pair of Birkenstocks.

Christy looks at me, nods, and we both grab a side of the desk from underneath the top. Raynell watches as we lift it out of the room and past the staircase toward the front door.

“Careful,” Raynell says as she opens the front door for us.

Christy and I carefully descend the front steps with the desk, maneuver it out to the van, and set it down for a moment while I open the hatch. We take a breath, manage to raise it level with the floor of the vehicle, and slide it inside. As I close the hatch I see Raynell disappear back into the house, and think it's rude of her to not even say good-bye or thank you, but then again, it's Raynell.

Christy and I walk around to the front of the van, get inside, and buckle up.

“I hate to ask, but since you have the van, Raynell wanted me to see if we could swing by my place and pick up a few more items your classmates have donated.”

“Why is the stuff at your place?”

“Raynell didn't want people bringing things here. I believe her words were something to the effect of, ‘I don't want those trifling fools I went to school with coming here. They're liable to case the place and rob me blind when I'm not at home.' ”

“Sure. No problem.”

I'm about to drive off, when, once again, it dawns on me how out of character it is for Raynell to be donating a desk worth more than a thousand dollars to charity. I'm still wondering what's in it for her when I see her scampering out of the house holding a glossy poster the size of a large pizza box.

“Be sure to display this on the desk,” she says as Christy opens the door and accepts the sign. It has an inappropriately large (and heavily Photoshopped) photo of Raynell and her contact information, and reads “Donated by Raynell Rollins, Realtor. Please contact Raynell for all your real estate needs in the finer neighborhoods of Prince George's County.”

Raynell heads back into the house, and after reading the sign I look at Christy. “Well, I guess it's better than saying, ‘Donated by Raynell Rollins. I don't work in none of the Heights.' ”

 

 

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1¾ cups sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup whole milk
½ cup sour cream
1 stick of butter (½ cup)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup strong hot coffee