Murder with Macaroni and Cheese (21 page)

CHAPTER 39

“I
'm a busy man, Ms. Watkins,” Detective Hutchins says to me as Wavonne and I step out of my van with Kimberly following. He must have arrived a few minutes before us. “I've got a few men here as well.” He points toward two patrol cars also parked in the lot of Christy's apartment building. “We're spending taxpayers' dollars. This had better not be some wild-goose chase.”

I called Detective Hutchins after leaving Kimberly's parents' house and asked him to meet us at Christy's home. I assured him that I can prove that Raynell's death was not an accident and, after much prodding, he finally agreed.

I lead us toward Christy's apartment. On the way, we pass by Christy's car and see that the painting is still on the folded-down backseat. James Barnett's truck is parked next to it.

We walk up the steps to her unit, and, when I knock on the door, we hear some scurrying around inside. Sometime later, Christy opens the door just enough to poke her head through.

“Hi, Christy. Can we speak with you for a few minutes?” I ask.

“Now is really not a good time.”

“That's okay. We'll just be a minute.” Wavonne pushes the door open and walks into Christy's apartment, with the rest of us following. We've barely entered the living room when we hear a door close down the hall.

“You can come out, James,” I call. “I know you're here. I saw your truck in the parking lot.”

James opens a door down the hall from the living room and steps out. He tries to smile as if he has nothing to hide, but he's not a good actor.

“Christy invited me back after lunch at your lovely restaurant,” he says. “To . . . um . . . to . . .”

“I thought you said you'd never met James before today?” I ask Christy, interrupting James's stammering. “Do you always invite men you've just met back to your place?” I do the air quotes thing with my fingers when I say “just met.”

“I'm not sure that's really any of your business, Halia. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes. We'd just like to ask you some questions.” I point to my left. “You remember Wavonne and Kimberly . . . and this is Detective Hutchins with the Prince George's County Police Department.”

Christy and James were clearly unnerved by our intrusion, but even more worry comes across their faces when they hear the word “police.”

“Like I said, Halia, my bringing a man I've just met back to my place is really not any of your business.”

“Man you've just met? You'd never met James prior to this morning? Really?” I don't wait for an answer. “Then how, pray tell, did you know he liked ketchup on his eggs?”

Christy looks at me with an inquisitive expression.

“You asked for ketchup after your entreés arrived at brunch today. You never used it, but James was certainly a fan. My momma used to do that for Daddy. He'd always forget to ask for Tabasco sauce before the waiter left the table, so Momma got in the habit of asking for it for him. That's what people who've been together for a long time do. They think for the other person.”

“That proves that I knew James before today? Because I asked for ketchup? You've got to be kidding me.”

“That's not all. James agreed to carry the painting for you when you were leaving Sweet Tea. He walked ahead of us while you and I chatted. And, when we caught up with him, he was waiting by your car. Funny how he didn't need any instruction on which car was yours.”

Clearly flustered, she responds. “That's just a coincidence. He was just . . . he was just waiting for us and happened to be near my car.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” I switch gears. “So, we saw Raynell's painting out in your car.”

“So? I plan to take it back over to Terrence later. You aren't accusing me of stealing it, are you? You asked me to retrieve it for James to reassess it at your restaurant. We all know it doesn't have any major value anyway . . . at least not enough to make it worth stealing.”

“No, the
one
in the car doesn't have any significant value, but I suspect
that
one does.” I point to some edges of a frame sticking out from underneath the sofa. “When you rushed to hide it from us when we knocked on the door, you should have made sure it was entirely out of sight.”

“Ooh . . . it's about to go
down!
” Wavonne steps over to the sofa and slides the painting out from underneath.

I take a quick look at it. “Yes, that's the one I remember seeing at Raynell's weeks ago. It definitely has a more weathered look than the poor imitation out in the car. You know what else I noticed when I leaned in close to examine the imitation on the table at Sweet Tea?”

“What did you notice, Halia?” James asks, irritation in his voice.

“It had a certain smell—a smell that I just figured out over at Kimberly's studio earlier today was the scent of fresh paint. You'll notice this one”—I point toward the painting on the floor—“doesn't have a smell, which is how I knew James was lying when he said the copy he viewed at Sweet Tea, the copy that's down in your car as we speak, was painted about the same time as the original. Portraits that are decades old don't smell of paint, but newly made reproductions do. Any real art appraiser would have noticed the smell and immediately concluded that the portrait viewed at Sweet Tea was painted recently. But James isn't a real art appraiser, is he?”

No one answers my question.

“You arranged for James, who I'm guessing is your boyfriend, to pretend to be an appraiser so he could tell Raynell that the painting was worthless. You—”

Christy interrupts me. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Oh, I think you know a lot . . . about a lot of things, Christy. Let's take art for instance. Who would have guessed that an assistant to a real estate agent would have a master's degree in art history?”

“How did you know that?”

“I had Wavonne do a little digging on her phone on the way over here. You shouldn't keep things on your LinkedIn profile that you don't want others to see.” I pause for a moment. “My guess is there are not a lot of jobs out there these days for art history majors, so you had to settle for what you hoped would be a temporary gig with Raynell.”

“Having an art degree is hardly a crime.”

“No, but it does give you the credentials to determine the worth of art or at least have an idea if a piece might be worth something. My guess is you knew the value of the Keckley as soon as you saw it, and you immediately began scheming about how to keep Raynell in the dark about it. I guess that's where James came in. You two conspired for James to pose as an art expert and tell Raynell her painting had no value, when you knew that it was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm thinking you even had him tell her that her antique desk was worth a few thousand bucks to throw her a bone and keep her from getting suspicious.”

“Pure fiction,” James says.

“Real life is always more interesting than fiction, James. I bet killing Raynell was not part of the original plan. You probably just planned to switch out the painting with a better reproduction at some later date, but suddenly you needed to act fast when you heard Raynell asking Kimberly to take a look at the painting at the reunion. You decided to kill Raynell before Kimberly could tell her how much the painting was really worth, which would have led Raynell to investigate the two of you. Then not only would you have lost your chance at making some serious cash, but you may very well have found yourself in jail on conspiracy charges.”

“This is silly,” James says. “Okay, so you caught us with the real painting. Maybe we did switch it out. But you can't prove we killed Raynell. Besides, from what I've heard, all indications lead to her death being an accident. Word is there was no sign of forced entry or struggle.”

“Of course there was no forced entry. Christy has a key to her house and, even if she didn't, she was the last one to see Raynell alive when she put her to bed the night of the reunion. She could have left the door unlocked for reentry later.”

“That doesn't explain why there were no signs of struggle,” Detective Hutchins says. “And these two”—he gestures toward Christy and James—“are not big people. Even together I doubt they could have killed Ms. Rollins without her putting up a good fight . . . a struggle.”

“There were no signs of struggle because . . . well, because Raynell was already dead . . . or at least unconscious when Christy and James slammed her head against the bath tub.”

Christy visibly tenses up. “That's ridiculous!”

“No, I'm afraid it isn't. And I'll tell you why. Word on the street is that someone stole Raynell's Escalade the day after she died—”

“Yeah . . . some hood rats must've heard Raynell croaked and figured they'll steal her car while there was no one home,” Wavonne interrupts.

I eye Wavonne in such a way that tells her to cool it and let me do the talking. “But whoever stole the vehicle abandoned it on the side of the road when it ran out of gas only a few miles from her home.”

“So?”

“That always struck me as odd. Raynell was very detailed-oriented and on top of things . . . and, like a Boy Scout, she was always prepared. She earned her living in her car and was hardly the kind of person who would let her gas tank get so low that her car would run out of gas before she could get to the nearest filling station.”

“What does that have to do with anything? It means nothing,” Christy says.

“It means we look for an explanation of why her gas tank was near empty the day she's found dead. Perhaps it was because
someone
”—I look at Christy as I say this—“left the car running all night with the garage door closed. Perhaps
someone
brought her home from the reunion and put her to bed. Then went into the garage and started the car, knowing that Raynell was so drunk she'd likely sleep through the carbon monoxide fumes coming into her house until they killed her or at least rendered her immobile.”

“And not that anyone did, but let's just say that someone else entered the house shortly after you left.” I move my gaze from Christy to Kimberly. “And let's just say this someone was there to . . . I don't know . . . switch out shampoo with hair removal cream. The running car in the garage would also explain why this person left Raynell's feeling light-headed and was so loopy that she had to pull over and get some rest in a parking lot. The house would have likely just started to fill up with fumes when she came to settle an old high school vendetta. While she wouldn't have been there long enough for the fumes to kill her, they could have made her feel unwell on the way home and caused the lingering headache she might have reported for days afterward.”

“If you really think someone left the car running all night, what makes you think it was me?” Christy asks. “There were tons of people in town with motive to kill Raynell. From what I understand, half her former classmates hated her. Why not Gregory Simms . . . or her.” Christy directs a finger toward Kimberly.

“Interesting that you're pointing to Kimberly. I went to see her today, and she was working with some spray paints. Did you know people wear masks when they work with spray paints? Funny thing, when she took the mask off, the straps that go behind her ears left some marks on her face—the same kind of marks you had on your face when I came to get my check from you the morning after the reunion. I thought they were sleep lines from a wrinkly pillowcase, but now I'm quite certain they were from a mask—a mask you wore when you went back to Raynell's after filling her house with carbon monoxide all night. It would have been necessary to wear one when you went around opening all the windows to let the fumes out.

“I thought it was odd that all the windows were open the morning we found Raynell. She was always complaining about how much she hated the heat—”

“Girl was a bigger sweater than Whitney Houston during her crack days.”

I nod in agreement with Wavonne. “And why would she have all the windows in her house open when she was home alone? Let's face it, Christy, you went back to Raynell's the morning after the reunion, opened all the windows to clear the house of car exhaust. And, at some point, James joined you, and the two of you dragged Raynell's dead body out of bed into the bathroom and slammed her head against the tub. Shortly after you hastily created a bad reproduction of the Keckley painting and replaced it with the original, hoping it would go unnoticed.”

“That's all speculation,” James says.

Christy looks at him, and it seems that the stress of her actions and the lies to cover them have taken their toll. “So what if we did kill her? The bitch had it coming.”

“Christy!” James calls, trying to get her to shut up.

“They've already got us on the stolen painting, James. It's over,” she says to him, and then turns to the rest of us. “She was a horrible person. All she did was scream at me all day and complain about everything I did. She wouldn't have sold a single house if it wasn't for all of my work. But do you think that miser ever shared so much as a penny of one of her commissions with me? When she made a big sale, do you know what she would do? She'd give me some of her designer hand-me-downs in a plastic trash bag as some sort of warped thank-you. Like I was supposed to have undying gratitude for her leftover Manolos. Yeah, we killed her to keep her from finding out we tried to dupe her out of a hefty sum of money and to make sure we got the painting, but just ridding the world of Raynell Rollins was reason enough.”