“So Dion was only hanging around until you filmed the bit about the breakup?” asked Chase.
“Well, duh. We were going to milk this thing for all we could get.”
“What about Dion? How did he feel about this situation?” Odelia asked.
“Well, he’s not too happy,” said Shayonne. “He’s off the show, isn’t he?”
“You snooze, you lose,” said Shalonda.
“I don’t think that’s correct, honey,” said Shayonne. “More like, you cheat, you lose.”
“It doesn’t have the same ring to it. I like mine better.”
“What it all comes down to, Detective,” said Shayonne, touching Chase’s knee, “is that when you cheat on a Kenspeckle you’re out on your ass.”
“Amen to that,” said Shalonda.
Odelia shared a glance with Chase. This was definitely motivation for murder. If Dion was going to get kicked off the show, he stood to lose a lot of money. He might have wanted to plot revenge against Shana. Maybe even hoped that the murder would sink the entire show.
“What about Damien?” asked Chase.
Shayonne swatted away a fly.“What about him?”
“Did he know about Shana and Dion?”
“Of course he did. We don’t keep secrets in this family. Damien knew all about his wife’s infidelities.”
“Infidelities?” asked Odelia. “You mean this wasn’t a one-time thing?”
“Nope,” said Shayonne. “Now don’t get me wrong. Shana was the sweetest person in the world.”
“So sweet.”
“And I loved her, like, a lot.”
“A whole lot.”
“But let’s not kid ourselves. She was a skank.”
“They didn’t get any skankier than Shana.”
“She never met a guy she didn’t want to sleep with and who didn’t want to sleep with her.” She shrugged. “That’s the way she was. Take it or leave it.”
“Damien knew that going in,” said Shalonda. “In fact he sleeps around just as much as she does. They have a, quote unquote, arrangement.”
“So he was fine with this Dion situation?” Odelia asked.
The two sisters shared a look.“Well, fine would be overstating it,” said Shayonne.
“Yeah, he and Dion got into a big fight about it the other night.”
“They knocked the shit out of each other and then bonded over a couple of beers and hung out at the pool all night. It was crazy.”
“Dion is crazy.”
“Hey. Who you calling crazy? That’s my husband you’re talking about.”
“Ex-husband,” Shalonda specified.
“He’s not my ex-husband. I haven’t divorced him yet.”
Shalonda stared at her sister.“You’re not seriously thinking about keeping him, are you? After what he did to you?”
“But I still love him, honey. And maybe now that Shana’s gone we can start over.”
“You’re officially crazy. That man never treated you right.”
“He has. And anyway, better to have a man than no man at all.”
Shalonda’s eyebrows rose and she planted a hand on her hip. “Don’t hold back, honey. Just throw it all out there, why don’t you?”
“I’m saying you don’t get to give me marriage advice. I’m only going to take marriage advice from a person who’s in a successful marriage. And that person obviously isn’t you.”
“I would have had a successful marriage if Shana hadn’t stolen my man.”
“She wouldn’t have stolen your man if he wasn’t ready to be stolen.”
“Wait, you also had a man stolen from you by Shana?” Odelia asked. She was feeling as if she was on an episode of the Kenspeckles. Which she was.
“Of course. Didn’t you listen to a word we said? Shana stole all of our men. That’s what she did. She was a man-stealer.”
Chase shook his head and jotted something down in his notebook. It wasn’t hard to figure out what. Both Shalonda and Shayonne had a motive for murder. Both of them had had their men stolen by their sister.
“Did you notice anything about the intruder last night?” Odelia asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Not a thing,” said Shayonne. “I slept like a baby. Though when I woke up I was feeling nauseous. But I already told Detective Kingsley about that.”
“You were drugged,” Chase confirmed. “Both of you were.”
“Yeah, I was feeling nauseous too,” said Shalonda. “I thought I was pregnant.”
Both sisters laughed.“Good one, Shalonda,” said Shayonne.
“What about that?” Odelia asked.
Shalonda blinked.“What about what?”
“Any plans to add a new generation to the Kenspeckle family?”
“Well, Dion and I were planning our first baby,” said Shayonne.
“But that’s off now, right?” asked Shalonda. When her sister didn’t respond, she repeated emphatically, “I said, that’s off now. Right?”
Shayonne shrugged.
Shalonda’s jaw dropped dramatically. “Oh. My. God. You’re not seriously thinking to procreate with that man, are you? He cheated on you with your own sister!”
“That won’t happen again,” said Shayonne. “He promised.”
“Of course it won’t happen again! Shana is dead. It’s physically impossible for that to happen again. That don’t mean he won’t do it with some other skank.”
“He’s a good person,” Shayonne insisted. “And it’s not because he tripped up once that he should be punished for the rest of his life. He deserves a second chance and I am possibly willing to give him one. Maybe. I’m still thinking.”
“Think again! Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“That’s not true. He promised he wouldn’t do it again and I believe him.”
Shalonda raised her eyes to the rafters, as if to draw strength from the honeysuckle.“I’m telling Camille,” she finally declared. “I’m so telling her.”
Odelia noticed how the cameraman had snuck up on them, and was so caught up in the dramatic scene that he’d dropped all pretenses and was openly filming. This was going to be another cliffhanger, she thought.
“So you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, apart from the fact that you were both feeling nauseous this morning?” asked Chase, in a heroic effort to take back control of the interview.
“No, Detective,” said Shayonne. “I was out like a light all night.”
“Me too.”
“You are going to catch the killer, right?” asked Shayonne.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to find him, ma’am,” said Chase. Then he caught sight of the cameraman and cursed loudly.
The cameraman eyed him sheepishly.“Just doing my job, bub.”
“Get out of my face,” Chase said. “I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
“Better get used to it,” Odelia whispered. “You’re a TV detective now.”
“Thanks, ladies,” he said, ignoring her remark. “That’s all for now.”
“And it’s a wrap,” Shayonne cried. “Tell me you got all that?”
The cameraman gave her a toothy grin and a thumbs-up.
“You did great, Detective,” Shalonda said. “You’re a natural.”
“I don’t care,” he said wearily. “I just want to catch your sister’s killer.”
“Oh, but so do we,” said Shayonne.
“Yeah, that’s all we care about,” said Shalonda. “Now do you think we could do this again, Detective? Only this time I’ll sit there and you sit here.”
Chase sighed.“Just… shoot me already. Not you,” he said when the cameraman pointed his camera at him. “You shoot me and I’ll shoot you.”
Yep, this was shaping up to be a pretty interesting murder investigation.
Chapter 11
While Odelia and Chase went off to interview the two leading ladies of Cirque du Kenspeckle, Dooley and I decided to abandon our perch and do some more snooping around. Earn our kibble, if you know what I mean.