A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (13 page)

I awoke the next morning at the crack of dawn, and dressed quickly in jeans, a peasant blouse I’d recently made, and my go-to red Frye cowboy boots. By seven o’clock, I was on the road, heading for Bliss Park where the mum-exchange photo session was scheduled to take place. Somewhere in Bliss, a mother lay snug in her bed, blissfully unaware of the cameras snapping, the multitude of pictures being taken, and the mums being given and received.

I wasn’t a mother, but I was wide awake, what with the excitement of the girls I’d helped with their mums, the mums I’d made myself, and the elation of every teenager in town.

By the time I arrived, it looked like half of Bliss was already there. I searched the crowd looking for Gracie Flores, Holly Kincaid, Danica Edwards, Leslie Downs, or any of the other girls I knew were going to be here. I hadn’t been looking for any of the boys, but I saw Shane before I recognized anyone else. He stood away from the
group, leaning against a tree with one shoulder, his eyes downcast. It looked like his stint being questioned at the sheriff’s station had taken its toll on him.

“Mum delivery,” I said, holding out the completed ribbon-flower concoction for him to give to Gracie. I tried to stay positive and grinned. “The sewing machine is perfect. Great thinking!”

He took the mum, mustering a slight smile. “Thanks, Ms. Cassidy—”

“Harlow,” I said. At thirty-three I was nineteen years older than the average high school freshman, yet I didn’t feel old enough to be a Ms. “Just call me Harlow.”

“I tried to talk her out of going to the dance,” he said, turning and leaning his whole back against the tree now. He hooked the hanger with the mum over his fingers, gripping the plastic covering the creation in his palm. “I told her everyone’s going to be talking about my dad and me and either hanging around us because of it, or avoiding us. Half of them think I did it, and the other half might as well think it, what with all the staring they do.”

He was trying to keep his cool and not let his emotions get the better of him, but I could see it was a struggle. His jaw pulsed with the effort and his eyes had a glassy film.

“Shane,” I said, looking him in the eyes. I waited until he met my gaze and I was sure he was going to hear and register what I said. “I don’t believe you were involved, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I promise.”

He drew in a deep breath, his jaw relaxing slightly. My heart broke for him and everything he was going through. “You figured it out—about the two families, I mean?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He hesitated again, looking around as if he could draw strength from the energy of the homecoming frenzy. “What’s she like?”

My gut twisted. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, and I didn’t think it was one Shane should have, either. Then again, I realized it wasn’t my place to make that determination. And he had a right to know, much as I wished I could protect him from the truth.

In the end, I decided to say as little as I could. At least for now.

“Mrs. Blake? She seemed . . . nice,” I said. “Nice.” It had to be the blandest word in the English language, but honestly, it was true. She’d been irritated at first that her husband was MIA, but after we’d broken the ice, she’d been . . . nice.

I could only imagine the pain she was experiencing now that she knew the truth. Eddy Blake had been her husband first, and now she knew that when he’d met Miss Reba, he’d been willing to risk everything—from his marriage to his business to his freedom—all to be with her.

I was pretty sure those bits of knowledge wouldn’t give Miss Reba any solace, but they certainly had to be worse than a prickly thorn in the side of Barbara Ann.

Car doors slammed. Girls and boys, dressed in their everyday jeans and shirts, filed out of the cars carrying mums streaming with ribbons. The quiet morning slowly evaporated, replaced by the excited squeals of the girls as their guys presented them with their mums.

Still, despite the buzz of homecoming, plenty of people shot stray glances at Shane, pointing, leaning close to the
person next to them, and whispering something. I’d thought there’d be more compassion toward him from his classmates, but instead they avoided him. They were probably praying for him, but they wouldn’t speak to him.

Shane seemed to feel the stares. Sense the whispers. His shoulders curled in and he looked like he wanted to tuck his head in like a turtle and disappear.

I didn’t blame him.

Around us, the kids hurled names across the park, the voices rising to be heard above the cacophony. “Susannah!” someone yelled. “Brittany!”

“Heather, is that you? Heather!”

“Carlos!”

“Debbie!”

Slowly but surely, groups found one another and split off. Moms, their back jean pockets sparkling with bling, followed, cameras in hands, to snap a hundred pictures of the homecoming tradition and capture the moment. Through the thinning crowd, Danica, Leslie, Holly, and Gracie appeared like angels materializing through the fog. Gracie was the only one with a date to homecoming, but none of the girls minded. They all grinned, part of a group, which was the only thing that mattered.

Shane pushed off the tree, straightening up. He plastered a smile on his face and leaned down to give Gracie a hug. I looked around for Miss Reba, but she wasn’t anywhere I could see.

“My mom’s not coming,” Shane said, reading my mind. “She couldn’t face anyone.”

I understood. She had to feel betrayed and humiliated. And if she was guilty, then she had to play her part accurately.

Will had an early meeting, so I told him I’d take pictures of Gracie and Shane with their mums. Holly’s mom, Miriam Kincaid, had a bookstore on the square and wasn’t able to leave it, and Leslie and Danica were on their own. I was it, the lone parentlike representative.

I clapped my hands and gathered the kids together, unsnapping the cover from my camera. My Canon didn’t compare to Madelyn’s, but it did what I needed it to do. I could take pictures, like I would that morning at the park, and I could photograph the different stages of my designs, cataloguing them for the Web site I was in the process of creating. Beyond the basics, however, I was lost.

The girls strung their mums around their necks and Shane wore his on his arm, held up by a garter. Ribbons streamed down from each of the girl’s concoctions, some nearly dusting the ground. I held the camera up, peering through the eyepiece, snapping away just like the blinged-out moms scattered throughout the park were doing.

Shane pointed out the centerpiece of Gracie’s mum—the miniature antique sewing machine—and it was as if the world around them disappeared for a moment. I could see her breathe in, and I watched him watching her, his lips curving up as she gasped, fingering the sloping curves of the gold-flecked machine.

His eyes softened and for a second, it looked like he actually forgot about his troubles. I captured the moment with the digital camera, and then allowed them privacy as I took pictures of Holly, Danica, Leslie, and Carrie.

The girls’ voices rose as they chatted about the dance,
their mums, and anything else that came to their minds. Someone in the middle of the group of girls said, “You look so much like this girl I used to go to school with.”

I zoomed in, trying to capture candid moments of each girl. Leslie smiled. Danica laughed as she fiddled with one of the charms on her mum, retying a loose knot. Holly ran her fingers under her eyes, cleaning up her eyeliner.

“Well, they do say everybody has a twin,” Leslie said.

“True that,” Carrie said. She reached her arm out toward Danica. “I
love
your hair.”

“Thanks,” she said, but she took a step back, just out of Carrie’s reach.

“It almost has this blue tint—did you know that? I bet it glows in the dark. Wonder if that would look good on me. Where do you have it done?”

“The Salon on the Square,” Danica said, her smile tightening and her barriers going back up. I’d been impressed at how open she was trying to be. She wanted to have fun at homecoming, wanted to be part of the group, but the pressure was taking its toll on her.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Holly plucking at the ribbons and streamers of her mum. I took a few more pictures of Danica, Leslie, and Carrie before I shifted my focus to Holly and started snapping pictures for her mom, Miriam. That line of thought sent another pang of regret through me for Gracie, Leslie, and Danica, none of whom had a mother in their lives.

Meemaw’s voice echoed in the back of my mind.
Family is made up of the people you choose.
That was just what Danica had said, and they were both right. I was lucky enough to have both a family through blood
that I loved with all my heart, and the family I chose. Danica and Leslie and all the other kids at Helping Hands needed to find people like Orphie, Josie, Madelyn, Will, and Gracie, people who would fill up the space in them reserved for unconditional love and friendship.

I moved the camera back to Danica and Leslie. Carrie was still talking about the friend one of them looked like, and Danica and Leslie both looked like they just wanted to escape. Finally, Leslie pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen. She yelped. “We have to go!”

I looked around and realized that half the kids had already cleared out of the park. School was going to start in fifteen minutes. Cars snaked along the road, heading for Bliss High School.

Gracie gave me a hug, and once again I could see her fighting to restrain the tears glazing her eyes. “Thank you for everything, Harlow,” she said. “The mums are perfect.”

I had to agree with her. It might be a crazy tradition, but it was a tradition nonetheless, and the kids loved every second of it.

Danica, Leslie, and Holly gave me quick hugs, too, before heading to their cars. Shane stopped short of a hug, instead inclining his head. “I know you’re trying to help,” he said, the sadness and anxiety back in his eyes.

“I am,” I said, “and I won’t give up.”

My phone rang as they headed off. Miss Reba. “Shane and Gracie looked beautiful,” I said when I answered, but she didn’t seem to hear me.

“Harlow, I found something,” she said, her voice muffled as if she’d been crying. She blew her nose and I knew I was right.

“What’s that, Miss Reba?” I didn’t offer reassurances or sympathies. I’d already done that and it only went so far. No, what I needed to offer her now were answers.

“Letters,” she said. “Chris kept a box filled with letters
she’d
written to him. I don’t want them in my house. I
can’t
have them in my house. Harlow,” she said, “please come get them.”

I made it to Miss Reba’s house in record time, my curiosity spurring me on. “You need to call the sheriff,” I told her.

“I don’t want all our dirty laundry out there for people to chew on,” she said, sniffling, although I sensed the strength back in her voice.

“But it could be evidence. The sheriff needs to see it.”

“I want to show you first,” she said. “If you think we should turn them over after you see them, we will. But not before.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m just a dressmaker, Miss Reba. I’m not—”

“You’re the only one I trust, Harlow. You’re not judging my family, and I know you can sort out the truth. Hell, you already did. Thanks to you, we know about Chris’s double life. The sheriff didn’t do that.
You
did that.”

She made me sound like some superdetective, and I was afraid that in her mind, that’s what I was becoming.
She believed that I could somehow find all the answers she sought and make everything okay for her and her kids in the end.

It was a tall order for a small-town fashion designer.

“Will you look at them?” she asked, pressing the nondescript shoebox at me.

I hemmed and hawed for another minute, but finally took the box and followed her into the living room. Plush brown couches were arranged around a square high-gloss coffee table. A stack of oversized books sat at an artistic angle on one side; a basket with a shallow vase of flowers inside was on the other side. Our styles were different, but I could recognize her eye for decorating and balance.

Even more apparent was the difference in decor between the Montgomery house and the Blake house. It was as if when Chris had been here, he’d lived the high life, and when he’d been Eddy Blake, he was blue collar and survived on less.

I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d preferred one lifestyle to the other, and if so, which one? Knowing that could help explain his thinking and why he’d chosen to live the two lives he did, but it was something none of us would ever really understand or know the answer to.

Miss Reba and I sat next to each other, her body turned toward me. I set the box between us. She’d given it to me, but I wanted her to take the lead.

She didn’t miss a beat, quickly flipping the lid back to reveal the stack of letters stored inside.

She’d regained her composure, the only sign she’d been crying her red-rimmed eyes. “Go on,” she said, nudging the box closer to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked one more time. One thing I didn’t want was to be given the green light to read Chris Montgomery’s private letters, then discover something else sordid, only to have Miss Reba change her mind and end up upset that she’d ever shared something so personal.

“Harlow Cassidy, for heaven’s sake. I want you to read them. I just can’t do it. Not yet, anyway. And I wouldn’t ever subject Teagen or Shane to their father’s other life. But if there’s something there that can help you, well then, you need to read them.”

I didn’t bother trying to convince her to share them with the sheriff instead. She’d already declined and I didn’t see her changing her mind.

My glasses slipped. I pushed them back up and tucked my hair behind my ears. “You want me to read them all right now?”

“Pshaw,” she said, fluttering her hand. “I’m not going to torture myself by watching Chris’s other life unfold before your eyes.”

Instantly, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted. Another issue still remained—after all, I had agreed to read the letters—but at least I could do it privately and without Miss Reba watching my every reaction. I closed the lid and stood, tucking the box under my arm. “I’ll start tonight,” I said.

She followed me to the door, and from her expression, I thought for a second that she might change her mind. But she didn’t. As I drove off, I saw her in my rearview mirror still standing on her stone porch. One car crash had changed her entire life. The box on the seat next to me might give her solace. Or it could do the
opposite, digging the knife in deeper and then twisting it. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to read them herself.

But I wondered how I’d become Bliss’s de facto sleuth, and if I’d help her, or if I’d end up letting her down.

*   *   *

The day loomed before me. I made a mental list of everything I needed to do, and the order in which I needed to do it. I headed back to Buttons & Bows, set the box of letters on my own coffee table, plugged the SD card from my camera into my computer to let the homecoming photos upload, and then headed to my workroom.

I’d meant to ask Gracie if she’d finished attaching her rosettes, but the kids had all run off so quickly that I’d forgotten. If she needed help, I’d stay up all night with her, but for now I had to concentrate on finishing Danica’s dress. Homecoming was tomorrow.

The bells on the front door jingled as the door opened. Madelyn Brighton breezed in, her camera bag slung over her shoulder. For someone with short hair, she had a hundred and one hairstyles. Today it was gelled and artfully spiked. She wore a pair of jeans, a wide fold at the ankle, jeweled sandals, a flowing white T-shirt, and a hot pink tailored jacket. Against her mocha-colored skin, the white top was fresh and crisp and the jacket popped.

“You look ready for the boardwalk on the beach,” I said when she came into the workroom.

“If I project, do you think a beach will appear?” she said in her lovely British accent.

It was still hot enough that Madelyn and I both longed for surf and sand, but Bliss was nestled on the southern end of North Texas, so the nearest beach was down far away at the Gulf.

She glanced around, stepping back to peek through the French doors toward the dining room. “No more mums?”

I grinned. “No more mums.” I’d cleaned up the supplies, organizing the ribbons, backings, and charms in plastic bins, storing them in the attic. Thankfully, mums were just a once-a-year project. “The kids all met at the park this morning and, you’ll be very proud of me . . . I took pictures.”

Her pink-tinged lips curved into a happy smile. Pictures were her life, and there were never enough subjects for her taste. With an absence of portrait work, she’d recently taken an interest in macrophotography, stalking flower gardens in search of spiderwebs—“They are incredibly perfect,” she’d explained—and unmarred flower petals—“Each one is a work of art.”

“Let me see,” she said, looking around for the camera.

I pointed toward the dining room and the little computer table in the corner. “They’re uploading.”

She scooted off, and I went back to Danica’s dress. It hung on the dress form, still not quite right. I walked around it, my hand cupped at my chin, thinking. Something wasn’t working with the tangerine microfiber. It was too . . . orange. With nothing to break up the color, I was worried it would overpower Danica’s subdued personality. The right design could help bring out the subtle elements of someone’s personality, but if it was too much, it could backfire. This, I was afraid, was going to backfire big-time.

It was holding the bubble flounce at the hem, but it needed something to diffuse the overwhelming tangerine color. An idea hit me suddenly. “It could work,” I
muttered. I snatched up my phone and dialed Josie. I explained my dilemma to her, my plan, then what I needed.

“Black beads?” she asked, mulling over my solution to all the orange.

“No. Black and orange is too much like Halloween. The fabric’s pretty vibrant, so I think a blue glass would look great. I’ll attach them to the straps, and make an accessory for the waist. If you can make a necklace, that’ll complete the outfit.”

The other end of the phone was silent.

“Hello? Josie? You still there?”

“Oh! Sorry. I was thinking. I just sketched out a rough design. I think it’ll be perfect!”

“It should come to a point, maybe with a larger bead hanging from the center?”

“Exactly what I was thinking. I’ll work on it right now,” she said, an excitement in her voice that I hadn’t heard for a while. She loved motherhood and adored her baby girl and her husband, but having someone else need you for something was a good feeling. The task of making a necklace for Danica was small, but it was something she did brilliantly, and I needed her. I could sense her spirit bolstered because of it.

I hung up with Josie just as Madelyn came back into the workroom. “Remind me to show you how to frame a person in photograph,” she said.

I feigned shock and hurt, pressing my flattened palm to my chest. “Are my subjects poorly framed?”

“Funny girl. Quite poorly framed, if I must be honest. You have some far too close up, and others are so far away you see no details. I can tell you tried to create
groups. Grouping friends, siblings, boyfriend/girlfriend together is a brilliant idea, but not if you can’t draw connections from the subjects or if the shots themselves aren’t that interesting.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Mads,” I said. “You could be a football coach with that skill.”

She smiled, throwing her shoulders back a little, completely missing my sarcasm. Then she saw the mock hurt expression on my face and rushed forward. “I’m sorry, love. You’re a brilliant dress designer. All I’m saying is don’t give that up for photography.”

“I hadn’t planned on it, but now I know for sure.” I smiled, showing her no harm, no foul. I got what she was saying. I didn’t have the eye to capture reflections or to frame a photograph interestingly, but then again, it wasn’t my passion. Give me a garbage bag, some trim, and some time, and I could create a killer dress.

I couldn’t do much more on Danica’s dress until Josie came by with the beads. Leslie’s was done. I didn’t know the status of Gracie’s. And I didn’t have to help with the Helping Hands brunch until morning. My gaze trailed to the coffee table and, just like that, Miss Reba’s shoe box full of letters rose to the top of my To Do list.

My coffee table had once been an old door. Now it sat squarely between the love seat, sofa, and settee, and squarely on
it
was the box. I sat down on the settee, pulled the box to the edge of the table, and flipped the lid back.

Madelyn moved to the corner of the sofa nearest the settee. “What do you have there?”

I filled her in, taking my sweet time telling the story. It was a good stall tactic, but it didn’t last for long. It
wasn’t a long story, but by the time I was done, she had scooted to the edge of her seat. “Let’s have a look-see then.”

I couldn’t think of a single reason not to at this point. I took the first envelope out of the box. The name “Eddy”
was written in neat cursive across the front with a curvy line scrawled underneath it. The paper inside was a single trifolded page. I opened it up and started to read. There was no date on the page.

Dear Eddy~

Happy Anniversary! Twenty years. Are you tired of my letters yet?

I hope not because I will never stop writing them, even though my words don’t always flow from my heart through my fingertips the way I wish they would. I love you more today than I did in the first years of our life together. I feel blessed because not everyone can say that. Sometimes I think that my life began the day that we met. You are the love of my life. We may no longer have the thrill of a first kiss, and this letter may lack the excitement of new love, but what we do have is the trust and the years together and the knowledge that we will never break each other’s hearts.

Long days at work and time apart strained our foundation. We both know that. We’ve experienced the joys and trials of every family. Sue leaving us brought untold challenges that I sometimes thought I’d never overcome. It’s only because of you that I survived losing my only child. But you
were there, and we did survive. We still have each other. You know what commitment really means, and through you I know that men can be kind and compassionate and truly loving.

Eddy, I love you.

Forever and always,
Barbara Ann

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Reading Barbara Ann’s private letter to her husband was bad enough. But I knew the truth about Eddy, and by now she had to know it, too. My stomach twisted as two thoughts raced into my head. On the one hand, Barbara Ann’s heart could be breaking right this second as she tried to process what had happened to the man she thought she could trust.

On the other hand, her heart might have broken months ago, or years ago, when she first found out. She might have already processed her pain and progressed to revenge.

Barbara Ann really
could
be the killer. It made sense.

“What’s it say?” Madelyn asked, her gaze wary.

How could I summarize all the love Barbara Ann Blake had poured into the letter to her husband, and all the betrayal she must now feel? “She loved her husband. She trusted him.” My eyes glazed as I tried to find the right words. “And I bet she feels like she’s been run over by a Mac truck.”

“So it’s a love letter, then?”

I trusted Madelyn, and I needed someone else’s perspective, so I handed it to her. As she read it, her brow
furrowed and her lips parted. When she finished, she folded it neatly and replaced it in the envelope. “You think maybe she found out and killed him.”

I stared at her. “How did you know that?”

She tapped her right temple with the pad of her index finger, and then pointed at me. “You forget. I know you.”

She did. We hadn’t been friends for very long, but sometimes you just clicked with a person. Madelyn was one of those people for me. She knew the Cassidy secrets, and she hadn’t run away screaming about witches and magic. She was funny and smart, and she’d become one of my best friends.

“I guess you do,” I said. “And, yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking.” I leaned forward, anxious to talk through the possibility. I nodded toward the letter we’d both read. “If this is how she felt about Eddy, she really, really loved him. We think she just found out the truth, but what if she somehow found out a month ago, or a week ago? She might have snapped. I mean, her whole world fell apart before her eyes.”

I held the shoebox on either end. “Everything she wrote to him would have been based on lies because he wasn’t truthful and he wasn’t faithful.”