A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (9 page)

I raised my gaze back to the wedding picture. Mrs. Blake wore a skirt that fell just above the knees and a tailored white jacket. No froufrou wedding dress for her. I wondered if it had been a shotgun wedding, if they’d been pinching pennies so had opted for something less traditional, or if they just weren’t the gregarious types.

I looked at the picture again. Mrs. Blake was fresh-faced and laughing, her new husband nuzzling her neck. Young and in love. It was a natural pose, and I felt a pang of distress at what Mrs. Blake must be going through right now, worrying over where he was and why he’d vanished. Surely the thought that Eddy had had a hand in Chris’s death had at least crossed her mind.

I moved on to the rest of the pictures, but nothing jumped out at me that could help me figure out what was going on and where Mr. Blake had gone off to.

After a cup of coffee with Mrs. Blake and no more information to be had, I left, deflated and no closer to any answers.

It was after noon as I drove away from the Blake home. Something niggled in my thoughts, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was that was bothering me. I dialed Will, knowing that running the events of the morning and all my thoughts by him would help untangle the threads in my head, but the call went to voice mail. Architecture, I’d realized since meeting him, was a lot like dressmaking. It was controlled creativity, and ultimately, it was about sharing something creative with others.

The function of a space or building didn’t define the form, just as the style of a garment didn’t define the details. No, we both worked to create balance between form and function, and this very philosophy consumed every one of our projects. Will had recently finished a major renovation of the courthouse on the square, bringing the upper floors, which now housed historic Bliss memorabilia, into focus. He was on to the next pressing town project, a redesign of the building on the east side of the square where Sweet Temptations, a new specialty
cupcake bakery, had opened up, and where Riley’s Furniture, an orthopedic practice, and a high-end clothing store also had their businesses.

“Trouble with the permits,” he’d said the night before. He had to work within the parameters of a blueprint, needed permits to proceed, and, in the case of historic buildings, he had to consider the integrity of the building.

With dressmaking, I had to take into consideration what the client wanted, body shape, and character, but ultimately, it was up to me to decide what would work for a woman’s comfort, blending her aesthetic and personality with mine.

I started driving, but pulled over again when I couldn’t think straight. Otis kept rising to the top of my thoughts. The girls at the mum party had planted a seed, and it was taking hold. Mr. Blake might be the killer, but what if he wasn’t? Otis could be a disgruntled employee. Any motive I could think of for killing his boss was sketchy. Except one.

I dialed Miss Reba on my cell phone, forcing myself to make a little small talk before launching into my question. My mama taught me better than to forgo manners, no matter the situation. She didn’t adhere to a lot of Southern rules for ladies like never letting anyone see you cry or always crossing your legs, but compassion, consideration, and chitchat were what she called the three Cs and they were nonnegotiable.

Finally, I was able to ask Miss Reba what I’d called for. “Is Bubba’s in good shape financially?”

There was a pause, as if she were trying to figure out just how to answer that. Finally, she said, “It’s not a
million-dollar business, if that’s what you mean, but it does okay. We live pretty well and don’t want for anything.”

They didn’t, but from what I could see, the Blakes didn’t live near as well and they might want for quite a bit, comparatively.

“Miss Reba,” I asked, broaching the subject I was really interested in, “who inherits your husband’s business?”

“His portion, you mean,” she said, more as a statement than a question.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I do, of course. A percentage of it is in trust for the kids, and Otis Levon owns ten percent,” she added. “I know Chris was thinking about giving him a little more of his ownership, but I honestly don’t know if he did.”

My thoughts slowed and the threads rearranged themselves in my head. With that one sentence, Otis and Miss Reba were on equal footing as far as motive, as well as Mr. Blake, and possibly even Mrs. Blake. Miss Reba, the Blakes, and Otis all had a stake in the business. So did Shane, for that matter.

I had another thought. “Miss Reba, have there been any withdrawals from your bank account? Could someone have been blackmailing your husband?”

She scoffed. “That’s downright absurd, Harlow. Blackmail over what? Chris was an honest man. An upstanding citizen. No one could have
had
anything on him.”

“Have you checked?” I pressed.

She heaved a sigh. “Yes. And, no, there’s nothing unusual. No withdrawals. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

And yet someone had murdered him. Something wasn’t adding up.

I drove without thinking, wondering how to get one of the suspects to rise to the top of the list. A short while later I found myself in front of the Granbury location of Bubba’s. One word kept circling in my mind. Proof. Maybe I could poke around and find some proof inside that Otis was behind his boss’s death. Or maybe I could find something to exonerate him.

Of course I didn’t have a deputy’s badge or a title, so chances were, no one would let me snoop around in the shop or answer my questions. “I should just go tell Hoss my suspect list,” I said under my breath. I started to drive on past Bubba’s, but at the last second, I cranked the steering wheel hard to the right and whipped my truck into the parking lot—as much as a vintage Ford can whip. I couldn’t simply give Hoss and Gavin a list of people who might have killed Chris Montgomery. Not that they wouldn’t have already compiled the same list, anyway, but I didn’t want to be responsible for throwing innocent people under the bus.

I channeled Meemaw and her determination, and a moment later I walked up the sidewalk. From the corner of my eye, I spotted the picnic table Mrs. Blake had told me she and her husband sat at when she visited the shop.

It was far enough away from the building that no one could hear them talk, yet close enough for Eddy Blake to keep an eye on things.

I drew in a deep breath, grabbed the door handle, and walked into the air-conditioned lobby. A woman about my age sat at the end of one line of chairs, her head bent over her smartphone, her thumbs tapping more quickly than I could spell. A balding man with heavy jowls sat at the opposite end of the chairs, flipping through a car
magazine. And at the counter, a young woman, no more than twenty-five, leaned on her elbows, her thumb and her forefinger rubbing her eyelashes.

None of them looked up as I entered.

Maybe the customer service at Bubba’s had gone down since one of the owners died.

I cleared my throat as I approached the counter, waiting for the clerk to look up. Finally, she did, peering at me as if I were disturbing her afternoon. “Yeah?” she said. “Help you?”

“I’m looking for Otis,” I said, hoping that Otis was in Bliss today and not here at the Granbury store.

She stared blankly at me, as if I’d asked for a ticket to Mars or service for my flying carpet.

“You know, Otis Levon? He works for Bubba’s?”

“I know who you mean,” she said. “He don’t work here. He
owns
here. Or at least part of here.”

The hairs on the back of my neck went up, but I smiled and played it off. “Oh?”

“Yep. That’s what he says, anyway. Says when everything’s settled, he’ll collect his part of the business, and it’s about time.
It’s owed me
,” she added in a deep voice, mimicking what Otis must have said over and over.

“I would have thought Mr. Montgomery’s wife would have inherited it. . . .”

I trailed off, hoping she’d fill in the blanks. If Miss Reba didn’t inherit the majority, it would be big news to her.

“He says he owns it now, but I dunno. Nobody tells me nothin’. And,” she continued, “if Mr. Blake don’t show up real quick, I heard Otis say he’s gonna claim his portion, too.” Her gaze skittered to the two people in the
aluminum-framed chairs, then back to me. “Can he just do that?” she asked quietly, looking back down at the glass counter.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least not until the police are sure he’s not coming back, and not unless it’s in the will, but I heard there isn’t a will, so . . .”

She shrugged at that and my mind scuttled around the fact that the motive for Otis was growing by the second.
People do what they have to do, when they have to do it.
Those were words Meemaw had lived by, and I believed them. Whatever the reason, people believed they had to murder. It was justified in their minds. A shiver crept up my spine. If Otis had killed Chris Montgomery to claim his portion of the business, he might well have killed Eddy Blake, too.

“He’s not here, is he?” I asked again. Bliss was his regular store, but I had to be sure.

She shook her head. “He’s in Bliss today,” she said.

I caught a glimpse of her name patch: B
RANDI
, with an I. “When will he be back?” I asked her. I’d be heading back to Bliss, but I hoped I could dig around while he was gone.

She shrugged. “He’s managing both stores, now, so I don’t know. He hasn’t posted his new schedule now that Mr. Montgomery is gone and Mr. Blake is . . . is . . .”

Perfect opening, and I seized it. “Right, I heard he hasn’t been around much. That he’s worse now than when he lost his daughter.” I leaned down, meeting her gaze. “Can I ask you something, Brandi?”

She shrugged again, brushing her auburn hair away from her face.

“I’m a friend of Mrs. Montgomery. She’d love a
keepsake of some sort from the business. They started the Bubba’s together, didn’t they?”

“The Bliss shop. Not here. This one was all Mr. Blake, from what I know. And Otis.”

For all I knew, I’d seen Mr. Blake and I didn’t even know it. I hadn’t wanted to ask his wife to see a photo. Pouring salt on the wound and all that. But maybe Brandi could help. “Is there a picture of them here somewhere?”

Her lips pulled to one side as she thought about it. Finally she gave her head a little shake. “Nope, not that I know of.” She waved her arm around. “’Course, it ain’t like we got lots of pretty decor here.”

I caught a glimpse of a staircase behind her. “Upstairs maybe?” She eyed me suspiciously for the first time. “Who’d you say you are, again? Police?” She gasped. “Are you a detective?”

“No, no, I’m a dressmaker, actually. Buttons and Bows in Bliss?”

She stared at me, a blank expression on her face. Guess word of my business hadn’t spread yet to Granbury.

“You probably know that Mr. Montgomery’s son is being accused of having something to do with his dad’s death?”

This time she nodded.

“I’m a family friend. Just trying to help.”

She looked far more alert than she had a few minutes ago. Nothing exciting ever happened in small-town Texas, it seemed, so questions about a suspicious death were of high interest. “I can show you upstairs, if you want,” she whispered. “Do you want to see it?”

“Does a seamstress collect fabric?” I said, but from the blank expression on her face, the comparison fell flat. Clearly, she didn’t sew. “I’d love to,” I amended. “Thank you.”

“Your cars’ll be ready pretty soon,” she called to the two people in the chairs. The woman lifted her head in a slight acknowledgment, and the man wriggled the fingers on one hand, never looking up.

She shrugged—it seemed to be her standard reaction to most everything—crooked her finger at me, and rounded the corner, disappearing from sight. I scurried behind the counter to follow her, mounting the narrow staircase. There was only one room upstairs, and Brandi hadn’t waited at the top, so I went in through the open door.

The room was more spacious than I’d anticipated. A navy blue corduroy couch was pushed against the right wall. Opposite that was a short counter, a full-sized refrigerator, and a small, round table with three wood-backed chairs.

“Does that pull out to a bed?” I asked, pointing to the couch.

Brandi plopped down right in the center of it, nodding. “It does, how’d you know?”

“Mrs. Montgomery told me her husband sometimes stayed overnight when he worked late here.”

Her right eyebrow arched up. “I never heard that.”

“Heard what?”

“About him spending the night.”

“Oh. I heard Mr. Blake sometimes spent the night in Bliss, too. Better than driving the dark country roads at night.”

“Maybe. I guess. I just never saw Mr. Montgomery here, is all.”

I walked around the perimeter of the room, looking through the rack of clothing crammed in the far corner, the pile of magazines on the table, the packets of sugar and sugar-free sweetener scattered on the counter. My attention went back to the rack of clothes, a combination of jeans and button down shirts, a few collared polos, several pairs of navy slacks, and one casual sport coat.

“Mr. Blake keeps clothes here?”

She’d gotten up from the couch and had moved to the doorway, peering out and listening. She might look disengaged from her job, but out of sight didn’t mean out of mind. A second later, she came back into the room. “Yeah, weird, right? Any time he goes to Bubba’s in Bliss, he changes clothes.”

“That’s not all that strange,” I said. “I design clothes, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that people want to look their best when they go into an unfamiliar environment.”

“But it’s not like it’s unfamiliar. He goes there all the time. He does spend the night there, too. I figure that Bliss store has got to be crazy busy all the time since it takes both of them, plus now Otis, to run it. All we have here is Mr. Blake, and once in a while, Otis’ll come up. More lately, ’course.”

“Of course.” I rifled through the clothes, hoping that Otis wouldn’t decide to show up now, and doubly hoping that Mr. Blake wouldn’t suddenly return from his extended absence to find me poking around the room.

If Otis had killed him, too, that wasn’t a possibility, but I had to assume that hadn’t happened until I had proof that it had.

Nothing about the clothes was all that interesting, aside from the fact that the jeans were run-of-the-mill over the counter, while the slacks and sport coat were a better-quality brand and were high-quality fabrics. Not unusual, given the different styles, but I might have expected nicer jeans.

“Nobody keeps anything personal here?” I asked, wishing I knew what I was looking for. I had too many suspects and no crystal clear motives, which made my task of helping Miss Reba unfocused. I suddenly understood why Gavin and Hoss narrowed their investigations to the most likely suspect and went from there. If they disproved the suspect, then they could just move on to the next person on the list.

The way I was approaching things was the opposite. I had all the possible suspects in a jumble in my mind, and I felt like a mouse in a maze, following the scent of the cheese, but that cheese kept randomly being moved.