A Custom Fit Crime (20 page)

But she wasn’t a client, so I told her what I was after and within minutes, I was sitting in front of one of the library’s computers, scrolling through back issues of the
Dallas Morning News.
Jeanette had said that Lindy Reece had written the article about Beaulieu about a year ago. I typed in Beaulieu’s name and narrowed the search to twelve months prior. Turns out there were more than half a dozen articles by Lindy that referenced Beaulieu. They talked about different designers, up-and-coming trends, and at least two were about controversial goings-on in the industry. I skimmed each one, cringing at the dirty underbelly of fashion that she so diligently outlined. Models not being paid, or worse, being abused by photographers. Nothing struck me as relevant to Beaulieu, so I moved on, scanning the other articles by Lindy. Only one was about Beaulieu specifically.

I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I was hoping that something would jump out at me.

It didn’t. The article detailed Beaulieu’s climb to the top, sharing his early propensity for art, growing up in a single-parent household, and his love of all things New York.
Many designers study the craft and aesthetic of the competition. Some, I daresay, even steal ideas, and it’s reprehensible, but I don’t pay attention to other designers or their work,
he said in the article.
You have to keep your eye on what’s coming, of course, but getting hung up on what’s happening now stifles the forward progress of your own aesthetic. Designers like Midori and Jean Paul Gaultier contribute their own new ideas to the fashion world, but Midori’s designs with the color blocking and the wide hems and heavy lapels—they’re great, but can she do anything else? And Gaultier, well, he took me under his wing and taught me a good deal of what I know. I’ll always be grateful for that. But I have to be true to my own vision.

Had he intentionally been obtuse, talking about other designers stealing ideas when he so blatantly was using Midori’s designs for inspiration? I’d seen it in his sketchbook, for heaven’s sake. What a lot of bullpucky, as my granddaddy would say.

Beaulieu came across as totally self-involved and disdainful of almost all other designers. That was nothing new. I’d gotten that from him after one brief meeting. No matter how hard Lindy Reece might have tried to mask that side of him, she couldn’t rewrite his direct quotes, and she couldn’t change his stripes. He was who he was, and the pompousness couldn’t be hidden.

I scanned the rest of the article, but didn’t come away with any new ideas, nor did I conjure up a motive for Lindy, herself. The article wasn’t quite window dressing, but it wasn’t hard hitting, either. It fell somewhere in between and while it might not be Pulitzer prize quality, it wasn’t horrible.

I was back to the drawing board, unless . . .

There was a little disconnect between the Lindy Reece who’d been talking to the deputy in his office and the Lindy I’d seen at Buttons & Bows, and even at Seven Gables. Her articles weren’t strong investigative reporting, yet she’d told Gavin that she was working toward a Pulitzer. How was she supposed to achieve that if she wrote fluff?

I searched Lindy’s name one more time to see if I’d missed anything, or to see if a new idea sparked.

She’d written an article the previous year that dealt with imported Japanese fabrics and the influence of Japan on the current fashion. Midori and Jeanette were both quoted, along with another prominent Asian designer. There were articles about anorexia and bulimia and drug use in the modeling community, but the reporting stopped just short of revealing any serious truth about the industry.

Still, I couldn’t quash the notion that maybe Lindy wasn’t who she was portraying herself to be when she was around all of us. Had she seen a different side to Beaulieu when he was alive? Could he have been blackmailing her?

A wild idea planted itself in my mind. How badly did Lindy want that Pulitzer prize I’d heard her mention? Maybe she’d dug deep and found out something about Beaulieu—his bogarted ideas, for example. And what if he’d tried to pay her off to keep her quiet? He could have turned that into blackmail, and voilà! Lindy Reece suddenly had a motive.

I thanked the librarian and drove off, formulating a one-two punch for the sheriff.

I stopped myself from barging into the sheriff’s office, pausing to knock on the door instead. A few manners could go a long way, and I wanted mine to help me take Mama and Hoss all the way to the altar.

“Yup,” a slow, deep voice intoned.

I opened the door to find Hoss McClaine at his desk, pen in hand, looking like a craggy cowboy with his iron hair, sun-scorched skin, and soul patch under his lower lip. “Do you love her?” I demanded, stopping just inside the doorway. That was the first punch from my arsenal.

“Harlow,” he said calmly, as if it were perfectly natural for people to barge in on him and ask such a personal question.

“Don’t
Harlow
me,” I said. “She wants to call off the wedding. Call off the
marriage
,” I said, as if he wouldn’t understand the ramifications.

He tilted forward in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I’m well aware.”

“You’re aware?” I strode to the desk, put my hands on it, and leaned in. “You’re
aware
? What are you going to
do
about it?”

“She won’t talk to me, Harlow, so there ain’t much I
can
do about it at the moment.”

“She won’t talk to you?” My voice rose. “She won’t talk to you? And you’re going to leave it at that?” This was not acceptable behavior for a man willing to enter into matrimony with a Cassidy. “Just because Mama doesn’t want to talk doesn’t mean you can’t make her listen.”

“She’s hot under the collar—”

“Yeah, just a little bit. Because you think her daughter—me—that
I
might have killed Michel Ralph Beaulieu. Which,” I added, throwing my hand up, “is completely ridiculous.”

He leveled his smoky gray eyes at me. “First of all, I work in facts and evidence, and right now a few things point in your direction.”

“I can’t believe you’d think—”

“But,” he said, cutting me off, “I do not think you actually killed the man.”

“That you’d think I could . . . Wait, what? You don’t think I did it?”

“Good God, Harlow, of course not. You may be just as hot under the collar as your mama, but a murderess you’re not. I’m no fool.”

“What about Gavin?” I said. If Hoss really didn’t think I had anything to do with Beaulieu’s death, then maybe he’d listen to my thoughts on Lindy Reece. “And why don’t you just tell Mama what you just told me?”

He gestured to one of the straight-backed chairs facing his desk. “Have a seat, Harlow.” His voice was grim.

I perched on the edge of the chair, fidgeting. “You can just spit it out,” I said.

“I love your mama, Harlow. You know I do.”

I sensed a
but
coming.

“
But
,” he said, right on cue, “there was a murder at your shop and I have a job to do. I have no choice but to keep you on the suspect list until I can clear your name.”

My leg shook from the coiled nerves inside me. “But you just said you know I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Like I said, we have to have proof about what happened.” He opened up a plastic evidence bag, took out some creased sheets of paper, and slid them across to me. “We found these on his person.”

I reached out, my hand hovering over them. “Can I touch them?”

“They’ve been processed, so yes.”

Even with them upside down, I could see they were sketches, but when I turned them to face me, the truth smacked me right in the face. They were sketches of
my
designs. I flipped through them, instantly recognizing Mama’s wedding dress—the same one Beaulieu had mocked—a flouncy skirt that had been on my ready-to-wear rack, and a stylized woman’s jacket that had been hanging from the privacy screen in my workroom. I looked up at the sheriff, feeling my eyes go wide. “He had these on him?”

“Inner pocket of his vest. One of the deputies noticed that these look very similar to some of the outfits you have at your shop.” He watched me closely, gauging my reaction.

“That’s because they
are
my designs.”

“Why would he have drawings of them?”

“Good question, Sheriff. Beaulieu has a . . .” I hesitated, wondering how to broach the designer’s reputation. “Let’s just say he borrowed designs from other designers.” Including me, apparently.

“Interesting.”

“Yeah.” I looked more carefully at the sketches. He’d made notes on the page in a quick scribble, more rushed than his notes in the sketchbook I’d seen in his room at Seven Gables.

“There’s been a new development.”

I refocused on the sheriff, planting my feet firmly on the floor and leaning forward. “What’s that?”

“It looks like there was poison in his system. Several people there said that Beaulieu had looked queasy, like he might upchuck.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, it turns out that he did, upchuck, I mean—in the toilet in your bathroom.”

I searched my mind, remembering that he had gone to the bathroom after he first arrived. “Oh no,” I said under my breath. “What kind of poison?” I asked. Whoever killed Beaulieu had to have left clues.

“It’s called sago palm,” he said, brushing the pad of one thumb against the thatch of hair under his lower lip. I knew him well enough to know that this meant he was weighing his thoughts. He wasn’t one to jump to quick conclusions. He was slow and steady. It could be infuriating, but at the moment, I liked that about him.

I stared at him. “What is that? A palm tree?”

“It can grow mighty tall, yes, but not to tree size. More common in south Texas, but they’re pretty hardy and can survive the freezes we get if they’re covered.”

I cataloged the garden at 2112 Mockingbird Lane, trying to picture any palms I had. Even if I had one, there hadn’t been time for someone to dash outside, spot a poisonous plant, do whatever had to be done to make it ingestible, and then get Beaulieu to drink it. My yard was more of an English garden, lush and floral rather than fronds of tropical plants jetting out here and there. “O
kay
.”

“Every part of ’em is poisonous,” he said.

“I certainly didn’t see him eat any greens. Honestly, he wasn’t there for very long. Nana brought out some goat cheese and crackers, but no one ate any. There was tea and lemonade. No palm bushes on the menu.”

“The poison most likely came through the seeds. Ground up, they’d be easily digested.”

My mind hiccupped as it tried to remember something, but it was just out of reach.

“Sheriff, I don’t even know what that palm bush looks like, let alone that it’s poisonous,” I said.

“I believe that, Harlow. I’m just followin’ the clues and the evidence. If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.”

The perfect opening to the second part of my one-two punch. I told him about Lindy Reece wanting to write a hard-hitting investigative piece. “If she discovered proof that he stole other designers’ ideas, it could have turned ugly between them.”

He rubbed his thumb against the thatch of hair under his lip, thinking. “But wouldn’t she be the one dead in that scenario?”

And that was the problem. Without knowing if he’d somehow turned the tables on her, my theory could be hard to prove.

“And the wedding?” I said after we’d spent a minute in silence, both pondering the scenario I’d brought up.

“She’s as stubborn as all get out,” he said, “but I can live with that. Bein’ stubborn’s better than a poke in the eye, but she’s done dug her heels in on this. Truth be told, I think it’s an excuse. She don’t want to believe I won’t up and walk out on her like your daddy did.”

I had a feeling that his armchair psychology was right on the money. I stood up and faced him square on. “Look here, Sheriff, we don’t need to go to Babe’s for any rehearsal dinner. In fact, we don’t need anything more than you and Mama professing your love to God. So if I can get her there, will you be at the church?”

His smile lit up his craggy face. “I reckon so, Harlow. Yes, I reckon so.”

After a quick trip to the fabric store for a zipper, a few spools of white thread, and hook and eye closures, I parked in my driveway under the possum wood trees, walked through the side gate and through the yard, and up the front porch steps. No matter how I was feeling inside, coming home to 2112 Mockingbird Lane made my heart beat slow, my breath come easier, and filled me with ease.

I mounted the porch steps, ready to finish the last-minute projects for the wedding. I had to go on as if the wedding was happening. A strange heaviness settled over me as I stepped onto the porch. I was used to Meemaw haunting me, her invisible presence flittering in and out of the various rooms in the house at a whim, but this, once again, was different. I could almost feel my great-grandmother’s sadness, as if she were magnifying everything I was experiencing.

I closed my eyes, working to keep my mind still and empty, thinking only of Loretta Mae, wishing she were here and that we could talk. The bushes and plants and flower petals remained motionless, not a rustle or whisper to be heard. The spigot stayed firmly in the off position, no hiss or sputtering or flow of water sounding. Not a creak, and nary a sound came from anywhere around me. “Meemaw?” I finally said aloud, wondering if my voice would have the power to summon her this time.

The sound of cars passing by on Mockingbird Lane and the occasional slamming of a door hit my eardrums, but I got no other signs that Meemaw was near.

“Woolgathering again?” a man’s voice said through the dining room window.

I jumped, my heart shooting to my throat for a split second before I recognized the voice. Will Flores.

I spun around to face him, seeing his shape through the dark screen. “I guess so,” I said with a smile, coming closer. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you.”

I frowned. “I hope you don’t have bad news. I’m not sure I can take that right now.”